A poll has asked people if they could win in a fist fight against Donald Trump, a survey on female orgasms has wandered into yawning, crying, and hallucinations, and vulture nests are quietly operating as accidental museums of human history. This week, we bounce between political fantasy, private biology, and birds that apparently have a better archive system than most institutions.
The Poll That Turned Politics Into Fight Club
We start with the poll. Someone asked men and women whether they think they could physically take Donald Trump in a hypothetical brawl. Not in a debate. Not in an election. In a fight. Which is both ridiculous and, in a weird way, rather exciting.
Because polls like this are not really about combat. They are about confidence, identity, and how people relate to power. It is political theatre dressed up as a pub question, and it works because everyone immediately has an opinion. You learn less about Trump’s imaginary fighting ability and more about how voters see themselves, their opponents, and the whole circus.
The Orgasm Survey That Refused to Stay Polite
Then we move into the science of female orgasms, which is still wildly under researched for something that affects half the planet. A new survey looked at the range of experiences women have in the midst of an orgasm, and it turns out it is not just pleasure and fireworks. Some people report yawning. Some cry. Some describe strange emotional shifts or even hallucination like effects.
It is the kind of research that makes you laugh for a second, then realise it is actually quite useful. Bodies are complicated, and the more honest the data is, the better we get at understanding health, hormones, nerves, and what “normal” even means. Also, it is a strong reminder that human biology does not care about your dinner party comfort level.
Vultures, Time Capsules, and the World’s Grossest Museum Curators
Finally, we head to the vultures, who have been quietly collecting human history without anyone asking them to. Vulture nests can act like time capsules, because they accumulate objects over long periods, sometimes across decades or even centuries. Bits of fabric, trinkets, scraps, and artefacts get dragged in and preserved, creating a weird accidental archive of the surrounding human world.
For archaeologists, that is gold. For everyone else, it is a slightly unsettling reminder that nature is watching us, scavenging us, and filing away evidence of our existence in a pile of sticks on a cliff. Which is oddly poetic, if you do not think too hard about the smell.
Some Good News On The Climate
Finally, to end on a surprisingly positive note we have some good climate news. Despite Trump's persistence that the climate crisis doesn't exist, renewable energy is soaring in the US. It’s almost as though the climate knew David Attenborough was turning a hundred and decided to give him a birthday present to celebrate.
So that is the week. A political punch on paper, an orgasm survey that got unexpectedly emotional, and vultures doing unpaid museum work. Science is never just the neat stuff in textbooks. It is also the strange questions people ask, the awkward truths bodies reveal, and the birds quietly collecting our leftovers like they are curating an exhibition called “Humanity, Unfortunately.”
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Political Science Milestones
00:44 Poll Who Beats Trump
01:56 Meet the Hosts
02:50 Science Missed Female Biology
04:00 Mapping the Clitoris
05:49 Surveying Orgasm Effects
08:47 Peri Orgasmic Symptoms
14:08 Taboo and Medical Framing
15:20 Case Report Finger Cure
19:38 Altruism Games
21:38 Resenting Do Gooders
24:05 Tainted Altruism
27:07 Academic Award Hoax
30:49 Self Made Medals
34:11 Vulture Nest Time Capsules
40:07 Climate News Uplift
SOURCES:
https://bsky.app/profile/evansutton.bsky.social/post/3ml7k54fe3k24
https://www.moadoph.gov.au/explore/stories/history/a-brief-history-of-opinion-polls
https://www.popsci.com/environment/bearded-vulture-nest-archaeology/
https://blog.ucs.org/john-rogers/new-records-set-in-the-renewable-energy-marathon/
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-problem/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797613504785
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2518983-why-are-we-so-suspicious-of-do-gooders
https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/scientists-asked-women-about-orgasms
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Will: [00:00:00] I'm a political scientist, and in this wonderful era, it's good to think back at the landmarks in political science and mark some of our victories. So, the invention of the opinion poll in 1824 when the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian conducted a survey in Delaware- asking people of their opinions on the coming presidential election.
the newspaper reported 70% were gonna vote for Andrew Jackson, and more people did eventually vote for Andrew Jackson. There's also the founding of the American Political Science Association in 1903. or the development of scientific polling in 1932. there's our high moment as a field when Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for showing the tragedy of the commons wasn't a tragedy. Now, here is a new high watermark for political science. Because finally, political polling has asked the questions that people really do care about.
Who would win in a fight with Donald Trump? So YouGov has done a wonderful poll where they've [00:01:00] asked people by gender and political affiliation if they think they could win a fight with Donald Trump.
And the
takeaway here, the takeaway here is that, yeah, men are more likely to say yes, but, uh, Democratic men think they can win a fight 82% of the time against Donald Trump.
Mm-hmm. Only 4% said they couldn't. Democratic women, 71% of them said they could beat Donald Trump in a fight. But then if you flip around to Republican men, they're like, "Oh no, we're way less chance." Only 45% of Republican men compared with the 71% of Democratic women, think they could win a fight against
Donald Trump.
So
there
you go. That's the new future of political polling.
It's time For a little bit
of science. [00:02:00]
Rod: of science
Will: I'm Will Grant, an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
Rod: Do you know you nearly tripped over the word professor then you went . That was quite dangerous. I worried you hurt yourself. I'm Rod Lamberts. I am a 30-year SciComm veteran, or near as damn it, with a mind of about a 15-year-old boy.
Will: And today, as well as landmarks in political polling, we also have-
Rod: Breaking news, uh, that we still have a lot more to learn about female biology ...
Will: I'm gonna dive into the case reports.
Rod: I'm gonna talk a little bit about dubious do-gooders. I've
Will: do-gooders.
I've got one of my favorite stories of academic fraud.
Rod: And in the spirit of Han Solo, never tell me the odds.
Will: I'll
end up with a little bit of fun with animals want.
Rod: how I, that's how I end every day.
Will: I meant to say to that? What am I meant to say to that? say
Rod: whatever you want, man. It's free speech and or something. Oh, no, we don't have that. So it won't shock anyone listening to hear that as a middle-aged, over-educated, hetero White male, I have a few deafening blind spots in my knowledge about your female biologies.
Just a couple. Okay. [00:03:00] There are some things. I know you don't. I know you don't. You know it all. Yeah. Yeah. You do. but it's not because I don't care. Like, I'm actually a nice guy, and I do give a shit. But there's a lot to know. Okay. There's a lot to know.
Will: the volume of knowledge that's
Rod: on.
That's part of it. I've got more. I've got more. I, I can fully defend myself on this. I, I came
Will: prepared. Mm-hmm.
Rod: some questions are trickier to ask than others, and you have to find someone to ask them the questions.
Will: What do you mean?
Rod: Well, like when a lady poos, what happens to the front part? Does that You
Will: did I ask that question? I don't know. I didn't know- that was gonna be your answer.
Rod: set me up.
Will: Christ. Why? What is in your brain that wonders... W-did, what? You're wondering
Rod: You're wondering it now too.
Will: my God.
Rod: You already know. Sometimes, um, I wouldn't even think to ask some of the questions.
I, I hear answers to things, I'm like, "I never would've thought to answer that question." Also, and the mo- more common
Will: was your example of that and- should I have asked
Rod: I'm not gonna tell you. Okay.
The, and the big one, of course, is that science just hasn't bloody looked.
Will: Ah, okay. So it's not our fault, it's science's course. I
love when we can blame
Rod: When it doesn't suit me- Okay ... it's [00:04:00] science's fault. so I mean, for example, full network map of the nerves wider up, up and to the clitoris, all the nervous system- Oh, yeah ... so that has only just been done, and I mean in 2026, I mean just been done.
Will: Can, we just slow down and say, just to defend science here, full network map of anything is, is a bit of a challenging process.
I don't imagine... Yes, our Victorian forebears, scientist forebears- you know, with,
Rod: Yeah. Yep ...
With their mercury
Will: With their mercury and their vague microscopes, you know, magnifying
glasses
Rod: their lethal Bunsen burners.
Will: I... Yes, they were sexist, and yes, they weren't interested in looking. I don't doubt that.
But I think actually a full network map of nerves of anything They might have looked at their own penis. I doubt they did it.
Rod: No, that didn't happen. Well, that did happen to the, to the penile glands, the bit from the top and down. We got that in
Will: See, there you go, 1998. So- Which is- And so what was the gap?
1998- to- It's only 28 years ... 2000 and what? It's only 28 years. Yeah. Okay,
Rod: Well, they've been busy in between. Oh, look. T- Grey's Anatomy, [00:05:00] 38th edition in 1995, the clitoris was still
Will: not Show?
Rod: Book, not show. Definitely book, not show. 1995 edition, the clitoris was, quote, "A small version of the penis."
Turns out it's not. Do you think
Will: when you write that, y- you're like,
maybe I
Rod: maybe I should write it that way" What shall we say? What shall we say?
Will: like the lady organ, a small version of the man organ. Like Was that what they were thinking all the way along? It's like- the l- lady lungs, small version of man lungs.
Rod: Lady heart. Oh, that's bigger because ladies have emotions and men don't.
Will: true.
Rod: I mean, no shock at all. They would've kinda gone, "Huh, a bit that a woman has that a guy doesn't. Some kind of small thing that a man has. I don't know what it is, but it's-"
Will: didn't, Why didn't they call the penis the big version of the clitoris, then?
Why? There you go. Go on. There you go. I'm just asking... que- I'm basically Tucker Carlson.
Rod: Carlson. They're, just asking questions. No, they actually, um, they didn't even know it existed until, I don't know,
41 years ago, So the one I saw, which I think is worth talking about, is female orgasms.
Will: Indeed.
Rod: For starters, science confirms they exist.
I know.
Will: Thank you, science. There are other [00:06:00] people that could have been asked. I, I mean, no doubt. Who? I know. Name,
Rod: I'll name, name, I don't know- Wow
3.5 billion.
no, no, I, I, I was shocked. I was like, "Oh, they are real. Good.
How,
how can that be?" But also earlier this year, so two US gynecologists, uh, a Professor Lauren Streicher, she probably pronounced it Streicher, I don't know, and Professor James Simon. They, uh, got onto the social medias, and they invited women to share how their bodies respond to orgasm.
Will: Was was it a survey? Write down your things, take a
Rod: Take a photo of your orgasm. Or
Will: is this like-
Rod: Just take a photo of the, this lands- which landscape reminds you of your orgasm the most?
It was pretty much
Will: a found poem or something here, might be, might be quite- evocative.
Or, or an industrial
landscape.
Is that really where you would go? Your orgasms are mining sites?
Rod: me. No, mine are like freaking... Artemis had nothing.
Will: Your female orgasms are like mining sites.
Rod: are. I don't know, delve deep, worth a lot.
Will: okay.
Rod: I thought you'd enjoy this. [00:07:00] there weren't a lot of participants, but they did get some participants, which is great. Mm-hmm. it's not necessarily surprising they didn't get a lot of respondents 'cause, you know, methodologically you put out a survey on the social medias, you know, fuck, fuck knows.
But also, I mean, you're asking people about their orgasm experiences, and it's not necessarily the first thing people are gonna tell strangers
Will: Some pe- well, and similarly, it might be It may be-
Rod: I can't beli- that's exactly what I was
Will: say ... no, but it may be one of those things that is a little bit challenging to put into Like
if you-
were to say- Oh, no ... you know, you could say
you could say some things, yes, absolutely. Yeah. But putting it into words, it's like the flavor
Rod: Nailing water- Mike
Will: with- yeah
Rod: Oh,
yeah, meets Kanye West getting the shits with his wife. Yeah, yeah. Well, sorry, 3,800 women saw the post apparently, and 86 responded.
Will: Uh- saw the post? They, they, they reported that in a scientific
Rod: Yeah. Look, this is how many saw it. So I suppose it's equivalent of we mailed out 3,800 surveys-ish. Okay. 86 [00:08:00] responded to talk about their, um, experience of, quote, "peri-orgasmic phenomena." Basically, they're talking about physical and emotional symptoms- Oh
that are separate from the biological process of orgasm, but happen around the same time. So it could be pre, post, during. feeling to me was more about what happens sort of during and after,
Will: we put it all in the same package and study it all at once?
Rod: peri.
Pre, post, during.
And Striker, she's upfront about herself. She says, "Look, these symptoms c- should be considered normal, however, even if only a very small percentage of viewers," as she puts it, "experience them, ' cause normal and common are not the same thing." Okay. Yeah. Which is fair. Yeah. She also says, "This survey does not reveal the true prevalence of these symptoms."
And it's interesting " Many people who view the post with symptoms may have chosen not to respond."
Will: Sure.
Rod: It's very doctor talk to call them symptoms, but I'll tell you about some, obviously. So those caveats are in place. Let's, uh, get down to business.
Will: Okay.
Rod: So there was a six-question anonymous
Will: anonymous
Rod: survey.
17% consistently experienced peri-orgasmic phenomena every time they had your orgasms. Okay. So things beyond, I don't know, [00:09:00] screaming.
and I'm gonna give you just a quick bit of context before I tell you some of them, because The phenomena were generally much more common with s- when you're having sex with a partner than if they were masturbating using a vibrator, et
Will: vibrator, et cetera. Okay. So different, different orgasms? pa- Partnered to masturbation-
Rod: Not clear. Not clear. Interesting. Not clear. And I also point this out because running with the assumption, I know that's a big assumption, but I think it's still more common than not, the sample was probably referring to having sex with male partners more than not.
I mean, that would've been probably a greater percentage were m- uh, male-lady intercourse. It might not be, but that's what I mean. But let's run with that. Th- Imagine it's mostly the dudes they're having the
Will: sex with. But, but we're not asking that question in the survey? They did not. so we're just assuming based on, on general prevalence.
Rod: General prevalence. Which is-- Look, I mean, take away the politics of that and the, and the emotions and stuff, not an unreasonable assumption. Right. not necessarily accurate. Most common reaction, 63% crying. Followed, 43%, two things, sadness and laughter. necessarily combined, but equal amounts.
Laughing sad. I know. Laughing sad. I know.
I've just finished
Will: No, So you so you said not combined? [00:10:00]
Rod: No, it just said both of them at the same
Will: That they're equally prevalent,
Rod: Sadness.
I just think, oh, how disheartening. No,
Will: well, you can i- Like, it's the little death.
Well, I don't know if that applies to female
Rod: I thought fear was the little
Will: little death. No, fear is not the little
Rod: It is in Dune.
Will: No, is the mind killer. Fear is the mind
Rod: Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little
Will: the Little death is an orgasm. It's like the French, the, like, who was it? Like, it's, uh- Dune,
Rod: Denis Villeneuve, French again.
Fear is the little death.
Will: death Fear is not the little death. The-- I think, I think this was French philosophy, so therefore applying to the male orgasm. duh ... who, who was it?
Rod: Verrier.
Jean-Ezine? Sartre. I think it
Will: think it was Sartre.
Rod: Sartre. Sartre.
Well, the next most common, 33% headaches.
I always thought they were supposed to be the precursor, the, the classic from the '50s movies. "Not to- not tonight, Stan, I have a headache." among other physical reactions, muscle weakness, facial tingling, foot or ear pain.
And these, these vary between- That's what I'm
Will: for.
My, A
little bit of ear pain.
Rod: [00:11:00] Yeah, my ear doesn't hurt enough. I know. I've got the
Will: Finally. That's, that's where I'm going
Rod: We'll call it an ear-gasm. Um, 10 to 20-ish percent of people had these muscle weaknesses, facial tingling, et cetera. Rarest symptoms, sneezing.
Will: I
Rod: God. Like, "Ah, fuck, you just sneezed all "
Will: Oh, fuck, you just sneezed all over me"
Rod: Yawning, which is always encouraging Hallucinations
Will: Wow. Wow. I might die. I, would be, I would be impressed.
Rod: Yeah, both... I'd, I'd, I'd kind of go, "Yeah. Yeah, you did." And also, why she's screaming about flying frogs and then
Will: slapping
me?" Yeah. You know, you've got... Like, someone's got to take that as a win. I mean, depending on what the hallucination is.
Exactly. but Someone has
Rod: The devil's come to murder me.
And nosebleeds. Oh, Jesus
Will: Oh, Jesus
Rod: Which I feel would kill a moment.
Will: Ah. wow. I-
listener of course, if you, experience any of these- this is awesome. And as, as Rod said before, mean, just because- Normal
Rod: [00:12:00] doesn't mean common.
Will: but still can be normal.
Rod: And yeah, not normal doesn't mean-
Will: ya yeah ... That's awesome.
Rod: So that was between 2 and 6% of the people. And when I... I, I was talking to a couple of my lady chums this very morning about this, and I mentioned these symptoms. I said s- you know, da, da, da, da, da, went through this list, and they kind of nod, nod, nod, and there's only one they went, "Huh?"
Was it
Will: it the hallucinations?
Rod: No. Oh.
That's what I thought too. I got to hallucination. They're like- 'Cause- ... "Oh, yeah." I thought, "Oh, yeah? What the f- really?"
Will: Sorry, as a gentleman, Yes, you are ... I have not hallucinated in the moment. Like, I, I'm missing out. That seems...
Rod: Well, this is about lady orgasms.
Will: I know. I'm just saying.
Rod: The one that shocked the most was nosebleeds.
Which is surprising. of course, a lot of the respondents reported feeling embarrassed or ashamed by their responses, so... And that's with this tiny little amount of people who saw the post. So it wouldn't be surprising if a whole bunch of others
Will: Yeah.
Of, Of course, of course. Of
Rod: I was thinking aside when I was reading this, is like the male version of this would be, you put the survey out, you'd put eight- 80,000 men would see it, nine million would try and respond. They'd have to shut down the server because everyone would wanna go
like, "
I [00:13:00] totally had an orgasm with someone."
Will: And when
Rod: And when they're asked, " what were your symptoms?" They'd just be like, " brain damage. I don't remember anything after that."
Will: that." I always remember, a great Onion headline, Elusive Male Orgasm- Finally Captured on Film."
Rod: Finally Filmed. Exactly. This would be the same like, "Do you wanna talk about when you had an orgasm?"
"Fuck yeah, I do." "What did you
Will: No. Okay. okay, let's go brass tacks here. Yeah. What words do you use to describe this? Like- I, I haven't had the nosebleeds or the
Rod: I go with the
Will: gonna try.
Rod: one? I go with the traditional friends, which is like a sneeze only better.
I think it came from, what is it, where did I come from or one of those- things that I missed out on. I learned about, where babies come from, from a woman who I won't name because she might listen. I doubt it.
Will: An adult?
Rod: No, no, no, a woman, sorry. She was a girl at the time, like I was, in primary school. And she told me, and I remember just going Adults have to do the worst shit.
Like, being an adult would suck. All the terrible things they have to do, and now there's that
Will: I think that, that is the general position of primary school
Rod: Big time. I was probably like six or seven. I just thought, " Oh, God."
And
she [00:14:00] showed me a book, so it was true, and I just thought, "This is, this is the worst thing I've heard."
Like, there's so many terrible things about being a grown-up, and it got worse."
So back to the actual study. If nothing else, like at, at least it's a small study, but at least it's bringing these kind of taboo- Yeah ... another taboo thing into the light, which is great.
Will: Or not, not taboo, Understudied.
areas. Understudied.
Rod: uh, some areas it would be considered a little taboo. They wouldn't say taboo, but they would kind of be like, "Well, would you, pfft, well, you... No. No. Eh. No." Eh. I don't believe you
taboo
Will: believe you're taboo
Rod: don't have to.
Will: taboo. I'm, I'm poo-pooing your taboo.
Rod: your taboo. You're taboo-less.
Yeah.
So she says, "Hopefully this research might help gynecologists better understand what happens to the body when people orgasm, so they can improve how to treat those with orgasmic dysfunction."
But I also wonder about this, like this whole assertion of it being symptoms I kind of find a little bit odd too. Like, are you sure these are symptoms? These might be perfectly normal, as she kind of alludes to.
Will: Maybe it's just a medical journal, that's the words they have to use. The word- It probably is.
you know, What are the, what are the, physiological things that happen in the body-
Rod: we don't expect or we don't seek, therefore they're symptomatic of something, as [00:15:00] opposed to just also a thing.
Will: like heart attack, you could say symptoms include, you know, you got the pain down your left-hand side, whatever.
it is. Yeah, You know, So these are the things that are associated.
Rod: Yeah. I don't know. But anyway, look, um, let's see what the next 30 years bring. There might be one more study
Will: And I really do wanna know about the
Rod: So do I, 'cause holy shit.
Will: Hats off. Hats off.
Well, I've
been diving into the case reports too, and,
Rod: Oh, for we are nearly kind of doctors, but not at all
Will: from the case report, a 29-year-old man in Queens, New York was walking home from the store- when he suddenly started feeling heart palpitations. So heart palpitations is, you know, sort of an accelerated heartbeat at irregular intervals. Your heart's just going- ba-da-ba-da-ba-da, ba-da. something like that. Yeah. He was alarmed, as many people would be. Yeah. Well, who's- And
he yeah,
just just pushed through.
Rod: whatever, man.
Will: man.
He wisely said, "I'm gonna go to the hospital." "Immediate visit."
Rod: So he must've been rich.
Will: have been rich. Uh, the man
told the hospital doctors that he had no history of heart trouble. He was not experiencing [00:16:00] symptoms that are normally associated with a heart attack- such as chest pain or pressure Difficulty breathing, dizziness, cold sweat or anything like that. Nor did he have a history of drug use or illness that could have triggered the
Rod: Too boring to have a heart attack.
Will: At the hospital, doctors performed an electrocardiogram which monitors the heart's electrical activity.
and rhythm, And it shows, yeah, you've got the atrial fibrillation, which is a common type of arrhythmia. Mm. in which the heart's upper and lower chambers are sort of out of sync. Things are going a bit skewiff in there. Yeah. Beating a little bit weird. They said, "All right, well, it's not the most dangerous thing in the world, but we can treat that."
" so there, there are definitely a bunch of treatments that we've got ready to go. but the treatment we're gonna do is called cardioversion. Uh, it doesn't really matter because something else happens before that."
Rod: Oh.
Will: before we perform cardioversion, uh- we've got to- Cardio-aversion?
Cardioversion.
Rod: Cardiover-
Is it one word?
Will: No, don't get fixated on that because I haven't looked it up and it doesn't matter 'cause it never happens. It's gonna happen, but it doesn't happen. Oh. don't get fixated. Because they're like, "Okay, but before that we've got to put in an anticoagulant to make sure that you, [00:17:00] um, to prevent-"
Rod: Obviously, administer nine liters of aspirin stat.
Will: of aspirin stat. And
to put in an anticoagulant, we wanna check that you don't have any, gastrointestinal bleeding. You don't have anything going on. already. That's right.
So the standard check for gastrointestinal
Rod: Camera
up the butt ...
Will: well, not d- not a camera. A digital rectal exam to check for blood in the patient's stool.
Rod: a whole hand up the butt, okay.
unambitious.
Will: That
would not be called digital,
like- so- It
Rod: multi-digital ...
Will: at the time, the man's heartbeat was measured at 140 beats per minute.
Rod: minute. And- Sorry, but like, you go in there, you're freaking out 'cause your heart's going nuts and they go, "We're gonna have to stick our fingers up your butt."
And you're like, " No, I said my heart. I said my heart"
Will: When the rectal exam was over, the doctors noted that the patient's heartbeat had slowed right down to 80 beats per minute. Ah. And further examination showed that the irregularity in his heartbeat had disappeared. He was discharged from hospital- With a message ... with no fur- with no further treatment. And when he came back for a follow-up visit three months later, he said the heart palpitations had [00:18:00] not returned.
Rod: So all he needed was a finger up the date.
Will: The doctors conclude, should there be heart palpitations of this type- ... a new treatment may be available. The rectal
exam is a relatively simple and affordable, I might add- here- Sure
procedure that presents little risks for AF patients. Thus, this case report provides an implication to use rectal exam as an additional therapeutic modality for selective patients of this
Rod: type.
You fucking idiots. Like, come on.
Will: on.
Rod: I, I agree it's cheap, right? With a bit of l- a bit of lube and some paper towels to clean up afterwards.
get that.
Will: Your heart's gone a bit wobbly finger up the butt ...
Rod: your butt.
Will: your butt. And that is in the medical literature now. Trust me. It's in the medical
Rod: This is why they consider case studies quite low on the evidentiary pyramid.
Will: Yes. Yes, case reports are, are science, but not all the way to s-
Rod: we're gonna need a few more than one. You're,
Will: You, you're the one that wants to do the, the blind study. I don't, I don't know how [00:19:00] you would do a fucking blind st-
Put
a blindfold on and see which ones
Rod: get.
And I don't know if it counts if you put their heart into
Will: heart rate down.
Rod: if you-
Will: Well,
that's true.
But you know, all of the arrhythmic, arrhythmic patients that come into the hospital, you could go,
Rod: a conclusion, though ...
Will: conclusion though? I'm randomly gonna...
Rod: So he did the rectal exam and his heart calmed down, and he's been fine ever since, and you're like, "And that's all you measured."
Will: measured."
Rod: That's lazy.
Will: So
there you go, listener. next time you have a little bit of a, an arrhythmia- ponder. Ponder your choices ...
Rod: what to do.
Will: what to
Rod: Dubious do-gooders. So
this
is from a nice little piece I read in New Scientist earlier this year. So there are a whole bunch of tests about, and studies on altruistic behavior. Your altruisms being allegedly the doing of nice things for others without any obvious
Will: any gain.
Except for, you know, the feeling. of- The The feeling of wellbeing and holiness.
Rod: Yeah. And which is, you know, important. And there's one example that came up early in this [00:20:00] piece, the public goods game.
So in this one, everyone gets an amount of money in this game. There's an option to put none, some, or all of it in a shared pot.
and as the game goes through, whatever the game goes through, there's interest being paid. Okay. So the, the pot accrues interest, and then at the end, the pot is evenly split between everyone.
Will: Oh, no, I wanted to build a, useful piece of local
Rod: or it gets put to sewage you. You're welcome. hoping for.
I don't wanna
Will: know- Every-everyone gets a nice, shiny new
Rod: toilet. Exactly.
And, everything they put in it goes away efficiently. I don't wanna, I don't wanna let you down. I don't wanna let you down. I hate it when you're sad. I like it when you're shocked, but I don't like it when you're So anyway, you, you get to choose. Put in some, put in none,
Will: But No, to, to, go back, not to ruin your description of the study-
Rod: I don't mind ...
Will: goes back to people individually, not to a collective
Rod: good. Definitely individuals make the choice. So the risk-reward equation basically, and people at home are sitting there going, "I've already worked it out."
If everyone puts in heaps of money, you get maximum interest, big payouts for everyone.
Will: a
Rod: in but others don't, the interest accrued is quite large. But if you're the only one, you do worse than [00:21:00] others.
If you put none in, you still get a cut, plus you've got your own original stake.
Yeah. So, you know, it's one of these classic games. But the question here is: How do people judge the other players on their acts?
Will: How? I guess some people are like, "Oh, look at that loser putting their money into the collective pot." Yeah. And other people are l- are like looking, "Look at that asshole not putting their money into
Rod: pot." There's more. Other
So there's people who are appalled
Will: losers and assholes was the, standard template. Like there's boys, girls, losers, assholes.
Rod: you're, you're thinking of, uh, Team America: World Police and that whole great, great monologue done by one of the characters. you haven't heard it, go and watch Team America: World Police.
It's the pussies and assholes monologue. It's Okay.
Will: don't know if clever.
Rod: It's genius. So, how do people judge? As expected, people were appalled by freeloaders, people who just didn't put in any money, but they did, and then the freeloaders kept their own stake, plus they got some money.
they were appalled by it. But they were also equally appalled with the most generous contributors to the people who put in the most of their own money into the central
Will: by it,
like...
Rod: They were not happy with those people either. that- Equally peeved.
Will: that's [00:22:00] because people are being shown up by people that are, that are holier than them.
They're like-
Rod: Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the lines from this, report, they ended up resenting them for their displays of "How dare you trust people more than me, and how dare you be all good and Yeah. Yeah ... think
Will: not. I, I think- It's interesting ... you know, you know, you know those people that are putting it all, they're like, " I love you so much that one day you'll be
Rod: better."
Yeah, the moody, the, the Buddha gave money person- Yeah ... person. Um, there's a psychologist quoted in this thing, uh, Nicola Rahina. She says, look, when, when asked to explain their resentment, people said things like, " No one else is doing what the big contributor does.
It makes us all look bad."
Yeah. "
Because they're so generous and
for the collective." We look bad." Yeah, "We look like shit because of you."
Yeah. "I was trying to look decent, and you show me up."
Yeah, "I put in five bucks of my 100 because, you know, I'm a contributor, but let's calm down."
This is all pretend money, I don't... I think maybe they got to
keep the money. Yeah. Okay.
But it's not like here's 100,000 each. It's
not like they have... Yeah, it's not 100,000. No. But it's also [00:23:00] not like they have worked for it themselves. They, they came into the door, and they are given this
money to them. So- Yeah.
But, you know, people, people are bad, but people worry about loss more than gain and all that shit.
There's other psychology of it. Um- In her book, she goes on to mention variations of this in other games that are very similar. She says, "Some players want to kick the do-gooders out of the game entirely." The people who put in all the money, they wanna like, "Fuck 'em off.
Get rid of them.
And it goes on, "When players are given the chance to pay out some of their own money to punish the do-gooder, many do.
They will hand over money to punish the person who put in more."
Where was this study conducted?
Swaziland.
No. Tell me where.
Uh, this is a bunch of studies she's congealed, so there would... A lot of it would've been the, the Global- There you go ... North.
so she says, basically, "We're highly suspicious of anyone who might be faking virtue to boost their own social status within a group."
Uh-
Why are they faking? They put the money in. Yeah. Like, it's not like they're saying- I agree ... "I'm gonna put the money in," and they pretend to put the money in, they-
Yoink. Yeah.
Like, that's faking. Actually putting the money in is- Yeah ...not faking. Yeah. [00:24:00]
Yeah. But she's like, "No." No, that... Not she. She's reporting on these people like, "No, they put it in for their own gain, therefore back to altruism."
So then this, this little, uh, report goes on to talk about a recent study by a Spanish guy, Sebastian Hafenbredle, your classic Spanish name. the scenario participants were given was this: There's a guy who volunteers to work either at a homeless shelter-
Yeah ...
do a shift at a coffee shop.
Yeah. In both cases, his real motivation-
And he's volunteering at both?
He's volunteering at both, but his real motivation is he's got the hots for the woman who runs the shelter/coffee shop. Oh, okay.
Okay. Rightio. People were much harsher on him volunteering at the shelter than the shift at the coffee shop. They're like, "Wait, volunteering to go to the shelter to help out when you wanna
bang the..."
I don't know what lady is.
Like- She's in both. She's... There's, the idea is she could be in both. but they, they're like, "To, to go and volunteer at a coffee shop-"
I'm sorry, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a bit racist here and, and, and stereotype here, but such a Spanish study. Like
By a German guy.
basic, the gist is because he's volunteering at a homeless shelter, he's in line for greater kudos, socially speaking. Oh. But [00:25:00] in reality, he's just trying to bang the
girl. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, okay. Date. Date the girl. So there's, there's two different... One, in the coffee shop, he's just trying to be near her so he can talk to her.
In the homeless shelter, he's trying to be near her, but also get the, the virtue points. Yeah.
Well, that's the suspicion. They're just like, "No, it's dishonestly gained virtue," because he's actually there 'cause he wants to, to bang the hot girl. But what happened then was, in a follow-up, he admits to the girl that he actually is interested in her, even when he goes to the homeless shelter, and apparently then the judgments are far less harsh because he's been honest about it, so he doesn't get these free altruism
points.
Well, apparently we actually like honesty.
Well, that's something, isn't it? But I think it's funny, like, like you said earlier, like regardless, the work still gets done. Whether he's motivated 'cause he wants to play with the woman in charge of the homeless shelter or whatever, he's still there volunteering and doing the job, right?
He's, he's, he's doing it anyway. But that's not enough, and that there's this whole thing called the tainted altruism effect. There's a whole bunch of research on it. Wow. Yeah. Which I didn't get into 'cause there's a shitload of it, but I love the tainted altruism. So there are more studies unpacking it, but like people who donated blood or gave to charity for their own sense of self-satisfaction, so donated blood, gave to charity to feel better about themselves, they were seen as [00:26:00] more moral than those who were attempting to do it to enhance their reputation.
Yeah, sure.
But less moral than those who actually declared upfront, "I have no ulterior motive. I'm just giving." So they were seen as super immoral because they didn't-- they weren't believed- Yeah ... basically.
So of course, many people are motivated, they wanna feel good about themselves, but on its own seen as bad.
It's almost like we're in a society and- It is ... and people that pretend they're only doing it for you. Yeah. It gets people shitty. Yeah, it gets people shitty. They're like, "No, you, you... It's sus." So Hafenbredow, the non-Spanish Spanish maybe is, So what taints pro-social actors, he says, it's not the mere presence of self-interest. That's not the worst thing. But the perception that they're trying to reap rewards they didn't actually earn. Sure. Apparently, that's deceptive.
So undeserved social credits and all that sort of stuff.
so if a guy gets a date with a homeless shelter lady, I don't care, he still helped out at the homeless shelter. But my takeaway is, what you need to do if you really wanna get people to volunteer anywhere is maximize how many flirty, hot people are there. Sure. That's it.
That's the real takeaway.
Wow. Look at you. You wanna get volunteers, fill up the, area, flood the zone with
hot [00:27:00] people. that seems that seems really easy.
That's science.
That seems really-
Science has solved the problem for volunteerism.
Ah.
I love stories of academic fraud. Uh, not because they
happen- Why? Why are they so close to your
heart? Not because they happen, because, uh, when they get caught. But here, coming from The Guardian, I wanted to tell you the story of-
Wait, wait,
wait. Before you go on, look up, don't look at the paper. Spell Guardian.
No, Grauniad. G-R- U-A-N-I-A-D. Have you ever typed it in and not had to have the spell checker go, "No, you got the U and the A wrong"?
No, I always know how to spell Guardian.
Every time I type it in, no matter what, it's al- I always get it wrong.
I have a gift. But this guy, this guy, I've got two questions for you.
I want you to tell me, is this a crime? And- Okay ...do you take your hat off? Wait, crime or fraud?
Well-
Is academic fraud a crime?
Yes. Okay
Now that
I have the parameters, I'm ready
At a ceremony at the French National Assembly attended by Nobel Prize winners, former government ministers, MPs, decorated scientists and academics- Crime ...all attention was on a previously unknown literature professor.
Oh.
Florin Moncler. I think he was then [00:28:00] 46. A balding, bespectacled man, figure in an ill-fitting suit and a rosé-colored shirt.
Yeah, of course. He's a French literature professor.
I know. I mean, that's like saying man, man had face. Well, I,
I-- wears the turtleneck.
But anyway, was receiving the 2016 Gold Medal of Philology, the study of language in historical context- I thought it was stamps ...
from the International Society of the same name. Philology Society. Moncler was the first French recipient of the medal, previously awarded to the Italian author and, uh, academic, Umberto Eco.
Those attending. It was a glittering event and and an impressive achievement. But- Hmm ... unfortunately, some Romanian detectives claim the award itself was entirely fake and part of a complex international hoax worthy of Descript. The, the award was a
hoax? So, the ceremony did take place.
Also c- sorry.
The Romanian
detectives? Yeah, we'll come to that. There was no International Society of Philology. The American university to which it's supposedly affiliated existed only online. Oh. And its address was given as a business services company in Delaware. [00:29:00] It's
always Delaware.
The award looks like a Nobel Prize gold medal sort of thing.
Yeah. Might have been invented by Moncler himself. And the academic bought the medal from a jeweler in Paris for €250 to present to himself. Moncler is under investigation for suspected forgery, use of forged documents. So French prosecutors are saying this is all a gigantic hoax.
So Moncler was an unremarkable teaching instructor who liked to write fantasy books. Mm-hmm. Uh, many about vampires in his spare time. Uh-
Oh, God, there's no other people like that.
Yeah, yeah. Over the years, the award has been given to, as I said, Umberto Eco, given to, Noam Chomsky- Oh ...uh, given to a few other people. but when it was, to be given to the Romanian academic, Eugen Simion, then, uh, 85, Romanian journalists from the publication Center Nine- Mm uh, were intrigued by the honor and thought, " well, who else has won this honor?" And [00:30:00] discovered that, uh, the University of Philology and the E- uh, Philology and Education and the- Ah ...International Society of Philology existed solely through websites created and hosted in France.
It turns out that, uh, this all seems to have been made by Monclair to award to himself.
Now, what it seems like he has done- Mm ...is he's, uh, designed the award- Mm-hmm ... made up the universities- Mm-hmm ... and then given it to Umberto Eco and to Noam Chomsky. Well, good. Noam Chomsky happily accepted the award, I think, um, and said, "Oh, this is, this is great," and gave it to himself.
Okay.
At the time, he was going for promotion, and he used- Ah
the International Philology Award to help boost his case for promotion. Uh-huh. So here is my question. Oh, yeah. Here is my
question. You know my answer already, but carry on.
Should you make up a, an award and give it to yourself? Is that a crime?
I don't... That's not yes or no. That's [00:31:00]
not yes or no.
Because all awards have to start somewhere. So i- if...
What he has to do, he has to commit to continue the
award. I just wanna... The, the Nobel Prizes, I don't think Alfred Nobel gave himself a Nobel Prize.
No, no, but he was already a dynamite billionaire. He didn't have to worry.
He
didn't- He wasn't
going for a promotion ...at an obscure univers- Exactly. At some obscure university 'cause he suddenly had a third child and didn't know how to buy rusks. But-
In Monclair's version- Yeah ...uh, Monclair says, in his view, the medal is not a forgery. It's a legitimate- Well, it's only a forgery if it's mimicking something else, right?
Indeed. Indeed. That's not a forgery. he has not forged a Nobel Prize- No ...or an Olympic
gold- He didn't call it an N-O-B-L-E Prize, like it
was- He didn't spell it wrong.
Yeah, exactly. Like, "Well, it's different. Piss off."
A forgery implies that there is a genuine medal
Mm-hmm.
I agree. It cannot be a forgery.
No. Anyone can create a medal. You can go to a medal shop in Paris-
And to be fair, all [00:32:00] medals started somewhere.
Inventing an international award, Monclair's lawyer says- Is not a criminal offense No Giving it to people, and you get to decide if you're the ins- if you're- I'm the awarder, I decide the awardees
So should you be allowed to invent a international award?
Yes. Yes.
Should you give it to yourself? Yes.
Particularly 'cause he was under a lot of pressure to go for promotion, and maybe hadn't published quite as many pointless papers in journals no one reads as he
should have.
This isn't personal. This is just, you know, a friend of mine or an acquaintance.
He has not- Also,
what awesome effort, like if nothing else-
what he could do is write up all that and his rationales behind it-
And, and say, "Oh, punked. You know, this is to show the-" Yeah ... the weakness of the academic awards system." Exactly, and here's my 98,000-word monograph on the subject, which is equal to 17 papers.
Ah. Promote me.
I just,
I just multiply... I have to take my hat off to him.
Oh, I'm on the team. Is he [00:33:00] still around? Like how long ago was
this? Yeah, yeah. Well, came out just recently, but he started doing, what did I say? 2000 and- Oh, 2000s. No,
no, no. Yeah. he gave himself the award in 2016, so 10 years ago.
Drop
us an email. And probably, it was a bit more recent that the Romanians got part and the prosecution is going on now. I think it's fabulous. I think that is fabulous. That makes academia interesting.
Why don't, you know, us as a can-do little podcast, we could, uh, make up a gold medal of,
uh- Not make up, create and award
craft? Craft. Yeah, there's nothing... They all have to start somewhere. That's not fake. That's just a beginning.
Do you like, though, do you like the way that he socialized it by saying, "Well, I'm on the level with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky." Oh, well, if you're gonna do it.
Yeah. If you're gonna do it. And, and I would go, "This can be awarded to posthumous or non- 100% posthumous
people." This could be Einstein, Jesus, and me. Exactly. Oscar Wilde, that Shakespeare dude, for whatever it's worth, and Francis Bacon just in case,
And
now it is my, my turn. Which equates to awesomeness. Like it is so [00:34:00] Trumpian. It's like- Ah ...he knew the Trumpian world was
coming. But Trump doesn't even try. At least this guy tried.
Like points for effort. I'm, I'm on board. I'm on board.
I learned something that...
Well,
I hadn't known it, and I'd never thought this. Most birds, in fact, nearly all birds- have temporary homes. They make in a nest- Ah ... they leave the nest. Like, that's it. it's, like a holiday camp, and then they, they might find another place next year.
Don't, Don't, most animals have temporary homes? Yeah, I
think, I think just generally they are not a... Well, no. Okay, ants, they definitely have a, a long-term home. That's true. They keep going there.
what about sloths?
Oh,
Game animals.
Uh, again, don't know. Birds. Birds. Yeah, but, you know, it, it kind of makes sense.
You see a bird nest and then it's, it's often empty. You know, they use it for a season and
then- And then it's over. Yeah, that's true. It's very
squandery ...vultures, vultures, and in particular, bearded vulture from, uh, parts of Europe, including the Pyrenees, can make nests because they're in such good spots- Mm
that can be inhabited by multiple generations. [00:35:00] Ah, well it's very European. It is very European. Multiple generations in one
house. Well, not just multiple generations, but can be inhabited by centuries worth of- Shit, no. Yeah. Like that is the vulture nest that for centuries they have had- Awesome vultures living there. Awesome
Think of the improvements to the infrastructure and the, you know, the, Insulation. It was worth it.
This dementia, it's just getting better.
Now, sadly- the European bearded vulture- Mm ...uh, is not as, vibrant and, common of a species as it once was. Right. It still exists, but it is much more threatened. Yeah. And so this means that, um, there are some vulture nests that our friends, our creative archeologist friends can go, " Do you know we can check this shit out?"
Yeah. 'Cause I can imagine there's the creative archeologists that go, "I wanna go into that vulture nest" and like, "Fuck that." Like, going into a, a living vulture nest would be-
I'm guessing some of the occupants might be peeved ...
But a bunch [00:36:00] of, vulture nests, have been explored by a bunch of archeologists, and they've just published this work in the Journal of Ecology, that were abandoned something like 70 to 130 years ago.
So are still there- And yeah, they're there. They're there ... with crannies and nooks and what not. And crannies. Nooks and crannies.
They're in a cranny.
You couldn't have a nook without a cranny, and you couldn't have a cranny without a nook.
No, I've heard of breakfast nook, but have you ever heard of a breakfast cranny?
Of course, I always have my breakfast in a cranny.
But it's true, I've never heard cranny used on its own. Definitely nook, but not cranny.
Hmm. Hmm. I'm, I, I feel like I'd go and find all the nooks in the world and put a cranny in it.
Well, I don't know what to do with that.
What you're missing is a cranny.
So there's still a bunch of these old ancient vulture nests. Like these- Hmm ...these things are like, well, as I'll come to say in a second- Mm ... up to 700 years old.
Fuck off. Fu- yes. So they've radiocarbon dated-
This nest? Yeah, 700 ...
[00:37:00] radiocarbon dated a bunch of the stuff they found- Wow ...in the vulture nests, and they, been inhabited for probably like 500 years in that time.
Since before Jesus was born. No. Give or take.
But, but,
could have been possible. So the ones that they looked at, up to 700 years old. Osicia- Wild. Wild ...a team, um, a team went and looked at these, and they did surveys of 12 of these long abandoned nests. Now, they found centuries worth of eggshells, God ...lots of prey remains and natural nesting
material. And y- y- y- guanos.
Yeah, probably y- guanos, Yeah. Yep. well, no, guano is, is bats, uh, so probably-
I meant bird guano. Bird guano. Yep. It'd just be bird poo. And poo. Yeah. But 226 different objects that were either made or altered by humans
It's
like a car.
Yeah, like- Someone's hat ...years ago. It's a wagon like that. So we've got Bertha Benz's first car.
So they found in these vulture nests, and I'm just... There's a bit of me that's like, "How did we get these things in here?" They found, [00:38:00] okay, crossbow bolts and wooden lances-
Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah ...
um, that could have been, like, a bird shot with it- Yeah and it's gone back to its nest, and it's gone there. Yeah. A, a full saddle ...
but they also found, like, decorated sheep leather, parts of slingshots. there's, like, you know, something that looks like an old, shoe, some string and things like this going back hundreds and hundreds of
years.
Decorated sheep leather?
Yeah.
So leather, so the skin of a sheep with some patterns
on it. And, and it's been made into something
like- Like a, a jerkin. It's always a
jerkin. It must have been a jerkin, and it's only a bit of a jerkin. You can't tell the full-
Oh, your jerkin shard. The archeologist's holy grail.
And so, you know, they found, I think it was the, some of the stuff going back at least- ... 675 years. Damn. So I just, I'm loving the concept of these vultures bringing back little bits of, you know, little bits of humans or little bits of human stuff, or somehow-
bringing stuff into their nest for hundreds and hundreds [00:39:00] of years.
I wanna hear, was there anything modern?
Anything mod- Well- Like a cell phone or
something? No, because they were, you know- These are your abandoned ones.
These are your abandoned ones. Right. So
theoretically, theoretically,
the existing ones, if you are not only a creative archeologist but a brave archeologist, you could go and raid-
Like wallets and car keys and stuff.
Go and raid-
Someone's driver's license. I
think actually that would be a crime to raid a modern, a, a modern bearded
vulture's- What if you do it subtly?
Still a crime. Respectfully. Still a crime. But I don't know what you would find. I wanna know. Vultures are... They're not like, your scavenger bi- Well, they're scavengers, but they're not necessarily looking for the, the human stuff.
I think it's human stuff that comes when they steal, like, a human baby and-
Oh, fair
enough. Yeah, Yeah, and- And the baby's clutching a remote control for a TV. You're like, "Therefore, the remote control
ends up there." Or in medieval times, the jerkin. like-
A, a piece of a jerkin. Just a shard. A piece
of a shard of je... You know, I assume the vulture's stabbed into it and like
So
I'm just so happy with the concept of these, [00:40:00] vultures as just, little museums, little museum makers up there in the buildings. That's a nice way to look at it. I like that.
Yeah. Yeah, it's nice. I just wanted to finish on, a nice bit of climate news. Go, go on
well, you know that Donald Trump spent a whole bunch to clamp down on renewables and push the fossil fuels.
Um- Yeah, 'cause windmills are killing the kids Yeah.
Well, they're not, but yeah. But I, I read some stats this week that, US renewables are still just going complete gangbusters. Like- Fuck you. Ha ha.
Yeah, that's great. That's great US solar generation, 28% higher, 2025 versus 2024 Is that right? Like, in one year, another 28% jump.
Like still-
It's good you're saying this 'cause that shit gets missed in the, in the noise machine of Steve Bannon's-
Renewable energy in the US- has now cracked a quarter of energy. Like it is still- Ooh ... no matter what Trump is saying and pushing.
There'd be some angry men from the South
Oh, there are.
There are. But, listener, you know what to do.
Call us. Call Will's phone. Here's his number, 555-1819
My phone's in a vault tonight You should really try our email, which is [00:41:00] cheersalittlebitofscience.com.au/jesus
got it in
there
