Everyone wants to live forever. Dogs are out here getting real jobs. And someone has decided heaven has a postcode, it is just inconveniently located beyond the edge of the observable universe. This week, we are bouncing from life extension to canine biosecurity to cosmic theology, with a quick detour through gelatin-based culinary crimes. Science is a broad church, apparently.

The Quest for Longevity

The internet is full of people selling longevity like it is a subscription service. Ice baths, supplements, expensive clinics, and a man on a podcast insisting he has reversed ageing using nothing but willpower and a blender. But one of the oldest ideas in the book is also one of the strangest. Some research suggests that reducing reproduction can increase lifespan. Yes, really. The logic is that bodies have limited resources, and if you spend less on making offspring, you have more left over for maintenance and repair. It is fascinating, uncomfortable, and full of ethical landmines, which is usually how you know it is real science.

Smart Dogs With Jobs

If you think your dog is impressive because it can sit on command, wait until you meet the working dogs doing actual public service. Some are trained to sniff out invasive species. Others patrol airport runways. Some are even being used in archaeology, because dogs can do everything except file their own tax returns, it seems. One standout is Luna, a biosecurity dog trained to locate fire ant nests. She is basically a furry little customs officer with a nose like a forensic lab. 

Heaven and the Cosmic Horizon

Then we get to the big one. Where is heaven? Not metaphorically. Literally. There is an opinion piece that uses astronomy and physics to argue that heaven might lie beyond our cosmic horizon, the boundary of what we can ever observe. It is the kind of idea that makes you want to laugh, then pause, then accidentally spend an hour thinking about infinity. It does not give you directions, but it does give you a fun excuse to talk about what the universe looks like when you zoom out far enough that philosophy starts elbowing science in the ribs.

Gelatin and Other Crimes Against Food

And because the universe is not complete without a little culinary trauma, we take a moment to appreciate gelatin. Once the crown jewel of dinner parties, now mostly a warning from history. The old recipes are a fever dream of wobbling desserts and savoury moulds that should never have existed. Potato salad suspended in jelly. Meat in a ring. Things that look like they were designed by someone who hated their guests. It is nostalgic, horrifying, and strangely impressive that anyone looked at a trembling loaf of gelatin and thought, yes, this is the future.

We wrap up with listener stories, because reality always has better plot twists than fiction. Including a cow named Veronica who can use a broom as a tool, which raises a lot of questions about what else farm animals are capable of when we are not watching. So that is the week. Live longer, hire a dog, locate heaven, avoid gelatin, and keep sending us your weird little science gems.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction 

00:19 Exploring the Science of Longevity

01:00 Psychology and Climate Action

01:09 Mailbag and Birthday Surprise

01:27 Lifestyle Changes for Longevity

02:47 Reproduction and Longevity

12:58 Dogs with Jobs

21:07 Science Finds Heaven

27:51 Cosmic Horizon and Hubble's Law

29:39 Einstein's Relativity and Speed of Light

31:18 The Mysteries Beyond the Cosmic Horizon

40:49 Veronica the Tool-Using Cow

48:03 Gelatin: A Culinary and Industrial Marvel

54:58 Komodo Dragons and Asexual Reproduction

56:25 Listener Mailbag and Fun Facts

SOURCES:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656622000423

https://futurism.com/health-medicine/conspiracy-theories-psychology

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656622000423

https://futurism.com/health-medicine/men-lifespan-castration

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1109009

https://www.aol.com/articles/heaven-real-science-may-reveal-130016778.html

https://michaelguillen.com

https://www.iflscience.com/we-didnt-even-think-about-looking-broom-wielding-veronika-shows-tool-use-in-cows-isnt-so-absurd-after-all-82260

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9963746/

https://www.nature.com/news/2006/061218/full/news061218-7.html

https://www.rspcaqld.org.au/blog/trending-now/dogs-with-unusual-jobs

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2024/04/05/schizophrenia-hallucinations-psychiatric-assistance-dog/73171229007/

https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2026/01/people-like-the-idea-of-being-green-but-they-hate-being-told-what-to-do-even-more/

• Click Through To The Transcript

  [00:00:01] So there are a shit ton of people who are hunting for longevity hacks. And you know, you knew this, I knew this. Some are pretty solidly science-based. Many are, you know, super modern tech. Wow. Wahoo. Hopefully heaps are pretty expensive. Like in fact, heaps are really expensive and a few are Olympic level insane.

  [00:00:16] And I'm looking at you Brian Johnson. Insane. But what have I told you? There's one that has a few centuries of evidence to support it. It's relatively straightforward, it's not too expensive, and for some humans at least, it only requires a one-off action.

  [00:00:36] It's harder to boogie in a lounge chair 

  [00:00:39] Oh, you're very noisy. You're very, noisy. 

  [00:00:44] It's time for a little bit of science for. will grant associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.

  [00:00:52] I'm Rod Lambert, a, uh, 30 year psych comm veteran the Mind of a Teenage Boy.

  [00:00:57] And today, as well as, uh, longevity [00:01:00] Hacks. We've also got some, uh, psychology on Climate 

  [00:01:03] Action.

  [00:01:03] You've also gonna tell me about science Finding Heaven. Yep. Oh, yep. okay. both got a bit of fun with 

  [00:01:08] animals.

  [00:01:08] Yes, we do. 

  [00:01:09] we do. 

  [00:01:09] And then look, got, I'm gonna hit the mailbag and I've got a little bit of a birthday present for you, rod.

  [00:01:14] Oh.

  [00:01:15] And it's not even my birthday. Is this an late one or an early one?

  [00:01:18] Uh, late and early. for two years. It's 

  [00:01:21] for

  [00:01:21] two years worth.

  [00:01:22] Yeah. It's two 

  [00:01:22] years. You cheap. Fuck it. Better be nice. So how far would you go to increase your functional lifespan?

  [00:01:29] Oh, little bit.

  [00:01:31] get up slightly 

  [00:01:31] earlier Yeah. No, no, I'm down with the exercise. I'm down with the eating the veggies. I'm down with the, you know, minimizing the amount of dries, you know, those kind 

  [00:01:39] Are you only down to a pack a day? 

  [00:01:40] Technical term for international listeners, a RY is a

  [00:01:44] a fag.

  [00:01:45] Don't 

  [00:01:46] that.

  [00:01:46] Cigarette, 

  [00:01:47] yes.

  [00:01:48] Um, so would you do the fasting, you know, you're five two? I'm not against it, but I haven't done, I haven't done No, no thought about it. There's a little bit of thinking about 

  [00:01:55] that, that, uh, as a parent of children, that you don't want to be eaten [00:02:00] too different from your kids in front of them.

  [00:02:02] Well, you wouldn't be, you'd be eating less than them. They'll be all right with that. that.

  [00:02:04] would be different. No, it's a little bit weird where you go, here you go, kids, here's your food. I'm not that.

  [00:02:08] Here's your steak and onions. I've got this piece of lettuce or other way around. You eat that. I'm not gonna, you know, it's not, I, not that I'm poisoning my kids, I just, you know, there's there's a lot of backpedaling going 

  [00:02:17] on. Yeah. Yeah.

  [00:02:18] I mean, you, you

  [00:02:19] I'm not against it, but I just, you know, I haven't 

  [00:02:21] done 

  [00:02:21] that

  [00:02:21] That's not, not, not quite yet. When they're older, you could eat, you know, 45,000 supplements a day.

  [00:02:26] Some supplements, you know, it depends what the supplements do. you, if you're eating vitamin pills, like you've poured them a bowl of corn flakes. Yes. And you're kind of shoveling them with a smoke. 

  [00:02:33] No, 

  [00:02:33] you

  [00:02:34] don't do 

  [00:02:34] do that. 

  [00:02:34] I'm I'm 

  [00:02:35] doing 

  [00:02:35] that. But you live longer maybe.

  [00:02:37] Ah, no.

  [00:02:38] You could sleep at weird and antisocial times.

  [00:02:41] Cut out alcohol.

  [00:02:42] He says with a beer to his lips. How about this? How about having your quote reproduction Curtailed?

  [00:02:47] My reproduction 

  [00:02:48] curtailed? 

  [00:02:49] well, from now on, planning to do anymore, so I have reproduced as I just said. So,

  [00:02:56] This is recent study in in nature. Nature's [00:03:00] a big one the people who aren't scientists out there. So international group scientists, they looked at reproduction and longevity study, had 117 different mammals from all over the world.

  [00:03:11] Humans were among them they found out that when both females and males have their reproduction curtailed, tend to live longer than curtailed counterparts.

  [00:03:19] So overall, across all these people So this is no more babies or no babies at

  [00:03:23] we're gonna get to that.

  [00:03:24] All right.

  [00:03:24] So overall, the different mammals, life expectancy jumped 10 to 20%. So it got longer.

  [00:03:30] That's what Are we actually talking about when we say reproduction being curtailed?

  [00:03:33] not gonna sugarcoat it. We're talking about sterilization.

  [00:03:36] Oh, oh, oh, okay. Males and females.

  [00:03:38] there are very, there are many different ways to become sterile.

  [00:03:41] This, okay. some questions? about this in a 

  [00:03:43] sec, 

  [00:03:44] because I've heard contradictory 

  [00:03:46] Mm. Well, no, this is the latest study and it's in nature.

  [00:03:49] Sorry. Ooh,

  [00:03:50] International continue. Ooh, 117 Mammals, including humans. So there are many ways to become sterile. So, you know, reproductively. Yeah. Less non [00:04:00] capable. don't freak out. There are many ways. Yeah. freak out yet. are some details.

  [00:04:03] appears that effective life, lengthening sterilization depends on whether you're a boy or a girl. So there are conditions, It's different between biological boys and your biological girls. Also depends on the mechanism you use. Sure. Or can do. Sure. And the time in life of your sterilization.

  [00:04:19] Okay. Yeah.

  [00:04:20] So let's start with biological females.

  [00:04:23] Yep. So, lead author is a guy from, um, university of Otago, Mike. says, look, in females lifespan increases after several different forms of sterilization. cool. suggests that benefits arise from reducing the substantial, energetic and physiological costs pregnancy, lactation caring for offspring.

  [00:04:39] Guess when they say several different types.

  [00:04:41] What I'm wondering here is, you know, the vast difference between not able to have a baby for, you know, so hormones are still all in 

  [00:04:48] there. Mm-hmm. And, going through the thing, but you're not using them for the full pregnancy, which could be really quite draining versus, You've taken the whole, hormonal system 

  [00:04:56] out. Like Yes. 

  [00:04:57] That's so both of those,

  [00:04:59] it seems [00:05:00] that out is better. Mm-hmm. But again, it's not that straightforward.

  [00:05:03] So, I mean, carrying on with what you were saying and what, um, what our, our buddy Mike here from Otago is saying, pregnancy acts a physical and emotional cost on female bodies. So pregnancy itself tough, um, makes perfect sense that blocking conception boost female lifespans. And it all gets a bit blurry between blocking conception, sterilizing, et cetera.

  [00:05:21] But there's a nuance here. It turns out for women or females, surgical sterilization doesn't seem to increase lifespan. So removing the bits, okay, maybe not. In fact, it turns out, for example, women's survival is slightly decreased after permanent surgical sterilization. So things like removing ovaries tend to make women a bit frailer and less healthy.

  [00:05:43] So it's messy, but the timing of female sterilization also doesn't seem to matter either. So they're a bit less, messy. seems though, when you menstruate can make a difference, it gets quite messy. But I wanna get to the men because I'm a man and I'm, you know, and I'm biased. 

  [00:05:56] So 

  [00:05:57] castrated men are known to enjoy longer 

  [00:05:58] lifespans, are 

  [00:05:59] they've [00:06:00] not 

  [00:06:00] really. Hmm. I, 

  [00:06:01] was gonna assume the opposite 

  [00:06:02] actually,

  [00:06:02] no. there's a study I said this has been going on for centuries. So there's a study done that looked at, um, the Korean royal family and Euch that worked for them between the 16th and 19th centuries. And the Euch lived by 14 to 19 years longer.

  [00:06:18] I 

  [00:06:18] 14 to 19 

  [00:06:19] years

  [00:06:20] longer than the royal family. Or 

  [00:06:21] longer than your average dude.

  [00:06:23] all I'm gonna there may be conditions around their

  [00:06:25] lives. I feel like, I feel like you're working for the royal family.

  [00:06:28] You're in a pretty cushy 

  [00:06:29] spot,

  [00:06:29] but other, like princes and princelings and, and you know, the, the chamberlains and your, and your servants didn't live as long.

  [00:06:37] They lived like everyone else, whereas the dudes without the old block and tackle. Mm-hmm. Oh, they still had the block. No tackle. I think that's how it works. Generally appear to live quite a lot longer. 14 to 19 years is a 

  [00:06:46] which one is the 

  [00:06:47] I think the block is the, uh, the, your mast and the tackle is your swingers.

  [00:06:52] But it might not be

  [00:06:53] actually was more of a generic term that is just substituting two things for two 

  [00:06:57] That is that too. You know, so it's like your meat and potato, [00:07:00] your cheese and who knows which is the meat and which is the potatoes in this euphemism? Um,

  [00:07:03] Um, I do. The meat is the ding-dong and 

  [00:07:05] the potatoes are the 

  [00:07:06] No, definitely not. No. Your potatoes ding.

  [00:07:09] It's, these are, this is my potatoes. Okay. Okay. This is my

  [00:07:13] see, see, here's my point then. My point was confirmed by your, in that metaphor, it's clear

  [00:07:18] is. It is. The

  [00:07:19] potato You're frank. And beans again, clear

  [00:07:21] again,

  [00:07:22] You block and tackle less. so. Yeah, less so. Less so.

  [00:07:25] So if we're gonna look at other ways to reproductively, curtail. 'cause what if you don't want to become a eunuch? What if

  [00:07:30] don't want any of this information.

  [00:07:32] No, you can't. The problem with that is though your other, your other technologies, your other reproductive, curtailing techniques or you sterilizations, the lead author says, look, in males, it seems only castration extends lifespan.

  [00:07:43] So vasectomy, for example. No.

  [00:07:45] So It increases in survival. Castrated men resemble the effects in other species. So across the ma males, when you castrate the male, 

  [00:07:52] they 

  [00:07:52] kind of get the longer lifespan, but there's more.

  [00:07:54] Because

  [00:07:54] it's not that simple. Why would it be that simple? Because you're thinking right now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking is fricking cool and you kind [00:08:00] of flag this. You're not using your plums anymore. Plums are the ball's, not the, champ 

  [00:08:03] so it sounds pretty good, you know, maybe just get rid of them. Turns out, no. It's the presence of sex hormones that impact biological aging.

  [00:08:09] And sadly, this means, however, the effect comes from removing the sex hormones before they start. Churning out of the 

  [00:08:14] beanbag. Oh, okay. 

  [00:08:15] So this is a From 

  [00:08:16] age.

  [00:08:17] pre puberty, you gotta do it pre puberty.

  [00:08:19] Ah, 

  [00:08:19] So it's a quick hack. 

  [00:08:20] and 

  [00:08:20] it's simple.

  [00:08:21] Not available to many,

  [00:08:22] not available to heaps.

  [00:08:24] There are a lot of boys out there who are pre pubescent. 

  [00:08:26] feel like in the vast accounting of different values, that it may not be a successful

  [00:08:31] You've got your values abacus out and you're like, 

  [00:08:33] I feel, I feel like, uh, no. 

  [00:08:36] definitely early life castration has the longest effect on lifespan.

  [00:08:39] So there's a longevity hack for you you can't use. And if anyone did it to their children, they'd be 

  [00:08:46] monster. I am so moderately glad 

  [00:08:48] I know 

  [00:08:48] that. All right. All right. Uh, I got, I got a little one for you. That's another, psychology study that,, tells us something useful that maybe we knew 

  [00:08:57] already about people.

  [00:08:59] About 

  [00:08:59] people. 

  [00:08:59] A [00:09:00] psychology study, about people as you worried 

  [00:09:01] before.

  [00:09:02] I do worry. 

  [00:09:03] this comes out of Germany and, bunch of researchers there, they're a little bit interested in what happened with all of the COVID mandates. So, you know, you 

  [00:09:11] have

  [00:09:12] the COVID 

  [00:09:13] the COVID mandates,

  [00:09:13] mandates for vaccines, mandates for wearing masks, uh, all sorts of 

  [00:09:17] mandates for welding yourself into your 

  [00:09:19] house. Yeah,

  [00:09:20] yeah. Indeed, indeed. I don't think that happened in Germany. Did happen in some 

  [00:09:23] places,

  [00:09:24] Not as often in

  [00:09:24] Germany. Yeah, yeah, yeah. what they're interested in is, okay. Are they good or bad for getting people to do things? And

  [00:09:32] a psych study that says, is it good 

  [00:09:33] or bad? 

  [00:09:34] I 

  [00:09:34] like

  [00:09:34] that. 

  [00:09:35] Well, if you want to achieve those ends, if you want to achieve a certain end, you know, reducing carbon. But anyway, they, they're actually interested in climate change and environmental action. And so, this is just, a nice simple study. They surveyed 3000, Germans and they compared their interest in, following a series of different, environmental behaviors, you know, green lifestyles, responses to climate change, all sorts of 

  [00:09:58] things like that. And [00:10:00] basically they asked whether they would do them, if they were voluntary, know, would you do this yourself? 

  [00:10:05] Yes.

  [00:10:06] of course I 

  [00:10:06] would.

  [00:10:06] and then tweaks the language a little bit for, different 

  [00:10:09] people Would you do it at gunpoint?

  [00:10:12] Would you do it? Would you do it for gold bullion?

  [00:10:14] And no surprise here. No surprise here. Suddenly, suddenly people who would've done a bunch of environmental actions 

  [00:10:24] who, who, claimed they would,

  [00:10:25] Well, okay. Claim 

  [00:10:26] they 

  [00:10:27] would. 

  [00:10:27] Yes. Yes. Uh, who said they, you know, would recycle or take the bus or the other thing know, but name some other environmental 

  [00:10:34] actions.

  [00:10:35] Eat solar instead of petrol. Yes, exactly. Benzene. Distillate. Yeah.

  [00:10:40] Drive a cow to work. You know, that 

  [00:10:42] kind 

  [00:10:42] of 

  [00:10:42] fair 

  [00:10:43] Versus if the government said you have to, and all those freedom loving Germans or rule loving Germans. No, they're freedom loving Germans here. They said, no, go and get fucked.

  [00:10:52] I won't do it if you tell me to. And I think this is actually really interesting for all sorts of environmental action because there remain [00:11:00] people that, um, would like to mandate various sorts of environmental actions. certain insulation in your house or you have to have

  [00:11:06] so this is mandate with punishment.

  [00:11:08] Well, it's not just how do you mandate, 

  [00:11:10] well, I mean, like, you it a colossal fine or is it like, like with the house, you can't build it unless you've got quadruple 

  [00:11:15] glazing. Yeah, exactly. 

  [00:11:16] And seven meters of insulation in every

  [00:11:18] whole bunch of things that people would do if there was voluntary.

  [00:11:21] Um, versus, but they, they won't do if they're mandated. Which, you know the thing here,

  [00:11:25] ah, it's fickle,

  [00:11:26] but aren't you like that? aren't you? No,

  [00:11:28] no, I don't do it either way. I'm simple. I actually, no, here's, here's what I would do if it was mandated. Like, I often think house should probably have, I don't know any insulation, 

  [00:11:38] Yeah, I 

  [00:11:38] I don't prioritize.

  [00:11:39] It should. Yeah. I don't prioritize it because there's other things to spend my 

  [00:11:42] money 

  [00:11:42] on. I accept that your house is some sort of weird canvas bag made by 

  [00:11:46] architects

  [00:11:46] It's in 60, 66. 

  [00:11:49] make something that's impossible to

  [00:11:51] insulate. Yeah. What if there were no wall cavities or ceiling cavities go, oh, what we'll do is we'll put in really tall windows, floor to ceiling and really wide, and we'll make the [00:12:00] glass the thinnest on the market. Uh, It's like they came from a different climate, spent one day in Canberra and 

  [00:12:05] said, 

  [00:12:05] tropical. It'll be fine.

  [00:12:09] It's 

  [00:12:09] freezing

  [00:12:09] the fire. No, 

  [00:12:10] but in fairness, your house is tough in the heat as 

  [00:12:13] well,

  [00:12:13] Yeah, it's terrible in both. Yeah. 

  [00:12:15] But 

  [00:12:16] it's, 

  [00:12:16] but if you were mandated to, to do those 

  [00:12:18] things,

  [00:12:18] then. I would, but voluntarily I haven't done it. 'cause it's like, well there are other things I'm mandated to do, like pay for water and

  [00:12:24] So you're not a German.

  [00:12:25] Oh, I'm a German.

  [00:12:25] Anyway, there you go.

  [00:12:27] There I'm, but I'm, more down your, you know your totalitarian line.

  [00:12:31] Well, this says totalitarianism doesn't work for environmental 

  [00:12:34] action.

  [00:12:35] Bet it does. This is, would they do it? Not, would they do it? Okay.

  [00:12:40] Classic. psych. I know. Tell me what you reckon you'd

  [00:12:43] it does, it does say they would resent it, but I guess if they're mandated

  [00:12:46] So I'm not happy. Not happy, but yeah, I do 

  [00:12:48] it. Fuck 

  [00:12:50] you. But, okay.

  [00:12:51] 

  [00:12:53] I I tell 

  [00:12:54] you about now 

  [00:12:54] The story about the dog with the. 

  [00:12:56] Feet.

  [00:12:56] Dog with the feet.

  [00:12:57] Yep. 

  [00:12:58] No, I was watching something the other day and I just, [00:13:00] it was just something that made me feel 

  [00:13:01] good. 

  [00:13:01] It was 

  [00:13:02] it 

  [00:13:02] was, 

  [00:13:02] ah, 

  [00:13:02] it was a list on YouTube of good dogs.

  [00:13:05] And I'm gonna tell you about one of these dogs. But, It was actually variety of, dogs. And I thought, I'm gonna drill in a little bit further. 

  [00:13:12] you're

  [00:13:12] drill into the dogs.

  [00:13:13] dogs with unusual jobs because we used 

  [00:13:15] to,

  [00:13:16] okay, let's start with dogs, with jobs across all the numbers of dogs in the world. Fairly unusual.

  [00:13:20] Yeah, sure. But, dogs are one of our, our more employed 

  [00:13:24] animals.

  [00:13:24] That's true. More than like budgies. 

  [00:13:26] Uh, or you fish. Do we use buds? Do we use fish

  [00:13:29] canaries and coal Mine, it's not really a job, it's just more like sit 

  [00:13:32] there

  [00:13:32] and that's a job. until 

  [00:13:33] That's a job. They're 

  [00:13:34] paid 

  [00:13:34] for it.

  [00:13:34] Not a lot 

  [00:13:35] of 

  [00:13:35] training.

  [00:13:35] Yeah, sure. You don't have to be trained to do a 

  [00:13:37] job, 

  [00:13:37] and fairly, you know, they don't give consent to some 

  [00:13:41] of 

  [00:13:41] these jobs. Well know. 

  [00:13:42] Well know. I just, thought I wanted to, make you happy and find, a bunch of dogs doing good jobs, out there. And I'll tell you, , there's a lot more out 

  [00:13:48] there now.

  [00:13:48] we've all seen, sniffer dogs at airports. We've all seen, guide dogs for the blind. we've seen dogs doing a variety, you know, rounding up sheep, 

  [00:13:55] those 

  [00:13:56] kind of

  [00:13:56] things. And you're, uh, your emotional support pooch.

  [00:13:58] Well, well, I'll [00:14:00] come 

  [00:14:00] to 

  [00:14:00] the emotional 

  [00:14:01] pooch in a second because there was one that I was like, I watched a video of this and I was like, that is so nice. Just the expression on this dog where it is helping out and it's like, oh, you 

  [00:14:11] good 

  [00:14:11] dog? I'm a good 

  [00:14:11] dog. You 

  [00:14:12] good 

  [00:14:12] dog. You good dog. You are doing absolutely the right thing. So, okay, there's bunch of dogs around the world that are used in various sorts of,, biosecurity and pest eradication 

  [00:14:23] and, 

  [00:14:23] Animal 

  [00:14:23] protection 

  [00:14:24] work. Yep. Yep. 

  [00:14:24] so I found a few, there was, up in Queensland, dogs have been, helping to eradicate fire ants 

  [00:14:30] from one town.

  [00:14:32] So 

  [00:14:32] they, they, they're not, 

  [00:14:33] please not as a 

  [00:14:34] dogs are decoy.

  [00:14:34] Fire ants are, is it decoy? Fire ants are an invasive species and no one wants to get bitten by a fire. Ant, it comes in the title. I think ages ago you did a listicle for

  [00:14:44] on pain, insect 

  [00:14:45] On pain

  [00:14:45] And I 

  [00:14:46] think fire ants were up there at like number two or something like that.

  [00:14:49] Years ago when my wife and I were first living 

  [00:14:51] together. 

  [00:14:51] She was outside gardening, lying on the couch, just being, you know, a blob watching something tv 

  [00:14:55] and she suddenly comes sprinting to the house, screaming, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

  [00:14:59] And pulling her pants off. And [00:15:00] I'm like, good day. And it turns out it wasn't quite fire ants, but it was some like watered down equivalent. And while she was digging in the garden, these things were, ran up her legs and were biting her all over her

  [00:15:10] ah, stop it.

  [00:15:11] Oh, I know. It's, it's only 'cause it's a story about ants and it was just funny.

  [00:15:14] Like, I'm sitting there like,

  [00:15:15] do do 

  [00:15:15] one wants to get bitten by by 

  [00:15:16] by, you know, anything,

  [00:15:18] anything, insects, but you 

  [00:15:19] know,

  [00:15:19] anything. Yeah.

  [00:15:20] But no,

  [00:15:20] they've been trained to tend to sniff out, fire out nests, they wouldn't, fire ant colonies 

  [00:15:24] when 

  [00:15:24] there Oh, like, locate,

  [00:15:25] locate, locate, dig 'em up. And they 

  [00:15:27] can 

  [00:15:27] get 

  [00:15:27] them 

  [00:15:28] they're them 

  [00:15:28] up. Well, when they're really young, when they're really new and fresh, a 

  [00:15:31] small 

  [00:15:31] colony, Eat 

  [00:15:32] they, yeah, they don't, dogs don't eat the babies, 

  [00:15:35] but anyway, they're hunting down invasive species. There's others that are helping out. Hunting down little different 

  [00:15:40] plants, 

  [00:15:40] Airport Runway guard dogs. What? 

  [00:15:42] So

  [00:15:43] keep the plane 

  [00:15:44] Yeah. Yeah. Keep the 

  [00:15:45] the plane 

  [00:15:45] safe. Or keep people from running in 

  [00:15:46] of 

  [00:15:47] the 

  [00:15:47] plane. No, not, not people. Not people. Obviously. you don't want things running onto the, onto the airport runway. 

  [00:15:54] one of the big problems that they were having in, um, traverse City in Michigan, uh, was small animals were [00:16:00] coming down and then you get the bird of prey swooping in 

  [00:16:02] to 

  [00:16:02] grab 

  [00:16:02] the 

  [00:16:03] the rat, 

  [00:16:04] rodent, the, you know, 

  [00:16:05] something 

  [00:16:05] like that. 

  [00:16:05] Yeah. So, so they had a fleet of dogs that would guard the edge of the runway, uh, to stop mice, rats, other small animals.

  [00:16:14] The, so the bird of prey doesn't swoop down and, and 

  [00:16:17] cut. Do they, do they give them headphones to protect them from the 

  [00:16:20] airplane 

  [00:16:21] noise? Mm, that's an interesting question. I hope 

  [00:16:23] they

  [00:16:23] do bunch 

  [00:16:23] deaf 

  [00:16:23] dogs.

  [00:16:24] I hope they do 

  [00:16:24] they do

  [00:16:25] monsters. Okay. Here's my, here's my two favorites. in a certain part of Indonesia, the, the free ranging Sumatran rhino

  [00:16:33] oh, they're worse.

  [00:16:34] The free ranging ones 

  [00:16:35] are 

  [00:16:35] the 

  [00:16:35] No. How common do you 

  [00:16:36] They're 

  [00:16:36] they are?

  [00:16:37] six.

  [00:16:39] Well,

  [00:16:40] one every 

  [00:16:40] street.

  [00:16:41] Yeah. Like, they're like there, there's none. Like there's, there's none of these 

  [00:16:46] things. I

  [00:16:46] had a feeling. 'cause rhinos you don't, you don't associate rhino with prolific.

  [00:16:51] Yeah. Now we've got some sumatran rhinos in 

  [00:16:53] zoos. 

  [00:16:54] and for years, uh, conservationists had been trying to find them in a [00:17:00] particular national park, a particular area where they were.

  [00:17:02] And they're like, there's,

  [00:17:03] there, there, there aren't 

  [00:17:04] here. They're hunting. They're looking for all sorts of signs that they can find, uh, Sumatra and rhinos. There's nothing there. They've never seen one, never 

  [00:17:11] anything. So you just gotta look for the, the do-do. 

  [00:17:13] All

  [00:17:14] you gotta do is bring in a dog

  [00:17:15] and it goes,

  [00:17:16] So they trained a couple of dogs.

  [00:17:18] Um, on what? 

  [00:17:19] On

  [00:17:20] pictures

  [00:17:22] On,

  [00:17:23] if you see one of these

  [00:17:23] photos on the poo and the we from the, from the Sumatran rhinos in the 

  [00:17:27] zoo. Ah,

  [00:17:28] okay. I'll allow it.

  [00:17:29] okay. Took them, took him a day and 

  [00:17:30] a bit. Yep. 

  [00:17:30] So day and a bit. And they suddenly found, Rhino.

  [00:17:33] Yeah, they're there. They're there. 

  [00:17:35] So 

  [00:17:36] that's nice. Yeah.

  [00:17:37] Then the dog surrounded it and had 

  [00:17:38] a 

  [00:17:38] heart 

  [00:17:38] attack.

  [00:17:39] Okay, I got two more. Two more. Dogs. Dogs that are doing good things. Yeah. Dogs in archeology,

  [00:17:44] Migeloo is the world's first archeology dog. 

  [00:17:46] Dog. You

  [00:17:47] can smell a mummy from four 

  [00:17:48] miles 

  [00:17:48] away. Basically.

  [00:17:49] Basically can detect ancient human 

  [00:17:51] remains 

  [00:17:53] and fossils. I don't know how, I don't know how it's doing. Fossils like 

  [00:17:56] fossils 

  [00:17:56] are rock, smells like a a rock 

  [00:17:58] boat. But it can de detect, it can detect [00:18:00] um, 600 year old human remains. So mummies basically like, uh, that's the oldest that a dog has 

  [00:18:07] ever

  [00:18:07] found.

  [00:18:07] That's 

  [00:18:07] That's not 

  [00:18:07] bad. 

  [00:18:08] so they're better than lidar.

  [00:18:10] Oh

  [00:18:10] that's more for building. That 

  [00:18:12] would be different. I mean, LIDAR might spot something. and found fossils data between 2.6 and 5.3 million years 

  [00:18:18] I don't

  [00:18:18] know. How do you train that? Here's a fossilized bone. Here's some bo site.

  [00:18:22] I dunno, 

  [00:18:23] No, which one's a bone?

  [00:18:24] Which one's 

  [00:18:25] a 

  [00:18:25] bone?

  [00:18:25] because they're the same thing.

  [00:18:28] That's, that's what I mean. Like here's a mineral and here's a mineral that 

  [00:18:32] I just, I, I love that these scientists are like, you know, what'd be great 

  [00:18:36] is dogs, 

  [00:18:38] get some 

  [00:18:38] dogs 

  [00:18:39] in here to find, uh, our, yeah, our 

  [00:18:43] our mum. They're wonderful. I mean, dogs are wonderful.

  [00:18:44] Anything they can do with us, and the more they can do with this, 

  [00:18:47] the 

  [00:18:47] better.

  [00:18:48] Now you mentioned emotional support dogs. now now that is, that is a, that's a huge and growing area of 

  [00:18:52] psychology. 

  [00:18:53] There's, 

  [00:18:53] there's a lot of, a lot of, well psychologists I know who amongst their first recommendation [00:19:00] for so many different people is, why don't 

  [00:19:01] Just get a dog? 

  [00:19:02] dog? Get back. Just get a dog. Get a dog. Yeah. I just wanted to talk about one in particular. There was a ca there's a great case. Uh, this guy Cody Green, um, he started having auditory and visual hallucinations as well as paranoia and delusions, uh, during his freshman year 

  [00:19:17] in 

  [00:19:17] college. 

  [00:19:17] Right. Uh, he, he went to a bad place 

  [00:19:20] with this, 

  [00:19:21] as you could imagine, uh, drug abuse.

  [00:19:23] He ended up in prison in 21. He was diagnosed with 

  [00:19:26] schizophrenia

  [00:19:27] uhhuh. 

  [00:19:28] Now he tried medication and other treatments, and they have helped control, um, a bunch of his 

  [00:19:34] different 

  [00:19:34] symptoms.

  [00:19:35] Uhhuh, 

  [00:19:35] Mm-hmm. But his hallucinations have persisted 

  [00:19:38] and, uh,

  [00:19:39] whoa. That is, that's gotta be weird. Everything else is cool, except I, I see crazy shit 

  [00:19:44] the 

  [00:19:44] time.

  [00:19:44] Yeah. 

  [00:19:45] Yeah.

  [00:19:45] Is there any way that could 

  [00:19:46] be 

  [00:19:46] pleasant

  [00:19:47] In, in particular, one of the key hallucinations that, um, uh, Cody 

  [00:19:53] often 

  [00:19:53] has 

  [00:19:54] is 

  [00:19:54] dogs, 

  [00:19:55] his people, 

  [00:19:56] like 

  [00:19:57] people, people will turn up. And [00:20:00] so this is probably not the hardest thing to train a dog to do, but it's just such a nice use of a dog is if Cody sees a person 

  [00:20:07] and, and

  [00:20:08] there's 

  [00:20:08] no 

  [00:20:08] person, he says, 

  [00:20:09] greet 

  [00:20:10] and his dog, uh, Luna.

  [00:20:12] The Jack Russell. we'll go and say hello. If it's a 

  [00:20:15] person,

  [00:20:16] if 

  [00:20:16] they 

  [00:20:16] exist,

  [00:20:16] but if there's no one there, the dog just, and, and there's this beautiful footage. This is, it's 

  [00:20:21] just 

  [00:20:21] beautiful.

  [00:20:22] Is it the full on cock the dog, just 

  [00:20:23] what the 

  [00:20:23] fuck you talking about? No, no. Eyes locked. Eyes, eyes locked on, on 

  [00:20:28] Cody.

  [00:20:28] There's like, 

  [00:20:29] No. there's, there's no one here. There's no, and it's just the way, if you could see a dog saying there's no one here like it, it's full 

  [00:20:39] dog

  [00:20:39] experience training the dog too. To, to like, because that could send the dog bonkers too. Like greet. There's no human greet. There 

  [00:20:45] is a 

  [00:20:45] human.

  [00:20:46] What 

  [00:20:46] do 

  [00:20:46] I 

  [00:20:46] do?

  [00:20:46] Yeah. Like,

  [00:20:47] Yeah, like absence. You know, it's a dog that knows the number zero, 

  [00:20:51] so, oh. 

  [00:20:52] oh. And knows how to respond. So I 

  [00:20:54] I just 

  [00:20:55] thought, 

  [00:20:55] that's, 

  [00:20:55] I just thought 

  [00:20:56] that was just a nice, heartwarming thing. 

  [00:20:58] There 

  [00:20:59] you 

  [00:20:59] go.

  [00:20:59] I like [00:21:00] the eye lock too. No, no, dude. Then they, no, look, look at me. Look at me. Look at me. No, no, 

  [00:21:05] no.

  [00:21:07] So science is finally. Found where heaven 

  [00:21:09] is.

  [00:21:09] this comes from one of my regular go-to little bit of science sources. Fox News, don't 

  [00:21:14] walk. I 

  [00:21:15] didn't 

  [00:21:15] do 

  [00:21:15] anything.

  [00:21:16] You 

  [00:21:16] went, 

  [00:21:17] that 

  [00:21:17] mean 

  [00:21:17] anything.

  [00:21:17] Well, I think if Fox News says that we found where heaven 

  [00:21:21] is,

  [00:21:22] um, they 

  [00:21:23] no, didn't,

  [00:21:23] I'm taking this all with a 

  [00:21:24] grain 

  [00:21:24] salt,

  [00:21:25] No, no. His credentials.

  [00:21:26] Okay.

  [00:21:28] It was written as an opinion piece for Fox News. Website by a guy called Michael 

  [00:21:33] So

  [00:21:34] this is not, this is, just to clarify, this is not some tourism board going, okay, this is the nicest place in 

  [00:21:40] the 

  [00:21:40] world. 

  [00:21:40] Or, um, 

  [00:21:42] Fle, 

  [00:21:43] flipping, you know, people that are saying, we found the Garden of Eden or 

  [00:21:47] something

  [00:21:47] like that.

  [00:21:48] Yeah, yeah. And it's full of

  [00:21:50] we know 

  [00:21:50] and snake 

  [00:21:51] is. Yeah. 

  [00:21:52] Like where

  [00:21:53] we can use science to point to 

  [00:21:55] where 

  [00:21:55] heaven 

  [00:21:55] is.

  [00:21:55] So just my understanding of heaven in 

  [00:21:58] the Christian 

  [00:21:59] tradition,

  [00:21:59] [00:22:00] it's a state 

  [00:22:00] of 

  [00:22:00] mind.

  [00:22:01] Well, no, no, no. Like, well, yeah, but it's, it's, it's not in this universe. It's like you take a little special rocket ship for your soul to a 

  [00:22:10] different thing.

  [00:22:11] I got 

  [00:22:11] got like, you as in we're not gonna see it with telescopes. We're not 

  [00:22:14] gonna, I got, 

  [00:22:15] but you can't drive to it if you're not 

  [00:22:16] invited.

  [00:22:17] Oh my God. It's like, you already know 

  [00:22:18] this 

  [00:22:18] story.

  [00:22:19] What do we 

  [00:22:20] go? So this guy, Michael Ghislaine, Glan, 

  [00:22:24] he 

  [00:22:24] has a PhD in physics, maths, and astronomy. Apparently from 

  [00:22:26] Cornell, 

  [00:22:28] he taught physics at Harvard.

  [00:22:30] He's the former science editor for a b, C News in 

  [00:22:32] the us. Mm-hmm. 

  [00:22:34] Mm-hmm. More recently, his biggest book is called Believing 

  [00:22:37] His 

  [00:22:37] Seen, 

  [00:22:37] and

  [00:22:38] is one of the quotes from the cover. Dr. Ghislaine O'S website is headed. Science with Dr. G. Okay.

  [00:22:44] Immediately sus, he, he recounts the fascinating story of his journey from atheism to Christianity.

  [00:22:49] I'm just giving a on 

  [00:22:50] the 

  [00:22:50] guy. Okay. Okay. 

  [00:22:51] So he's got the PhD in the physics, he's done the Harvard

  [00:22:53] teaching. Okay. So he's come from that and he, and he wants to use 

  [00:22:56] cred. He does. And he's got, like, I'm just gonna say his, his, um, his latest book is called [00:23:00] Let Creation Speak Exclamation Mark 100 Invitations to Awe and Wonder.

  [00:23:04] I'll just give you a quick summary. The cover says Everything around us is striking evidence that God exists, that he once appeared in human form,

  [00:23:13] spoke to us directly, and made us for a specific purpose. Everything around us. 

  [00:23:18] Everything. 

  [00:23:18] So 

  [00:23:18] So you, everything your shoes. Yep. 

  [00:23:22] Uh,

  [00:23:22] the pimple on the end of your 

  [00:23:24] toe.

  [00:23:25] That's evidence that, 

  [00:23:26] okay.

  [00:23:26] Yep. Wherever you are in life, he says, whether you're a person of faith or a skeptic or something else,

  [00:23:31] it's kind of hard when, when everything is evidence, then you haven't allowed anything to be contradictory 

  [00:23:37] evidence. I

  [00:23:37] feel like there's not evidence 

  [00:23:38] anymore.

  [00:23:39] Yeah. I feel 

  [00:23:39] like

  [00:23:39] I dunno what we do 

  [00:23:40] with it.

  [00:23:41] Anyway, his book is an invitation to find and embrace the radiant, resilient, relevant person you were created to be. So this is a little background on him. So it's a mixed background, let's just say scientific credentials and extreme enthusiasm for the Lord and creation, et cetera. So anyway, what he did in this piece was [00:24:00] inspired by his 4-year-old asking him, 

  [00:24:02] daddy, 

  [00:24:03] can we drive to 

  [00:24:03] heaven? 

  [00:24:04] And he thought, I'm gonna ponder this question. Like where exactly Drive to heaven? Yeah. And he's like, 

  [00:24:08] huh? 

  [00:24:10] And the quote, the

  [00:24:10] surely, uh, just not to

  [00:24:12] paraphrase, and you know,

  [00:24:13] it's, it's unfair of a non-Christian to paraphrase a Christian, but surely the, the standard Christian response is, no, you do good deeds.

  [00:24:20] If your driving is good, that would be amongst the good deeds you could 

  [00:24:24] do.

  [00:24:24] But you probably can't take Cadillac. You, you certainly can't put in your DPS. Yeah, you're not taking your Cadillac. I don't think you're taking your Cadillac 

  [00:24:31] with you. No. 'cause they have know. there.

  [00:24:33] Oh, they have 

  [00:24:33] them there?

  [00:24:34] No, they have your, uh, what are those? Um, the, the PT Cruisers 

  [00:24:37] Chrysler.

  [00:24:38] No, they 

  [00:24:38] don't, 

  [00:24:39] they're not in heaven. Like of all the cars, they're not in heaven. Like I, I think there's a li there's a list of, there's a list of a few cars that make it into heaven. 

  [00:24:48] And

  [00:24:48] I'm, 

  [00:24:48] and that is 

  [00:24:49] absolutely no, the PT Cruiser is not in heaven.

  [00:24:51] I'm not a car 

  [00:24:52] guy.

  [00:24:52] It's not even hell. It's, it's, it's full on limbo. That one's just like,

  [00:24:56] to limbo. No, Satan doesn't want 

  [00:24:57] that 

  [00:24:58] car. No. It's like, too 

  [00:24:59] gross. [00:25:00] Sorry.

  [00:25:00] PT Cruiser drivers out there. I don't think there's many 

  [00:25:03] left.

  [00:25:03] And Anyway, so the question he asked himself is, where exactly is the heaven described in the Bible?

  [00:25:09] Oh, fair 

  [00:25:09] enough.

  [00:25:11] And 

  [00:25:11] this is great. So apparently there are all kinds of references he says to humans, looking up to heaven and God looking down 

  [00:25:16] upon 

  [00:25:17] us.

  [00:25:17] Yeah, sure.

  [00:25:18] Up in the sky. That's 

  [00:25:19] fairly 

  [00:25:19] traditional.

  [00:25:19] Yep. Yep. We all know this, but apparently the Bible can get a little more specific about 

  [00:25:23] it. Can it? 

  [00:25:24] Apparently, I'm, I'm taking his word kind of. He says, it says there are three levels 

  [00:25:29] of 

  [00:25:29] heaven. 

  [00:25:29] like it's a three 

  [00:25:30] story 

  [00:25:30] building.

  [00:25:30] Exactly. 

  [00:25:32] So you've, you've got 

  [00:25:33] your

  [00:25:33] ground floor 

  [00:25:33] heavy. You got your gr you've got your lobby.

  [00:25:36] What's, 

  [00:25:36] yeah.

  [00:25:36] Okay. You got your cheap

  [00:25:37] No, you've got your gates, you got your, your pearl 

  [00:25:39] gates. 

  [00:25:39] They,

  [00:25:40] oh, they're not, they're at, they're at the, Ooh, I don't know where they are actually. Apparently it goes like this. Lowest level is earth's atmosphere.

  [00:25:47] The mid-level is outer space.

  [00:25:49] Oh, oh, oh, okay. 

  [00:25:51] And

  [00:25:52] the highest level

  [00:25:53] Outer space is 

  [00:25:53] big.

  [00:25:54] I 

  [00:25:54] know. 

  [00:25:55] Like

  [00:25:56] Earth's atmosphere is pretty 

  [00:25:57] small And then, then you got the 

  [00:25:59] rest, 

  [00:25:59] the rest [00:26:00] that is okay. Level three. Beyond outer 

  [00:26:02] space.

  [00:26:03] Well, from, from my perspective, yes. Earth atmosphere and then the rest, but then the highest level 

  [00:26:07] is 

  [00:26:08] where God 

  [00:26:08] dwells.

  [00:26:09] Okay, cool. So, so I think we've established that we are not driving to, um, the edge of outer space and 

  [00:26:15] a 

  [00:26:15] bit 

  [00:26:15] beyond.

  [00:26:16] Yeah,

  [00:26:16] And I, I mean, I don't wanna ruin the surprise, but No, the, the driving there is definitely off 

  [00:26:19] the 

  [00:26:19] table.

  [00:26:20] Okay. Thank you. 

  [00:26:21] Okay. Thank you. And, and he's used science to help us,

  [00:26:23] Thank you. Finally, science has 

  [00:26:25] able us 

  [00:26:25] to 

  [00:26:25] answer Y'all ain't driving to heaven. Yeah, like even, even in A BYD Ute.

  [00:26:31] Oh, seriously,

  [00:26:32] BYD If you're listening,

  [00:26:34] You want a shark?

  [00:26:35] fuck it.

  [00:26:35] If it's sponsorship,

  [00:26:36] I mean, you, you, they've gotta be. Big side here. The most successful new car in Australia in 

  [00:26:41] forever.

  [00:26:42] Not only 

  [00:26:43] Not only Australia, 

  [00:26:43] I 

  [00:26:43] think

  [00:26:43] like everyone in the world drives a BYD shark 

  [00:26:45] now.

  [00:26:46] they've overtaken 

  [00:26:47] Tesla 

  [00:26:48] for 

  [00:26:48] electric

  [00:26:48] Oh know, I know that. I know that. 

  [00:26:50] But I, they've overtaken cars. Like there there is, there's cars and there's 

  [00:26:55] BYD That's, that's it. Is this a successful car? Oh no. This is way more than 

  [00:26:59] a [00:27:00] 

  [00:27:01] So anyway, he poses the question then. Could you ever reach a point far enough up into space that you finally reach heaven running on the 

  [00:27:08] three 

  [00:27:08] levels?

  [00:27:08] What a question had, did he publish this in, uh, in his book? think. No, it's in this blog on, um, or you know, Fox 

  [00:27:15] News.

  [00:27:15] in a blog and Fox 

  [00:27:16] News.

  [00:27:16] Okay. Fox 

  [00:27:17] News.

  [00:27:17] So it didn't make it into nature?

  [00:27:19] Not yet. Not yet. I mean, I, I don't like you, we were talking earlier about being healthfully skeptical. It still could. He we're getting to the science. So the short answer to could you ever reach a point far enough up into space that you finally reach heaven is 

  [00:27:34] no.

  [00:27:34] Oh, we couldn't physically 

  [00:27:36] reach 

  [00:27:36] it.

  [00:27:36] Oh. What are you gonna do?

  [00:27:39] But let's, 

  [00:27:39] before we get to that, but science can at least point the way to where it is and also explain why we can't get there. At least as incarnate beings, science can 

  [00:27:50] do

  [00:27:50] this. So he talks us through his realization. He uses astronomy and physics.

  [00:27:55] 'cause why wouldn't you? Yeah. Astronomy and 

  [00:27:56] physics. 

  [00:27:58] So we'll get into it. First he [00:28:00] starts with the cosmic horizon. So I'll tell you what that is 'cause I know, you know, but others might not. So Edmund Hubble comes in here, so he said, and you know, demonstrated using science galaxies are rushing away from each other pretty damn fast.

  [00:28:15] Yeah. Yeah. And so we have Hubble's law, one version of the definition is galaxies are moving away from the earth at speeds proportional to their distance. Which means basically the farther a galaxy is from the earth,

  [00:28:27] the the faster the faster it moves. Yeah. So using that 

  [00:28:31] premise

  [00:28:31] relative to 

  [00:28:32] us.

  [00:28:32] relative. And that's gonna come in not in ways that 

  [00:28:36] help 

  [00:28:36] his

  [00:28:36] argument.

  [00:28:38] So Guilin says, theoretically a galaxy that is 273 billion trillion miles away from 

  [00:28:47] earth.

  [00:28:47] Yeah, it's a lot.

  [00:28:48] That's like a hundred kilometers would move at about 186,000 miles per second, which as I'm 

  [00:28:54] sure 

  [00:28:54] you

  [00:28:54] away us

  [00:28:55] No, that would is the speed of light.

  [00:28:58] Well, indeed, that's, [00:29:00] that's what I I was gonna 

  [00:29:00] say.

  [00:29:01] Yeah. I know you were, I know you were.

  [00:29:03] I, I only think in speed 

  [00:29:04] everything

  [00:29:05] I know. You're like, how fast are you going? Fuck all. I mean, basically standing still officer in comparison 

  [00:29:10] to Indeed. 

  [00:29:11] Um, and he says, okay, so that distance way up there in space is the cosmic horizon. So the cosmic horizon is, is

  [00:29:17] is the furthest galaxy that we 

  [00:29:18] can 

  [00:29:18] see.

  [00:29:20] Yeah. Or be aware of the, the one that's far enough out that it's moving 

  [00:29:23] at the 

  [00:29:23] speed

  [00:29:23] So we're assuming there aren't galaxies beyond ones that we 

  [00:29:27] can 

  [00:29:27] see,

  [00:29:27] Oh, we'll get, we'll 

  [00:29:28] get to

  [00:29:28] that Sort 

  [00:29:29] of, 

  [00:29:30] yeah.

  [00:29:31] So we've got that, you've got that in your head so far. Right. We've got, we've got the hub all law.

  [00:29:35] We've got the galactic, um, sorry. The cosmic 

  [00:29:38] horizon. Now because it's science and physics, let's chuck in a bit of Einstein. Okay. Obviously, relativity, et cetera means that even the fastest rocket ship craft or car, even PT Cruiser, could never go at the speed of light. Better yet 

  [00:29:51] faster.

  [00:29:52] Yeah. Well, it certainly can't go 

  [00:29:53] faster.

  [00:29:53] Yep. And quoting our buddy here, only light and certain other non-material [00:30:00] phenomena. I dunno what 

  [00:30:00] that 

  [00:30:00] is.

  [00:30:00] I think he's talking about 

  [00:30:01] souls. He didn't say,

  [00:30:03] I think he's 

  [00:30:03] implying it.

  [00:30:04] Non-material phenomena.

  [00:30:06] Yeah. Stop us here. That's the only thing they, they, they're keen on. They're like, 

  [00:30:10] really? 

  [00:30:10] Yeah, that's, you know, when he's saying certain other non-material phenomena, he's, that's 

  [00:30:15] souls

  [00:30:16] in your head you went, uh, 

  [00:30:17] souls.

  [00:30:17] No. Straight away. What else? What else is certain other 

  [00:30:19] non-material phenomena? I dunno. Shadows. 

  [00:30:24] thoughts.

  [00:30:25] they're 

  [00:30:26] material.

  [00:30:27] What?

  [00:30:29] Sorry to break it to you.

  [00:30:31] That's another episode. So only light and certain other non-material phenomena can travel at the speed of light. Light and whatever those

  [00:30:39] are and other 

  [00:30:40] whatever.

  [00:30:40] And mis

  [00:30:42] So I gotta ask a question at this point. In what sense are these galaxies that are 2270 3 billion trillion miles 

  [00:30:49] way actually moving at the speed 

  [00:30:51] of 

  [00:30:51] light?

  [00:30:52] Do you want me to you wanna explain?

  [00:30:54] Yeah. Well they're not re 

  [00:30:55] relative 

  [00:30:56] to,

  [00:30:56] it's an expansion of the universe between 

  [00:30:58] us.

  [00:30:58] Yeah.

  [00:30:59] It's 

  [00:30:59] space expanding [00:31:00] 

  [00:31:00] between us.

  [00:31:00] But it's not like if you were sitting on, in one of those galaxies, you're moving the speed of light, 

  [00:31:04] per 

  [00:31:04] se. We're

  [00:31:04] all moving at the of light. Whoa. And also not Exactly. And that's a bit where I kind of go. 

  [00:31:08] go. We're all, we're all at the man.

  [00:31:11] Whoa. Didn't you know heaven is within us 

  [00:31:13] all.

  [00:31:13] Yeah, indeed.

  [00:31:14] indeed. So anyway, only light and certain other non-material phenomena. Anyway, what this means is, he says is we can never reach the cosmic horizon 'cause it's honking away.

  [00:31:23] Yeah, sure. We can't get

  [00:31:25] in our, in our car and drive there. But he says, according to modern cosmology, and entire universe exists beyond the cosmic horizon. Sure,

  [00:31:33] and does he mean a universe within our universe, or does he mean it's like another universe?

  [00:31:38] Well.

  [00:31:38] It's permanently hidden from us because we can never reach, let alone crossover 

  [00:31:42] the 

  [00:31:42] cosmic

  [00:31:42] Sure, 

  [00:31:43] sure.

  [00:31:43] sure. Not untrue doesn't tell us 

  [00:31:45] much 

  [00:31:45] about it. Well, I mean, just, just to 

  [00:31:46] pause 

  [00:31:47] for a 

  [00:31:47] second. I mean, it's, it's, it's, you know, the universe is what, 13 billion years old, and that means that we can see 13 billion years of light. And so the galaxies that are the furthest away are the ones that we can [00:32:00] see. It doesn't mean that there aren't galaxies that have moved in the opposite direction to us that, uh, we will never see and they will get further and further and further away from us.

  [00:32:07] So we, we live within the Hubble bubble of the universe, which can only be 

  [00:32:12] the Hubble bubble. 

  [00:32:13] Yeah. Only be a subset of the 

  [00:32:15] universe.

  [00:32:15] Wasn't that bubblegum,

  [00:32:17] Hubble Bubblegum,

  [00:32:19] Hubble. Now Hubble Bubbles a big thing. Like it's, it's, it's the, it's, it's everything that you can possibly see. Yes. But it doesn't mean that it's everything

  [00:32:27] that exists 

  [00:32:28] exists. 

  [00:32:28] Yes. 

  [00:32:29] Anyway, he says An entire universe exists beyond the cosmic horizon, so. 

  [00:32:35] Sure. I still quibble. That's a weird way of phrasing it. Like if you, just from the physics point, I just say, a lot of stuff exists beyond that, but it's not an entire universe. It's, it's still our 

  [00:32:45] universe.

  [00:32:45] Yeah. He's, he's talking about the cosmic horizon as some mystical curtain or something. That's the implication. It doesn't 

  [00:32:50] say

  [00:32:50] like, it's like 

  [00:32:51] our universe is only the stuff we 

  [00:32:53] can 

  [00:32:53] see. 

  [00:32:54] Yes. Ah. And he's gone. The stuff that's a little bit

  [00:32:56] beyond is something else. next. He says, [00:33:00] according to our best astronomical observations, Okay. Time

  [00:33:02] stops at the cosmic 

  [00:33:03] horizon.

  [00:33:04] I mean, make up whatever 

  [00:33:05] you 

  [00:33:05] want.

  [00:33:05] No, it's 

  [00:33:06] science.

  [00:33:07] I mean, I 

  [00:33:07] mean physics. physics. So if we're, and, and, and at the cosmic horizon, we are not actually at the cosmic horizon to itself. We're only at the cosmic horizon compared to Earth.

  [00:33:16] Yeah. Yeah. So, there's actually, in some sense, there's no 

  [00:33:19] such

  [00:33:19] thing. 

  [00:33:19] Some souped up PT cruiser that can go 

  [00:33:21] faster than Yeah.

  [00:33:22] It's got 

  [00:33:22] Yeah. Stop jets

  [00:33:22] and, and, and you can get to that edge. That's the point at which you can last see earth. But we can see a whole bunch of stars. Yeah. And then we just go a little bit further and then we can't see earth and earth has moved out to the other bit of the universe that we can't 

  [00:33:34] see.

  [00:33:35] of the Yeah. Of the cosmic horizon from our point of view. Anyway, time stops at the cosmic

  [00:33:39] garage. Sure. Sure. 

  [00:33:40] At that special distance, way up there in deep, deep, deep space. There is no past present or future only timelessness.

  [00:33:49] Yes.

  [00:33:50] Because speed of 

  [00:33:50] light 

  [00:33:50] and stop. Yes. That's of course what 

  [00:33:52] I 

  [00:33:52] thought. 

  [00:33:53] Do it. This does sound like one of, one of my, uh, one of my theories about what the actual edge of the universe is.

  [00:33:58] But 

  [00:33:58] anyway,

  [00:33:59] so ripped 

  [00:33:59] you [00:34:00] off.

  [00:34:00] No, no. My theory is way better, but I think 

  [00:34:02] my 

  [00:34:02] theory 

  [00:34:02] right. We haven't seen the rest of it yet. This, this, this could be the same, but of course, although there's no time beyond the horizon, 

  [00:34:08] yeah, 

  [00:34:09] there is space,

  [00:34:10] but no time.

  [00:34:11] I, I, I feel like what is, what is the overlap between a dude going down into super Christianity and a dude getting stoned?

  [00:34:19] Because, because 

  [00:34:20] theory, who says they can't 

  [00:34:21] be 

  [00:34:21] the same?

  [00:34:22] I, I hope they are. This theory really smacks of someone who's got some Okay. 

  [00:34:27] Facts in 

  [00:34:27] there.

  [00:34:28] dude. dude. did you know that time 

  [00:34:31] end. I just got my PhD from Cornell.

  [00:34:35] Hey, lovely people at 

  [00:34:37] Cornell.

  [00:34:37] I love most of them. so, 

  [00:34:39] he goes on to say, because there's no time beyond the horizon, but there is space. This means the hidden universe beyond the cosmic horizon is habitable, but only by light and light like 

  [00:34:51] entities. He,

  [00:34:52] is so stoned, 

  [00:34:53] Therefore, yeah, the cosmic horizon is lined with, I dunno what that means.

  [00:34:57] The very oldest celestial [00:35:00] objects in the observable 

  [00:35:01] universe. 

  [00:35:01] That means he goes on whatever exists beyond the cosmic horizon predates these oldest 

  [00:35:07] objects. 

  [00:35:08] it predates the so-called Big Bang. He says, so-called

  [00:35:11] I love. So

  [00:35:12] predates the beginning of the observable universe.

  [00:35:15] What this means is it's entirely possible Heaven is located on the other side of the cosmic horizon.

  [00:35:20] Fine. 

  [00:35:21] Sure. 

  [00:35:21] Make 

  [00:35:21] it up.

  [00:35:22] He's not making it up. He's proving it by his argument. So it concludes because of modern scientific realities and others. I dunno what that is. It's entirely reasonable to speculate that as the Bible indicates four things.

  [00:35:36] One heaven exists way above our heads and way beyond the visible style that universe. I'll take that. Sure. It might two Heaven is inaccessible to us mortals. Yeah, sure. But he then adds while 

  [00:35:49] we're alive. 

  [00:35:50] Very scientific. Yep. Three heaven is inhabited by non-material timeless beings.

  [00:35:56] Sure. I don't think cosmology helps us with 

  [00:35:58] that. Can you move if you're [00:36:00] timeless?

  [00:36:01] Well, there's space.

  [00:36:02] Yeah. No. So you, you, you, you like a tree, you're there. But can you move if you're 

  [00:36:07] timeless?

  [00:36:08] Trees aren't timeless, so 

  [00:36:09] that's 

  [00:36:09] not No, I know. You're like a, like a, a, 

  [00:36:12] a magic tree. 

  [00:36:12] A

  [00:36:13] magic

  [00:36:13] This is a magic 

  [00:36:14] space. Space Only tree, but no time 

  [00:36:17] tree.

  [00:36:18] for movement. You need a before and after.

  [00:36:20] I feel like I don't want, that's not heaven to me. Like you're 

  [00:36:23] stuck

  [00:36:23] You You don't

  [00:36:24] know you. So, so this is basically the idea of heaven that your soul zips through the universe at, you know, speed of light gotta go 13 billion years.

  [00:36:33] So it takes you 13 billion years to get 

  [00:36:35] to 

  [00:36:35] the 

  [00:36:35] universe. You could

  [00:36:35] go go faster

  [00:36:36] whatever. I don't know how far the, the Hubble bubble goes, but 

  [00:36:39] anyway,

  [00:36:39] long way. Yeah, a 

  [00:36:40] long 

  [00:36:40] way. 

  [00:36:40] Yeah, long way. And then you get there and then you're stuck. You're like a little picture

  [00:36:44] on the edge, 

  [00:36:45] It's not stuck. Not stuck, but

  [00:36:47] you're not allowed 

  [00:36:47] to move,

  [00:36:48] What do? Allowed? You're in a place you want to 

  [00:36:49] be. 

  [00:36:50] So heaven is, is, you know, it's inha. It's inhabited by these non-material time beings. And four, yeah. yeah.

  [00:36:57] This 

  [00:36:57] is the conclusion after heaven exists. [00:37:00] It's inaccessible to us. Morals while we're alive. It's inhabited by non-material timeless beings based on cosmology, physics, et cetera.

  [00:37:06] Finally, heaven is the dwelling place of the one who predates the universe. The one who created the universe. The obvious fourth point, well, fine. So God 

  [00:37:15] lives 

  [00:37:15] there.

  [00:37:15] Fine. And, and 

  [00:37:16] plus 

  [00:37:16] God.

  [00:37:17] Yeah, because God 

  [00:37:18] lives 

  [00:37:18] there.

  [00:37:18] Fine. 

  [00:37:19] To be fair, I don't think Hubble, Einstein, or anyone else factored that 

  [00:37:22] in 

  [00:37:23] to the proposals they made.

  [00:37:25] I'm not saying they didn't believe in 

  [00:37:26] God. saying

  [00:37:26] uh, you know, 

  [00:37:26] you know, but this, 

  [00:37:28] always goes back to the point that, uh, your whole argument about heaven is, you know, it's a place that we can't see. And so the universe has a limit to what we can see or, or whatever. And so outside that you just go, cool, there's no way of refuting this.

  [00:37:43] There's no way of testing this. There's no way of anything here. It's just like you wanna talk about stuff outside the universe, fine. Absolutely talk away. There's no way to do anything, anything 

  [00:37:52] testable 

  [00:37:53] about it.

  [00:37:53] But he has a PhD and this is the bit like for me, I don't give a shit about scientists or anyone else [00:38:00] believing in God, God's whatever.

  [00:38:00] Great. Sounds great. No, no problem with it. what I don't understand, I've always, I've always balked at and I don't get, is when they go, I'm gonna use science to 

  [00:38:06] prove

  [00:38:08] Yeah, yeah.

  [00:38:08] God. And you're like, well, 

  [00:38:10] first up, 

  [00:38:12] that kind of is belies the point of faith, et cetera, et cetera. 

  [00:38:15] Why would you 

  [00:38:16] do

  [00:38:16] this? Don't science 

  [00:38:17] the whole point of faith? 

  [00:38:18] Don't fricking 

  [00:38:18] science it. Yeah, don't 

  [00:38:19] it.

  [00:38:20] and, and at 

  [00:38:21] this point. Our, our Faith loving listeners will be like, thanks atheists for, for explaining religion.

  [00:38:27] for, for God splaining 

  [00:38:28] books, but still it's like, take a leap of faith. If you wanna do that, that's fine and, and you can do, but it's like, you know,

  [00:38:36] well, as we did, and we are being very respectful here, it was not hard to kind of poke holes along the 

  [00:38:42] way.

  [00:38:43] Not because God bad, religion bad, but it ain't the same as science. But speaking of conspiracy theories and stuff, and going back 

  [00:38:52] that, 

  [00:38:53] if you read that quickly and I first read it quickly, it's like, uhhuh, uh, uhhuh, uhhuh, uhhuh. Sure, 

  [00:38:59] [00:39:00] sure, 

  [00:39:00] sure,

  [00:39:00] sure. God's outside the universe

  [00:39:03] unknowable, blah blah, bubble speed of light and shit.

  [00:39:06] So science says it too, Oh, and, and, and like if you go, okay, well if we, if we go with the standard physics interpretation of the universe, you know, there's, there's a, a big bang 13 billion years ago, and now the universe, we can observe a certain chunk of it, but it's, it's probably gonna be bigger, but it's probably, you know, some people will say it's infinite.

  [00:39:24] Matthew, uh, co years ago told us Yes, potentially infinite. Yeah. But then there's others who say, not necessarily infinite, but uh, tall and intenses and purposes, infinite. I dunno what that quite means, but 

  [00:39:38] Sure. Infinite. 

  [00:39:39] But, but you can say there are potentially edges to the universe. Like you can't go faster than the speed of light.

  [00:39:44] Yeah. And, and maybe if you're able to travel in a certain direction, you don't 

  [00:39:47] hit 

  [00:39:47] an edge,

  [00:39:48] So edges to our version of 

  [00:39:50] universe.

  [00:39:51] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 

  [00:39:52] But, 

  [00:39:52] uh,

  [00:39:53] not the entirety of whatever that thing 

  [00:39:54] is

  [00:39:55] necessary, but it doesn't inherently mean beyond 

  [00:39:57] that. 

  [00:39:57] is God. Yeah, yeah, 

  [00:39:58] it does. I 

  [00:39:59] just talked you [00:40:00] through It 

  [00:40:00] Yeah. Okay.

  [00:40:01] It does. Okay. Okay.

  [00:40:02] God exists. Sorry. Heaven, we know where heaven 

  [00:40:04] is. 

  [00:40:04] Boom. 

  [00:40:05] See, 

  [00:40:05] I, 

  [00:40:05] this is my theory is the, the, the universe is, you know, like the, the speed of light is the edge. Like that is the edge.

  [00:40:13] Like that

  [00:40:13] is the edge. Like it's, 

  [00:40:15] it's, 

  [00:40:15] it's,

  [00:40:15] oh, the edge is not a physical 

  [00:40:16] thing.

  [00:40:16] It's a 

  [00:40:17] no. it's a four dimens, it's a four dimensional object.

  [00:40:19] And so, so objects don't exist in a three dimensional plane. They exist in at least a four dimensional plane. And 

  [00:40:24] so the edge is a velocity.

  [00:40:28] Whoa.

  [00:40:29] Yeah. So, 

  [00:40:30] you know, 

  [00:40:31] that's 

  [00:40:32] you blow my, that's why I'm gonna get 

  [00:40:33] 500

  [00:40:34] So don't think about edges 

  [00:40:35] like, 

  [00:40:35] boundaries. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

  [00:40:37] So there is a 

  [00:40:37] boundary. 

  [00:40:38] It's this, that's, that's the

  [00:40:40] but the boundary is a moving 

  [00:40:42] concept. Cow using tools.

  [00:40:46] Oh my God. My God. Cow 

  [00:40:49] tools.

  [00:40:49] Cow tools. So last year, as we discussed, there was a bit of a run on memes. A Garfield Strip. And a Larson comic was being dredged from the past about cows either using, [00:41:00] making or having tools

  [00:41:01] or displaying 

  [00:41:02] tools or were displaying their tools.

  [00:41:03] And it was, it was, you know, obviously these cast as the epitome of 

  [00:41:05] ridiculousness. Yeah.

  [00:41:06] How could 

  [00:41:06] cows 

  [00:41:07] have 

  [00:41:07] tools?

  [00:41:07] They don't have them. They don't make them. Don't use them. You 

  [00:41:09] fucking

  [00:41:10] look at their hooves.

  [00:41:11] Exactly. No opposable 

  [00:41:12] hooves

  [00:41:12] That and their dead stupid eyes and their delicious steak bums.

  [00:41:16] That's 

  [00:41:17] true.

  [00:41:17] It is true. But now an Austrian cow called Veronica with a cakes, it's Austrian, has clapped back against these scoffers and 

  [00:41:24] doubters.

  [00:41:24] What?

  [00:41:25] So she doesn't actually make the 

  [00:41:27] tools. 

  [00:41:29] Or 

  [00:41:29] tool fine,

  [00:41:31] But she picked up an object and aimed at a target herself to achieve a goal, which meets a relatively strict definition of 

  [00:41:37] tool 

  [00:41:38] use.

  [00:41:38] She didn't just use a scratching post, did 

  [00:41:40] she? 

  [00:41:41] Bit 

  [00:41:41] more 

  [00:41:42] than that?

  [00:41:43] Bit more. Bit more. 

  [00:41:44] Okay. 

  [00:41:44] Bit more. So the researchers, there are many stories, but the researchers went to see her owner, TKA Viler, who has a farm in Viler. Yeah, VI Vier. I love that. It is. And, and he seems like a lovely guy. He's a organic farmer.

  [00:41:58] I think he, you know, makes his own [00:42:00] butter and whatever. They went to see Veronica in her meadow. Um, and they figured they might have to wait a long time to maybe get a glimpse of this alleged tool use. So like, all right, let's check it out. 

  [00:42:11] We'll 

  [00:42:11] see 

  [00:42:11] what

  [00:42:11] happens. This wasn't the Austrian guy that dresses 

  [00:42:13] as 

  [00:42:13] the cow 

  [00:42:13] to, to do cow research.

  [00:42:15] No. 

  [00:42:15] Or maybe it 

  [00:42:15] was 

  [00:42:15] goats. 

  [00:42:16] No, we did goats. We talked about goats. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about that. Um, a number of, 

  [00:42:19] a number of

  [00:42:20] we're shockingly well remembered this 

  [00:42:21] day.

  [00:42:22] Not remember. Tell me any details. I dunno. I told you. But I know where to find the notes. So anyway, they, they thought, yeah, look, how long are we gonna have to wait?

  [00:42:29] Okay, vicar good for you. So, but apparently Vicar dropped a stick in front of 

  [00:42:34] her, 

  [00:42:35] or a broom, actually,

  [00:42:37] not Victor Vic. 

  [00:42:38] Veronica, Vicar dropped the stick in front of 

  [00:42:40] of Veronica.

  [00:42:41] Okay. So here's a tool. Would you like to 

  [00:42:43] liked, Yeah.

  [00:42:43] And, and this, I love the quote out comes like a rolled carpet, the tongue.

  [00:42:49] Do you wanna dwell on that for a while?

  [00:42:51] That's pretty 

  [00:42:51] hot. 

  [00:42:52] No. No. Could be grasps the stick in the tip rolls it into the tongue, like a hand pulls it back into [00:43:00] the mouth, and then the mouth closes. Then she turns her head and starts scratching her 

  [00:43:05] body 

  [00:43:07] with the broom wrapped in her tongue. According to Vicar Veronica, who is a family pet, she's not, she's not 

  [00:43:14] used

  [00:43:15] for a special cat. Yep. She's a pet. She's 

  [00:43:16] not 

  [00:43:16] a

  [00:43:16] milk or beef. Yeah. She ain't milk or 

  [00:43:18] beef.

  [00:43:19] She's got a name.

  [00:43:20] She does. So when she was about three, she used to start to pick, she started picking up sticks and stuff to scratch herself, but clumsily, but because she loved the 

  [00:43:28] the sticks I, I

  [00:43:29] just wanna pause for a second. Yeah. Like, like, does animal tool use to be interesting to, you know, uh, cognitive scientists? Yeah. Does it have to be skillful or are they 

  [00:43:38] allowed 

  [00:43:39] clumsy? 

  [00:43:39] It has to be beautiful finesse. Like

  [00:43:41] if they're shitty at using the drill 

  [00:43:43] and 

  [00:43:43] you're like,

  [00:43:44] but you still got a 

  [00:43:44] like, like look that monkey, it's got circular sword, but it can't cut accurately.

  [00:43:48] Fucking, no tool used there. Like

  [00:43:50] measured twice.

  [00:43:51] Cut 

  [00:43:52] you idiot. 

  [00:43:52] Come 

  [00:43:52] on. Yeah, exactly. 

  [00:43:53] Stupid cap 

  [00:43:54] chin. So apparently, no, she, um, about three, she started to pick up sticks, but she loved them [00:44:00] so much. So he made sure there were always some sticks and stuff in her paddock. And now 10 years later, she's 

  [00:44:04] 13. 

  [00:44:05] She's mastered the technique of picking up the broom and scratching 

  [00:44:07] herself.

  [00:44:08] But there's nuance. This is important. 

  [00:44:12] Very 

  [00:44:12] important. So researchers went through more than 70 trials across seven sessions, filming her and checking out what she 

  [00:44:18] did. 

  [00:44:19] Oh, geez.

  [00:44:20] I know they're thorough research, right? Um, they wanted to check if she was sensitive to the broom's properties.

  [00:44:26] And that sensitivity basically is, does she care about the brush end or the handle?

  [00:44:31] Okay. Okay. So she's, she's actually 

  [00:44:33] choosing,

  [00:44:34] Yeah. Yeah. Making 

  [00:44:34] good? Which one? Which one's gonna itch My 

  [00:44:36] itch. 

  [00:44:37] Exactly. apparently

  [00:44:38] I 

  [00:44:38] think they should have put some itching powder on her. This is this 

  [00:44:41] I'm 

  [00:44:41] suggesting

  [00:44:41] Oh. And places she didn't normally 

  [00:44:42] scratch 

  [00:44:43] would. Yeah, 

  [00:44:44] there 

  [00:44:44] you go.

  [00:44:44] Like the top of her head.

  [00:44:45] head. How are you gonna get this

  [00:44:47] Veronica? Exactly. Get another tool. Smart ass. Yeah, exactly. So apparently she was, occasionally she'd use the handle end to scratch herself, not the brush end.

  [00:44:57] And at first they thought, this is a bit of an error, why wouldn't you use the [00:45:00] brush? But after a while, they started to see 

  [00:45:02] a 

  [00:45:02] pattern.

  [00:45:02] Oh no. Yeah. Okay.

  [00:45:04] And it turned out she'd pick up the broom by the brush specifically so she could scratch her undercarriage with the handle end. She wanted to use the handle, not the brush on her 

  [00:45:14] undercarriage, uhhuh 

  [00:45:16] because they say she could therefore gently poke its sensitive skin on the undercarriage without the roughness of the bristles.

  [00:45:22] That's a rough looking brush. It's the kind of brush that you kind of scrub your deck with before you stain it.

  [00:45:26] can I, can I remain quite 

  [00:45:28] skeptical 

  [00:45:28] course. Like

  [00:45:30] of course 

  [00:45:31] we all know that humans, humans can fall for things that they wanna believe. And when you are, when you are looking at one particular anecdote, you can imagine this team of researchers going, oh, look, look at the using the handle end because you know her are sensitive and, oh, 

  [00:45:45] using 

  [00:45:45] the well 

  [00:45:46] science it by looking at it a 

  [00:45:47] times, oh, I, I feel like science by looking at it a thousand times is not 

  [00:45:51] science.

  [00:45:51] Well it is repeated observations of the same

  [00:45:54] phenomenon. 

  [00:45:54] yeah. yeah. While you're trying to put in a control condition or 

  [00:45:58] while 

  [00:45:58] you trying

  [00:45:59] they did not have a [00:46:00] control cow.

  [00:46:00] It's true. Or a controlled broom or other tools. So anyway, um, apparently they say this makes the tool use multipurpose. Ah, which is only mimicked by the way. Uh, chimpanzees use blades of grass to hunt for 

  [00:46:14] termites.

  [00:46:15] Uh, 

  [00:46:15] Oh god. Because the behavior is anticipatory. She planned which way to grab the tool for 

  [00:46:21] best 

  [00:46:22] Oh, no. I can believe anticipation, like 

  [00:46:24] plan like

  [00:46:25] I want this end. 

  [00:46:26] not that end. 

  [00:46:27] Of,

  [00:46:27] of, of tools. Like I can believe that I just, I'm calling a potential 

  [00:46:32] skepticism 

  [00:46:32] here.

  [00:46:33] Yeah.

  [00:46:34] and look, to be fair, full disclosure, there are videos online showing other cows and bulls doing similar kinds of things, which may have been where the last year's memes and stuff came on.

  [00:46:43] But this is the first scientific study of tool use. Thousand observations. 70 researchers reckon this suggests that the capacity to develop behavior lies deep within the nature of these animals,

  [00:46:54] Okay. 

  [00:46:54] But

  [00:46:56] they stress a few tool instances of [00:47:00] individuals using them does not make the species as a whole tool 

  [00:47:02] uses.

  [00:47:03] And they reckon we might not see it a lot in cows, not because Veronica is some kind of, as they put it, bovine Einstein. But because the way she lives is different to other cows, she's a pet and she sees people using stuff and maybe 

  [00:47:14] she learns 

  [00:47:15] amazing fucking genius. My final thought though, and this is the thing that annoys me the most, is stop telling me things that are delicious are more than just plants with eyes.

  [00:47:23] Like, I don't want 'em to have personalities. I don't want 'em to be friends. I don't want 'em to be using tools. I want 'em to just be lumps of meat on legs, waiting to be steaks for me. It's very 

  [00:47:32] You're just gonna have to 

  [00:47:32] cope 

  [00:47:33] with that.

  [00:47:33] I don't 

  [00:47:33] want 

  [00:47:33] to,

  [00:47:34] 

  [00:47:35] I gotta get a, um, uh, a packed 

  [00:47:37] mailbag 

  [00:47:39] for you to go through. Um, 

  [00:47:41] I, 

  [00:47:41] I,

  [00:47:41] where did this 

  [00:47:41] come 

  [00:47:42] from?

  [00:47:42] From, from our 

  [00:47:43] listen. Have people 

  [00:47:44] if people email us. Cheers. A little bit of science. 

  [00:47:47] I'm gonna say though, just before you read them, thanks 

  [00:47:50] gang.

  [00:47:50] Like that's awesome. 

  [00:47:51] It's 

  [00:47:51] nice to 

  [00:47:52] Now, now, now I, I, I, there's, there's a few here. And, and, and look, as I said before, I, I dunno how much justice I can do to all of them.

  [00:47:59] [00:48:00] but, uh, a few. I just wanted to, I just wanted to read out and then, and show a few things. Um, so Dave, I, I, I, I love this because, uh, Dave sent in a few things in response to the AI recipes 

  [00:48:11] episode 

  [00:48:11] we did, did a while ago. 

  [00:48:13] Dave says here, the terrible gloopy, overly sweet recipes, the real ones before AI got involved reminded me of a cookbook my father published back in the seventies.

  [00:48:22] Now, you, you, you, fantastic. Now, Dave's father here was the general manager of Davis Gelatin. Davis 

  [00:48:30] Gelatin 

  [00:48:31] is

  [00:48:31] Ooh, this does not 

  [00:48:32] start. 

  [00:48:32] Well,

  [00:48:32] it's an Australian, New Zealand company that at one point was 12% of the world's gelatin 

  [00:48:37] supply. 

  [00:48:38] Seriously. Um, 

  [00:48:39] they, they, they, they flooded 

  [00:48:40] the world

  [00:48:41] This is gonna be one of those, take a normal recipe and add goup.

  [00:48:44] Yeah, indeed. and so Dave's dad hired a whole team of home economists, um, and cooks to develop recipes and publish cookbooks to educate the Australian housewife about the benefits of gelatin cookery. Now we've all, we've all [00:49:00] seen all 

  [00:49:00] these 

  [00:49:00] things. 

  [00:49:01] I think actually these, this, um, educating housewives, as they said, goes back a fair bit earlier as well.

  [00:49:07] Um, one version was called from Davis gel team was called Dainty Dishes. 

  [00:49:11] I 

  [00:49:11] just 

  [00:49:12] love

  [00:49:12] it. 

  [00:49:12] Oh, um, that 

  [00:49:13] sounds nice.

  [00:49:14] and. 

  [00:49:14] anyway. Dave says he has two copies. Uh, uh, no, two of the recipe books that his, um, his dad published.

  [00:49:21] That's awesome. But he only has one 

  [00:49:22] copy 

  [00:49:23] of them. the dessert section is quite normal. 

  [00:49:25] I imagine 

  [00:49:26] it. 

  [00:49:26] Well, it would 

  [00:49:26] be, it's jellies 

  [00:49:27] and 

  [00:49:27] shit like that, Yeah. Add, add cream 

  [00:49:29] and 

  [00:49:29] fruit.

  [00:49:29] Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, 

  [00:49:31] gel team does not a whole pheasant and 

  [00:49:33] some 

  [00:49:33] awful,

  [00:49:33] and we've made a few recipes out of it.

  [00:49:35] The rest is a, is a horror 

  [00:49:37] show 

  [00:49:37] of ghastly seventies cooking, and I just, yeah, I just love that a chunk of this comes from the gelatin marketing board. Basically, they're like, what can we do here to get some gelatin into cookie? 

  [00:49:48] I had to flick through a couple of the pictures that Dave sent in and the two that jumped out at me that were just beautiful. Yeah. one was It's potato salad 

  [00:49:57] that 

  [00:49:58] is dumb. 

  [00:49:58] Was it?[00:50:00] 

  [00:50:01] It's like if you turn a potato salad into a, into a jelly, so it's in a 

  [00:50:05] jelly mold and then you've got mashed potato and, and made that, and filled it full of jelly.

  [00:50:10] And I, I, 

  [00:50:10] I love 

  [00:50:10] that.

  [00:50:11] Fuck me. 

  [00:50:11] Fuck me. 

  [00:50:12] But the other thing that made me actually go back in time 

  [00:50:15] a little bit 

  [00:50:15] is that the gelatin marketing board by the seventies was actually adapting to 

  [00:50:20] the 

  [00:50:20] times super

  [00:50:21] powerful. Right? They're more powerful than the, um, the coal 

  [00:50:23] lobby.

  [00:50:23] I don't think they were that. I'm just saying they were adapting to the times.

  [00:50:26] Like they, they, they, so look, look, we've known for forever basically that gelatin was a, use, a a weird thing that made liquids go hard in, in cold air, like in, in normal air. So it's, it's something that made things set and, and people have been 

  [00:50:42] getting 

  [00:50:42] out It's, it's, it's like room temperature.

  [00:50:45] Uh, what 

  [00:50:45] do 

  [00:50:45] call 

  [00:50:46] it?

  [00:50:46] Room tempera. 

  [00:50:47] Solidification,

  [00:50:47] Yeah. Which is the same as that thing that we can never do. Not cold fusion 

  [00:50:51] the 

  [00:50:51] other one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, 

  [00:50:53] yeah. Um, super

  [00:50:54] Yeah. The Koreans did it, but then they didn't do it. Yeah. 

  [00:50:56] Um, but anyway, so, so there's recipes for, [00:51:00] for gelatin, um, 

  [00:51:01] back 

  [00:51:01] to the 

  [00:51:02] top, superconductivity gelatin

  [00:51:04] is a superconductivity of recipes and 

  [00:51:07] food.

  [00:51:07] So there's a recipe back to 10th century bc um, Kitab Alaka

  [00:51:12] BC

  [00:51:13] Yeah. 10th century bc. 10th century bc This is from journal article too. 10th 

  [00:51:17] century

  [00:51:18] There were centuries that 

  [00:51:19] back. I dunno. I 

  [00:51:21] I it must 

  [00:51:21] be

  [00:51:21] Well, that's pretty much like Neanderthal's banging

  [00:51:24] I'm surprised '

  [00:51:24] cause I thought, okay, I'm gonna double check that one because I thought the first recipe book known was a Roman recipe 

  [00:51:30] book.

  [00:51:30] Yeah. From 1824. 

  [00:51:32] Um, 

  [00:51:33] that sounds much more Arabic. That sounds like 10th century, but weirdly, it does say BC there. 

  [00:51:38] Um,

  [00:51:39] yeah, we've gotta find out,

  [00:51:40] I think. Okay. It was

  [00:51:41] like a Long time 

  [00:51:42] ago,

  [00:51:42] This journal article was, let me get the name 

  [00:51:46] it, the Journal of Police Pay 

  [00:51:47] to 

  [00:51:47] Public. No, I've

  [00:51:48] got the title.

  [00:51:49] It's, it's, gelatin as it is, history and modernity. there were some interesting points about it that there was a whole bunch of chemistry. So its history section was interesting, but, uh, perhaps not as, as 

  [00:51:59] [00:52:00] rigorous 

  [00:52:00] as

  [00:52:00] a, a, a little 

  [00:52:01] considered. Yeah. 

  [00:52:02] Anyway, um, but anyway, that was a preparation of fish jelly. Um, there's one in 1375, uh, of tally event, 

  [00:52:09] uh, 

  [00:52:10] which is a gel Jollied meat broth, 

  [00:52:13] um, meat.

  [00:52:14] jelly.

  [00:52:15] So take soup and 

  [00:52:16] make 

  [00:52:16] it hard. But anyway, gelatin took off like with industrialization.

  [00:52:20] Yeah. So the French first were the ones that really went, you know what, Jelly's gonna be cool. Yeah, so there were French industrialists, same sort of time as Lou pastor who really said, uh, what we wanna do, if we can get gelatine out, we can use this as a protein for poor people. Um, and this is 19th

  [00:52:38] century thing. 

  [00:52:38] Yeah. 

  [00:52:38] So 

  [00:52:39] uh, Jean Pierre Joseph Dset, uh, 1812, he's experimenting on how to get gelatine out with hydrochloric acid. Um, the French government then said, you know what, we can feed poor people on, on jelly with meat in it, or jelly with stuff 

  [00:52:53] in 

  [00:52:53] it. 

  [00:52:53] Oh, It's 

  [00:52:53] gonna be, it's gonna be healthy.

  [00:52:55] This is milk gelatin, 

  [00:52:56] you'll love 

  [00:52:57] it.

  [00:52:57] All sort of things. All. And so, [00:53:00] so when we, when we, when we all laugh at those seventies Australian cookbooks, remember that the French did it first, so,

  [00:53:07] but they didn't put olives and mashed 

  [00:53:09] potatoes. You don't know that. They didn't, you don't, you don't know 

  [00:53:13] that 

  [00:53:13] they 

  [00:53:13] didn't.

  [00:53:13] but they'd 

  [00:53:14] make 

  [00:53:14] cool.

  [00:53:15] Um,

  [00:53:15] yeah, the Americans went industrial scale as well, beginning of the 20th century.

  [00:53:19] So there is, there is a global tradition here.

  [00:53:22] That's so good.

  [00:53:22] I just gotta read a couple, couple more things and I'll get to the other recipe that really made me 

  [00:53:26] laugh. Yeah. 

  [00:53:27] Um, up to the 20th century, the use of gelatin as a food product remained, it was, it was a food product. 

  [00:53:32] You know, 

  [00:53:33] we're making, we're making jellies and then we're making the weird savory jellies that they did in that time.

  [00:53:38] Like, but then in the 20th century, people started discovering that that gelatine was actually super useful in all sorts of other 

  [00:53:44] things. 

  [00:53:45] Um, like patching

  [00:53:46] tires, healing wounds,

  [00:53:48] not far off healing wounds, possibly. I don't, I don't know. we're using it in, uh, in wood, leather, textiles, books, newspapers, 

  [00:53:55] all 

  [00:53:55] sorts 

  [00:53:55] of things.

  [00:53:55] But the things that you'll see jellies is, is like dishwasher, tablets, you know, that's jelly [00:54:00] around the, around the 

  [00:54:00] edge 

  [00:54:00] of 

  [00:54:00] the dishwash, all the, your dissolvable 

  [00:54:02] packaging.

  [00:54:02] Yeah, 

  [00:54:02] exactly. 

  [00:54:03] Something 

  [00:54:03] that. Yeah. 

  [00:54:04] Um, used in newspapers, magazines, water soluble shells, um, for various things and ballistic tests. So making 

  [00:54:11] a Oh, yeah, yeah, ballistic 

  [00:54:12] gel. yeah, yeah. yeah. To mimic a body or whatever.

  [00:54:14] But I did love this line. So in short, no other Hy Hydrocolloid comes close to the versatility 

  [00:54:21] of 

  [00:54:21] gel.

  [00:54:21] I've always said there's a 

  [00:54:23] t-shirt.

  [00:54:24] But anyway, people in the gelatin marketing boards, uh, have looked at ways to adapt the use of gelatin. And I did love this is, this is the seventies and eighties weight control with gelatin.

  [00:54:34] And this was a, a recipe where you get juice and you, and you, um, put in some gelatin and that's, uh, you get sort of like a jelly 

  [00:54:42] juice

  [00:54:43] so you feel 

  [00:54:43] a 

  [00:54:43] bit 

  [00:54:43] fuller

  [00:54:44] and you feel a bit fuller. So this is adapting with the Times Australia was not unique in this, but it is lovely that Australian recipes were some of the, some of the grossest that we've seen.

  [00:54:55] Yeah, for us.

  [00:54:56] Gross, uh, a couple more in the mailbag. , Ann uh, [00:55:00] remembers your episode on Komodo Dragons.

  [00:55:02] asexual reproduction of Kamo Komodo Dragons cloning.

  [00:55:06] there's a nice study on Komodo dragons, uh, reproducing in zoos. 

  [00:55:10] Um,

  [00:55:11] is it horrible? It's not

  [00:55:12] horrible? It's not horrible. Komodo dragons are horrible 

  [00:55:13] creature. They're fucking 

  [00:55:14] horrible. 

  [00:55:15] But, 

  [00:55:15] uh, and they're basically all 

  [00:55:16] br Well, here's why, but all, uh, Komodo dragons have been shown since 2006 to have this weird ability to do, uh, pathogenesis, which 

  [00:55:27] is basically 

  [00:55:28] not quite cloning themselves, but having a baby with yourself where you kind of have an egg and the egg splits and then you refuse 'em back together and use the DNA from both.

  [00:55:37] Forgive me, that's a pretty 

  [00:55:39] rough, 

  [00:55:39] uh, strong size. Yeah. 

  [00:55:40] probably strong si. Well, this is a little bit of science, not the whole lot,

  [00:55:44] Not a whole lot, but, but then you end up with a boy 

  [00:55:46] baby. 

  [00:55:46] Yeah, 

  [00:55:47] they have to be boys because, because the chromosomes don't work if they're girls and out pops a boy baby, and 

  [00:55:54] then

  [00:55:54] bang mumsy

  [00:55:55] A little while later he can bang mumsy.

  [00:55:57] So it's been speculated that's a great strategy for [00:56:00] if you're a Komodo dragon, you swim to a new island, there's no others to bang. And you 

  [00:56:04] can, 

  [00:56:04] And a few points from Adam, who as, as you might expect, um, good friend Adam Rope, uh, played conquers in 

  [00:56:14] school.

  [00:56:14] Um, and the classic ways to cheat. There were, 

  [00:56:18] um, 

  [00:56:19] explosives, 

  [00:56:20] no baking the horse chestnuts in an oven or pickling them with malt vinegar. Oh. And Adam reckons that his personal record for stone skimming is 16, but I'm sorry, outta mine is at least 

  [00:56:32] 17.

  [00:56:33] Mine's 104 and I have a video

  [00:56:35] bullshit. 

  [00:56:35] I will bullshit.

  [00:56:36] I will bullshit. I will have 

  [00:56:37] a video.

  [00:56:38] And, uh, just to close us out here, I've got a little birthday present. from Rod. I was given a picture of a book and I looked 

  [00:56:46] into 

  [00:56:46] this. 

  [00:56:47] Yeah, it's 

  [00:56:47] real. 

  [00:56:48] Yeah. 1969. 

  [00:56:49] Yeah. 

  [00:56:50] A guy named Hans 

  [00:56:51] Han.

  [00:56:52] And his friend Verna h 

  [00:56:54] Rush.

  [00:56:54] Mm-hmm. 

  [00:56:55] They 

  [00:56:55] wrote 

  [00:56:55] a book. 

  [00:56:56] Mm-hmm. And you're gonna have to read the title out, 

  [00:56:58] gladly. And described the 

  [00:56:59] [00:57:00] picture. 

  [00:57:00] book is called, helping the Retarded to Know 

  [00:57:06] God, 

  [00:57:07] and 

  [00:57:07] I've gotta say, the face of the young boy or girl looking blankly into the middle distance and up slightly may be someone who's, um, vaguely IQ impaired. Holy shit.

  [00:57:19] of science is a show where you can get your science. 

  [00:57:23] Uh,

  [00:57:24] and other. 

  [00:57:26] send us in, uh, your stories, your ideas, critiques comments, uh, cheers.

  [00:57:30] A little bit of science.com au. Send us in weird books like that 

  [00:57:33] one. But, uh, 

  [00:57:34] Please, 

  [00:57:34] do.