Written By Will Grant
 

Olympians are allegedly gaming their suit seams for extra lift, the ocean is still capable of throwing a wall of water at your face with no warning, and somewhere in Queensland, a blob of pitch is taking nearly a century to prove it is technically a liquid. This week, we are bouncing from sports cheating to climate curveballs to robots with fake skin, plus a reminder that science is rarely neat, and almost never polite.

Ski Jumping and the Art of the Tiny Advantage

Let’s start with the Winter Olympics, specifically ski jumping, which is already a sport that looks like physics having a panic attack. The basic idea is simple. Launch yourself off a ramp and try to stay in the air long enough to make gravity feel embarrassed. But the real drama is in the details, like the suits. Male athletes have been accused of tweaking seams, particularly in the groin region to create extra lift (pardon the pun), because in a sport decided by tiny margins, a few centimetres of fabric apparently can make all the difference. Apparently, the suits are so tight that the groin area was really the only place some extra fabric could be added without anyone noticing.

Rogue Waves Are Real and They Do Not Care About Your Boat

Now, from snow to sea. Rogue waves used to be treated like sailor nonsense, the kind of story you tell after your third rum. Then the measurements started coming in, and it turned out the ocean really can produce massive waves that appear out of nowhere and ignore the models. They are not mythical. They are not as rare as first thought. And they are a great reminder that nature does not need your permission to be terrifying.

The unsettling part is not just their size. It is the surprise. You can do everything right, check the forecasts, plan the route, and still get hit by something that looks like the sea standing up to slap you.

Polar Bears Getting Fatter in Svalbard

Then we get to climate change, because it always shows up eventually. But this time the story has a weird twist. In Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, some polar bears are doing better than expected, even getting fatter, despite thinning ice. It sounds like good news until you remember the context. The environment is changing, and the bears are adapting by shifting what they eat and where they find it.

It is not a feel-good story. It is a survival story. The bears are coping in one place, for now, in ways that are surprising and complicated, which is exactly how nature tends to respond when humans start rearranging the planet.

Robots With Skin That Can Feel

Researchers have developed 3D printable electronic flesh that gives robotic hands a sense of touch. It is soft, flexible, and sensitive enough to detect pressure, which is a big deal for prosthetics and robots that need to handle things without crushing them like a toddler with a cupcake.

It is also a reminder that the future is arriving in small, weird increments. Not flying cars. Squishy robot skin. Progress.

Autism and Gender Bias

Over in psychology, a Swedish study takes a swing at one of the most stubborn assumptions in autism research. Autism has long been treated as mostly a male condition, but when Sweden looked at more than two million records across a lifetime, the picture shifted. The signs and diagnoses show far more gender balance than the old story suggests, which points to something uncomfortable. The bias might not be in biology. It might be in us, in how we notice symptoms, who gets taken seriously, and who gets missed.

Sometimes science does not discover something new. Sometimes it discovers what we have been ignoring.

The Pitch Drop Experiment and the Most Patient People Alive

And finally, the slowest flex in scientific history. The pitch drop experiment at the University of Queensland has been running since 1927 to demonstrate that pitch is a liquid, just an absurdly slow one. Only nine drops have fallen, with the last one in 2014. There is a similar experiment in Wales, because apparently, some people look at thick black goo and think, yes, I would like to dedicate my career to watching that move.

It is ridiculous. It is brilliant. It is science in its purest form, which is humans refusing to let go of a question, even when the answer takes a century to drip.

 

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Winter Olympics Excitement

00:19 The Science of Ski Jumping Suits

01:25 Meet the Hosts

02:18 Ski Jumping Suit Scandal

10:13 Polar Bears and Climate Change

16:21 Rogue Waves: The Ocean's Hidden Danger

29:04 The Mystery of the Unsinkable Ship

29:24 The Rise of Rogue Waves

29:42 The Record-Breaking Youclue Lit Wave

30:41 Super Rogue Waves: A New Threat?

32:08 The Physics of Waves

34:06 3D Printable E-Flesh: A Technological Marvel

38:28 Autism: A Gender Perspective

45:27 The Pitch Drop Experiment: A Slow Burn

55:41 Mailbag and Final Thoughts

 

  • [00:00:00] ​

    [00:00:02] Rod: It's the happiest time of the year 

    [00:00:03] or for four years. It's winter Olympics time. Fucking excited. Love them. I love the Winter Olympics. I love all of them. The summer I don't like, but I'm not gonna tell you which. So we're recording just a couple of days in and I'm pretty stoked. And story just dropped this morning about one of the most heart pounding and insane events at the Olympics.

    [00:00:19] The ski jump. which is cool as hell. So I didn't know this until I read this story. Ski jumpers are obliged to wear very tight suits. Like they don't just do it 'cause they want to. They're actually apparently supposed to.

    [00:00:28] So apparently any extra cloth on the suit, if it's a bit looser, will add more surface area.

    [00:00:33] So you get more lift. So they don't like that. So it's gotta be snug is a bugging a rug. And, uh, there was, a, nice little, story. The guardian reported that there was a study that said for every two centimeter increase in suit size circumference, you get 5% extra lift. So that can equate to nearly six meters in jump length potentially.

    [00:00:51] So it makes a big difference, two centimeters. so not surprisingly officials take this very seriously, the whole suit tightness thing. But of course with this kind of potential [00:01:00] advantage, some people will go to what you might call unusual lengths to get a little more cloth in their jumpsuits. 

    [00:01:06] Will: It's time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.

    [00:01:30] Rod: Wow. I'm Rod Lamet, a 30 year science communication veteran with the Mind of a Teenage Boy, which I'll prove to you soon.

    [00:01:37] Will: And as well as that,, teenage boy bit that Rod has, we also have some ah, fun with animals.

    [00:01:45] Rod: I've got a little bit about another way the ocean wants to kill us.

    [00:01:48] Will: Ah, I got some, developments in robotics that aren't as bad as they seem.

    [00:01:51] Got some more benefits for feminism.

    [00:01:53] Rod: Oh, well then after that, then we'll follow up with. Physics fight.

    [00:01:56] Physics fight, physics fight.

    [00:01:58] Will: Oh, I just gotta end. We, we've got [00:02:00] some nice stuff in the mailbag. We do. , So thank you very much dear, , listener, viewer, , for your contributions there.

    [00:02:06] Rod: Yeah. Look,, there's tips for everyone in that.

    [00:02:07] Will: So , what is our friend

    [00:02:09] Doing to get more on the ski jump? I

    [00:02:12] Rod: love it. So

    [00:02:13] Will: This is so predictable. I,

    [00:02:14] Rod: but it is, but it isn't. what I love about this is the subtlety. Yes. So the 2025 World Ski Championships, it all begins, our story begins briefly. Two gentlemen from the Norwegian Olympic ski jump team who were medalists were given three months suspensions.

    [00:02:29] And the head coach and the assistant coach also banned for 18 months. And so was another member of the, support crew. And it turns out what they'd done was they'd secretly adjusted the seams of their suits to get a little extra surface area. And naturally the place that you're thinking is exactly where they did it.

    [00:02:44] They adjusted it around the crotch to which I apply. What

    [00:02:47] Will: is this? Like they're doing like a full SC guide, drop crotch,

    [00:02:51] Rod: No, too obvious. It's just little subtle seam extensions.

    [00:02:54] Will: I wanna do SC pants

    [00:02:56] Rod: i's staggering up on the ski jump and you get blown backwards and flipped onto [00:03:00] your side. So apparently the granular area is a prime candidate for sneaking in a little bit of extra cloth.

    [00:03:05] Will: if granular is a 

    [00:03:06] Rod: work. It

    [00:03:07] is in ski jumping terms, that's what they use.

    [00:03:09] Will: sounds like someone in the seventies in Australia said it's in your ula. Like a builder, a builder, a builder comes over and says, no, I can't fix your granular mate.

    [00:03:17] Rod: It's , 

    [00:03:17] It's fucking blocked. I've got the wrong kind of drill bit for that.

    [00:03:21] so the thing is while it's a great place to do it, 'cause you can kinda smuggle a little bit of extra cloth.

    [00:03:26] Will: Oh, it depends on what's already there. Like I feel like if there is already so much you can't smuggle more in,

    [00:03:31] Rod: maybe you can, but I mean, that's the thing. 

    [00:03:33] Will: there always more

    [00:03:33] Rod: Slightly extra seams, you know, not tight enough.

    [00:03:36] But it turns out they measure their suits using 3D data from scanners.

    [00:03:40] Will: Of course they

    [00:03:41] Rod: Of course they do. And they start from the genital smi up on the scanners. So it's not easy to game the system. But this is

    [00:03:47] Will: So hang on. So they're measured on a 3D scanner, nude or not nude, like

    [00:03:51] Rod: I'm hoping nude.

    [00:03:52] Will: So you

    [00:03:52] Rod: let's say nude. So

    [00:03:53] Will: You go into scan a nude and they're like, okay, you can have one millimeter, whatever addition to your nude ness, [00:04:00] 

    [00:04:00] Rod: little, your crot space.

    [00:04:02] Will: Oh, I was saying whole body here. I wasn't saying, you know, just,

    [00:04:04] Rod: just the, uh, groin, groin area. I don't know. I'm assuming you were wearing pants.

    [00:04:08] 'cause it's a civilized

    [00:04:09] Will: You know, I, I just gotta say, I just gotta say I'm not a fan of the enhanced games. I think that's

    [00:04:14] Rod: not, I'm all for it. Whatever you can do.

    [00:04:15] Will: But I totally think the whole elite sport where, we have to define everything so precisely. It's never gonna work. It's never gonna

    [00:04:23] Rod: work.

    [00:04:24] No. 

    [00:04:24] Well, when you're talking two centimeters, potentially adding nearly six meters though, that's a lot.

    [00:04:28] Will: Oh, it is.

    [00:04:28] Rod: Six meters is a lot. Yeah. That's, I think it's about 90,000 feet. So 

    [00:04:33] Will: just go the other way? 

    [00:04:34] Rod: Make it Like just max, no, max it out. Like

    [00:04:36] see, wear a para sale and you just disappear over the 

    [00:04:38] Will: go four wing suit, off you go,

    [00:04:40] Rod: He's gone.

    [00:04:41] Will: if you can land in 

    [00:04:41] Rod: Australia.

    [00:04:42] an hour and a half later, like, no, no sign of him yet.

    [00:04:46] Will: but actually, actually to pause this, a different sport., But

    [00:04:50] it has, But it has a similar effects going on

    [00:04:52] Rod: Lacrosse, 

    [00:04:53] Will: javelin. Javelin is one of the very few sports I won't confirm it's the only one, but one of the very few sports that will never beat the world record, , [00:05:00] because the world records set I think in the seventies.

    [00:05:02] Rod: by a dude with a rocket.

    [00:05:04] Will: No, no, no, no. Basically it's an aerodynamics thing, so the design of javelin, you can, you can put, you know, it's like rifling on a bullet will allow it to go further. And so there were a few things they did to Javelins in the seventies that got 'em going a long way. Yeah. And they basically got to the limit of an Olympic stadium.

    [00:05:18] So any further,, and you're stabbing all 

    [00:05:21] of

    [00:05:21] Rod: the, all of the, or sore a tie, lead to your 

    [00:05:22] Will: javelin.

    [00:05:22] And so basically they said, no, we've gotta make crappier javelins that won't go as far.

    [00:05:26] Rod: sake, do it out in a bigger stadium.

    [00:05:28] Will: Yeah. No, no. Sorry buddy. But Javelin can't fill a bigger stadium.

    [00:05:32] I won't do, no, I'm sorry.

    [00:05:34] Lovers of javelin. Lovers of javelin.

    [00:05:36] Rod: And there are many, 

    [00:05:37] some 

    [00:05:38] they are legion.

    [00:05:39] Will: I, yeah. I don't think we're filling, a 200,000 person stadium.

    [00:05:43] Rod: Well, no, just change the shape of it. Have a long, thin stadium for your throwing sports and your ski jump.

    [00:05:48] Will: but I think it's recognizing that they're like, okay, there's an actual legit reason that we can't go any further.

    [00:05:53] we could have the science of

    [00:05:54] Rod: somebody might get 

    [00:05:55] hurt. 

    [00:05:56] Will: far can humans throw sticks? And it's like we maxed it out. We shouldn't go any [00:06:00] further.

    [00:06:00] Rod: No, we should 

    [00:06:00] Will: Too much danger.

    [00:06:01] Rod: No. Reach for the stars and then keep 

    [00:06:03] reaching. 

    [00:06:03] Will: for the stars. Yeah.

    [00:06:04] Rod: With your javelin.

    [00:06:05] Will: So yeah. 

    [00:06:06] Rod: maybe we could do that with this, but I think it changes the event if you can actually fly, that changes the event. Yeah, that's true. 

    [00:06:11] That's my 

    [00:06:11] Will: fear. Ski Flying.

    [00:06:12] Rod: That's different. I'm into it, obviously, but I think that's different. They never did it on snowboards. Tur. And you really wanna show how balls you are. Do the ski jump on a snowboard,

    [00:06:19] Will: snowboard guy. And I also am a snowboard guy. I'm sorry. But we are not getting nearly as far as a ski jump

    [00:06:24] Rod: No. And the crash would be horrible. Like you'd just explode. They'd just be like a pink mist. There'd be nothing left.

    [00:06:31] Will: But they do the drop crotch.

    [00:06:33] Rod: they would. Oh God. They wouldn't, so they'd, yeah, they might actually get blown off course. So yeah, apparently this 3D scanning thing starts from the lowest point in your scans up. Hard to game.

    [00:06:43] But people are trying, or at least rumors are now circulating that some ski jumpers are doing things. This is the gentleman to temporarily make their ding-dongs bigger when they're scanned.

    [00:06:52] Will: Well, there is a classic way of temporarily. Making it 

    [00:06:54] Rod: dingdong

    [00:06:55] I know, Like take a dozen little blue pills and stagger in there 

    [00:06:58] and Or 

    [00:06:58] Will: oh, just have a, nice kiss [00:07:00] and a hug with your significant 

    [00:07:01] other, 

    [00:07:01] Rod: a cuddle and a naughty thought and then get scanned. But you gotta maintain it. I dunno how long the scan 

    [00:07:06] takes, Not

    [00:07:07] Will: like a five hour scan.

    [00:07:08] Rod: I don't know. It's one way to make sure they, they get you a maximum curl.

    [00:07:14] Will: I mean, not saying any, I mean five would be fine for me, but like,

    [00:07:17] Rod: obviously 

    [00:07:17] Yeah, a 

    [00:07:19] strong 

    [00:07:19] Will: mean, if it was an eight day scan, maybe I'd have,

    [00:07:21] Rod: I'll give you six.

    [00:07:23] Will: Seriously. Like yeah, there are classical ways of doing that and I appreciate that.

    [00:07:26] Might not,

    [00:07:27] Rod: it might vary per individual.

    [00:07:29] Will: Christ. You did say you were juvenile in this.

    [00:07:31] Rod: I'm just report, just a fact. Just reporting the news. things they were doing. Things like putting clay into your undies. You know, clay, why clay? I don't, it mimics the penis, obviously. That's why pots are so erotic.

    [00:07:42] It's really what they could find outside the scanner. Oh look, mud. That'll do. But my favorite, and this is why the story came out, injecting their penises. 

    [00:07:52] With higher luronic acid or paraffin. Paraffin. That's one of the options. I'm worried about the [00:08:00] flammability. Obviously. I don't want it bursting into flames. It gets hot down there.

    [00:08:03] Will: It depends. You could fla

    [00:08:04] Rod: Flammable.

    [00:08:05] Will: see some advantages.

    [00:08:06] Rod: Ooh, what are 

    [00:08:06] they? I dunno. I've got a moment. I don't have to be anywhere.

    [00:08:11] Start listing.

    [00:08:12] Will: Oh wow. Commitment. Full commitment to the sport. 

    [00:08:14] Rod: we're gonna inject something into No.

    [00:08:16] Will: So who thinks of this? Is this like the head coach says,

    [00:08:19] Rod: alright, I'm gonna say yes. Uh,

    [00:08:21] Will: we've got a team meeting. Everybody, could we all gather around or is this, uh, don't know.

    [00:08:26] Rod: obviously with the Norwegians, not obviously it would appear that, you know, this was a, a collusion.

    [00:08:31] There was more than just the one or two gentlemen getting there.

    [00:08:33] Will: suggestions from listeners. They're like, here's what you could do.

    [00:08:37] Rod: also, my question is, what do the ladies do if they want to get a bit of extra? Probably not paraffin.

    [00:08:42] Will: Why not? 

    [00:08:43] Rod: If you're a listener and a lady and you've done this, please tell us what you did.

    [00:08:46] 'cause I'd love to know how you make yourselves temporarily large

    [00:08:49] Will: I think, I think they would need to do that anonymously. 'cause they're, you know,

    [00:08:52] Rod: oh yeah. Use a different email. Use your mother's email or your brother's. I don't mind brother's better actually. So for boys, it puffs up your soup measurement a bit, and then [00:09:00] obviously when you return to normal, It leaves you a bit of room in the suit. Great. So a German newspaper that built, quoted a doctor on this, they broke the story apparently last year, and the doctor says, if you're going to ask a doctor, is this a good idea? I'm paraphrasing. The doctor says, quote, it is possible to achieve a temporary visual thickening of the penis by injecting paraffin or hyaluronic acid.

    [00:09:19] Such an injection is not medically indicated and is associated with risks, which is a very German way of saying there's no reason to do this and it could fuck you up.

    [00:09:27] Will: Mm.

    [00:09:27] Rod: Now, the world anti-doping authority wider, they've been asked to be on the lookout for penis tampering. And so the newspaper asked the director general of Wada about it, and he says, look, I'm not aware this is happening, and though it's technically probably not doping, he says, our list committee would certainly look into whether this would fall into the category, but I haven't heard about it.

    [00:09:45] Until you just mentioned it. So as you say, I'm thinking eat the Viagra. Like if you're gonna do it, eat the Viagra and go. What? I really love getting measured,

    [00:09:53] like, sorry Doc. I've just, it's just how I am. It's not an enhancement

    [00:09:56] Will: Well, that's wonderful,

    [00:09:57] Rod: isn't it?

    [00:09:57] Will: it? got some other [00:10:00] wonderful news for

    [00:10:00] you.

    [00:10:01] Rod: So much good news.

    [00:10:02] Will: no, this is,

    [00:10:02] Rod: are you saying this is the podcast that brings the good

    [00:10:05] Will: Oh, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. But I like this one. 'cause this is one of those stories where it's like, maybe that's good news. I don't know.

    [00:10:12] Rod: Oh yeah. That 

    [00:10:13] Will: you know, one of our pinup species for the end of the world. Climate change cockroaches, uh, well, no, they're gonna survive so they're not pin up.

    [00:10:20] Rod: Oh, pin up. 

    [00:10:21] Pin up 

    [00:10:21] the ones that won't make it.

    [00:10:22] Will: Yeah. The pinup of, Oh, the world's gonna hell in a hand basket. Um,

    [00:10:27] polar bears.

    [00:10:28] Your polar bears. Yeah, your polar bears.

    [00:10:29] You know, there's been some critique of this, how we use images of polar bears, but polar bears are often used to illustrate climate change.

    [00:10:35] Rod: Look, climate change.

    [00:10:36] Will: yeah. But there's, there's, your polar bear.

    [00:10:39] Rod: bouncing on an 

    [00:10:40] Will: suddenly they're in the Arctic and it's a tiny ice cube, or they're looking skinny, or they've, or they're sitting on a tropical beach somewhere

    [00:10:46] Rod: having a

    [00:10:46] Will: having a cocktail, a margarita.

    [00:10:47] And, if climate change did that, well, maybe it actually might. 

    [00:10:50] Rod: No, but

    [00:10:51] Will: but there's some good news and some interesting news 

    [00:10:54] Rod: Yeah. 

    [00:10:54] Will: So yes, there are a bunch of different polar bear gangs around the 

    [00:10:58] Rod: world. There are, 

    [00:10:59] Will: you got your [00:11:00] Alaskans, your Canadians,

    [00:11:01] Rod: your Crips, your bloods. You, 

    [00:11:02] Will: probably got some rusties as well.

    [00:11:04] You know, they're all hanging out in the arctic , up there. Yeah. They go across the ice , , and they don't respect boundaries. Right. But generally there's some around, you know, Alaska East, some in different parts of Canada. Yeah. And there's your Norwegians up in the, archipelago of Svalbard.

    [00:11:19] Rod: Svalbard.

    [00:11:20] Will: Now the interesting thing is that while you're Alaskans and your Canadian polar bears. Are getting skinnier and scientists are a little bit worried about these. Yes. Fbar bears. they're getting fatter. Hell yeah, they're getting fatter and, uh, seven 11. So, there's a bunch of researchers up there they've got 25 years of data on 770 polar bears that they've 

    [00:11:40] ca seven 70. I 

    [00:11:42] dunno if that's all of them, or lots of them

    [00:11:43] Rod: It's a shit 

    [00:11:44] Will: because I imagine polar bears live for a little while. They're not like a one month species.

    [00:11:48] Rod: not, they're not like a butterfly and they don't tend to hang in lumps, or bunches. 

    [00:11:51] Will: Yeah. so

    [00:11:52] Rod: that's a big spread of

    [00:11:52] Will: I think up in Svalbard, you, Norwegians like to check up on the polar bears.

    [00:11:56] They're probably catching and releasing them, seeing what they're like 

    [00:11:58] Rod: and

    [00:11:58] catching and releasing.

    [00:11:59] Will: [00:12:00] Yeah, of course. They're

    [00:12:01] Rod: Hold, still

    [00:12:01] Will: Hold still for a sec 

    [00:12:03] Rod: they're just big,

    [00:12:04] Will: just be, can we just put you on the scales for a little bit and see how chubby

    [00:12:07] you are? 

    [00:12:08] Rod: struggling.

    [00:12:08] Your mauling bastard. Yeah,

    [00:12:09] Will: obviously, obviously it depends when they come out of their little igloo equivalent type thing, they're probably a bit skinnier than when they go in at the end of, well, s autumn, well you go ish, you know, something around, you know, they've eaten a lot and then they eat.

    [00:12:22] Through a season, and then they don't eat. But anyway, they're probably heavier. But anyway, 25 years of data, 770 polar bears now 

    [00:12:28] Rod: Wow. 

    [00:12:28] Will: This goes back to, the 1990s. And so there was a dip in the first five

    [00:12:33] years, so between the nineties and the two thousands. Yeah. but from then on the conditions of the polar bears have been improving.

    [00:12:39] So this goes against the whole climate

    [00:12:41] Rod: So they, they're not just fatter, their condition. It's not just 'cause they're eating lard.

    [00:12:44] Will: Yeah, they're about 50 kilos heavier. like on average, they're four, they're 400 

    [00:12:48] Rod: kilo

    [00:12:48] To be fair though, I, I went on a cruise to the Antarctic a few years ago and I reckon I put on about 50

    [00:12:53] Will: Well see, maybe this is something like that. They've all been on a cruise.

    [00:12:56] Rod: on the 

    [00:12:56] Will: They've all been sneaking around the arctic. You know, that's what it [00:13:00] is. It's the northwest passage. So suddenly the polar bears are going on 

    [00:13:03] Rod: these

    [00:13:03] look at all these boats,

    [00:13:04] Will: these beautiful, cruises.

    [00:13:06] Rod: Yeah. Double 

    [00:13:06] Will: But this is what I love.

    [00:13:07] This is what I love. People are like, well, what's going on? Because, the major thing to take into account is that, the struggle for polar bears in climate change is that their major diet is a particular type of seal. Yeah. Called a ring seal. And the ring seal hops up on the ice. Yeah. so eat me, eat me.

    [00:13:24] No. That's where they go to give birth, and nurse their pups or to warm themselves and molt. and in polar bear language that says, eat 

    [00:13:32] Rod: me. Yeah. Yeah. That's, problem is

    [00:13:34] bistro, 

    [00:13:34] there's 

    [00:13:34] Will: less ice.

    [00:13:35] Rod: so

    [00:13:35] Will: There's less, uh, spots for the seals to go. So the polar bears have to travel further to find the, seals and eat 'em.

    [00:13:41] Rod: So they should be getting skinnier. 

    [00:13:42] So 

    [00:13:42] Will: They should be getting skinnier, so they should be getting skinnier. But they're not, and so scientists are like, what's going on here? And I, I bringing

    [00:13:48] Rod: bringing them seals. Someone's bringing them seals. Here's another one.

    [00:13:52] Will: So there's, a couple of different, possible solutions for this, but 

    [00:13:55] did like this first one.

    [00:13:57] Rod: so they don't know what, what you're

    [00:13:59] Will: Well, there, there's a [00:14:00] couple of theories as well. They know this, these scientists just did, the counting of the weight. And now they can speculate on the reasons. The one I did love is that, the ice is shrinking. and the number of ring seals around fbar is shrinking.

    [00:14:12] But the remaining ones are bunch together. So it's like the ice has made like more of a little honeypot for the bears. They're like, well, why We don't have to go any further. We can eat these bastards.

    [00:14:22] Rod: Bigger bags of Doritos,

    [00:14:24] Will: So I, I just love the idea that these bears are, they,

    [00:14:28] Rod: they,

    [00:14:28] Will: they're seeing a honey pot of seals there and it's actually easier for them.

    [00:14:31] Rod: Like, 

    [00:14:31] it's

    [00:14:31] what could possibly go

    [00:14:33] Will: it's like climate change has brought their favorite thing closer into them. Yeah. As 

    [00:14:37] Rod: one.

    [00:14:37] And for a short time that's gonna be great.

    [00:14:39] Will: Yeah.

    [00:14:40] Rod: Yeah.

    [00:14:40] Will: Yeah. Look, eat while the going's good, I think 

    [00:14:43] Rod: is the

    [00:14:43] but, so like I was listening earlier, this is also where they come together to give birth

    [00:14:48] Will: the seals.

    [00:14:49] Rod: Yeah. That should be fine.

    [00:14:50] Will: Yes,

    [00:14:51] that should be fine. Yes. 

    [00:14:52] Rod: Look, 

    [00:14:53] oh look, there's a tender one. There's an 

    [00:14:55] Will: don't think polar bears actually know about, either ecosystems or chain of 

    [00:14:59] life. [00:15:00] No. They, they have food and they have smaller 

    [00:15:02] Rod: food. Yeah,

    [00:15:03] More food. Less 

    [00:15:04] Will: more food.

    [00:15:04] Less food. I assume they think tastier food for the babies

    [00:15:06] Rod: They probably don't give a shit.

    [00:15:07] Will: No, no, no, no, no. Every animal knows nice, tasty

    [00:15:11] food 

    [00:15:11] versus not They No. Polar bears, no. They prefer rings. so, you know, another theory is that, they might be dining out on a larger variety of 

    [00:15:19] Rod: creatures.

    [00:15:20] Sure. That 

    [00:15:21] Will: you know, they're mixing it up

    [00:15:22] Rod: your ring, seal, your steak.

    [00:15:23] Will: they don't love walrus and harbor seals.

    [00:15:25] but they will do 'em if necessary. So maybe, they're dabble in 

    [00:15:28] Rod: there

    [00:15:29] I'm the same.

    [00:15:29] Will: or they go on land animals, they're popping in land to get some nice bird eggs or something like that. So a

    [00:15:35] Rod: Grab me a little wild boar. So something, something.

    [00:15:40] Will: it's the fact that we stopped hunting them. 

    [00:15:41] Rod: them. It 

    [00:15:42] doesn't make 'em fatter.

    [00:15:43] Will: That's 

    [00:15:43] Rod: true. If anything, there'd be more of 

    [00:15:44] Will: true. It doesn't make them fatter. We're

    [00:15:46] Rod: not getting hunted 

    [00:15:47] Will: they were scared.

    [00:15:48] Maybe they were scared They're running

    [00:15:49] Rod: Running. Yeah. Because I was, I'm like, oh, I wish, I wish they'd hunt me again. 'cause fuck, I'm getting fat. That's

    [00:15:55] Will: So look, it's a nice thing when the world is getting a lot worse.

    [00:15:59] the [00:16:00] cause of the nice thing might not 

    [00:16:01] Rod: be,

    [00:16:01] let's not get into details. There's no need. Let's not ruin it by asking

    [00:16:05] Will: but I do love, fact that these happy polar bears are just having their dinner brought closer to them

    [00:16:11] by the shrinking ice, I

    [00:16:12] Rod: ice. How's things are pretty good. Another ring seal. No, I'm fucking stuff. Couldn't have another mine. It's too many. I might have a baby. So the ocean wants to kill us all 

    [00:16:23] Will: the time. 

    [00:16:23] Rod: You probably knew this. It has a motive and it wants us 

    [00:16:26] dead. 

    [00:16:26] So there are things in the ocean that wanna kill us.

    [00:16:28] We know that many of them sharks, for example, poisonous snakes.

    [00:16:31] Leopard seals.

    [00:16:32] Will: Yeah. Well 

    [00:16:33] Rod: They, they really, really, really wanna kill us. Or they kill everything really. So lots of that. But the ocean itself wants to kill us too. Just the 

    [00:16:40] Will: water. 

    [00:16:40] Yeah.

    [00:16:41] Rod: And I don't just mean by drowning, 

    [00:16:42] Will: Take you down to Davey Jones locker.

    [00:16:44] Rod: . So anyway, December 22. 6-year-old woman dies. She's on an Antarctic trip on a boat, boat was hit by a wave, smashed all his cabin windows, sent glass flying 

    [00:16:52] Will: everywhere.

    [00:16:52] Oh, 

    [00:16:53] Rod: it killed her. And it injured three others quite badly.

    [00:16:56] That's horrible. It

    [00:16:57] was horrible. It was horrible. I'm not making light of that. 

    [00:16:59] but it [00:17:00] wasn't just any kind of wave. It was what we call a rogue wave.

    [00:17:02] Will: wave. 

    [00:17:02] Rod: I mean, sounds cool. I assume there's movies made called Rogue Wave and if they're not, please make one.

    [00:17:06] 'cause I love a Big Wave movie. 

    [00:17:08] Will: I think it wasn't called Road Wave, but there was the George Clooney 

    [00:17:11] Rod: perfect 

    [00:17:12] Will: Storm.

    [00:17:12] Perfect storm.

    [00:17:13] Rod: You mean 

    [00:17:13] Marky 

    [00:17:13] Will: Perfect storm of rogue waves. Yeah, no, sorry mate. That's a George Clooney 

    [00:17:17] Rod: movie Marky Mark 

    [00:17:17] movie up from Marky

    [00:17:18] Mark, Marky Mark

    [00:17:19] Will: I don't mind the Marky mark, but, 

    [00:17:21] Rod: he's the worst actor in the world.

    [00:17:22] Will: No

    [00:17:22] Rod: but him and Ruby Rose, they're both terrible actors, but they do fine. And 

    [00:17:26] Will: yeah. But I'm not bothered, like I'm not there for the, I'm, if it's a Marky Mark movie, I'm not bothered. 'cause I'm like, I'm here for the funny 

    [00:17:32] Rod: action.

    [00:17:32] and de and de guns.

    [00:17:34] Will: Yeah. There's a lot of 

    [00:17:35] Rod: guns.

    [00:17:36] He, he's been working out,

    [00:17:36] Will: well he's waking out at 2:00 AM in the morning to, 

    [00:17:39] Rod: yeah.

    [00:17:39] No, 2:00 AM at night's too. What bothers me is he never brings along the funky bunch anymore. I know, what happened to the funky bunch. So anyway, these things are rogue waves and basically a rogue wave is a big ass unexpected and unpredictable single wave. It's not a bunch of big waves.

    [00:17:51] It just suddenly goes wha

    [00:17:52] Will: And also not a tsunami.

    [00:17:53] Rod: Not a tsunami.

    [00:17:54] Will: So tsunami is like a big movement of ocean

    [00:17:56] Rod: and go. Yeah. And then when it hits the shore, crest

    [00:17:59] Will: it's, this is just a 

    [00:17:59] Rod: [00:18:00] a wr wave.

    [00:18:00] Middle of 

    [00:18:00] Will: the ocean. 

    [00:18:01] Rod: suddenly boom. Yeah. It's very exciting. Yeah. Unless you're that 62-year-old woman and others over time.

    [00:18:07] So yeah, the thing is you 

    [00:18:08] Will: big, 

    [00:18:08] Rod: unexpected, unpredictable, and it's not a series of them, it just goes and appears.

    [00:18:13] Will: How big,

    [00:18:13] Rod: oh, we're gonna get to some

    [00:18:14] numbers. Oh, excellent.

    [00:18:15] And I'm gonna give you real 

    [00:18:16] Will: numbers. You

    [00:18:16] better give me in Sydney Harbors

    [00:18:18] I will.

    [00:18:18] Rod: 0.0 0 7, 1 diameters of Sydney Harbor.

    [00:18:22] So, until mid last century, scientists thought rogue waves were a myth. Like, yeah, bullshit.

    [00:18:27] Will: Why would they think that?

    [00:18:28] Just because they hadn't seen them

    [00:18:30] themselves. 'cause of

    [00:18:31] s No, like you get all these, , sea captain folk, you get Captain Nahab and he's like, I Bruce, 

    [00:18:36] Rod: you

    [00:18:36] know, 

    [00:18:36] or he seen a 9 million foot wave,

    [00:18:39] Will: didn't bloody eat. He 

    [00:18:40] Rod: did.

    [00:18:41] Came at me like the God himself. And then, or he

    [00:18:44] Will: oh, he fought on back. We a whale.

    [00:18:47] Rod: I lost all my legs. So, yeah, exactly what you say. So eyewitness accounts from returning seafaring folk

    [00:18:53] Will: scientists were assholes.

    [00:18:54] Rod: Well, this is what I love about it. So, like, they were getting these very credible dudes, like there was a 19th century French guy.

    [00:18:59] He [00:19:00] was a, 

    [00:19:00] Will: uh,

    [00:19:00] that's about the most credible you can get.

    [00:19:02] Rod: Well, this guy had a lot of credibility. He's an explorer, he's a Navy officer. His name's French.

    [00:19:06] Explorer.

    [00:19:07] Yeah. French Explorer. You're right. French Explorer.

    [00:19:09] , S Deville, so he made a name for himself as a botanist and a cartographer. Good at botany. And that's what, and mapping,

    [00:19:15] Will: in fairness. You say Explorer, you've gotta be a bit of cartographer, because otherwise, otherwise you're a wanderer. Like you're just going, oh, some 

    [00:19:22] Rod: stuff.

    [00:19:23] You could've at least 

    [00:19:23] written 

    [00:19:23] Will: and everyone's like, where?

    [00:19:25] And he is like, over there

    [00:19:27] Rod: where I was. I've, look, I've done a drawing with some squiggly lines.

    [00:19:32] Will: There was this,

    [00:19:33] Rod: there'd be dragons.

    [00:19:34] Will: Then you turn left,

    [00:19:35] Rod: Then you turn left.

    [00:19:36] Will: left. I had dinner

    [00:19:38] Rod: Where, and I think I had lunch there a couple of weeks later, but I'm not positive.

    [00:19:43] But I drew a picture of both meals. So he'd apparently been saving sailing around the world, doing really good things graphically 

    [00:19:50] Will: and, and botanically. 

    [00:19:51] Rod: botanically. And botanically. But then along with everything else, he says, oh, I've seen rogue waves of over a hundred feet. A hundred feet. So like 30 meters, which is a fuck ton of 

    [00:19:58] Will: water.

    [00:19:58] Yeah, that's a, that's a lot, [00:20:00] that's a lot of wave

    [00:20:00] Rod: Like I've seen on the ocean, probably about seven meter swells. And you notice

    [00:20:05] Will: Yeah, totally. And in the beach, if you,

    [00:20:07] if you're, if you are seeing any, anything over two or three meters, you're like, God damn, that is, 

    [00:20:12] Rod: I, I think we might go further

    [00:20:14] Will: Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. So,

    [00:20:15] Rod: so he also had three eyewitnesses who said, yeah, we've seen these things as well, but everyone said, no, that's bullshit.

    [00:20:21] Will: Can I just pause for a second? Sure. And not to, claim that he didn't mm-hmm.

    [00:20:24] Rod: Estimating

    [00:20:25] Will: the height of a wave. And here I also think, you know, you go to YouTube and you go world's biggest 

    [00:20:30] Rod: wave

    [00:20:30] Yeah. And it goes,

    [00:20:31] Will: No. But you would look at those surfers surfing the 

    [00:20:33] Rod: giant

    [00:20:33] wave. Oh, I'm Portugal

    [00:20:34] Will: and, and you Yeah.

    [00:20:34] Off Portugal. And you look at them and you go, no, can't tell. I cannot tell. Like I've got no reference points 

    [00:20:40] Rod: and I 

    [00:20:40] can't,

    [00:20:40] No, you do have that tiny little dot with a white stripe behind there.

    [00:20:43] Will: Yeah. But,

    [00:20:44] Unless you gave me a proper 3D feeling for it, I'm like, which bits are flat?

    [00:20:48] Which bits are

    [00:20:49] Rod: you want a cartographers assistant holding a rod in the water? I do,

    [00:20:53] Will: I do. 

    [00:20:54] Rod: I'm 

    [00:20:54] just please, sorry. 

    [00:20:55] I 

    [00:20:55] need

    [00:20:55] take this measurement 

    [00:20:56] Will: I need a proper measurement to, like, I just can't see the height of 

    [00:20:59] it. [00:21:00] Like, you know, a tall tree you can go Okay. Against a human. I can get all that because it's, I know trees go vertical.

    [00:21:07] Yeah. But a wave is such a three dimensional

    [00:21:09] object. Tricky. That it's really hard to actually see what a hundred, foot, 30 meter wave actually looks 

    [00:21:14] Rod: like. I

    [00:21:15] think when you're looking up and you see water and you keep looking up and you 

    [00:21:18] see 

    [00:21:18] Will: you're never looking up. Waves are not vertical. Like a, a big 

    [00:21:21] Rod: wave

    [00:21:22] But if you're at the bottom of it, then you can look up at 

    [00:21:24] it.

    [00:21:24] Will: here for a video podcast people, you know, we're putting some angles on this.

    [00:21:27] Rod: Yeah. I've moved my hand and Will's moved his hand as well.

    [00:21:30] Will: I, just, I've seen some big waves. 

    [00:21:32] Rod: a wave. Mm. 

    [00:21:33] Will: But, I'm like, yes. Somewhere between zero and 30 infinity of any unit.

    [00:21:38] Like, I got nothing.

    [00:21:40] Rod: See your experienced sea captains, French or otherwise, okay. They, they know how to do it. Yeah. Okay. They know how to do it.

    [00:21:46] So he, says, yeah, about a hundred feet. not only was he dismissed, even the French PM at the time said bullshit.

    [00:21:51] Will: The French pm

    [00:21:51] Rod: the Prime Minister, 

    [00:21:52] Will: The prime minister weighed in self. Nah, this 

    [00:21:55] guy, no, 

    [00:21:55] Rod: in, he's an idiot. Stick to plants and drawing pictures of where you had 

    [00:21:58] Will: lunch.

    [00:21:59] Why does the Prime [00:22:00] Minister weigh in?

    [00:22:00] Rod: I don't know.

    [00:22:01] French PMs don't think a lot of time on their 

    [00:22:03] Will: house. Maybe it's like a shock. Jock said, what do you reckon about the a hundred foot wave?

    [00:22:07] Rod: See he's bullshit.

    [00:22:08] Will: Like they're just asking questions, so.

    [00:22:09] Yeah,

    [00:22:09] Rod: yeah, exactly. Just curious. So why did people not believe him? This is back to what you said about the scientist, the standard linear models that oceanographers engineers and meteor meteorologists used to predict wave heights ruled out the possibility.

    [00:22:21] The model said no, it's not possible.

    [00:22:23] So the model said it couldn't exist, so of course it 

    [00:22:25] Will: Yeah.

    [00:22:26] But Rutherford, I think Rutherford's got things to say here.

    [00:22:29] Rod: Didn't he do something with retorts?

    [00:22:32] Will: Retorts, no. Rutherford 

    [00:22:33] Rod: in

    [00:22:34] anon 

    [00:22:34] Will: burner.

    [00:22:35] No,

    [00:22:35] Rod: No, we'll get to Rutherford. Well, I dunno anything about Rutherford in this, this is about rogue waves, 

    [00:22:39] Will: man.

    [00:22:39] Rod: So anyway, there were very few white witness accounts at the time. Probably 'cause most people didn't live to come back and tell you about the rogue

    [00:22:47] Will: Yeah, 

    [00:22:47] it's a

    [00:22:47] survivor, 

    [00:22:48] bi. An anti survivor

    [00:22:49] Rod: Yeah. Yeah. Like I've got a wooden boat and some canvas sheets 

    [00:22:52] and I'm honking 

    [00:22:53] Will: It's like why Kalu could still be down in the southern 

    [00:22:56] Rod: ocean.

    [00:22:56] Not could. 

    [00:22:56] Will: could. Yeah. Well kills everyone that comes close. It's [00:23:00] like we got no, can't have 

    [00:23:01] Rod: evidence,

    [00:23:01] Prove it. Show me who's seen you. Yeah, yeah. Well this is similar. So then in the 20th century we get the steel hold boats. More people start surviving. They come back and go, no, no, seriously, man, that was really big.

    [00:23:11] Like we were worried. But then the first scientific article about them, and they called them freak waves. It was in 1964. So it's the first time I really started talking about Scottish oceanographer, Lawrence d Draper, So basically he was looking at analyses made by British weather ships in the North Atlantic and at that time the highest wave.

    [00:23:29] The highest rogue 

    [00:23:30] Will: the catch and weather.

    [00:23:31] Rod: They're catching 

    [00:23:32] Will: weather.

    [00:23:32] I mean

    [00:23:33] for Ingle I think they could catch fish at the same time.

    [00:23:35] 'cause I 

    [00:23:36] Rod: think 

    [00:23:36] that's, 

    [00:23:36] Nope. Weather only. This is demarcation. 

    [00:23:40] Will: I feel like that's what a fishing boat is doing. Like catching some weather and catching 

    [00:23:43] Rod: some

    [00:23:44] no, it's a weather boat. We are only here for weather.

    [00:23:46] If you catch a fish, you gotta put it back and if it dies, it's on you, comes outta your pay. the highest wave they recorded was about 20 meters, so 67 ish feet. So that's in the sixties. So Draper writes in 71, far from [00:24:00] ridiculing the old sailors stories about enormous waves. Modern researchers confirmed that such monsters can occur and that wave heights can exceed by an appreciable amount, the maximum values which have been accepted in responsible circles.

    [00:24:14] So shut up your modeling bullshit 

    [00:24:15] Will: heads

    [00:24:16] in responsible 

    [00:24:16] Rod: circles. Yeah.

    [00:24:17] So it's like, fuck off your wankers. Basically your models are garbage. And stop believing that what you think is just absolutely true. I think that's the paraphrase.

    [00:24:24] Will: Yeah. 

    [00:24:25] Rod: So to summarize, a rogue wave will surge out of nowhere often in an unpredictable direction.

    [00:24:31] And it can look basically just like a great big steep wall of water. And the technical definition of one is any wave. More than twice the height of the waves surrounding it. Yeah. So that's a rogue wave. Yeah, that's fine. More than twice the height.

    [00:24:42] Will: That's like skys scrap mark. Yeah,

    [00:24:43] Rod: Yeah. Any, any building that's at least twice the height of the buildings around

    [00:24:46] Will: Yeah. I think that's the

    [00:24:47] Rod: That is, that's what all architects 

    [00:24:48] Will: say, 

    [00:24:49] Rod: but the first real measurement of a rogue wave wasn't until January, 

    [00:24:53] Will: What's your real here?

    [00:24:55] Rod: Well, they use a laser detector.

    [00:24:56] Good.

    [00:24:57] You 

    [00:24:57] know. No, 

    [00:24:58] they actually did

    [00:24:59] Will: Okay, [00:25:00] good. Attached to what And

    [00:25:01] Rod: A drill platform. The drought in our 

    [00:25:03] Will: you go. You got something plugged into the ground

    [00:25:05] Rod: just sits at a level. Yes. And then you got your laser and it goes, huh? Big ass 

    [00:25:10] Will: wave

    [00:25:10] Shit. That wave's 

    [00:25:11] Rod: house. Yeah. A lot. About a hundred miles off the coast, Norway, 160 kilometers. The platform was built to withstand a wave of about 19 and a half, 20 meters that they thought probabilistically would occur once every say 10,000 years

    [00:25:24] because fuck it, why not?

    [00:25:25] Sure, sure.

    [00:25:27] I wanna say, uh, let's say 10,000 years. It can't be that often. It's a rogue. How often do you see a 

    [00:25:33] Will: a road. 

    [00:25:34] Rod: So the one that hit them was 26 meters, not 19

    [00:25:38] Will: Not 19 Bit bigger than 

    [00:25:39] 19. Yeah.

    [00:25:40] Rod: Yeah. Um,

    [00:25:41] Will: 26 meters. It is a lot of water. That is a lot. Like if you think the room that you are in right now, 

    [00:25:46] listener, like 

    [00:25:47] it's probably

    [00:25:48] Rod: maybe two.

    [00:25:48] Two and a 

    [00:25:49] Will: It's

    [00:25:49] probably not 26 

    [00:25:50] Rod: high.

    [00:25:51] No, it'd be less anyway, So this thing was more than, 25% higher than they were expecting. But not a lot of serious damage.

    [00:25:57] Will: Hey, there you go.

    [00:25:58] Rod: So that's pretty good oil [00:26:00] platform,

    [00:26:00] and in this case mercifully. So,

    [00:26:01] Will: yeah.

    [00:26:02] Well, fair enough.

    [00:26:03] Rod: So at the time, the drop in a wave named after the 

    [00:26:06] Will: platform they gave it a name? 

    [00:26:07] Rod: Yeah, after the platform dropping 

    [00:26:08] Will: them. 

    [00:26:08] Rod: But

    [00:26:09] Will: how do you tell 'em apart?

    [00:26:09] Rod: Well, , the accent, the time, the place, you ask them their name. So this wave defied all previous models that any scientist would put together about possibilities for rogue waves.

    [00:26:19] So that was in 95. Then in 2000 from the company that owned the platform, stat Oil, they put out a paper saying, look, far from being ultra rare, rogue waves were more likely frequent or more frequent, sorry, than previously believed in prior models, which has been confirmed

    [00:26:33] Will: one once in 

    [00:26:34] Rod: meters. Yeah, a bit less than that, apparently more often.

    [00:26:37] And the same year, a British boat recorded a 95 foot rogue wave, 29 meters off the coast of Scotland. And none of the theoretical models predicted such a wave under the conditions that they saw 

    [00:26:48] Will: than me. I just, I knew, So all the moles were horseshit. This is in pre 2000.

    [00:26:52] Rod: Okay. So they went from, none of this stuff was predicted by the models at the time. The,, wisdom that came then that there could be as many as 10 rogue waves [00:27:00] shazaming around the world's oceans at any one 

    [00:27:01] time.

    [00:27:02] Will: 10,

    [00:27:02] Rod: 10 to which I

    [00:27:03] Will: at any one 

    [00:27:03] Rod: time.

    [00:27:04] based on what?

    [00:27:04] Will: what?

    [00:27:06] Rod: Okay. 

    [00:27:06] Will: just wandering around.

    [00:27:07] Rod: Just all that. There's

    [00:27:09] Will: I like that.

    [00:27:10] Rod: I think it's garbage too. 'cause I reckon it's probably more because they're always more conservative because they don't want people 

    [00:27:14] Will: freaking out 11. 

    [00:27:15] Rod: Exactly. But that would freak people out. That would scare the

    [00:27:19] Will: publish your paper, I reckon. 

    [00:27:20] Rod: 11, 12. I

    [00:27:22] how far could this go? But anyway, so a lot more than one every 10,000 years.

    [00:27:27] Constantly at least 10 around the world's oceans. So that's 2000, 2007. So the National Ocean Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, Noah, they put together a list of the 50 historical maritime incidents they thought were most likely due to rogue waves. They went, hang on, let's look back a bit here. Titanic, probably 

    [00:27:45] Will: No,

    [00:27:45] Lucit, Tania? 

    [00:27:46] Rod: Yeah, no, no. The 

    [00:27:48] Will: um, the U-boat. 

    [00:27:49] Rod: Yep. 

    [00:27:50] Dust. Dust board.

    [00:27:51] Will: Yeah. Dust boat.

    [00:27:52] Rod: Dust boat definitely is an old wave

    [00:27:54] Will: hunt in October.

    [00:27:56] Rod: Yeah. Yeah. The crazy Ivan top, [00:28:00] top of the hour. He always pulls a crazy Ivan, come on, do his research. So they were saying just one example was, um, there was a mysterious loss of a bunch of ships.

    [00:28:06] One was the, uh, the cargo ship, Ms.

    [00:28:09] Will: Ms. Min, is that like a Bermuda Triangle thing? Like 

    [00:28:12] Yes. 

    [00:28:12] I, I feel 

    [00:28:13] Rod: like

    [00:28:13] that's what this turns 

    [00:28:14] Will: into. 

    [00:28:15] Rod: It's not your Sargasso 

    [00:28:16] Will: we solved the Bermuda 

    [00:28:17] Rod: train. Yeah. Rug wave more than every 10,000 years. So the minion in 1978, they thought it was unsinkable. Sounds 

    [00:28:25] Will: familiar.

    [00:28:25] No, it's great to say that.

    [00:28:27] Rod: Never,

    [00:28:28] Will: It.

    [00:28:29] Rod: this boat's unsinkable. I'm not getting on it. I'm not gonna get on the harbor.

    [00:28:32] Will: No, I'm, I'm totally like, that is so cool. Like, the instance someone has declared it unsinkable. It was like, let's, we're in for a ride here. This is gonna be a full on what's the, what's the movie where the, where the boat tips over and they have to cut outta the 

    [00:28:42] Rod: hole Poseidon 

    [00:28:43] Will: Poseidon like, that's what we're going 

    [00:28:45] Rod: for.

    [00:28:45] But the original not, not the remake. The original was Shelly Winters.

    [00:28:49] Will: Shelly Wi Who's that?

    [00:28:50] Rod: She was a star with the Poseidon Adventure along with, I don't know, a bunch of rat 

    [00:28:53] Will: actors. Clark. Yeah. It was a rat pack 

    [00:28:55] Rod: Dude. Clark Cable.

    [00:28:56] Will: I dunno, I don't dunno. Your actors from back in your 

    [00:28:58] Rod: time.

    [00:28:59] It's a [00:29:00] minimum. This is between the 

    [00:29:00] Will: times. 

    [00:29:04] Rod: So they thought it was unsinkable, but the ship and the entire crew were lost at sea. And the only, wreckage or remnant was a single lifeboat from the starboard side that was found floating wreckage form no people. And that was the first 

    [00:29:17] Will: and one Ishmael, like, like at the end of Moby 

    [00:29:19] Rod: Dick.

    [00:29:20] Yeah. Just, just

    [00:29:20] Will: one guy saying, you know, this is what 

    [00:29:22] Rod: happened. It's

    [00:29:23] me. No, no one. And it was the only, it's the first physical evidence of the force, of a rogue wave. Because they rec, that's what they reckon. The damage to the lifeboat was that because of where it was sitting on the boat, they reckoned that means the ship was probably hit by a wave that was about 20 meters high because of where it was sitting on the thing.

    [00:29:38] So that was 2000, that was 1978, but they talked about 2007. So just flashing forward November, 2020, a freak wave lifts a lone boy off the coast of British Columbia. So freak wave makes this a lone boiler. I'm a lone boy. Anyway, off the coast, British Columbia, 17.6 meters they reckon. And it was dubbed the you clue lit wave. You SL let you Euclid [00:30:00] wave from the 

    [00:30:00] Will: area.

    [00:30:00] You should have practiced that one.

    [00:30:02] Rod: So a physicist from Uni Victoria says, look, proportionally this wave is likely the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded.

    [00:30:08] Not because of its absolute height, but because of its relative height to the waves around it. 'cause it was probably three times higher rather than year. Two times DA in a wave. The original one on the 

    [00:30:17] platform. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

    [00:30:18] So triple, so only a few rogue waves in high sea states have ever been observed directly at this point.

    [00:30:24] This is 2020,

    [00:30:26] so they're like, holy fuck, this is unusual. So yeah, in 2020 there's also a study that predicted that wave heights in the North Pacific will increase with climate change. So sweet, sweet as hell. So this you include wave, might not hold its record for very long, which is excellent. Oh, and also there might be super rogue waves.

    [00:30:43] Will: Super rogue 

    [00:30:44] Rod: waves.

    [00:30:44] Fuck yeah. 

    [00:30:45] So they're the ones that save humanity by defending us against other 

    [00:30:49] things 

    [00:30:49] Will: turn,

    [00:30:50] they turn good volcanoes.

    [00:30:51] In the end they turn good.

    [00:30:52] Rod: There's a volcano. Super rove wag will 

    [00:30:54] Will: fix 

    [00:30:54] it. What is, is, is this like a rogue wave combined with a tsunami or 

    [00:30:57] Rod: something?

    [00:30:57] It's just fucking mega waves, I [00:31:00] reckon.

    [00:31:00] Like there are scientists from a NU our own or former current Australian national University, Hamburg, university of Tech and University of Terrain. They demonstrated the possibility of these 2012 using a Lego pirate ship. I love it's all Lego pirate ship, not the ship, pirate 

    [00:31:13] Will: ship.

    [00:31:13] No, that's what

    [00:31:14] Rod: you do.

    [00:31:14] Of course you do. You've decorate it.

    [00:31:16] So yeah, they proved that you could get waves. They used this in a fish tank. They published this and they said, look, it could get bigger. And there was research in 2024 suggested these waves could be up to four times higher than previously thought 

    [00:31:28] Will: possible.

    [00:31:29] Oh, I thought that.

    [00:31:30] Rod: and what I'm not sure about, if four times higher means four times higher than what was previously thought, which is at least twice the height of the world 

    [00:31:36] Will: around 

    [00:31:36] it. Mm-hmm. 

    [00:31:37] Rod: Which means eight times higher, or do they just mean they can go to four 

    [00:31:40] Will: times or as high as anyone thought previous ever. Like, everyone's like some guy 

    [00:31:44] Rod: well,

    [00:31:44] 2 million 

    [00:31:45] Will: French guy says a hundred foot. And, it's like 400

    [00:31:47] foot, 400 at 

    [00:31:48] least. And

    [00:31:48] then we can go, well we thought that and now 

    [00:31:50] 1600 foot.

    [00:31:51] Yeah. 

    [00:31:52] Rod: Which is about 19 

    [00:31:53] Will: just doing multiplication here. 

    [00:31:55] Rod: You're good at 

    [00:31:55] Will: at this. 

    [00:31:56] Rod: So the takeaway message for me is never leave the land ever.

    [00:31:59] And actually [00:32:00] don't even go near the water's edge, even near lakes, because I didn't get into this, but some of the big lakes, like the Great Lakes, even they have them 

    [00:32:06] too. Yeah. 

    [00:32:06] Rogue waves.

    [00:32:08] Will: Okay. Okay. Here I'll give you a bit of, why I'm saying Rutherford. Rutherford obviously did some key experiments in the early 20th century that, uh, demonstrated that light behaved both of as a particle and wave.

    [00:32:20] Rod: what

    [00:32:20] Will: But what the gold experiment is one of them. But the point being that a wave combines so any type of wave, whether, whether it is light or sound or water and other.

    [00:32:34] Misc guess. Uh, I know you need to, the emotion, you could have a wave in emotions. Like a, a Mexican wave 

    [00:32:42] Rod: is

    [00:32:43] a and they can combine.

    [00:32:44] Will: Yeah. So what this is, is the particles themselves don't move except they don't move forward or backwards, but they move in a pattern that makes other particles move. So, so for example, sound is one particle, moves forward a little bit, bangs into the particle next to it, and then that bangs into the particle next to it.

    [00:32:59] So [00:33:00] the energy is

    [00:33:00] Rod: transferring like your Newton's 

    [00:33:02] Will: cradle?

    [00:33:02] Yeah, like in Newton's cradle. So the energy is

    [00:33:04] transferring. similarly, potentially with light if you understand it that way. Sound is a great example. Water is a great example. So water waves, that moving in kind of a circle in a pixel, but the point being that.

    [00:33:15] Rod: that

    [00:33:16] Will: Waves from different sources can combine. Yes. So what they're doing is you get a wave that might be whatever it is, 10 centimeters high, and then when they overlap, they get to 20 centimeters high. And if you get conditions right, then you can overlap and overlap and overlap so you get really high rogue waves.

    [00:33:32] So all of this whole, it was unpredictable, impossible to there. There are a lot of models of wave physics that say waves combine. Just because we haven't seen them doesn't mean that we can't imagine 

    [00:33:44] Rod: that 

    [00:33:45] happening

    [00:33:45] and that has come up or did come up in some of the stuff I read, but it didn't come up until remarkably 

    [00:33:49] Will: late.

    [00:33:49] That's weird. We 

    [00:33:50] Rod: And by late, I mean this century.

    [00:33:53] Will: the 21st. Yes.

    [00:33:55] Rod: For those of you listening in the future,

    [00:33:56] Will: Christ,

    [00:33:57] ​

    [00:33:59] Will: a bunch of [00:34:00] very helpful scientists. 

    [00:34:02] they're from, uh,

    [00:34:02] New York University, robotics researchers.

    [00:34:05] Mm-hmm. and they've released, 3D printable e flesh.

    [00:34:10] Rod: Oh, I

    [00:34:12] Will: So anyone who wants

    [00:34:13] can, 

    [00:34:13] Rod: I put it, ask, asking for a friend? Could I put it on a, uh, replica of a human?

    [00:34:19] Will: could?

    [00:34:20] Rod: Anywhere on the replica of the human?

    [00:34:23] Will: You definitely could. You de so 

    [00:34:25] Rod: good to, I'll, I'll, I'll 

    [00:34:26] Will: the point that they, they have, they've released the source code 

    [00:34:29] Rod: here E 

    [00:34:29] Will: that even flesh, 

    [00:34:30] if you have a 3D printer, you can print out some e flesh, whenever you want.

    [00:34:36] Rod: And

    [00:34:36] what do you mean by, you mean meat? You can print human skin 

    [00:34:39] Will: meat.

    [00:34:40] Rod: no

    [00:34:40] human meat?

    [00:34:41] Will: No. No. Okay. Okay. So the point here of efl, and I just like this story in part because it's a nice innovation and in second part, because this is a nice, generous thing that these people are doing. Yeah. But in third part, the name EFL is just

    [00:34:56] Rod: Yeah. Like what does I'm, I'm, what does that mean?[00:35:00] 

    [00:35:00] Will: okay. Okay. What does flesh mean to you?

    [00:35:02] Rod: Well, I don't, I don't, I don't wanna tell you.

    [00:35:03] Will: Well, what are the bits of flesh like? You know, you can,

    [00:35:05] Rod: tell 

    [00:35:06] me.

    [00:35:06] Your muscle, your fats, Your 

    [00:35:07] Will: meat. Yeah. What are they do? What are they doing. 

    [00:35:09] Rod: They're, they're making me feel good.

    [00:35:11] Will: Making you feel good, making you feel good.

    [00:35:14] Rod: They're holding my organs in,

    [00:35:16] Will: your organ. It's just a wrapper for

    [00:35:18] Rod: they're providing a pathway for my blood vessels and noises. Flesh to me is like, a stake. Is 

    [00:35:24] Will: flesh.

    [00:35:25] a steak? Is flesh. A steak is definitely

    [00:35:27] flesh. Okay.

    [00:35:28] Okay. So there's a lot of work replicating muscles in different ways and

    [00:35:33] obviously robotics, engineers are really trying to find ways that we can, achieve the same things as muscles because muscles are really good.

    [00:35:40] Look at how quickly you 

    [00:35:41] Rod: can 

    [00:35:41] move

    [00:35:41] your Yeah, they're clever muscles are 

    [00:35:43] Will: Like,

    [00:35:43] wow, and you see, you look at these modern robots and they're like some dinky little 

    [00:35:48] Rod: metal

    [00:35:48] A ties finger move.

    [00:35:50] Yeah.

    [00:35:50] Will: This EFL is not about movement, but about sensing. And it does something really, really.

    [00:35:56] It. Well, no, not really. It's the fascinating thing. So [00:36:00] this is 3D printable. Yeah. and you can, use, materials that are available in, all sorts of 3D printers, it's basically in the 

    [00:36:07] Rod: shape your your red, green, blue, yellow, 

    [00:36:09] Will: plastics. Yeah.

    [00:36:11] But what it does is it does the things that flesh does when you're, grabbing something.

    [00:36:15] It's, soft enough that it can grab onto a glass. Yeah., also it senses when it is grabbing onto something, it knows when it's getting touched and it knows when it's getting pressure. It knows when it's got enough pressure 

    [00:36:25] to hold onto. So what it's doing is it's getting a sensor coming through the, through the whole flesh that is coming back to the sensors at the back end of the metal finger 

    [00:36:35] grips 

    [00:36:35] so that it can graphic. And so 

    [00:36:37] Rod: so it's getting, what do you call it, propriocept?

    [00:36:39] No. Prop. Like there's a better 

    [00:36:41] word. It's not touch. Yeah. And that's that, that feedback that says,

    [00:36:44] Will: but yeah, and this is the thing.

    [00:36:45] So, so often, you see, metal clamps with a robot and, it doesn't know when to start and stop. It might go to a certain distance or it might go when it reaches a certain pressure. But these things have both the ability to go softly in, in the way that [00:37:00] flesh 

    [00:37:00] Rod: does

    [00:37:00] and then know when

    [00:37:01] Will: and then no window, and then know when, and, and it can sense throughout a 3D

    [00:37:04] lattice where things are pushing.

    [00:37:06] And I just, I, I look, this is, this is a small story, but it made me feel happy that these, these, that's cool. These people are printing out stuff that can go onto the laser and, and we're gonna get more but

    [00:37:17] Rod: That's cool. That is cool. I'm not upset by that. I was hoping to be.

    [00:37:20] Will: I know, but, do you know, is it a good name or a bad name?

    [00:37:23] Rod: E Flesh is a great name because it'll be adopted by the, pornographic industry, and that means shitloads of money will go into it.

    [00:37:29] I'm only half Jo, and actually, I'm not joking at all. It's true. That sort of stuff will get put into your devices for personal pleasuring

    [00:37:36] Will: look

    [00:37:37] Rod: and, and that will accelerate

    [00:37:39] Will: and pausing.

    [00:37:39] But yeah, there, there is a lot of legitimate devices for personal pleasuring 

    [00:37:43] for 

    [00:37:43] Rod: are, well,

    [00:37:44] for Do what 

    [00:37:44] Will: if you 

    [00:37:45] want.

    [00:37:45] No, no. So well, yeah, do what you want. But no, there's also, you know,

    [00:37:48] I 

    [00:37:49] Rod: there's more, there's therapeutic benefits and other things as well, but what I mean is quite literally like many technologies, if porn can use it, it's gonna get cash and it's gonna get investors.

    [00:37:57] Will: So there you go. That's, efl, you can [00:38:00] download some right now and, make your own in, um, any shape you 

    [00:38:03] Rod: want

    [00:38:04] that I'm not gonna do.

    [00:38:04] Will: do. I don't have 

    [00:38:05] Rod: have a print, I don't have a '

    [00:38:06] Will: cause of your skills.

    [00:38:07] Rod: I don't have the skills. I had a little one here for you. It's a bit of, yay. Feminism. I built it 

    [00:38:13] for 

    [00:38:13] you.

    [00:38:13] Hell yeah.

    [00:38:14] Will: because, I'm gonna tell you a story about a trait that has been billed for a long time.

    [00:38:20] both in, popular literature and

    [00:38:23] unpopular literature.

    [00:38:24] Scientific literature.

    [00:38:25] Rod: That's what I 

    [00:38:26] Will: said. Yeah, Indeed. 

    [00:38:27] Rod: you're right, you're right.

    [00:38:28] Will: As, a blokey trait, a masculine trait. Something that skews more for the boys. And 

    [00:38:33] Rod: happily footy. 

    [00:38:35] Will: Happily it's been claimed back as, 

    [00:38:38] Rod: no. Lady 

    [00:38:38] Will: footy, nah, buddy. Everyone can play. Everyone can play.

    [00:38:42] Do you wanna have a guess?

    [00:38:43] Rod: Is it a sport? No, it's a, character or a physical property.

    [00:38:48] Will: character trait.

    [00:38:49] Rod: Aggression.

    [00:38:50] Will: Aggression.

    [00:38:51] Rod: No. Horniness? 

    [00:38:52] Will: No.

    [00:38:53] No. There there would be studies there that

    [00:38:55] Rod: Long, long view,

    [00:38:57] Will: Long view. The long, no

    [00:38:59] Rod: [00:39:00] emotional awareness,

    [00:39:01] Will: Close

    [00:39:02] Rod: anger,

    [00:39:03] Will: autism,

    [00:39:05] that's what I meant,

    [00:39:06] has been historically viewed as a condition that affects men and boys 

    [00:39:09] more 

    [00:39:10] frequently than women 

    [00:39:11] Rod: and 

    [00:39:11] girls.

    [00:39:11] but women are taken back 

    [00:39:12] the night.

    [00:39:14] Will: take. Well

    [00:39:14] Rod: Well done. You

    [00:39:16] Will: the DSM five. The diagnostic and statistical manual. Number 

    [00:39:21] Rod: five,

    [00:39:21] not five 

    [00:39:22] RI don't dunno about that. Could

    [00:39:24] be R

    [00:39:25] Will: Yeah, like there's been a few diagnostic and statistical

    [00:39:28] Rod: There have been one 

    [00:39:29] Will: or 

    [00:39:29] two, and

    [00:39:29] number five is just the one that I'm quoting from 

    [00:39:31] Rod: now.

    [00:39:31] Mm-hmm. 

    [00:39:32] Um, 

    [00:39:33] Will: says that for every four males diagnosed with autism four, only one female receives a diagnosis.

    [00:39:40] Rod: So they're being ripped off.

    [00:39:41] Will: yes or no,

    [00:39:43] Rod: diagnosis. Now 

    [00:39:45] we wanna vote and we want diagnoses.

    [00:39:48] Will: Maybe

    [00:39:49] not one maybe. So it's pretty well established in the psychiatric psychological literature out there that autism has been a 

    [00:39:56] Rod: condition

    [00:39:57] it's been considered boys.

    [00:39:58] Yeah, it's 

    [00:39:58] been, it's a boy

    [00:39:59] thing, boys thing. [00:40:00] Yeah, 

    [00:40:00] Will: Uh, and the rates were about four to one. So for every four boys that are diagnosed, there's one girl. So it's just rare, right? Not non-existent, but just rarer to be diagnosed 

    [00:40:10] Rod: in girls.

    [00:40:10] Yeah.

    [00:40:11] Will: But the Kalinski Institute in Sweden. Love them. They always do great 

    [00:40:17] Rod: stuff.

    [00:40:17] they do some of the freakiest shit and they haven't done for 

    [00:40:19] Will: haven't done for years.

    [00:40:20] But they're, I mean, a great institute of epidemiology, public health like you know, they, just did

    [00:40:25] Rod: teeth studies stuff to do with bums. Autism,

    [00:40:28] Will: I dunno about the bums.

    [00:40:29] Rod: Oh, they do butt work.

    [00:40:30] The Catalina in Kaska Institute butt studies. Famous.

    [00:40:35] Will: dunno if that's true. I dunno that you shouldn't say 

    [00:40:37] Rod: things 

    [00:40:37] like

    [00:40:38] look it up, get back to us 

    [00:40:39] Will: along. I, don't know. I dunno. Now, now probably someone, one person has once done it and then you might be right, but 

    [00:40:45] Rod: you 

    [00:40:45] just, 

    [00:40:47] Will: And look the but is a wide area, so

    [00:40:50] Rod: of yourself.

    [00:40:51] The butt is a wide area. 

    [00:40:52] Will: what they went and did, they went and looked at the medical records of more than 2.7 million Swedish 

    [00:40:57] Rod: folk.

    [00:40:58] Oh damn.

    [00:40:58] Will: Born between 1985 [00:41:00] and 2020. I'm

    [00:41:01] Rod: I'm just gonna say before we get 

    [00:41:02] Will: into 

    [00:41:03] it,

    [00:41:03] how many Swedish folk were born between 1985 and 

    [00:41:05] Rod: 2020?

    [00:41:06] No. Just sweet. They're a particular kind of human carry 

    [00:41:08] on.

    [00:41:09] Will: Yes, indeed. Indeed. Swedes are certainly a particular kind of 

    [00:41:12] Rod: human

    [00:41:13] because for starters, all 

    [00:41:14] babes, 

    [00:41:15] boys, girls, ugly, young, old, all 

    [00:41:17] hot 

    [00:41:17] Will: boys, girls,

    [00:41:18] ugly

    [00:41:18] Rod: boys, girls, young, old. 

    [00:41:20] Will: You said ugly. 

    [00:41:21] Rod: Oh, 

    [00:41:21] I meant other, 

    [00:41:22] Will: I mean, 

    [00:41:22] Rod: even the ugly 

    [00:41:23] Will: ones I, I look, to be honest, all humans, you know, are,

    [00:41:26] Rod: Oh, they, to you they're

    [00:41:27] Will: are lovely, wonderful people, 

    [00:41:28] Rod: beautiful

    [00:41:28] people. No, Swedes are actually pretty

    [00:41:29] Will: Yeah, but, ugly. Are you saying the ugly swes

    [00:41:32] Rod: are, they're still babes. They're better looking than anyone I've ever met in this country.

    [00:41:36] Ever.

    [00:41:37] Will: There you go. There you go. That's, positive

    [00:41:38] Rod: Racism. Study that though. 

    [00:41:39] Carol 

    [00:41:39] Linsky, that's 

    [00:41:40] Will: racism, 

    [00:41:41] Rod: they're not a race, but I see what you're 

    [00:41:43] Will: saying. 

    [00:41:44] Rod: Okay, so 2.7 million

    [00:41:46] Swedes, so 2.7 which is 90% of their 

    [00:41:48] Will: population.

    [00:41:48] , I think it's pretty much probably, I don't have it here. Most of the Swedes born between 1985 and 2 20 20. So we, you know, SW Sweden is a, is a 10 to 20 million, uh, who 

    [00:41:57] Rod: knows.

    [00:41:58] That's 

    [00:41:58] Will: good. King

    [00:41:58] of Sweden once measured [00:42:00] the population of the country and he was deeply depressed by the result.

    [00:42:02] I think 

    [00:42:03] like

    [00:42:04] Rod: one, do you mean like in 10, 

    [00:42:05] Will: 17

    [00:42:06] No, no, not that far back, like 1810 or something like that. He said, let's invent statistics and to invent statistics. We'll measure the population of the country. And he was like, I reckon the population's gonna be like 20 million. And it came back at

    [00:42:17] Rod: at it's 400 si

    [00:42:18] 400. 

    [00:42:19] Will: And he was like, why did I invent you? Like why?

    [00:42:23] Rod: not stats. That's counting.

    [00:42:25] Will: No, that is stats. Like that's what counting is. Stats

    [00:42:28] the science of the state. Anyway, the science of the state is statistics. That's what stat means.

    [00:42:33] Rod: Okay.

    [00:42:34] Will: Anyway, he counted, he was really sad 'cause it wasn't nearly as many as he thought. But anyway, probably 2.7 million. Probably. It's 

    [00:42:40] Rod: probably

    [00:42:40] it's 

    [00:42:40] Will: to It is. Probably all of 'em. '

    [00:42:42] Males were typically diagnosed with autism at much higher rates than females during childhood.

    [00:42:47] Right. But over time, this levels out so that things are pretty much equal.

    [00:42:53] In the, in their first few years.

    [00:42:55] So just to go straight to the results 

    [00:42:57] here. Yeah. 

    [00:42:58] When they're first getting diagnosed, it is [00:43:00] close to like four to one. and most diagnoses happen in childhood. so when kids are like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, there's a whole bunch more boys that are getting

    [00:43:08] Rod: diagnosed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    [00:43:09] Will: But over the long 

    [00:43:11] Rod: haul, 

    [00:43:12] Will: it evens out and it becomes, from teenage years, it starts to even out.

    [00:43:16] And then into the twenties and thirties it becomes basically women are getting diagnosed way more at that point, so that over the lifespan. It's about one to one. So it's not, a boy thing at all. And finally, I mean, this has been a suspicion that many people have

    [00:43:30] had 

    [00:43:31] Rod: it's when they're diagnosing, they don't bother to check 20 or they

    [00:43:34] Will: this is the question.

    [00:43:35] So this involves both cohort effects, so we're going back to 1985, so there was different diagnoses back in the 1990s compared to 2000. So, there's a few things going on there like that. But the suspicion at the result of this study Yeah. Is that, It's not unreasonable to assume on the end results of this, that men and women, boys and girls, males and females, all have about the same rates of autism going 

    [00:43:59] Rod: [00:44:00] on.

    [00:44:00] Fuck 

    [00:44:00] Will: it is not a male, condition. It just seems to be through a variety of reasons. Potentially noticed more in boys, potentially. You know, it could be things like, one of the indicators is linguistic ability, social ability. they can be hiring girls, particularly in 

    [00:44:17] Rod: the, the, youngers 

    [00:44:18] Will: in the, in the childhood sort of era.

    [00:44:20] So 

    [00:44:20] Rod: or more to the

    [00:44:21] point lower in boys.

    [00:44:22] Will: and lower in boys. Yeah. So we are noticing it more in boys. Yeah. There's there's a bunch of different things. It could be that the way autism manifests is just not seen in girls. It could be that teachers aren't primed to look for it in girls, they see a certain thing and they're like, okay, I can see 

    [00:44:38] Rod: that Of course

    [00:44:38] you'd have that bias. It's like, well, she knows what's going on 'cause she's a girl. This boy's obviously gonna be a duning idiot because emotions are broken for boys anyway. Expectations

    [00:44:47] Will: Yeah. Yeah. So expectations, yeah. Yeah. Would be part of that. But I think it's a fascinating result to say, actually, whilst we have both a stereotype in society and we literally have a diagnostic bias

    [00:44:59] Yeah,

    [00:44:59] To [00:45:00] assume that it is more boys, males, men, that actually, if we are just looking, and this is just looking at,, a signed at birth, you 

    [00:45:07] Rod: know, 

    [00:45:08] simple ideas of

    [00:45:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    [00:45:10] Will: that it's actually, probably in both, genders there equally.

    [00:45:15] Rod: this where, this is where we say, ladies, you're welcome.

    [00:45:17] Will: Yeah. Yay. Feminism.

    [00:45:18] Rod: I agree. 

    [00:45:19] Will: Everyone can be part of the tent. what do we do about that? enjoy, embrace, 

    [00:45:23] embrace, embrace, embrace.

    [00:45:24] embrace. There you go. 

    [00:45:25] ​

    [00:45:27] Rod: now look, I'm calling this a physics fight, but it's more like 

    [00:45:29] a 

    [00:45:30] slow burn impending physics fight Pitch is made from the leftovers of the byproducts of distilling crude oil. So you got this gunky, heavy goo or 

    [00:45:38] like 

    [00:45:39] Will: it's, the crappy bits at the bottom. You can't, you can use it for roads and 

    [00:45:43] Rod: shit, 

    [00:45:43] but

    [00:45:43] you can't, you 

    [00:45:43] Will: run, you can't run a plane 

    [00:45:45] Rod: on it.

    [00:45:45] No. And you can't drink it, which only once.

    [00:45:47] Will: or not even very slowly

    [00:45:49] Rod: drinking. Yeah. It'd be like drinking 

    [00:45:50] Will: rocks,

    [00:45:51] I think. Yes. the challenge with drinking it is not what it does when it gets to your stomach. It's the 

    [00:45:54] get, it's 

    [00:45:55] the getting 

    [00:45:55] it into your mouth.

    [00:45:56] Rod: Like try and get it there. So if you hit it at, like, if you get [00:46:00] a chunk of pitch at room tone, which you hit it with a hammer, it'll shatter like 

    [00:46:02] Will: a Yeah, like 

    [00:46:03] Rod: yeah, like glass, like a rock. But it's actually technically a 

    [00:46:06] liquid.

    [00:46:07] Will: Yes. Proved by friends of mine, the University of Queensland.

    [00:46:11] Oh, that's coming

    [00:46:12] We are very keen on

    [00:46:13] this one. Get taught this. We land in the university in, in first year undergraduate.

    [00:46:16] And

    [00:46:17] no 

    [00:46:17] matter your 

    [00:46:17] Rod: English. I'm gonna tell you 

    [00:46:18] Will: about this.

    [00:46:19] no matter the discipline, this is our favorite 

    [00:46:21] Rod: thing,

    [00:46:21] I have to say. I'm not shocked to hear this. And for those of you who dunno what the fuck he's talking about. Hold on. A what? A wild road. So. It turns out, although it is actually a liquid, it was apparently not easy to convince students of this back in the 1920s.

    [00:46:33] Will: Yeah. 'cause they would 

    [00:46:33] Rod: obviously

    [00:46:34] at the Union of 

    [00:46:35] Will: you know, they were obviously No way. No 

    [00:46:36] Rod: way.

    [00:46:37] That is not a liquid, sir.

    [00:46:38] Will: there

    [00:46:38] was no multiple hundred people debates about

    [00:46:40] Rod: this.

    [00:46:41] At least I I actually think Brisbane got destroyed.

    [00:46:44] Will: There was a riot. Yeah. There's definitely 

    [00:46:45] Rod: Like this professor

    [00:46:46] Will: pitch is a liquid riot. Yeah,

    [00:46:48] Rod: Yeah, it was

    [00:46:49] Will: exactly. What happened?

    [00:46:49] Rod: Exactly what happened. So, um, 1927, a Cambridge graduate veteran of World War I and the first UQ physics professor, a guy called Thomas Parnell. He wanted to show his students that if 

    [00:46:59] Will: you

    [00:46:59] I [00:47:00] studied in the Parnell 

    [00:47:00] Rod: building.

    [00:47:01] did you really?

    [00:47:02] I did. Did you do physics? 

    [00:47:04] Yeah. 

    [00:47:04] Fuck. You're so science. Yeah.

    [00:47:06] Last winded physics was 

    [00:47:07] Will: before that. 

    [00:47:08] Rod: The past. So he wanted to show his students that if you watched pitch for long enough, it would flow like a liquid. So he takes a glass funnel, a sealed bottom on it, pour some pitch in, and he waits. This is in 

    [00:47:20] Will: 1926. You say pour, but he's heated 

    [00:47:23] Rod: it 

    [00:47:23] up

    [00:47:23] Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. He put it in. Sits it there. Yeah, he's, In placed pitch in this glass funnel that's sealed at the bottom leaves for three years until it kind of gets down towards the stem or like, or settles. 1930, he cuts the bottom of the stem.

    [00:47:37] Will: When did he start?

    [00:47:38] Rod: he put it in in 1927. In 1930. Actually cuts the bottom off the stem to let the pitch flow.

    [00:47:43] Will: Mm indeed.

    [00:47:44] Rod: So the pitch drop 

    [00:47:45] Will: I hope there was like a parade. Let the pitch flow.

    [00:47:48] Rod: really was like there, there were nudist and acrobats. It was 

    [00:47:51] Will: amazing. Yeah.

    [00:47:52] Queensland was famous for nudist and acrobats in the 1930s.

    [00:47:55] Still is 

    [00:47:55] Rod: Job Biel Peterson was in charge in the 1930s, 

    [00:47:58] Will: I think he?

    [00:47:58] started in the [00:48:00] 1830s

    [00:48:00] Rod: and went through to 

    [00:48:02] Will: 1988 

    [00:48:03] Rod: to until expo.

    [00:48:04] Will: Yeah. Of course he made it to 

    [00:48:05] Rod: expo.

    [00:48:06] He did. So did this experiment. So, 

    [00:48:08] Will: no longer, 

    [00:48:09] Rod: oh, I hadn't finished. I know. So, um, the thing with pitch is. It's depending on the temperature in the room, it's in a hundred billion times thicker than water, which is a lot thicker than water.

    [00:48:21] A hundred billion is a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot.

    [00:48:24] Will: So

    [00:48:24] Rod: meant when you say to your students, if you wait long enough, you'll watch 

    [00:48:27] it.

    [00:48:27] Will: And students are known for their 

    [00:48:29] Rod: patients.

    [00:48:29] They really are. And so long enough is quite long. So it cuts the thing in 20, in 1930, the first drop actually pooped out of it in 1938.

    [00:48:37] Yeah. Cool.

    [00:48:38] So eight years, boom. And

    [00:48:40] so, 

    [00:48:40] Will: but it, it's a drop,

    [00:48:41] Rod: It dropped. It dropped. Now I think obviously most of the students who were there for the original opening of this, you know, probably died by then.

    [00:48:48] Will: Eight 

    [00:48:48] Rod: years

    [00:48:48] of boredom. 

    [00:48:49] Will: years is not the

    [00:48:50] Rod: This is not the Queensland years. That's about 50 in normal years.

    [00:48:53] 'cause I think It's

    [00:48:54] pretty rough up there. Particularly in the early 

    [00:48:56] Will: twenties. Yeah. But we're staring at the sun more.

    [00:48:58] Rod: We should. '

    [00:48:58] cause you know it's gonna come and [00:49:00] get 

    [00:49:00] Will: you. 

    [00:49:00] Rod: So that was 1938, first drop. 1961. Three drops later. Yeah.

    [00:49:04] A new lecturer, a guy called John Manston takes over the experiment after a colleague said, oh, there's this thing in the corner gathering dust.

    [00:49:11] Is it?

    [00:49:11] Will: Was it gathering dust?

    [00:49:12] Rod: Apparently he was sort of sitting in a cupboard. Just, well, not 

    [00:49:15] Will: loping,

    [00:49:15] Yeah. But I, get, you know, it's a university. They're like, well, nothing's happening with that, but don't throw it 

    [00:49:20] Rod: out

    [00:49:20] Yeah, we got this and a particle accelerator. Which thing do you wanna play 

    [00:49:23] Will: with

    [00:49:24] Well, or more just don't throw shit out '

    [00:49:25] Rod: cause,

    [00:49:26] Yeah, don't throw shit out. Not in the physics 

    [00:49:27] Will: it's, not to, you know, not to tell stories about where we have both worked, but you know, you know, there's the cupboard full of stuff that, may contain some contraband, 

    [00:49:36] you 

    [00:49:36] Rod: and things from the 

    [00:49:38] Will: past.

    [00:49:38] Yeah. Things from the past.

    [00:49:39] Rod: Some of the past had a different OHNS 

    [00:49:41] Will: principles. Indeed, they 

    [00:49:42] Rod: they did. You're right. I've heard, I dunno if that's true. It's unverifiable. So eventually, uh, Mainstone said, let's put this out on display in the university. So this became inactively, you know, you've probably seen 

    [00:49:52] it.

    [00:49:53] Will: I 

    [00:49:53] Rod: totally

    [00:49:53] happy. You've seen it.

    [00:49:54] You've seen it. Okay. 'cause William went to the University of Queensland. so Mainstone was a custodian of this [00:50:00] experiment for 52 years, which is a long time 

    [00:50:01] Will: to

    [00:50:02] ah,

    [00:50:03] Rod: custo. 

    [00:50:04] Will: I mean,

    [00:50:04] Rod: I mean, 

    [00:50:04] Will: it's not doing much. He doesn't have to 

    [00:50:06] Rod: feed

    [00:50:06] his, you don't know how dedicated he

    [00:50:08] Will: doesn't have to, you know, take it for a walk or something every

    [00:50:10] Rod: It's every day though. He checked in on it. So the bummer is he never saw an actual 

    [00:50:15] Will: drop

    [00:50:15] 52. Oh,

    [00:50:17] Rod: that doesn't mean no drops 

    [00:50:18] Will: happened. Drops happened.

    [00:50:18] Rod: He never caught one. So 1979, the sixth drop

    [00:50:22] Will: because as much as you could go, okay. It's getting thinner. It's getting thinner. It could be, is it tonight 

    [00:50:26] Rod: or or 

    [00:50:27] Will: like six 

    [00:50:27] Rod: months

    [00:50:28] 14 years from

    [00:50:29] Will: no doubt.

    [00:50:30] Rod: So yeah. 1979 the sixth drop fell. But it was on a weekend. Obviously. He was at 

    [00:50:34] Will: home.

    [00:50:34] Well indeed, like cooking

    [00:50:35] Has anyone seen a drop? 

    [00:50:37] Rod: drop. Oh 

    [00:50:37] yeah.

    [00:50:37] So it was the sixth drop, seventh drop, 1988 at the Brisbane World Expo.

    [00:50:41] Will: I toed ya. Together. Together just to quote the greatest slogan of Queensland ever.

    [00:50:47] Together we will show the world like you

    [00:50:49] Rod: and you did Look at this,

    [00:50:51] Will: we exist.

    [00:50:52] Rod: Look, world stuff. 

    [00:50:54] Will: thing. It's the most aggressive slogan I've 

    [00:50:57] Rod: ever

    [00:50:57] heard. But also empty.

    [00:50:58] Yeah. Yeah.

    [00:50:59] We'll show [00:51:00] them. 

    [00:51:01] We'll show 

    [00:51:01] ya. We'll show 

    [00:51:02] Will: we'll show you. 

    [00:51:02] Rod: Show ya. Yeah. Bastard. So that was the seventh drop that fell at the 1988 Expo. But Mainstone had popped off to get a drink so he didn't 

    [00:51:09] Will: see 

    [00:51:09] it. 

    [00:51:10] Rod: 2000, he missed the eighth drop because there was a live feed attached to it. But a thunderstorm apparently disrupted the feed. So I assume he's staring at the TV going, Hmm. But he missed it. When the ninth drop fell, April, 2014, there were three webcams on it. There were a whole bunch of people watching online enthusiast.

    [00:51:25] Everyone was, everyone was into it. But Mainstone missed this one 'cause he was a bit dead. He died eight months earlier. Oh.

    [00:51:31] So he never actually saw one 

    [00:51:32] Will: drop

    [00:51:32] in all fairness to him, the actual dropping is probably a very anti climactic moment.

    [00:51:38] Rod: Yeah. 

    [00:51:38] Will: like, can you imagine

    [00:51:39] you, you're all sitting there waiting. You go, you are like, oh, 

    [00:51:42] Rod: oh, this is it. This is, 

    [00:51:43] it. Ding. 

    [00:51:46] Will: Oh yeah. I thought it may sound a little bit more like glass, but anyway,

    [00:51:49] it probably does. It's,

    [00:51:50] not like the thing has a giant orgasm in front of you that you're like, wow, okay. You, you

    [00:51:54] Rod: did. That's long though. Like stingers never orgasm for that long or built that

    [00:51:58] Will: He, no, I think he 

    [00:51:59] Rod: he did

    [00:51:59] Unless he's doing it 

    [00:51:59] Will: [00:52:00] now.

    [00:52:00] I think he 

    [00:52:00] did like the, no, he had a nine year one once

    [00:52:04] Rod: and at the end of it I be, it didn't just go tink

    [00:52:08] sting. 

    [00:52:09] Will: Sting. If you're listening, let us know.

    [00:52:11] Rod: Tell us about your nine year the result. So as of January 19th, this year, 2026, only nine drops have fallen. The last one was 2014.

    [00:52:21] Will: Oh. So we're due, of

    [00:52:22] Rod: of course, 

    [00:52:22] Will: course, overdue. Overdue.

    [00:52:24] Rod: Overdue. 

    [00:52:24] Will: we're running outta pitch at the top. Are are we

    [00:52:26] Rod: No, no, there's no, but there's enough. Okay. There's enough. And it 

    [00:52:31] Will: To, to, no, no. I mean, have you looked at the pictures? Like

    [00:52:34] Rod: I don't look at pictures. this is a verbal 

    [00:52:36] Will: I'm just

    [00:52:36] saying, you know, it's not, it's not 

    [00:52:37] Rod: like

    [00:52:37] it might be running out 

    [00:52:38] Will: kilos a pitch.

    [00:52:39] Rod: It's 

    [00:52:39] like no, no, no. It's a funnel. It's a glass funnel. Yeah. It's not a glass nuclear bunker. Like it's, there's there's not 

    [00:52:46] a lot. Yeah. 

    [00:52:47] also, uh, the rate has slowed since the eighties because they started air conditioning the building. Oh.

    [00:52:53] Will: Ah.

    [00:52:53] Rod: So it started at about one every eight years and then 

    [00:52:55] Will: stuff was tougher

    [00:52:56] after,

    [00:52:56] Rod: after,

    [00:52:58] Will: before

    [00:52:59] Rod: after, before air [00:53:00] conditioning.

    [00:53:00] Things were better, worse now. I said this is about a fight. There was a fight though. So there, there's a brewing fight. So this is built as the world's longest, continually running lab experiment.

    [00:53:10] So the Guinness World Records listed as one, and so do many other sources, including the one that brought this to my attention.

    [00:53:16] Science alert, I believe so. You know, you know, an August credible force. But in 2013

    [00:53:21] Will: it would be hard to make a new experiment in 2013. That was the world's longest.

    [00:53:25] Rod: Oh no it didn't. They didn't make it. But a long forgotten experiment quote with pitch came to light

    [00:53:31] Are serious? Yeah.

    [00:53:32] So there's a glass funnel filled with a heap of ultra viscous pitch at the AB Smith University in Wales.

    [00:53:37] Ab, yeah, AB Smith. And the date on that is April 23rd, 1914, 13 years 

    [00:53:42] Will: older.

    [00:53:43] Suspiciously written date. Just 

    [00:53:44] Rod: there.

    [00:53:45] This is what I'm saying. Like part of me is like, huh. So the pitch is stiffer and so far not a single drop has fallen.

    [00:53:50] Will: Well, there're a stiff pitch country over

    [00:53:52] there. really I mean, 

    [00:53:53] Rod: in 

    [00:53:54] Will: in 

    [00:53:54] Rod: fairness, the Welsh in fairness, it's a bit chillier

    [00:53:55] Will: Wales versus Queensland

    [00:53:57] Rod: Yeah, 

    [00:53:57] they're different. 

    [00:53:58] Different foods accents. [00:54:00] Slightly 

    [00:54:00] Will: diverted. Yeah.

    [00:54:01] Yeah. 

    [00:54:01] Rod: So. Apparently the pitch has barely entered the stem of the funnel, even though it's been there 13 years longer. And the, best estimates are it's unlikely to do its first rip for at least 1300 years. So,

    [00:54:15] Will: So, so,

    [00:54:16] Rod: so what I'm hearing is bizarre physicist desk ornament.

    [00:54:19] I'm not, I'm not 

    [00:54:19] hearing experiment.

    [00:54:20] Will: And people don't throw out stuff a lot more 

    [00:54:23] Rod: there.

    [00:54:23] They really don't because it's whales. look, I agree with you. I sort of thought, is the label true? 

    [00:54:29] Will: Mm. Is 

    [00:54:30] Rod: true? Is it, I don't know. And long forgotten. I mean, the Queensland one's been watched the whole time, so I believe that one.

    [00:54:36] Will: Yeah. Yeah.

    [00:54:37] Rod: But this one not so much.

    [00:54:38] Will: Yeah. 

    [00:54:39] Rod: You know, 

    [00:54:40] Will: I, feel like this is like your, your modern movement in psychology that says you gotta, you gotta push your hypothesis out before you do your study. So you're 

    [00:54:47] not 

    [00:54:47] Rod: peeing. Oh yeah. You don't wanna pee. Well, I dunno if they're pee hacking. I dunno if it's even true. But regardless what this means is there's a disagreement about the longest running lab experiment.

    [00:54:55] And so I say, look to the horizon. And make no mistake, there's a very slow war coming between different [00:55:00] physics departments. Mark my words. It's coming. It might take 1300 

    [00:55:04] Will: years, Love it. 

    [00:55:05] Rod: but it's coming.

    [00:55:06] Will: Hey, one tiny fact about ab with tell me more books per head of population than any other town in the 

    [00:55:12] Rod: world.

    [00:55:12] Is it all the same 

    [00:55:13] book

    [00:55:16] Will: It's just the ma the mayor published his memoirs.

    [00:55:19] Rod: and everyone's got 400 

    [00:55:20] Will: copies? 

    [00:55:21] Rod: No, no.

    [00:55:22] Will: No, no. They've got a, they've got a big international relations like thing. They, they, they love reading books there. They're a book Mad Little Town.

    [00:55:29] Rod: Good for them. So you're attached to both places that are gonna have this brawl.

    [00:55:32] Will: I, never did get to ABT with, but uh,

    [00:55:34] Rod: but you feel like you did.

    [00:55:40] Will: Well, that's been your little bit of science. I just wanted

    [00:55:41] to hit the mailbag.

    [00:55:44] Hit the mailbag from

    [00:55:45] the beautifully named , wisdom, courage. 9 3, 

    [00:55:48] Rod: 6. We encouraged, yeah,

    [00:55:49] Will: Yeah. Wisdom Courage. Nine. This is a great comment that we leave and, and if you leave a good comment, we'd love to read it out.

    [00:55:55] This 

    [00:55:55] Rod: says, oh, we will, the

    [00:55:56] Will: simpy feminist in orange, I was wearing red [00:56:00] at the time, is really annoying on one of our earlier episodes. Too bad because I was enjoying your presentation Rod. Maybe get a different co-host. There seems to be a perceptible difference in intelligence between you 

    [00:56:11] Rod: two.

    [00:56:12] Haven't I always said 

    [00:56:13] that? 

    [00:56:15] I have always said that. The simpy part, definitely

    [00:56:17] Will: send your comments in via YouTube thing or a, or cheers at a little bit of science.com. Do

    [00:56:23] Rod: au. Not 

    [00:56:24] Will: Jesus,

    [00:56:25] not dot Jesus.

    [00:56:26] Rod: That should be a web address though.

    [00:56:27] You should be able to have your like,

    [00:56:28] Will: I don't think Jesus. No Jesus, not Jesus. Do Jesus straight to 

    [00:56:31] Rod: Jesus.

    [00:56:31] I'm gonna set 

    [00:56:32] that 

    [00:56:32] Will: up.

    [00:56:33] Send 'em in, send the reviews and give us, all of 

    [00:56:34] Rod: it. 

    [00:56:35] ​ [00:00:00] ​

    [00:00:02] Rod: It's the happiest time of the year 

    [00:00:03] or for four years. It's winter Olympics time. Fucking excited. Love them. I love the Winter Olympics. I love all of them. The summer I don't like, but I'm not gonna tell you which. So we're recording just a couple of days in and I'm pretty stoked. And story just dropped this morning about one of the most heart pounding and insane events at the Olympics.

    [00:00:19] The ski jump. which is cool as hell. So I didn't know this until I read this story. Ski jumpers are obliged to wear very tight suits. Like they don't just do it 'cause they want to. They're actually apparently supposed to.

    [00:00:28] So apparently any extra cloth on the suit, if it's a bit looser, will add more surface area.

    [00:00:33] So you get more lift. So they don't like that. So it's gotta be snug is a bugging a rug. And, uh, there was, a, nice little, story. The guardian reported that there was a study that said for every two centimeter increase in suit size circumference, you get 5% extra lift. So that can equate to nearly six meters in jump length potentially.

    [00:00:51] So it makes a big difference, two centimeters. so not surprisingly officials take this very seriously, the whole suit tightness thing. But of course with this kind of potential [00:01:00] advantage, some people will go to what you might call unusual lengths to get a little more cloth in their jumpsuits. 

    [00:01:06] Will: It's time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.

    [00:01:30] Rod: Wow. I'm Rod Lamet, a 30 year science communication veteran with the Mind of a Teenage Boy, which I'll prove to you soon.

    [00:01:37] Will: And as well as that,, teenage boy bit that Rod has, we also have some ah, fun with animals.

    [00:01:45] Rod: I've got a little bit about another way the ocean wants to kill us.

    [00:01:48] Will: Ah, I got some, developments in robotics that aren't as bad as they seem.

    [00:01:51] Got some more benefits for feminism.

    [00:01:53] Rod: Oh, well then after that, then we'll follow up with. Physics fight.

    [00:01:56] Physics fight, physics fight.

    [00:01:58] Will: Oh, I just gotta end. We, we've got [00:02:00] some nice stuff in the mailbag. We do. , So thank you very much dear, , listener, viewer, , for your contributions there.

    [00:02:06] Rod: Yeah. Look,, there's tips for everyone in that.

    [00:02:07] Will: So , what is our friend

    [00:02:09] Doing to get more on the ski jump? I

    [00:02:12] Rod: love it. So

    [00:02:13] Will: This is so predictable. I,

    [00:02:14] Rod: but it is, but it isn't. what I love about this is the subtlety. Yes. So the 2025 World Ski Championships, it all begins, our story begins briefly. Two gentlemen from the Norwegian Olympic ski jump team who were medalists were given three months suspensions.

    [00:02:29] And the head coach and the assistant coach also banned for 18 months. And so was another member of the, support crew. And it turns out what they'd done was they'd secretly adjusted the seams of their suits to get a little extra surface area. And naturally the place that you're thinking is exactly where they did it.

    [00:02:44] They adjusted it around the crotch to which I apply. What

    [00:02:47] Will: is this? Like they're doing like a full SC guide, drop crotch,

    [00:02:51] Rod: No, too obvious. It's just little subtle seam extensions.

    [00:02:54] Will: I wanna do SC pants

    [00:02:56] Rod: i's staggering up on the ski jump and you get blown backwards and flipped onto [00:03:00] your side. So apparently the granular area is a prime candidate for sneaking in a little bit of extra cloth.

    [00:03:05] Will: if granular is a 

    [00:03:06] Rod: work. It

    [00:03:07] is in ski jumping terms, that's what they use.

    [00:03:09] Will: sounds like someone in the seventies in Australia said it's in your ula. Like a builder, a builder, a builder comes over and says, no, I can't fix your granular mate.

    [00:03:17] Rod: It's , 

    [00:03:17] It's fucking blocked. I've got the wrong kind of drill bit for that.

    [00:03:21] so the thing is while it's a great place to do it, 'cause you can kinda smuggle a little bit of extra cloth.

    [00:03:26] Will: Oh, it depends on what's already there. Like I feel like if there is already so much you can't smuggle more in,

    [00:03:31] Rod: maybe you can, but I mean, that's the thing. 

    [00:03:33] Will: there always more

    [00:03:33] Rod: Slightly extra seams, you know, not tight enough.

    [00:03:36] But it turns out they measure their suits using 3D data from scanners.

    [00:03:40] Will: Of course they

    [00:03:41] Rod: Of course they do. And they start from the genital smi up on the scanners. So it's not easy to game the system. But this is

    [00:03:47] Will: So hang on. So they're measured on a 3D scanner, nude or not nude, like

    [00:03:51] Rod: I'm hoping nude.

    [00:03:52] Will: So you

    [00:03:52] Rod: let's say nude. So

    [00:03:53] Will: You go into scan a nude and they're like, okay, you can have one millimeter, whatever addition to your nude ness, [00:04:00] 

    [00:04:00] Rod: little, your crot space.

    [00:04:02] Will: Oh, I was saying whole body here. I wasn't saying, you know, just,

    [00:04:04] Rod: just the, uh, groin, groin area. I don't know. I'm assuming you were wearing pants.

    [00:04:08] 'cause it's a civilized

    [00:04:09] Will: You know, I, I just gotta say, I just gotta say I'm not a fan of the enhanced games. I think that's

    [00:04:14] Rod: not, I'm all for it. Whatever you can do.

    [00:04:15] Will: But I totally think the whole elite sport where, we have to define everything so precisely. It's never gonna work. It's never gonna

    [00:04:23] Rod: work.

    [00:04:24] No. 

    [00:04:24] Well, when you're talking two centimeters, potentially adding nearly six meters though, that's a lot.

    [00:04:28] Will: Oh, it is.

    [00:04:28] Rod: Six meters is a lot. Yeah. That's, I think it's about 90,000 feet. So 

    [00:04:33] Will: just go the other way? 

    [00:04:34] Rod: Make it Like just max, no, max it out. Like

    [00:04:36] see, wear a para sale and you just disappear over the 

    [00:04:38] Will: go four wing suit, off you go,

    [00:04:40] Rod: He's gone.

    [00:04:41] Will: if you can land in 

    [00:04:41] Rod: Australia.

    [00:04:42] an hour and a half later, like, no, no sign of him yet.

    [00:04:46] Will: but actually, actually to pause this, a different sport., But

    [00:04:50] it has, But it has a similar effects going on

    [00:04:52] Rod: Lacrosse, 

    [00:04:53] Will: javelin. Javelin is one of the very few sports I won't confirm it's the only one, but one of the very few sports that will never beat the world record, , [00:05:00] because the world records set I think in the seventies.

    [00:05:02] Rod: by a dude with a rocket.

    [00:05:04] Will: No, no, no, no. Basically it's an aerodynamics thing, so the design of javelin, you can, you can put, you know, it's like rifling on a bullet will allow it to go further. And so there were a few things they did to Javelins in the seventies that got 'em going a long way. Yeah. And they basically got to the limit of an Olympic stadium.

    [00:05:18] So any further,, and you're stabbing all 

    [00:05:21] of

    [00:05:21] Rod: the, all of the, or sore a tie, lead to your 

    [00:05:22] Will: javelin.

    [00:05:22] And so basically they said, no, we've gotta make crappier javelins that won't go as far.

    [00:05:26] Rod: sake, do it out in a bigger stadium.

    [00:05:28] Will: Yeah. No, no. Sorry buddy. But Javelin can't fill a bigger stadium.

    [00:05:32] I won't do, no, I'm sorry.

    [00:05:34] Lovers of javelin. Lovers of javelin.

    [00:05:36] Rod: And there are many, 

    [00:05:37] some 

    [00:05:38] they are legion.

    [00:05:39] Will: I, yeah. I don't think we're filling, a 200,000 person stadium.

    [00:05:43] Rod: Well, no, just change the shape of it. Have a long, thin stadium for your throwing sports and your ski jump.

    [00:05:48] Will: but I think it's recognizing that they're like, okay, there's an actual legit reason that we can't go any further.

    [00:05:53] we could have the science of

    [00:05:54] Rod: somebody might get 

    [00:05:55] hurt. 

    [00:05:56] Will: far can humans throw sticks? And it's like we maxed it out. We shouldn't go any [00:06:00] further.

    [00:06:00] Rod: No, we should 

    [00:06:00] Will: Too much danger.

    [00:06:01] Rod: No. Reach for the stars and then keep 

    [00:06:03] reaching. 

    [00:06:03] Will: for the stars. Yeah.

    [00:06:04] Rod: With your javelin.

    [00:06:05] Will: So yeah. 

    [00:06:06] Rod: maybe we could do that with this, but I think it changes the event if you can actually fly, that changes the event. Yeah, that's true. 

    [00:06:11] That's my 

    [00:06:11] Will: fear. Ski Flying.

    [00:06:12] Rod: That's different. I'm into it, obviously, but I think that's different. They never did it on snowboards. Tur. And you really wanna show how balls you are. Do the ski jump on a snowboard,

    [00:06:19] Will: snowboard guy. And I also am a snowboard guy. I'm sorry. But we are not getting nearly as far as a ski jump

    [00:06:24] Rod: No. And the crash would be horrible. Like you'd just explode. They'd just be like a pink mist. There'd be nothing left.

    [00:06:31] Will: But they do the drop crotch.

    [00:06:33] Rod: they would. Oh God. They wouldn't, so they'd, yeah, they might actually get blown off course. So yeah, apparently this 3D scanning thing starts from the lowest point in your scans up. Hard to game.

    [00:06:43] But people are trying, or at least rumors are now circulating that some ski jumpers are doing things. This is the gentleman to temporarily make their ding-dongs bigger when they're scanned.

    [00:06:52] Will: Well, there is a classic way of temporarily. Making it 

    [00:06:54] Rod: dingdong

    [00:06:55] I know, Like take a dozen little blue pills and stagger in there 

    [00:06:58] and Or 

    [00:06:58] Will: oh, just have a, nice kiss [00:07:00] and a hug with your significant 

    [00:07:01] other, 

    [00:07:01] Rod: a cuddle and a naughty thought and then get scanned. But you gotta maintain it. I dunno how long the scan 

    [00:07:06] takes, Not

    [00:07:07] Will: like a five hour scan.

    [00:07:08] Rod: I don't know. It's one way to make sure they, they get you a maximum curl.

    [00:07:14] Will: I mean, not saying any, I mean five would be fine for me, but like,

    [00:07:17] Rod: obviously 

    [00:07:17] Yeah, a 

    [00:07:19] strong 

    [00:07:19] Will: mean, if it was an eight day scan, maybe I'd have,

    [00:07:21] Rod: I'll give you six.

    [00:07:23] Will: Seriously. Like yeah, there are classical ways of doing that and I appreciate that.

    [00:07:26] Might not,

    [00:07:27] Rod: it might vary per individual.

    [00:07:29] Will: Christ. You did say you were juvenile in this.

    [00:07:31] Rod: I'm just report, just a fact. Just reporting the news. things they were doing. Things like putting clay into your undies. You know, clay, why clay? I don't, it mimics the penis, obviously. That's why pots are so erotic.

    [00:07:42] It's really what they could find outside the scanner. Oh look, mud. That'll do. But my favorite, and this is why the story came out, injecting their penises. 

    [00:07:52] With higher luronic acid or paraffin. Paraffin. That's one of the options. I'm worried about the [00:08:00] flammability. Obviously. I don't want it bursting into flames. It gets hot down there.

    [00:08:03] Will: It depends. You could fla

    [00:08:04] Rod: Flammable.

    [00:08:05] Will: see some advantages.

    [00:08:06] Rod: Ooh, what are 

    [00:08:06] they? I dunno. I've got a moment. I don't have to be anywhere.

    [00:08:11] Start listing.

    [00:08:12] Will: Oh wow. Commitment. Full commitment to the sport. 

    [00:08:14] Rod: we're gonna inject something into No.

    [00:08:16] Will: So who thinks of this? Is this like the head coach says,

    [00:08:19] Rod: alright, I'm gonna say yes. Uh,

    [00:08:21] Will: we've got a team meeting. Everybody, could we all gather around or is this, uh, don't know.

    [00:08:26] Rod: obviously with the Norwegians, not obviously it would appear that, you know, this was a, a collusion.

    [00:08:31] There was more than just the one or two gentlemen getting there.

    [00:08:33] Will: suggestions from listeners. They're like, here's what you could do.

    [00:08:37] Rod: also, my question is, what do the ladies do if they want to get a bit of extra? Probably not paraffin.

    [00:08:42] Will: Why not? 

    [00:08:43] Rod: If you're a listener and a lady and you've done this, please tell us what you did.

    [00:08:46] 'cause I'd love to know how you make yourselves temporarily large

    [00:08:49] Will: I think, I think they would need to do that anonymously. 'cause they're, you know,

    [00:08:52] Rod: oh yeah. Use a different email. Use your mother's email or your brother's. I don't mind brother's better actually. So for boys, it puffs up your soup measurement a bit, and then [00:09:00] obviously when you return to normal, It leaves you a bit of room in the suit. Great. So a German newspaper that built, quoted a doctor on this, they broke the story apparently last year, and the doctor says, if you're going to ask a doctor, is this a good idea? I'm paraphrasing. The doctor says, quote, it is possible to achieve a temporary visual thickening of the penis by injecting paraffin or hyaluronic acid.

    [00:09:19] Such an injection is not medically indicated and is associated with risks, which is a very German way of saying there's no reason to do this and it could fuck you up.

    [00:09:27] Will: Mm.

    [00:09:27] Rod: Now, the world anti-doping authority wider, they've been asked to be on the lookout for penis tampering. And so the newspaper asked the director general of Wada about it, and he says, look, I'm not aware this is happening, and though it's technically probably not doping, he says, our list committee would certainly look into whether this would fall into the category, but I haven't heard about it.

    [00:09:45] Until you just mentioned it. So as you say, I'm thinking eat the Viagra. Like if you're gonna do it, eat the Viagra and go. What? I really love getting measured,

    [00:09:53] like, sorry Doc. I've just, it's just how I am. It's not an enhancement

    [00:09:56] Will: Well, that's wonderful,

    [00:09:57] Rod: isn't it?

    [00:09:57] Will: it? got some other [00:10:00] wonderful news for

    [00:10:00] you.

    [00:10:01] Rod: So much good news.

    [00:10:02] Will: no, this is,

    [00:10:02] Rod: are you saying this is the podcast that brings the good

    [00:10:05] Will: Oh, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. But I like this one. 'cause this is one of those stories where it's like, maybe that's good news. I don't know.

    [00:10:12] Rod: Oh yeah. That 

    [00:10:13] Will: you know, one of our pinup species for the end of the world. Climate change cockroaches, uh, well, no, they're gonna survive so they're not pin up.

    [00:10:20] Rod: Oh, pin up. 

    [00:10:21] Pin up 

    [00:10:21] the ones that won't make it.

    [00:10:22] Will: Yeah. The pinup of, Oh, the world's gonna hell in a hand basket. Um,

    [00:10:27] polar bears.

    [00:10:28] Your polar bears. Yeah, your polar bears.

    [00:10:29] You know, there's been some critique of this, how we use images of polar bears, but polar bears are often used to illustrate climate change.

    [00:10:35] Rod: Look, climate change.

    [00:10:36] Will: yeah. But there's, there's, your polar bear.

    [00:10:39] Rod: bouncing on an 

    [00:10:40] Will: suddenly they're in the Arctic and it's a tiny ice cube, or they're looking skinny, or they've, or they're sitting on a tropical beach somewhere

    [00:10:46] Rod: having a

    [00:10:46] Will: having a cocktail, a margarita.

    [00:10:47] And, if climate change did that, well, maybe it actually might. 

    [00:10:50] Rod: No, but

    [00:10:51] Will: but there's some good news and some interesting news 

    [00:10:54] Rod: Yeah. 

    [00:10:54] Will: So yes, there are a bunch of different polar bear gangs around the 

    [00:10:58] Rod: world. There are, 

    [00:10:59] Will: you got your [00:11:00] Alaskans, your Canadians,

    [00:11:01] Rod: your Crips, your bloods. You, 

    [00:11:02] Will: probably got some rusties as well.

    [00:11:04] You know, they're all hanging out in the arctic , up there. Yeah. They go across the ice , , and they don't respect boundaries. Right. But generally there's some around, you know, Alaska East, some in different parts of Canada. Yeah. And there's your Norwegians up in the, archipelago of Svalbard.

    [00:11:19] Rod: Svalbard.

    [00:11:20] Will: Now the interesting thing is that while you're Alaskans and your Canadian polar bears. Are getting skinnier and scientists are a little bit worried about these. Yes. Fbar bears. they're getting fatter. Hell yeah, they're getting fatter and, uh, seven 11. So, there's a bunch of researchers up there they've got 25 years of data on 770 polar bears that they've 

    [00:11:40] ca seven 70. I 

    [00:11:42] dunno if that's all of them, or lots of them

    [00:11:43] Rod: It's a shit 

    [00:11:44] Will: because I imagine polar bears live for a little while. They're not like a one month species.

    [00:11:48] Rod: not, they're not like a butterfly and they don't tend to hang in lumps, or bunches. 

    [00:11:51] Will: Yeah. so

    [00:11:52] Rod: that's a big spread of

    [00:11:52] Will: I think up in Svalbard, you, Norwegians like to check up on the polar bears.

    [00:11:56] They're probably catching and releasing them, seeing what they're like 

    [00:11:58] Rod: and

    [00:11:58] catching and releasing.

    [00:11:59] Will: [00:12:00] Yeah, of course. They're

    [00:12:01] Rod: Hold, still

    [00:12:01] Will: Hold still for a sec 

    [00:12:03] Rod: they're just big,

    [00:12:04] Will: just be, can we just put you on the scales for a little bit and see how chubby

    [00:12:07] you are? 

    [00:12:08] Rod: struggling.

    [00:12:08] Your mauling bastard. Yeah,

    [00:12:09] Will: obviously, obviously it depends when they come out of their little igloo equivalent type thing, they're probably a bit skinnier than when they go in at the end of, well, s autumn, well you go ish, you know, something around, you know, they've eaten a lot and then they eat.

    [00:12:22] Through a season, and then they don't eat. But anyway, they're probably heavier. But anyway, 25 years of data, 770 polar bears now 

    [00:12:28] Rod: Wow. 

    [00:12:28] Will: This goes back to, the 1990s. And so there was a dip in the first five

    [00:12:33] years, so between the nineties and the two thousands. Yeah. but from then on the conditions of the polar bears have been improving.

    [00:12:39] So this goes against the whole climate

    [00:12:41] Rod: So they, they're not just fatter, their condition. It's not just 'cause they're eating lard.

    [00:12:44] Will: Yeah, they're about 50 kilos heavier. like on average, they're four, they're 400 

    [00:12:48] Rod: kilo

    [00:12:48] To be fair though, I, I went on a cruise to the Antarctic a few years ago and I reckon I put on about 50

    [00:12:53] Will: Well see, maybe this is something like that. They've all been on a cruise.

    [00:12:56] Rod: on the 

    [00:12:56] Will: They've all been sneaking around the arctic. You know, that's what it [00:13:00] is. It's the northwest passage. So suddenly the polar bears are going on 

    [00:13:03] Rod: these

    [00:13:03] look at all these boats,

    [00:13:04] Will: these beautiful, cruises.

    [00:13:06] Rod: Yeah. Double 

    [00:13:06] Will: But this is what I love.

    [00:13:07] This is what I love. People are like, well, what's going on? Because, the major thing to take into account is that, the struggle for polar bears in climate change is that their major diet is a particular type of seal. Yeah. Called a ring seal. And the ring seal hops up on the ice. Yeah. so eat me, eat me.

    [00:13:24] No. That's where they go to give birth, and nurse their pups or to warm themselves and molt. and in polar bear language that says, eat 

    [00:13:32] Rod: me. Yeah. Yeah. That's, problem is

    [00:13:34] bistro, 

    [00:13:34] there's 

    [00:13:34] Will: less ice.

    [00:13:35] Rod: so

    [00:13:35] Will: There's less, uh, spots for the seals to go. So the polar bears have to travel further to find the, seals and eat 'em.

    [00:13:41] Rod: So they should be getting skinnier. 

    [00:13:42] So 

    [00:13:42] Will: They should be getting skinnier, so they should be getting skinnier. But they're not, and so scientists are like, what's going on here? And I, I bringing

    [00:13:48] Rod: bringing them seals. Someone's bringing them seals. Here's another one.

    [00:13:52] Will: So there's, a couple of different, possible solutions for this, but 

    [00:13:55] did like this first one.

    [00:13:57] Rod: so they don't know what, what you're

    [00:13:59] Will: Well, there, there's a [00:14:00] couple of theories as well. They know this, these scientists just did, the counting of the weight. And now they can speculate on the reasons. The one I did love is that, the ice is shrinking. and the number of ring seals around fbar is shrinking.

    [00:14:12] But the remaining ones are bunch together. So it's like the ice has made like more of a little honeypot for the bears. They're like, well, why We don't have to go any further. We can eat these bastards.

    [00:14:22] Rod: Bigger bags of Doritos,

    [00:14:24] Will: So I, I just love the idea that these bears are, they,

    [00:14:28] Rod: they,

    [00:14:28] Will: they're seeing a honey pot of seals there and it's actually easier for them.

    [00:14:31] Rod: Like, 

    [00:14:31] it's

    [00:14:31] what could possibly go

    [00:14:33] Will: it's like climate change has brought their favorite thing closer into them. Yeah. As 

    [00:14:37] Rod: one.

    [00:14:37] And for a short time that's gonna be great.

    [00:14:39] Will: Yeah.

    [00:14:40] Rod: Yeah.

    [00:14:40] Will: Yeah. Look, eat while the going's good, I think 

    [00:14:43] Rod: is the

    [00:14:43] but, so like I was listening earlier, this is also where they come together to give birth

    [00:14:48] Will: the seals.

    [00:14:49] Rod: Yeah. That should be fine.

    [00:14:50] Will: Yes,

    [00:14:51] that should be fine. Yes. 

    [00:14:52] Rod: Look, 

    [00:14:53] oh look, there's a tender one. There's an 

    [00:14:55] Will: don't think polar bears actually know about, either ecosystems or chain of 

    [00:14:59] life. [00:15:00] No. They, they have food and they have smaller 

    [00:15:02] Rod: food. Yeah,

    [00:15:03] More food. Less 

    [00:15:04] Will: more food.

    [00:15:04] Less food. I assume they think tastier food for the babies

    [00:15:06] Rod: They probably don't give a shit.

    [00:15:07] Will: No, no, no, no, no. Every animal knows nice, tasty

    [00:15:11] food 

    [00:15:11] versus not They No. Polar bears, no. They prefer rings. so, you know, another theory is that, they might be dining out on a larger variety of 

    [00:15:19] Rod: creatures.

    [00:15:20] Sure. That 

    [00:15:21] Will: you know, they're mixing it up

    [00:15:22] Rod: your ring, seal, your steak.

    [00:15:23] Will: they don't love walrus and harbor seals.

    [00:15:25] but they will do 'em if necessary. So maybe, they're dabble in 

    [00:15:28] Rod: there

    [00:15:29] I'm the same.

    [00:15:29] Will: or they go on land animals, they're popping in land to get some nice bird eggs or something like that. So a

    [00:15:35] Rod: Grab me a little wild boar. So something, something.

    [00:15:40] Will: it's the fact that we stopped hunting them. 

    [00:15:41] Rod: them. It 

    [00:15:42] doesn't make 'em fatter.

    [00:15:43] Will: That's 

    [00:15:43] Rod: true. If anything, there'd be more of 

    [00:15:44] Will: true. It doesn't make them fatter. We're

    [00:15:46] Rod: not getting hunted 

    [00:15:47] Will: they were scared.

    [00:15:48] Maybe they were scared They're running

    [00:15:49] Rod: Running. Yeah. Because I was, I'm like, oh, I wish, I wish they'd hunt me again. 'cause fuck, I'm getting fat. That's

    [00:15:55] Will: So look, it's a nice thing when the world is getting a lot worse.

    [00:15:59] the [00:16:00] cause of the nice thing might not 

    [00:16:01] Rod: be,

    [00:16:01] let's not get into details. There's no need. Let's not ruin it by asking

    [00:16:05] Will: but I do love, fact that these happy polar bears are just having their dinner brought closer to them

    [00:16:11] by the shrinking ice, I

    [00:16:12] Rod: ice. How's things are pretty good. Another ring seal. No, I'm fucking stuff. Couldn't have another mine. It's too many. I might have a baby. So the ocean wants to kill us all 

    [00:16:23] Will: the time. 

    [00:16:23] Rod: You probably knew this. It has a motive and it wants us 

    [00:16:26] dead. 

    [00:16:26] So there are things in the ocean that wanna kill us.

    [00:16:28] We know that many of them sharks, for example, poisonous snakes.

    [00:16:31] Leopard seals.

    [00:16:32] Will: Yeah. Well 

    [00:16:33] Rod: They, they really, really, really wanna kill us. Or they kill everything really. So lots of that. But the ocean itself wants to kill us too. Just the 

    [00:16:40] Will: water. 

    [00:16:40] Yeah.

    [00:16:41] Rod: And I don't just mean by drowning, 

    [00:16:42] Will: Take you down to Davey Jones locker.

    [00:16:44] Rod: . So anyway, December 22. 6-year-old woman dies. She's on an Antarctic trip on a boat, boat was hit by a wave, smashed all his cabin windows, sent glass flying 

    [00:16:52] Will: everywhere.

    [00:16:52] Oh, 

    [00:16:53] Rod: it killed her. And it injured three others quite badly.

    [00:16:56] That's horrible. It

    [00:16:57] was horrible. It was horrible. I'm not making light of that. 

    [00:16:59] but it [00:17:00] wasn't just any kind of wave. It was what we call a rogue wave.

    [00:17:02] Will: wave. 

    [00:17:02] Rod: I mean, sounds cool. I assume there's movies made called Rogue Wave and if they're not, please make one.

    [00:17:06] 'cause I love a Big Wave movie. 

    [00:17:08] Will: I think it wasn't called Road Wave, but there was the George Clooney 

    [00:17:11] Rod: perfect 

    [00:17:12] Will: Storm.

    [00:17:12] Perfect storm.

    [00:17:13] Rod: You mean 

    [00:17:13] Marky 

    [00:17:13] Will: Perfect storm of rogue waves. Yeah, no, sorry mate. That's a George Clooney 

    [00:17:17] Rod: movie Marky Mark 

    [00:17:17] movie up from Marky

    [00:17:18] Mark, Marky Mark

    [00:17:19] Will: I don't mind the Marky mark, but, 

    [00:17:21] Rod: he's the worst actor in the world.

    [00:17:22] Will: No

    [00:17:22] Rod: but him and Ruby Rose, they're both terrible actors, but they do fine. And 

    [00:17:26] Will: yeah. But I'm not bothered, like I'm not there for the, I'm, if it's a Marky Mark movie, I'm not bothered. 'cause I'm like, I'm here for the funny 

    [00:17:32] Rod: action.

    [00:17:32] and de and de guns.

    [00:17:34] Will: Yeah. There's a lot of 

    [00:17:35] Rod: guns.

    [00:17:36] He, he's been working out,

    [00:17:36] Will: well he's waking out at 2:00 AM in the morning to, 

    [00:17:39] Rod: yeah.

    [00:17:39] No, 2:00 AM at night's too. What bothers me is he never brings along the funky bunch anymore. I know, what happened to the funky bunch. So anyway, these things are rogue waves and basically a rogue wave is a big ass unexpected and unpredictable single wave. It's not a bunch of big waves.

    [00:17:51] It just suddenly goes wha

    [00:17:52] Will: And also not a tsunami.

    [00:17:53] Rod: Not a tsunami.

    [00:17:54] Will: So tsunami is like a big movement of ocean

    [00:17:56] Rod: and go. Yeah. And then when it hits the shore, crest

    [00:17:59] Will: it's, this is just a 

    [00:17:59] Rod: [00:18:00] a wr wave.

    [00:18:00] Middle of 

    [00:18:00] Will: the ocean. 

    [00:18:01] Rod: suddenly boom. Yeah. It's very exciting. Yeah. Unless you're that 62-year-old woman and others over time.

    [00:18:07] So yeah, the thing is you 

    [00:18:08] Will: big, 

    [00:18:08] Rod: unexpected, unpredictable, and it's not a series of them, it just goes and appears.

    [00:18:13] Will: How big,

    [00:18:13] Rod: oh, we're gonna get to some

    [00:18:14] numbers. Oh, excellent.

    [00:18:15] And I'm gonna give you real 

    [00:18:16] Will: numbers. You

    [00:18:16] better give me in Sydney Harbors

    [00:18:18] I will.

    [00:18:18] Rod: 0.0 0 7, 1 diameters of Sydney Harbor.

    [00:18:22] So, until mid last century, scientists thought rogue waves were a myth. Like, yeah, bullshit.

    [00:18:27] Will: Why would they think that?

    [00:18:28] Just because they hadn't seen them

    [00:18:30] themselves. 'cause of

    [00:18:31] s No, like you get all these, , sea captain folk, you get Captain Nahab and he's like, I Bruce, 

    [00:18:36] Rod: you

    [00:18:36] know, 

    [00:18:36] or he seen a 9 million foot wave,

    [00:18:39] Will: didn't bloody eat. He 

    [00:18:40] Rod: did.

    [00:18:41] Came at me like the God himself. And then, or he

    [00:18:44] Will: oh, he fought on back. We a whale.

    [00:18:47] Rod: I lost all my legs. So, yeah, exactly what you say. So eyewitness accounts from returning seafaring folk

    [00:18:53] Will: scientists were assholes.

    [00:18:54] Rod: Well, this is what I love about it. So, like, they were getting these very credible dudes, like there was a 19th century French guy.

    [00:18:59] He [00:19:00] was a, 

    [00:19:00] Will: uh,

    [00:19:00] that's about the most credible you can get.

    [00:19:02] Rod: Well, this guy had a lot of credibility. He's an explorer, he's a Navy officer. His name's French.

    [00:19:06] Explorer.

    [00:19:07] Yeah. French Explorer. You're right. French Explorer.

    [00:19:09] , S Deville, so he made a name for himself as a botanist and a cartographer. Good at botany. And that's what, and mapping,

    [00:19:15] Will: in fairness. You say Explorer, you've gotta be a bit of cartographer, because otherwise, otherwise you're a wanderer. Like you're just going, oh, some 

    [00:19:22] Rod: stuff.

    [00:19:23] You could've at least 

    [00:19:23] written 

    [00:19:23] Will: and everyone's like, where?

    [00:19:25] And he is like, over there

    [00:19:27] Rod: where I was. I've, look, I've done a drawing with some squiggly lines.

    [00:19:32] Will: There was this,

    [00:19:33] Rod: there'd be dragons.

    [00:19:34] Will: Then you turn left,

    [00:19:35] Rod: Then you turn left.

    [00:19:36] Will: left. I had dinner

    [00:19:38] Rod: Where, and I think I had lunch there a couple of weeks later, but I'm not positive.

    [00:19:43] But I drew a picture of both meals. So he'd apparently been saving sailing around the world, doing really good things graphically 

    [00:19:50] Will: and, and botanically. 

    [00:19:51] Rod: botanically. And botanically. But then along with everything else, he says, oh, I've seen rogue waves of over a hundred feet. A hundred feet. So like 30 meters, which is a fuck ton of 

    [00:19:58] Will: water.

    [00:19:58] Yeah, that's a, that's a lot, [00:20:00] that's a lot of wave

    [00:20:00] Rod: Like I've seen on the ocean, probably about seven meter swells. And you notice

    [00:20:05] Will: Yeah, totally. And in the beach, if you,

    [00:20:07] if you're, if you are seeing any, anything over two or three meters, you're like, God damn, that is, 

    [00:20:12] Rod: I, I think we might go further

    [00:20:14] Will: Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. So,

    [00:20:15] Rod: so he also had three eyewitnesses who said, yeah, we've seen these things as well, but everyone said, no, that's bullshit.

    [00:20:21] Will: Can I just pause for a second? Sure. And not to, claim that he didn't mm-hmm.

    [00:20:24] Rod: Estimating

    [00:20:25] Will: the height of a wave. And here I also think, you know, you go to YouTube and you go world's biggest 

    [00:20:30] Rod: wave

    [00:20:30] Yeah. And it goes,

    [00:20:31] Will: No. But you would look at those surfers surfing the 

    [00:20:33] Rod: giant

    [00:20:33] wave. Oh, I'm Portugal

    [00:20:34] Will: and, and you Yeah.

    [00:20:34] Off Portugal. And you look at them and you go, no, can't tell. I cannot tell. Like I've got no reference points 

    [00:20:40] Rod: and I 

    [00:20:40] can't,

    [00:20:40] No, you do have that tiny little dot with a white stripe behind there.

    [00:20:43] Will: Yeah. But,

    [00:20:44] Unless you gave me a proper 3D feeling for it, I'm like, which bits are flat?

    [00:20:48] Which bits are

    [00:20:49] Rod: you want a cartographers assistant holding a rod in the water? I do,

    [00:20:53] Will: I do. 

    [00:20:54] Rod: I'm 

    [00:20:54] just please, sorry. 

    [00:20:55] I 

    [00:20:55] need

    [00:20:55] take this measurement 

    [00:20:56] Will: I need a proper measurement to, like, I just can't see the height of 

    [00:20:59] it. [00:21:00] Like, you know, a tall tree you can go Okay. Against a human. I can get all that because it's, I know trees go vertical.

    [00:21:07] Yeah. But a wave is such a three dimensional

    [00:21:09] object. Tricky. That it's really hard to actually see what a hundred, foot, 30 meter wave actually looks 

    [00:21:14] Rod: like. I

    [00:21:15] think when you're looking up and you see water and you keep looking up and you 

    [00:21:18] see 

    [00:21:18] Will: you're never looking up. Waves are not vertical. Like a, a big 

    [00:21:21] Rod: wave

    [00:21:22] But if you're at the bottom of it, then you can look up at 

    [00:21:24] it.

    [00:21:24] Will: here for a video podcast people, you know, we're putting some angles on this.

    [00:21:27] Rod: Yeah. I've moved my hand and Will's moved his hand as well.

    [00:21:30] Will: I, just, I've seen some big waves. 

    [00:21:32] Rod: a wave. Mm. 

    [00:21:33] Will: But, I'm like, yes. Somewhere between zero and 30 infinity of any unit.

    [00:21:38] Like, I got nothing.

    [00:21:40] Rod: See your experienced sea captains, French or otherwise, okay. They, they know how to do it. Yeah. Okay. They know how to do it.

    [00:21:46] So he, says, yeah, about a hundred feet. not only was he dismissed, even the French PM at the time said bullshit.

    [00:21:51] Will: The French pm

    [00:21:51] Rod: the Prime Minister, 

    [00:21:52] Will: The prime minister weighed in self. Nah, this 

    [00:21:55] guy, no, 

    [00:21:55] Rod: in, he's an idiot. Stick to plants and drawing pictures of where you had 

    [00:21:58] Will: lunch.

    [00:21:59] Why does the Prime [00:22:00] Minister weigh in?

    [00:22:00] Rod: I don't know.

    [00:22:01] French PMs don't think a lot of time on their 

    [00:22:03] Will: house. Maybe it's like a shock. Jock said, what do you reckon about the a hundred foot wave?

    [00:22:07] Rod: See he's bullshit.

    [00:22:08] Will: Like they're just asking questions, so.

    [00:22:09] Yeah,

    [00:22:09] Rod: yeah, exactly. Just curious. So why did people not believe him? This is back to what you said about the scientist, the standard linear models that oceanographers engineers and meteor meteorologists used to predict wave heights ruled out the possibility.

    [00:22:21] The model said no, it's not possible.

    [00:22:23] So the model said it couldn't exist, so of course it 

    [00:22:25] Will: Yeah.

    [00:22:26] But Rutherford, I think Rutherford's got things to say here.

    [00:22:29] Rod: Didn't he do something with retorts?

    [00:22:32] Will: Retorts, no. Rutherford 

    [00:22:33] Rod: in

    [00:22:34] anon 

    [00:22:34] Will: burner.

    [00:22:35] No,

    [00:22:35] Rod: No, we'll get to Rutherford. Well, I dunno anything about Rutherford in this, this is about rogue waves, 

    [00:22:39] Will: man.

    [00:22:39] Rod: So anyway, there were very few white witness accounts at the time. Probably 'cause most people didn't live to come back and tell you about the rogue

    [00:22:47] Will: Yeah, 

    [00:22:47] it's a

    [00:22:47] survivor, 

    [00:22:48] bi. An anti survivor

    [00:22:49] Rod: Yeah. Yeah. Like I've got a wooden boat and some canvas sheets 

    [00:22:52] and I'm honking 

    [00:22:53] Will: It's like why Kalu could still be down in the southern 

    [00:22:56] Rod: ocean.

    [00:22:56] Not could. 

    [00:22:56] Will: could. Yeah. Well kills everyone that comes close. It's [00:23:00] like we got no, can't have 

    [00:23:01] Rod: evidence,

    [00:23:01] Prove it. Show me who's seen you. Yeah, yeah. Well this is similar. So then in the 20th century we get the steel hold boats. More people start surviving. They come back and go, no, no, seriously, man, that was really big.

    [00:23:11] Like we were worried. But then the first scientific article about them, and they called them freak waves. It was in 1964. So it's the first time I really started talking about Scottish oceanographer, Lawrence d Draper, So basically he was looking at analyses made by British weather ships in the North Atlantic and at that time the highest wave.

    [00:23:29] The highest rogue 

    [00:23:30] Will: the catch and weather.

    [00:23:31] Rod: They're catching 

    [00:23:32] Will: weather.

    [00:23:32] I mean

    [00:23:33] for Ingle I think they could catch fish at the same time.

    [00:23:35] 'cause I 

    [00:23:36] Rod: think 

    [00:23:36] that's, 

    [00:23:36] Nope. Weather only. This is demarcation. 

    [00:23:40] Will: I feel like that's what a fishing boat is doing. Like catching some weather and catching 

    [00:23:43] Rod: some

    [00:23:44] no, it's a weather boat. We are only here for weather.

    [00:23:46] If you catch a fish, you gotta put it back and if it dies, it's on you, comes outta your pay. the highest wave they recorded was about 20 meters, so 67 ish feet. So that's in the sixties. So Draper writes in 71, far from [00:24:00] ridiculing the old sailors stories about enormous waves. Modern researchers confirmed that such monsters can occur and that wave heights can exceed by an appreciable amount, the maximum values which have been accepted in responsible circles.

    [00:24:14] So shut up your modeling bullshit 

    [00:24:15] Will: heads

    [00:24:16] in responsible 

    [00:24:16] Rod: circles. Yeah.

    [00:24:17] So it's like, fuck off your wankers. Basically your models are garbage. And stop believing that what you think is just absolutely true. I think that's the paraphrase.

    [00:24:24] Will: Yeah. 

    [00:24:25] Rod: So to summarize, a rogue wave will surge out of nowhere often in an unpredictable direction.

    [00:24:31] And it can look basically just like a great big steep wall of water. And the technical definition of one is any wave. More than twice the height of the waves surrounding it. Yeah. So that's a rogue wave. Yeah, that's fine. More than twice the height.

    [00:24:42] Will: That's like skys scrap mark. Yeah,

    [00:24:43] Rod: Yeah. Any, any building that's at least twice the height of the buildings around

    [00:24:46] Will: Yeah. I think that's the

    [00:24:47] Rod: That is, that's what all architects 

    [00:24:48] Will: say, 

    [00:24:49] Rod: but the first real measurement of a rogue wave wasn't until January, 

    [00:24:53] Will: What's your real here?

    [00:24:55] Rod: Well, they use a laser detector.

    [00:24:56] Good.

    [00:24:57] You 

    [00:24:57] know. No, 

    [00:24:58] they actually did

    [00:24:59] Will: Okay, [00:25:00] good. Attached to what And

    [00:25:01] Rod: A drill platform. The drought in our 

    [00:25:03] Will: you go. You got something plugged into the ground

    [00:25:05] Rod: just sits at a level. Yes. And then you got your laser and it goes, huh? Big ass 

    [00:25:10] Will: wave

    [00:25:10] Shit. That wave's 

    [00:25:11] Rod: house. Yeah. A lot. About a hundred miles off the coast, Norway, 160 kilometers. The platform was built to withstand a wave of about 19 and a half, 20 meters that they thought probabilistically would occur once every say 10,000 years

    [00:25:24] because fuck it, why not?

    [00:25:25] Sure, sure.

    [00:25:27] I wanna say, uh, let's say 10,000 years. It can't be that often. It's a rogue. How often do you see a 

    [00:25:33] Will: a road. 

    [00:25:34] Rod: So the one that hit them was 26 meters, not 19

    [00:25:38] Will: Not 19 Bit bigger than 

    [00:25:39] 19. Yeah.

    [00:25:40] Rod: Yeah. Um,

    [00:25:41] Will: 26 meters. It is a lot of water. That is a lot. Like if you think the room that you are in right now, 

    [00:25:46] listener, like 

    [00:25:47] it's probably

    [00:25:48] Rod: maybe two.

    [00:25:48] Two and a 

    [00:25:49] Will: It's

    [00:25:49] probably not 26 

    [00:25:50] Rod: high.

    [00:25:51] No, it'd be less anyway, So this thing was more than, 25% higher than they were expecting. But not a lot of serious damage.

    [00:25:57] Will: Hey, there you go.

    [00:25:58] Rod: So that's pretty good oil [00:26:00] platform,

    [00:26:00] and in this case mercifully. So,

    [00:26:01] Will: yeah.

    [00:26:02] Well, fair enough.

    [00:26:03] Rod: So at the time, the drop in a wave named after the 

    [00:26:06] Will: platform they gave it a name? 

    [00:26:07] Rod: Yeah, after the platform dropping 

    [00:26:08] Will: them. 

    [00:26:08] Rod: But

    [00:26:09] Will: how do you tell 'em apart?

    [00:26:09] Rod: Well, , the accent, the time, the place, you ask them their name. So this wave defied all previous models that any scientist would put together about possibilities for rogue waves.

    [00:26:19] So that was in 95. Then in 2000 from the company that owned the platform, stat Oil, they put out a paper saying, look, far from being ultra rare, rogue waves were more likely frequent or more frequent, sorry, than previously believed in prior models, which has been confirmed

    [00:26:33] Will: one once in 

    [00:26:34] Rod: meters. Yeah, a bit less than that, apparently more often.

    [00:26:37] And the same year, a British boat recorded a 95 foot rogue wave, 29 meters off the coast of Scotland. And none of the theoretical models predicted such a wave under the conditions that they saw 

    [00:26:48] Will: than me. I just, I knew, So all the moles were horseshit. This is in pre 2000.

    [00:26:52] Rod: Okay. So they went from, none of this stuff was predicted by the models at the time. The,, wisdom that came then that there could be as many as 10 rogue waves [00:27:00] shazaming around the world's oceans at any one 

    [00:27:01] time.

    [00:27:02] Will: 10,

    [00:27:02] Rod: 10 to which I

    [00:27:03] Will: at any one 

    [00:27:03] Rod: time.

    [00:27:04] based on what?

    [00:27:04] Will: what?

    [00:27:06] Rod: Okay. 

    [00:27:06] Will: just wandering around.

    [00:27:07] Rod: Just all that. There's

    [00:27:09] Will: I like that.

    [00:27:10] Rod: I think it's garbage too. 'cause I reckon it's probably more because they're always more conservative because they don't want people 

    [00:27:14] Will: freaking out 11. 

    [00:27:15] Rod: Exactly. But that would freak people out. That would scare the

    [00:27:19] Will: publish your paper, I reckon. 

    [00:27:20] Rod: 11, 12. I

    [00:27:22] how far could this go? But anyway, so a lot more than one every 10,000 years.

    [00:27:27] Constantly at least 10 around the world's oceans. So that's 2000, 2007. So the National Ocean Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, Noah, they put together a list of the 50 historical maritime incidents they thought were most likely due to rogue waves. They went, hang on, let's look back a bit here. Titanic, probably 

    [00:27:45] Will: No,

    [00:27:45] Lucit, Tania? 

    [00:27:46] Rod: Yeah, no, no. The 

    [00:27:48] Will: um, the U-boat. 

    [00:27:49] Rod: Yep. 

    [00:27:50] Dust. Dust board.

    [00:27:51] Will: Yeah. Dust boat.

    [00:27:52] Rod: Dust boat definitely is an old wave

    [00:27:54] Will: hunt in October.

    [00:27:56] Rod: Yeah. Yeah. The crazy Ivan top, [00:28:00] top of the hour. He always pulls a crazy Ivan, come on, do his research. So they were saying just one example was, um, there was a mysterious loss of a bunch of ships.

    [00:28:06] One was the, uh, the cargo ship, Ms.

    [00:28:09] Will: Ms. Min, is that like a Bermuda Triangle thing? Like 

    [00:28:12] Yes. 

    [00:28:12] I, I feel 

    [00:28:13] Rod: like

    [00:28:13] that's what this turns 

    [00:28:14] Will: into. 

    [00:28:15] Rod: It's not your Sargasso 

    [00:28:16] Will: we solved the Bermuda 

    [00:28:17] Rod: train. Yeah. Rug wave more than every 10,000 years. So the minion in 1978, they thought it was unsinkable. Sounds 

    [00:28:25] Will: familiar.

    [00:28:25] No, it's great to say that.

    [00:28:27] Rod: Never,

    [00:28:28] Will: It.

    [00:28:29] Rod: this boat's unsinkable. I'm not getting on it. I'm not gonna get on the harbor.

    [00:28:32] Will: No, I'm, I'm totally like, that is so cool. Like, the instance someone has declared it unsinkable. It was like, let's, we're in for a ride here. This is gonna be a full on what's the, what's the movie where the, where the boat tips over and they have to cut outta the 

    [00:28:42] Rod: hole Poseidon 

    [00:28:43] Will: Poseidon like, that's what we're going 

    [00:28:45] Rod: for.

    [00:28:45] But the original not, not the remake. The original was Shelly Winters.

    [00:28:49] Will: Shelly Wi Who's that?

    [00:28:50] Rod: She was a star with the Poseidon Adventure along with, I don't know, a bunch of rat 

    [00:28:53] Will: actors. Clark. Yeah. It was a rat pack 

    [00:28:55] Rod: Dude. Clark Cable.

    [00:28:56] Will: I dunno, I don't dunno. Your actors from back in your 

    [00:28:58] Rod: time.

    [00:28:59] It's a [00:29:00] minimum. This is between the 

    [00:29:00] Will: times. 

    [00:29:04] Rod: So they thought it was unsinkable, but the ship and the entire crew were lost at sea. And the only, wreckage or remnant was a single lifeboat from the starboard side that was found floating wreckage form no people. And that was the first 

    [00:29:17] Will: and one Ishmael, like, like at the end of Moby 

    [00:29:19] Rod: Dick.

    [00:29:20] Yeah. Just, just

    [00:29:20] Will: one guy saying, you know, this is what 

    [00:29:22] Rod: happened. It's

    [00:29:23] me. No, no one. And it was the only, it's the first physical evidence of the force, of a rogue wave. Because they rec, that's what they reckon. The damage to the lifeboat was that because of where it was sitting on the boat, they reckoned that means the ship was probably hit by a wave that was about 20 meters high because of where it was sitting on the thing.

    [00:29:38] So that was 2000, that was 1978, but they talked about 2007. So just flashing forward November, 2020, a freak wave lifts a lone boy off the coast of British Columbia. So freak wave makes this a lone boiler. I'm a lone boy. Anyway, off the coast, British Columbia, 17.6 meters they reckon. And it was dubbed the you clue lit wave. You SL let you Euclid [00:30:00] wave from the 

    [00:30:00] Will: area.

    [00:30:00] You should have practiced that one.

    [00:30:02] Rod: So a physicist from Uni Victoria says, look, proportionally this wave is likely the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded.

    [00:30:08] Not because of its absolute height, but because of its relative height to the waves around it. 'cause it was probably three times higher rather than year. Two times DA in a wave. The original one on the 

    [00:30:17] platform. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

    [00:30:18] So triple, so only a few rogue waves in high sea states have ever been observed directly at this point.

    [00:30:24] This is 2020,

    [00:30:26] so they're like, holy fuck, this is unusual. So yeah, in 2020 there's also a study that predicted that wave heights in the North Pacific will increase with climate change. So sweet, sweet as hell. So this you include wave, might not hold its record for very long, which is excellent. Oh, and also there might be super rogue waves.

    [00:30:43] Will: Super rogue 

    [00:30:44] Rod: waves.

    [00:30:44] Fuck yeah. 

    [00:30:45] So they're the ones that save humanity by defending us against other 

    [00:30:49] things 

    [00:30:49] Will: turn,

    [00:30:50] they turn good volcanoes.

    [00:30:51] In the end they turn good.

    [00:30:52] Rod: There's a volcano. Super rove wag will 

    [00:30:54] Will: fix 

    [00:30:54] it. What is, is, is this like a rogue wave combined with a tsunami or 

    [00:30:57] Rod: something?

    [00:30:57] It's just fucking mega waves, I [00:31:00] reckon.

    [00:31:00] Like there are scientists from a NU our own or former current Australian national University, Hamburg, university of Tech and University of Terrain. They demonstrated the possibility of these 2012 using a Lego pirate ship. I love it's all Lego pirate ship, not the ship, pirate 

    [00:31:13] Will: ship.

    [00:31:13] No, that's what

    [00:31:14] Rod: you do.

    [00:31:14] Of course you do. You've decorate it.

    [00:31:16] So yeah, they proved that you could get waves. They used this in a fish tank. They published this and they said, look, it could get bigger. And there was research in 2024 suggested these waves could be up to four times higher than previously thought 

    [00:31:28] Will: possible.

    [00:31:29] Oh, I thought that.

    [00:31:30] Rod: and what I'm not sure about, if four times higher means four times higher than what was previously thought, which is at least twice the height of the world 

    [00:31:36] Will: around 

    [00:31:36] it. Mm-hmm. 

    [00:31:37] Rod: Which means eight times higher, or do they just mean they can go to four 

    [00:31:40] Will: times or as high as anyone thought previous ever. Like, everyone's like some guy 

    [00:31:44] Rod: well,

    [00:31:44] 2 million 

    [00:31:45] Will: French guy says a hundred foot. And, it's like 400

    [00:31:47] foot, 400 at 

    [00:31:48] least. And

    [00:31:48] then we can go, well we thought that and now 

    [00:31:50] 1600 foot.

    [00:31:51] Yeah. 

    [00:31:52] Rod: Which is about 19 

    [00:31:53] Will: just doing multiplication here. 

    [00:31:55] Rod: You're good at 

    [00:31:55] Will: at this. 

    [00:31:56] Rod: So the takeaway message for me is never leave the land ever.

    [00:31:59] And actually [00:32:00] don't even go near the water's edge, even near lakes, because I didn't get into this, but some of the big lakes, like the Great Lakes, even they have them 

    [00:32:06] too. Yeah. 

    [00:32:06] Rogue waves.

    [00:32:08] Will: Okay. Okay. Here I'll give you a bit of, why I'm saying Rutherford. Rutherford obviously did some key experiments in the early 20th century that, uh, demonstrated that light behaved both of as a particle and wave.

    [00:32:20] Rod: what

    [00:32:20] Will: But what the gold experiment is one of them. But the point being that a wave combines so any type of wave, whether, whether it is light or sound or water and other.

    [00:32:34] Misc guess. Uh, I know you need to, the emotion, you could have a wave in emotions. Like a, a Mexican wave 

    [00:32:42] Rod: is

    [00:32:43] a and they can combine.

    [00:32:44] Will: Yeah. So what this is, is the particles themselves don't move except they don't move forward or backwards, but they move in a pattern that makes other particles move. So, so for example, sound is one particle, moves forward a little bit, bangs into the particle next to it, and then that bangs into the particle next to it.

    [00:32:59] So [00:33:00] the energy is

    [00:33:00] Rod: transferring like your Newton's 

    [00:33:02] Will: cradle?

    [00:33:02] Yeah, like in Newton's cradle. So the energy is

    [00:33:04] transferring. similarly, potentially with light if you understand it that way. Sound is a great example. Water is a great example. So water waves, that moving in kind of a circle in a pixel, but the point being that.

    [00:33:15] Rod: that

    [00:33:16] Will: Waves from different sources can combine. Yes. So what they're doing is you get a wave that might be whatever it is, 10 centimeters high, and then when they overlap, they get to 20 centimeters high. And if you get conditions right, then you can overlap and overlap and overlap so you get really high rogue waves.

    [00:33:32] So all of this whole, it was unpredictable, impossible to there. There are a lot of models of wave physics that say waves combine. Just because we haven't seen them doesn't mean that we can't imagine 

    [00:33:44] Rod: that 

    [00:33:45] happening

    [00:33:45] and that has come up or did come up in some of the stuff I read, but it didn't come up until remarkably 

    [00:33:49] Will: late.

    [00:33:49] That's weird. We 

    [00:33:50] Rod: And by late, I mean this century.

    [00:33:53] Will: the 21st. Yes.

    [00:33:55] Rod: For those of you listening in the future,

    [00:33:56] Will: Christ,

    [00:33:57] ​

    [00:33:59] Will: a bunch of [00:34:00] very helpful scientists. 

    [00:34:02] they're from, uh,

    [00:34:02] New York University, robotics researchers.

    [00:34:05] Mm-hmm. and they've released, 3D printable e flesh.

    [00:34:10] Rod: Oh, I

    [00:34:12] Will: So anyone who wants

    [00:34:13] can, 

    [00:34:13] Rod: I put it, ask, asking for a friend? Could I put it on a, uh, replica of a human?

    [00:34:19] Will: could?

    [00:34:20] Rod: Anywhere on the replica of the human?

    [00:34:23] Will: You definitely could. You de so 

    [00:34:25] Rod: good to, I'll, I'll, I'll 

    [00:34:26] Will: the point that they, they have, they've released the source code 

    [00:34:29] Rod: here E 

    [00:34:29] Will: that even flesh, 

    [00:34:30] if you have a 3D printer, you can print out some e flesh, whenever you want.

    [00:34:36] Rod: And

    [00:34:36] what do you mean by, you mean meat? You can print human skin 

    [00:34:39] Will: meat.

    [00:34:40] Rod: no

    [00:34:40] human meat?

    [00:34:41] Will: No. No. Okay. Okay. So the point here of efl, and I just like this story in part because it's a nice innovation and in second part, because this is a nice, generous thing that these people are doing. Yeah. But in third part, the name EFL is just

    [00:34:56] Rod: Yeah. Like what does I'm, I'm, what does that mean?[00:35:00] 

    [00:35:00] Will: okay. Okay. What does flesh mean to you?

    [00:35:02] Rod: Well, I don't, I don't, I don't wanna tell you.

    [00:35:03] Will: Well, what are the bits of flesh like? You know, you can,

    [00:35:05] Rod: tell 

    [00:35:06] me.

    [00:35:06] Your muscle, your fats, Your 

    [00:35:07] Will: meat. Yeah. What are they do? What are they doing. 

    [00:35:09] Rod: They're, they're making me feel good.

    [00:35:11] Will: Making you feel good, making you feel good.

    [00:35:14] Rod: They're holding my organs in,

    [00:35:16] Will: your organ. It's just a wrapper for

    [00:35:18] Rod: they're providing a pathway for my blood vessels and noises. Flesh to me is like, a stake. Is 

    [00:35:24] Will: flesh.

    [00:35:25] a steak? Is flesh. A steak is definitely

    [00:35:27] flesh. Okay.

    [00:35:28] Okay. So there's a lot of work replicating muscles in different ways and

    [00:35:33] obviously robotics, engineers are really trying to find ways that we can, achieve the same things as muscles because muscles are really good.

    [00:35:40] Look at how quickly you 

    [00:35:41] Rod: can 

    [00:35:41] move

    [00:35:41] your Yeah, they're clever muscles are 

    [00:35:43] Will: Like,

    [00:35:43] wow, and you see, you look at these modern robots and they're like some dinky little 

    [00:35:48] Rod: metal

    [00:35:48] A ties finger move.

    [00:35:50] Yeah.

    [00:35:50] Will: This EFL is not about movement, but about sensing. And it does something really, really.

    [00:35:56] It. Well, no, not really. It's the fascinating thing. So [00:36:00] this is 3D printable. Yeah. and you can, use, materials that are available in, all sorts of 3D printers, it's basically in the 

    [00:36:07] Rod: shape your your red, green, blue, yellow, 

    [00:36:09] Will: plastics. Yeah.

    [00:36:11] But what it does is it does the things that flesh does when you're, grabbing something.

    [00:36:15] It's, soft enough that it can grab onto a glass. Yeah., also it senses when it is grabbing onto something, it knows when it's getting touched and it knows when it's getting pressure. It knows when it's got enough pressure 

    [00:36:25] to hold onto. So what it's doing is it's getting a sensor coming through the, through the whole flesh that is coming back to the sensors at the back end of the metal finger 

    [00:36:35] grips 

    [00:36:35] so that it can graphic. And so 

    [00:36:37] Rod: so it's getting, what do you call it, propriocept?

    [00:36:39] No. Prop. Like there's a better 

    [00:36:41] word. It's not touch. Yeah. And that's that, that feedback that says,

    [00:36:44] Will: but yeah, and this is the thing.

    [00:36:45] So, so often, you see, metal clamps with a robot and, it doesn't know when to start and stop. It might go to a certain distance or it might go when it reaches a certain pressure. But these things have both the ability to go softly in, in the way that [00:37:00] flesh 

    [00:37:00] Rod: does

    [00:37:00] and then know when

    [00:37:01] Will: and then no window, and then know when, and, and it can sense throughout a 3D

    [00:37:04] lattice where things are pushing.

    [00:37:06] And I just, I, I look, this is, this is a small story, but it made me feel happy that these, these, that's cool. These people are printing out stuff that can go onto the laser and, and we're gonna get more but

    [00:37:17] Rod: That's cool. That is cool. I'm not upset by that. I was hoping to be.

    [00:37:20] Will: I know, but, do you know, is it a good name or a bad name?

    [00:37:23] Rod: E Flesh is a great name because it'll be adopted by the, pornographic industry, and that means shitloads of money will go into it.

    [00:37:29] I'm only half Jo, and actually, I'm not joking at all. It's true. That sort of stuff will get put into your devices for personal pleasuring

    [00:37:36] Will: look

    [00:37:37] Rod: and, and that will accelerate

    [00:37:39] Will: and pausing.

    [00:37:39] But yeah, there, there is a lot of legitimate devices for personal pleasuring 

    [00:37:43] for 

    [00:37:43] Rod: are, well,

    [00:37:44] for Do what 

    [00:37:44] Will: if you 

    [00:37:45] want.

    [00:37:45] No, no. So well, yeah, do what you want. But no, there's also, you know,

    [00:37:48] I 

    [00:37:49] Rod: there's more, there's therapeutic benefits and other things as well, but what I mean is quite literally like many technologies, if porn can use it, it's gonna get cash and it's gonna get investors.

    [00:37:57] Will: So there you go. That's, efl, you can [00:38:00] download some right now and, make your own in, um, any shape you 

    [00:38:03] Rod: want

    [00:38:04] that I'm not gonna do.

    [00:38:04] Will: do. I don't have 

    [00:38:05] Rod: have a print, I don't have a '

    [00:38:06] Will: cause of your skills.

    [00:38:07] Rod: I don't have the skills. I had a little one here for you. It's a bit of, yay. Feminism. I built it 

    [00:38:13] for 

    [00:38:13] you.

    [00:38:13] Hell yeah.

    [00:38:14] Will: because, I'm gonna tell you a story about a trait that has been billed for a long time.

    [00:38:20] both in, popular literature and

    [00:38:23] unpopular literature.

    [00:38:24] Scientific literature.

    [00:38:25] Rod: That's what I 

    [00:38:26] Will: said. Yeah, Indeed. 

    [00:38:27] Rod: you're right, you're right.

    [00:38:28] Will: As, a blokey trait, a masculine trait. Something that skews more for the boys. And 

    [00:38:33] Rod: happily footy. 

    [00:38:35] Will: Happily it's been claimed back as, 

    [00:38:38] Rod: no. Lady 

    [00:38:38] Will: footy, nah, buddy. Everyone can play. Everyone can play.

    [00:38:42] Do you wanna have a guess?

    [00:38:43] Rod: Is it a sport? No, it's a, character or a physical property.

    [00:38:48] Will: character trait.

    [00:38:49] Rod: Aggression.

    [00:38:50] Will: Aggression.

    [00:38:51] Rod: No. Horniness? 

    [00:38:52] Will: No.

    [00:38:53] No. There there would be studies there that

    [00:38:55] Rod: Long, long view,

    [00:38:57] Will: Long view. The long, no

    [00:38:59] Rod: [00:39:00] emotional awareness,

    [00:39:01] Will: Close

    [00:39:02] Rod: anger,

    [00:39:03] Will: autism,

    [00:39:05] that's what I meant,

    [00:39:06] has been historically viewed as a condition that affects men and boys 

    [00:39:09] more 

    [00:39:10] frequently than women 

    [00:39:11] Rod: and 

    [00:39:11] girls.

    [00:39:11] but women are taken back 

    [00:39:12] the night.

    [00:39:14] Will: take. Well

    [00:39:14] Rod: Well done. You

    [00:39:16] Will: the DSM five. The diagnostic and statistical manual. Number 

    [00:39:21] Rod: five,

    [00:39:21] not five 

    [00:39:22] RI don't dunno about that. Could

    [00:39:24] be R

    [00:39:25] Will: Yeah, like there's been a few diagnostic and statistical

    [00:39:28] Rod: There have been one 

    [00:39:29] Will: or 

    [00:39:29] two, and

    [00:39:29] number five is just the one that I'm quoting from 

    [00:39:31] Rod: now.

    [00:39:31] Mm-hmm. 

    [00:39:32] Um, 

    [00:39:33] Will: says that for every four males diagnosed with autism four, only one female receives a diagnosis.

    [00:39:40] Rod: So they're being ripped off.

    [00:39:41] Will: yes or no,

    [00:39:43] Rod: diagnosis. Now 

    [00:39:45] we wanna vote and we want diagnoses.

    [00:39:48] Will: Maybe

    [00:39:49] not one maybe. So it's pretty well established in the psychiatric psychological literature out there that autism has been a 

    [00:39:56] Rod: condition

    [00:39:57] it's been considered boys.

    [00:39:58] Yeah, it's 

    [00:39:58] been, it's a boy

    [00:39:59] thing, boys thing. [00:40:00] Yeah, 

    [00:40:00] Will: Uh, and the rates were about four to one. So for every four boys that are diagnosed, there's one girl. So it's just rare, right? Not non-existent, but just rarer to be diagnosed 

    [00:40:10] Rod: in girls.

    [00:40:10] Yeah.

    [00:40:11] Will: But the Kalinski Institute in Sweden. Love them. They always do great 

    [00:40:17] Rod: stuff.

    [00:40:17] they do some of the freakiest shit and they haven't done for 

    [00:40:19] Will: haven't done for years.

    [00:40:20] But they're, I mean, a great institute of epidemiology, public health like you know, they, just did

    [00:40:25] Rod: teeth studies stuff to do with bums. Autism,

    [00:40:28] Will: I dunno about the bums.

    [00:40:29] Rod: Oh, they do butt work.

    [00:40:30] The Catalina in Kaska Institute butt studies. Famous.

    [00:40:35] Will: dunno if that's true. I dunno that you shouldn't say 

    [00:40:37] Rod: things 

    [00:40:37] like

    [00:40:38] look it up, get back to us 

    [00:40:39] Will: along. I, don't know. I dunno. Now, now probably someone, one person has once done it and then you might be right, but 

    [00:40:45] Rod: you 

    [00:40:45] just, 

    [00:40:47] Will: And look the but is a wide area, so

    [00:40:50] Rod: of yourself.

    [00:40:51] The butt is a wide area. 

    [00:40:52] Will: what they went and did, they went and looked at the medical records of more than 2.7 million Swedish 

    [00:40:57] Rod: folk.

    [00:40:58] Oh damn.

    [00:40:58] Will: Born between 1985 [00:41:00] and 2020. I'm

    [00:41:01] Rod: I'm just gonna say before we get 

    [00:41:02] Will: into 

    [00:41:03] it,

    [00:41:03] how many Swedish folk were born between 1985 and 

    [00:41:05] Rod: 2020?

    [00:41:06] No. Just sweet. They're a particular kind of human carry 

    [00:41:08] on.

    [00:41:09] Will: Yes, indeed. Indeed. Swedes are certainly a particular kind of 

    [00:41:12] Rod: human

    [00:41:13] because for starters, all 

    [00:41:14] babes, 

    [00:41:15] boys, girls, ugly, young, old, all 

    [00:41:17] hot 

    [00:41:17] Will: boys, girls,

    [00:41:18] ugly

    [00:41:18] Rod: boys, girls, young, old. 

    [00:41:20] Will: You said ugly. 

    [00:41:21] Rod: Oh, 

    [00:41:21] I meant other, 

    [00:41:22] Will: I mean, 

    [00:41:22] Rod: even the ugly 

    [00:41:23] Will: ones I, I look, to be honest, all humans, you know, are,

    [00:41:26] Rod: Oh, they, to you they're

    [00:41:27] Will: are lovely, wonderful people, 

    [00:41:28] Rod: beautiful

    [00:41:28] people. No, Swedes are actually pretty

    [00:41:29] Will: Yeah, but, ugly. Are you saying the ugly swes

    [00:41:32] Rod: are, they're still babes. They're better looking than anyone I've ever met in this country.

    [00:41:36] Ever.

    [00:41:37] Will: There you go. There you go. That's, positive

    [00:41:38] Rod: Racism. Study that though. 

    [00:41:39] Carol 

    [00:41:39] Linsky, that's 

    [00:41:40] Will: racism, 

    [00:41:41] Rod: they're not a race, but I see what you're 

    [00:41:43] Will: saying. 

    [00:41:44] Rod: Okay, so 2.7 million

    [00:41:46] Swedes, so 2.7 which is 90% of their 

    [00:41:48] Will: population.

    [00:41:48] , I think it's pretty much probably, I don't have it here. Most of the Swedes born between 1985 and 2 20 20. So we, you know, SW Sweden is a, is a 10 to 20 million, uh, who 

    [00:41:57] Rod: knows.

    [00:41:58] That's 

    [00:41:58] Will: good. King

    [00:41:58] of Sweden once measured [00:42:00] the population of the country and he was deeply depressed by the result.

    [00:42:02] I think 

    [00:42:03] like

    [00:42:04] Rod: one, do you mean like in 10, 

    [00:42:05] Will: 17

    [00:42:06] No, no, not that far back, like 1810 or something like that. He said, let's invent statistics and to invent statistics. We'll measure the population of the country. And he was like, I reckon the population's gonna be like 20 million. And it came back at

    [00:42:17] Rod: at it's 400 si

    [00:42:18] 400. 

    [00:42:19] Will: And he was like, why did I invent you? Like why?

    [00:42:23] Rod: not stats. That's counting.

    [00:42:25] Will: No, that is stats. Like that's what counting is. Stats

    [00:42:28] the science of the state. Anyway, the science of the state is statistics. That's what stat means.

    [00:42:33] Rod: Okay.

    [00:42:34] Will: Anyway, he counted, he was really sad 'cause it wasn't nearly as many as he thought. But anyway, probably 2.7 million. Probably. It's 

    [00:42:40] Rod: probably

    [00:42:40] it's 

    [00:42:40] Will: to It is. Probably all of 'em. '

    [00:42:42] Males were typically diagnosed with autism at much higher rates than females during childhood.

    [00:42:47] Right. But over time, this levels out so that things are pretty much equal.

    [00:42:53] In the, in their first few years.

    [00:42:55] So just to go straight to the results 

    [00:42:57] here. Yeah. 

    [00:42:58] When they're first getting diagnosed, it is [00:43:00] close to like four to one. and most diagnoses happen in childhood. so when kids are like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, there's a whole bunch more boys that are getting

    [00:43:08] Rod: diagnosed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    [00:43:09] Will: But over the long 

    [00:43:11] Rod: haul, 

    [00:43:12] Will: it evens out and it becomes, from teenage years, it starts to even out.

    [00:43:16] And then into the twenties and thirties it becomes basically women are getting diagnosed way more at that point, so that over the lifespan. It's about one to one. So it's not, a boy thing at all. And finally, I mean, this has been a suspicion that many people have

    [00:43:30] had 

    [00:43:31] Rod: it's when they're diagnosing, they don't bother to check 20 or they

    [00:43:34] Will: this is the question.

    [00:43:35] So this involves both cohort effects, so we're going back to 1985, so there was different diagnoses back in the 1990s compared to 2000. So, there's a few things going on there like that. But the suspicion at the result of this study Yeah. Is that, It's not unreasonable to assume on the end results of this, that men and women, boys and girls, males and females, all have about the same rates of autism going 

    [00:43:59] Rod: [00:44:00] on.

    [00:44:00] Fuck 

    [00:44:00] Will: it is not a male, condition. It just seems to be through a variety of reasons. Potentially noticed more in boys, potentially. You know, it could be things like, one of the indicators is linguistic ability, social ability. they can be hiring girls, particularly in 

    [00:44:17] Rod: the, the, youngers 

    [00:44:18] Will: in the, in the childhood sort of era.

    [00:44:20] So 

    [00:44:20] Rod: or more to the

    [00:44:21] point lower in boys.

    [00:44:22] Will: and lower in boys. Yeah. So we are noticing it more in boys. Yeah. There's there's a bunch of different things. It could be that the way autism manifests is just not seen in girls. It could be that teachers aren't primed to look for it in girls, they see a certain thing and they're like, okay, I can see 

    [00:44:38] Rod: that Of course

    [00:44:38] you'd have that bias. It's like, well, she knows what's going on 'cause she's a girl. This boy's obviously gonna be a duning idiot because emotions are broken for boys anyway. Expectations

    [00:44:47] Will: Yeah. Yeah. So expectations, yeah. Yeah. Would be part of that. But I think it's a fascinating result to say, actually, whilst we have both a stereotype in society and we literally have a diagnostic bias

    [00:44:59] Yeah,

    [00:44:59] To [00:45:00] assume that it is more boys, males, men, that actually, if we are just looking, and this is just looking at,, a signed at birth, you 

    [00:45:07] Rod: know, 

    [00:45:08] simple ideas of

    [00:45:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    [00:45:10] Will: that it's actually, probably in both, genders there equally.

    [00:45:15] Rod: this where, this is where we say, ladies, you're welcome.

    [00:45:17] Will: Yeah. Yay. Feminism.

    [00:45:18] Rod: I agree. 

    [00:45:19] Will: Everyone can be part of the tent. what do we do about that? enjoy, embrace, 

    [00:45:23] embrace, embrace, embrace.

    [00:45:24] embrace. There you go. 

    [00:45:25] ​

    [00:45:27] Rod: now look, I'm calling this a physics fight, but it's more like 

    [00:45:29] a 

    [00:45:30] slow burn impending physics fight Pitch is made from the leftovers of the byproducts of distilling crude oil. So you got this gunky, heavy goo or 

    [00:45:38] like 

    [00:45:39] Will: it's, the crappy bits at the bottom. You can't, you can use it for roads and 

    [00:45:43] Rod: shit, 

    [00:45:43] but

    [00:45:43] you can't, you 

    [00:45:43] Will: run, you can't run a plane 

    [00:45:45] Rod: on it.

    [00:45:45] No. And you can't drink it, which only once.

    [00:45:47] Will: or not even very slowly

    [00:45:49] Rod: drinking. Yeah. It'd be like drinking 

    [00:45:50] Will: rocks,

    [00:45:51] I think. Yes. the challenge with drinking it is not what it does when it gets to your stomach. It's the 

    [00:45:54] get, it's 

    [00:45:55] the getting 

    [00:45:55] it into your mouth.

    [00:45:56] Rod: Like try and get it there. So if you hit it at, like, if you get [00:46:00] a chunk of pitch at room tone, which you hit it with a hammer, it'll shatter like 

    [00:46:02] Will: a Yeah, like 

    [00:46:03] Rod: yeah, like glass, like a rock. But it's actually technically a 

    [00:46:06] liquid.

    [00:46:07] Will: Yes. Proved by friends of mine, the University of Queensland.

    [00:46:11] Oh, that's coming

    [00:46:12] We are very keen on

    [00:46:13] this one. Get taught this. We land in the university in, in first year undergraduate.

    [00:46:16] And

    [00:46:17] no 

    [00:46:17] matter your 

    [00:46:17] Rod: English. I'm gonna tell you 

    [00:46:18] Will: about this.

    [00:46:19] no matter the discipline, this is our favorite 

    [00:46:21] Rod: thing,

    [00:46:21] I have to say. I'm not shocked to hear this. And for those of you who dunno what the fuck he's talking about. Hold on. A what? A wild road. So. It turns out, although it is actually a liquid, it was apparently not easy to convince students of this back in the 1920s.

    [00:46:33] Will: Yeah. 'cause they would 

    [00:46:33] Rod: obviously

    [00:46:34] at the Union of 

    [00:46:35] Will: you know, they were obviously No way. No 

    [00:46:36] Rod: way.

    [00:46:37] That is not a liquid, sir.

    [00:46:38] Will: there

    [00:46:38] was no multiple hundred people debates about

    [00:46:40] Rod: this.

    [00:46:41] At least I I actually think Brisbane got destroyed.

    [00:46:44] Will: There was a riot. Yeah. There's definitely 

    [00:46:45] Rod: Like this professor

    [00:46:46] Will: pitch is a liquid riot. Yeah,

    [00:46:48] Rod: Yeah, it was

    [00:46:49] Will: exactly. What happened?

    [00:46:49] Rod: Exactly what happened. So, um, 1927, a Cambridge graduate veteran of World War I and the first UQ physics professor, a guy called Thomas Parnell. He wanted to show his students that if 

    [00:46:59] Will: you

    [00:46:59] I [00:47:00] studied in the Parnell 

    [00:47:00] Rod: building.

    [00:47:01] did you really?

    [00:47:02] I did. Did you do physics? 

    [00:47:04] Yeah. 

    [00:47:04] Fuck. You're so science. Yeah.

    [00:47:06] Last winded physics was 

    [00:47:07] Will: before that. 

    [00:47:08] Rod: The past. So he wanted to show his students that if you watched pitch for long enough, it would flow like a liquid. So he takes a glass funnel, a sealed bottom on it, pour some pitch in, and he waits. This is in 

    [00:47:20] Will: 1926. You say pour, but he's heated 

    [00:47:23] Rod: it 

    [00:47:23] up

    [00:47:23] Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. He put it in. Sits it there. Yeah, he's, In placed pitch in this glass funnel that's sealed at the bottom leaves for three years until it kind of gets down towards the stem or like, or settles. 1930, he cuts the bottom of the stem.

    [00:47:37] Will: When did he start?

    [00:47:38] Rod: he put it in in 1927. In 1930. Actually cuts the bottom off the stem to let the pitch flow.

    [00:47:43] Will: Mm indeed.

    [00:47:44] Rod: So the pitch drop 

    [00:47:45] Will: I hope there was like a parade. Let the pitch flow.

    [00:47:48] Rod: really was like there, there were nudist and acrobats. It was 

    [00:47:51] Will: amazing. Yeah.

    [00:47:52] Queensland was famous for nudist and acrobats in the 1930s.

    [00:47:55] Still is 

    [00:47:55] Rod: Job Biel Peterson was in charge in the 1930s, 

    [00:47:58] Will: I think he?

    [00:47:58] started in the [00:48:00] 1830s

    [00:48:00] Rod: and went through to 

    [00:48:02] Will: 1988 

    [00:48:03] Rod: to until expo.

    [00:48:04] Will: Yeah. Of course he made it to 

    [00:48:05] Rod: expo.

    [00:48:06] He did. So did this experiment. So, 

    [00:48:08] Will: no longer, 

    [00:48:09] Rod: oh, I hadn't finished. I know. So, um, the thing with pitch is. It's depending on the temperature in the room, it's in a hundred billion times thicker than water, which is a lot thicker than water.

    [00:48:21] A hundred billion is a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot.

    [00:48:24] Will: So

    [00:48:24] Rod: meant when you say to your students, if you wait long enough, you'll watch 

    [00:48:27] it.

    [00:48:27] Will: And students are known for their 

    [00:48:29] Rod: patients.

    [00:48:29] They really are. And so long enough is quite long. So it cuts the thing in 20, in 1930, the first drop actually pooped out of it in 1938.

    [00:48:37] Yeah. Cool.

    [00:48:38] So eight years, boom. And

    [00:48:40] so, 

    [00:48:40] Will: but it, it's a drop,

    [00:48:41] Rod: It dropped. It dropped. Now I think obviously most of the students who were there for the original opening of this, you know, probably died by then.

    [00:48:48] Will: Eight 

    [00:48:48] Rod: years

    [00:48:48] of boredom. 

    [00:48:49] Will: years is not the

    [00:48:50] Rod: This is not the Queensland years. That's about 50 in normal years.

    [00:48:53] 'cause I think It's

    [00:48:54] pretty rough up there. Particularly in the early 

    [00:48:56] Will: twenties. Yeah. But we're staring at the sun more.

    [00:48:58] Rod: We should. '

    [00:48:58] cause you know it's gonna come and [00:49:00] get 

    [00:49:00] Will: you. 

    [00:49:00] Rod: So that was 1938, first drop. 1961. Three drops later. Yeah.

    [00:49:04] A new lecturer, a guy called John Manston takes over the experiment after a colleague said, oh, there's this thing in the corner gathering dust.

    [00:49:11] Is it?

    [00:49:11] Will: Was it gathering dust?

    [00:49:12] Rod: Apparently he was sort of sitting in a cupboard. Just, well, not 

    [00:49:15] Will: loping,

    [00:49:15] Yeah. But I, get, you know, it's a university. They're like, well, nothing's happening with that, but don't throw it 

    [00:49:20] Rod: out

    [00:49:20] Yeah, we got this and a particle accelerator. Which thing do you wanna play 

    [00:49:23] Will: with

    [00:49:24] Well, or more just don't throw shit out '

    [00:49:25] Rod: cause,

    [00:49:26] Yeah, don't throw shit out. Not in the physics 

    [00:49:27] Will: it's, not to, you know, not to tell stories about where we have both worked, but you know, you know, there's the cupboard full of stuff that, may contain some contraband, 

    [00:49:36] you 

    [00:49:36] Rod: and things from the 

    [00:49:38] Will: past.

    [00:49:38] Yeah. Things from the past.

    [00:49:39] Rod: Some of the past had a different OHNS 

    [00:49:41] Will: principles. Indeed, they 

    [00:49:42] Rod: they did. You're right. I've heard, I dunno if that's true. It's unverifiable. So eventually, uh, Mainstone said, let's put this out on display in the university. So this became inactively, you know, you've probably seen 

    [00:49:52] it.

    [00:49:53] Will: I 

    [00:49:53] Rod: totally

    [00:49:53] happy. You've seen it.

    [00:49:54] You've seen it. Okay. 'cause William went to the University of Queensland. so Mainstone was a custodian of this [00:50:00] experiment for 52 years, which is a long time 

    [00:50:01] Will: to

    [00:50:02] ah,

    [00:50:03] Rod: custo. 

    [00:50:04] Will: I mean,

    [00:50:04] Rod: I mean, 

    [00:50:04] Will: it's not doing much. He doesn't have to 

    [00:50:06] Rod: feed

    [00:50:06] his, you don't know how dedicated he

    [00:50:08] Will: doesn't have to, you know, take it for a walk or something every

    [00:50:10] Rod: It's every day though. He checked in on it. So the bummer is he never saw an actual 

    [00:50:15] Will: drop

    [00:50:15] 52. Oh,

    [00:50:17] Rod: that doesn't mean no drops 

    [00:50:18] Will: happened. Drops happened.

    [00:50:18] Rod: He never caught one. So 1979, the sixth drop

    [00:50:22] Will: because as much as you could go, okay. It's getting thinner. It's getting thinner. It could be, is it tonight 

    [00:50:26] Rod: or or 

    [00:50:27] Will: like six 

    [00:50:27] Rod: months

    [00:50:28] 14 years from

    [00:50:29] Will: no doubt.

    [00:50:30] Rod: So yeah. 1979 the sixth drop fell. But it was on a weekend. Obviously. He was at 

    [00:50:34] Will: home.

    [00:50:34] Well indeed, like cooking

    [00:50:35] Has anyone seen a drop? 

    [00:50:37] Rod: drop. Oh 

    [00:50:37] yeah.

    [00:50:37] So it was the sixth drop, seventh drop, 1988 at the Brisbane World Expo.

    [00:50:41] Will: I toed ya. Together. Together just to quote the greatest slogan of Queensland ever.

    [00:50:47] Together we will show the world like you

    [00:50:49] Rod: and you did Look at this,

    [00:50:51] Will: we exist.

    [00:50:52] Rod: Look, world stuff. 

    [00:50:54] Will: thing. It's the most aggressive slogan I've 

    [00:50:57] Rod: ever

    [00:50:57] heard. But also empty.

    [00:50:58] Yeah. Yeah.

    [00:50:59] We'll show [00:51:00] them. 

    [00:51:01] We'll show 

    [00:51:01] ya. We'll show 

    [00:51:02] Will: we'll show you. 

    [00:51:02] Rod: Show ya. Yeah. Bastard. So that was the seventh drop that fell at the 1988 Expo. But Mainstone had popped off to get a drink so he didn't 

    [00:51:09] Will: see 

    [00:51:09] it. 

    [00:51:10] Rod: 2000, he missed the eighth drop because there was a live feed attached to it. But a thunderstorm apparently disrupted the feed. So I assume he's staring at the TV going, Hmm. But he missed it. When the ninth drop fell, April, 2014, there were three webcams on it. There were a whole bunch of people watching online enthusiast.

    [00:51:25] Everyone was, everyone was into it. But Mainstone missed this one 'cause he was a bit dead. He died eight months earlier. Oh.

    [00:51:31] So he never actually saw one 

    [00:51:32] Will: drop

    [00:51:32] in all fairness to him, the actual dropping is probably a very anti climactic moment.

    [00:51:38] Rod: Yeah. 

    [00:51:38] Will: like, can you imagine

    [00:51:39] you, you're all sitting there waiting. You go, you are like, oh, 

    [00:51:42] Rod: oh, this is it. This is, 

    [00:51:43] it. Ding. 

    [00:51:46] Will: Oh yeah. I thought it may sound a little bit more like glass, but anyway,

    [00:51:49] it probably does. It's,

    [00:51:50] not like the thing has a giant orgasm in front of you that you're like, wow, okay. You, you

    [00:51:54] Rod: did. That's long though. Like stingers never orgasm for that long or built that

    [00:51:58] Will: He, no, I think he 

    [00:51:59] Rod: he did

    [00:51:59] Unless he's doing it 

    [00:51:59] Will: [00:52:00] now.

    [00:52:00] I think he 

    [00:52:00] did like the, no, he had a nine year one once

    [00:52:04] Rod: and at the end of it I be, it didn't just go tink

    [00:52:08] sting. 

    [00:52:09] Will: Sting. If you're listening, let us know.

    [00:52:11] Rod: Tell us about your nine year the result. So as of January 19th, this year, 2026, only nine drops have fallen. The last one was 2014.

    [00:52:21] Will: Oh. So we're due, of

    [00:52:22] Rod: of course, 

    [00:52:22] Will: course, overdue. Overdue.

    [00:52:24] Rod: Overdue. 

    [00:52:24] Will: we're running outta pitch at the top. Are are we

    [00:52:26] Rod: No, no, there's no, but there's enough. Okay. There's enough. And it 

    [00:52:31] Will: To, to, no, no. I mean, have you looked at the pictures? Like

    [00:52:34] Rod: I don't look at pictures. this is a verbal 

    [00:52:36] Will: I'm just

    [00:52:36] saying, you know, it's not, it's not 

    [00:52:37] Rod: like

    [00:52:37] it might be running out 

    [00:52:38] Will: kilos a pitch.

    [00:52:39] Rod: It's 

    [00:52:39] like no, no, no. It's a funnel. It's a glass funnel. Yeah. It's not a glass nuclear bunker. Like it's, there's there's not 

    [00:52:46] a lot. Yeah. 

    [00:52:47] also, uh, the rate has slowed since the eighties because they started air conditioning the building. Oh.

    [00:52:53] Will: Ah.

    [00:52:53] Rod: So it started at about one every eight years and then 

    [00:52:55] Will: stuff was tougher

    [00:52:56] after,

    [00:52:56] Rod: after,

    [00:52:58] Will: before

    [00:52:59] Rod: after, before air [00:53:00] conditioning.

    [00:53:00] Things were better, worse now. I said this is about a fight. There was a fight though. So there, there's a brewing fight. So this is built as the world's longest, continually running lab experiment.

    [00:53:10] So the Guinness World Records listed as one, and so do many other sources, including the one that brought this to my attention.

    [00:53:16] Science alert, I believe so. You know, you know, an August credible force. But in 2013

    [00:53:21] Will: it would be hard to make a new experiment in 2013. That was the world's longest.

    [00:53:25] Rod: Oh no it didn't. They didn't make it. But a long forgotten experiment quote with pitch came to light

    [00:53:31] Are serious? Yeah.

    [00:53:32] So there's a glass funnel filled with a heap of ultra viscous pitch at the AB Smith University in Wales.

    [00:53:37] Ab, yeah, AB Smith. And the date on that is April 23rd, 1914, 13 years 

    [00:53:42] Will: older.

    [00:53:43] Suspiciously written date. Just 

    [00:53:44] Rod: there.

    [00:53:45] This is what I'm saying. Like part of me is like, huh. So the pitch is stiffer and so far not a single drop has fallen.

    [00:53:50] Will: Well, there're a stiff pitch country over

    [00:53:52] there. really I mean, 

    [00:53:53] Rod: in 

    [00:53:54] Will: in 

    [00:53:54] Rod: fairness, the Welsh in fairness, it's a bit chillier

    [00:53:55] Will: Wales versus Queensland

    [00:53:57] Rod: Yeah, 

    [00:53:57] they're different. 

    [00:53:58] Different foods accents. [00:54:00] Slightly 

    [00:54:00] Will: diverted. Yeah.

    [00:54:01] Yeah. 

    [00:54:01] Rod: So. Apparently the pitch has barely entered the stem of the funnel, even though it's been there 13 years longer. And the, best estimates are it's unlikely to do its first rip for at least 1300 years. So,

    [00:54:15] Will: So, so,

    [00:54:16] Rod: so what I'm hearing is bizarre physicist desk ornament.

    [00:54:19] I'm not, I'm not 

    [00:54:19] hearing experiment.

    [00:54:20] Will: And people don't throw out stuff a lot more 

    [00:54:23] Rod: there.

    [00:54:23] They really don't because it's whales. look, I agree with you. I sort of thought, is the label true? 

    [00:54:29] Will: Mm. Is 

    [00:54:30] Rod: true? Is it, I don't know. And long forgotten. I mean, the Queensland one's been watched the whole time, so I believe that one.

    [00:54:36] Will: Yeah. Yeah.

    [00:54:37] Rod: But this one not so much.

    [00:54:38] Will: Yeah. 

    [00:54:39] Rod: You know, 

    [00:54:40] Will: I, feel like this is like your, your modern movement in psychology that says you gotta, you gotta push your hypothesis out before you do your study. So you're 

    [00:54:47] not 

    [00:54:47] Rod: peeing. Oh yeah. You don't wanna pee. Well, I dunno if they're pee hacking. I dunno if it's even true. But regardless what this means is there's a disagreement about the longest running lab experiment.

    [00:54:55] And so I say, look to the horizon. And make no mistake, there's a very slow war coming between different [00:55:00] physics departments. Mark my words. It's coming. It might take 1300 

    [00:55:04] Will: years, Love it. 

    [00:55:05] Rod: but it's coming.

    [00:55:06] Will: Hey, one tiny fact about ab with tell me more books per head of population than any other town in the 

    [00:55:12] Rod: world.

    [00:55:12] Is it all the same 

    [00:55:13] book

    [00:55:16] Will: It's just the ma the mayor published his memoirs.

    [00:55:19] Rod: and everyone's got 400 

    [00:55:20] Will: copies? 

    [00:55:21] Rod: No, no.

    [00:55:22] Will: No, no. They've got a, they've got a big international relations like thing. They, they, they love reading books there. They're a book Mad Little Town.

    [00:55:29] Rod: Good for them. So you're attached to both places that are gonna have this brawl.

    [00:55:32] Will: I, never did get to ABT with, but uh,

    [00:55:34] Rod: but you feel like you did.

    [00:55:40] Will: Well, that's been your little bit of science. I just wanted

    [00:55:41] to hit the mailbag.

    [00:55:44] Hit the mailbag from

    [00:55:45] the beautifully named , wisdom, courage. 9 3, 

    [00:55:48] Rod: 6. We encouraged, yeah,

    [00:55:49] Will: Yeah. Wisdom Courage. Nine. This is a great comment that we leave and, and if you leave a good comment, we'd love to read it out.

    [00:55:55] This 

    [00:55:55] Rod: says, oh, we will, the

    [00:55:56] Will: simpy feminist in orange, I was wearing red [00:56:00] at the time, is really annoying on one of our earlier episodes. Too bad because I was enjoying your presentation Rod. Maybe get a different co-host. There seems to be a perceptible difference in intelligence between you 

    [00:56:11] Rod: two.

    [00:56:12] Haven't I always said 

    [00:56:13] that? 

    [00:56:15] I have always said that. The simpy part, definitely

    [00:56:17] Will: send your comments in via YouTube thing or a, or cheers at a little bit of science.com. Do

    [00:56:23] Rod: au. Not 

    [00:56:24] Will: Jesus,

    [00:56:25] not dot Jesus.

    [00:56:26] Rod: That should be a web address though.

    [00:56:27] You should be able to have your like,

    [00:56:28] Will: I don't think Jesus. No Jesus, not Jesus. Do Jesus straight to 

    [00:56:31] Rod: Jesus.

    [00:56:31] I'm gonna set 

    [00:56:32] that 

    [00:56:32] Will: up.

    [00:56:33] Send 'em in, send the reviews and give us, all of 

    [00:56:34] Rod: it. 

    [00:56:35] ​ 

Will Grant
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