Conspiracy theorists hate uncertainty, a mushroom hot pot in China can apparently summon tiny imaginary people, a bunch of seeds have been sitting underground since the 1800s waiting for their moment and scientists are trying to quantify why words like boobs are funny. This week is a mixed bag of psychology, botany and childish humour, which is basically the entire scientific enterprise when you strip away the grant applications.
Conspiracy Theorists and the Need for a Neat Story
Let’s start with conspiracy thinking. The research we talked about suggests people who lean hard into conspiracies often struggle with ambiguity and tend to prefer simple explanations in a complicated world. Some studies link conspiracy beliefs with traits like paranoia, narcissism, spirituality and lower performance on certain cognitive tests, but the more interesting thread is the emotional one. Certainty feels good. Chaos feels awful. A conspiracy theory can turn a messy reality into a story with villains, motives and a clear ending.
That does not make every conspiracy believer the same person, and it does not mean they are all stupid. It means the brain is doing what it always does under stress. It reaches for patterns, it reaches for control and it reaches for an explanation that feels satisfying, even when it is wrong.
The Yunnan Mushrooms That Make You See Little People
Now to the most unhelpful dinner party ingredient imaginable. In Yunnan, China, there are prized mushrooms that are famous for their flavour and notorious for their side effects if you eat them too early. People report hallucinations, including seeing tiny people, and the effects can last for days. Which is a long time to be haunted by imaginary miniature strangers while you are trying to live a normal life.
The weird part is that researchers still have not pinned down the exact chemical responsible. It might be biology, it might be preparation, it might be cultural expectation shaping what people see, or it might be all of the above. The practical takeaway is simple. If the locals tell you to cook the mushrooms properly, do not get creative. Let them steep. Let them simmer. Let them do whatever they need to do so your meal does not turn into a three day fantasy festival.
The Seed Experiment That Outlives Everyone Involved
Then we have one of the most patient experiments in science history. In the 1800s, botanist William James Beal buried glass bottles filled with seeds to test how long they could stay viable underground. Every decade or two, someone digs up a bottle, plants the seeds and sees what still germinates. It’s long term science in the purest sense, where the people who start the project know they will not be around to see the ending.
And it’s still going. There are only a few bottles left, which means the experiment is slowly moving from tradition into legend. It’s also a nice reminder that nature plays the long game. Seeds can wait. Humans mostly cannot.
Funny Words and the Science of Immaturity
Finally, we get to the important work. Why some words are funny. Researchers have tried to figure out what makes words like boobs or jiggly reliably amusing, and the answer seems to involve rarity and positive emotional associations. Basically, words that feel a bit naughty, a bit unexpected, or a bit bouncy tend to land better.
Of course, the moment you start measuring humour with statistics, you risk killing it on contact. But it is still comforting to know there is at least some method behind the madness, even if the method leads us right back to the same conclusion we already knew. Humans are children. We just have mortgages now.
So that is the week. Conspiracy brains craving certainty, mushrooms that can hijack your reality, seeds that outlast generations and scientists bravely analysing the word boobs. Stay curious, cook your hot pot properly, and if you start seeing tiny people, maybe stop eating the mushrooms.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
00:48 Conspiracy Believer Traits
03:13 New Study On Coverups
05:14 Ambiguity And Unfairness
06:42 Skepticism Vs Conspiracy
07:59 Mushroom Hot Pot Warning
10:19 Tiny People Hallucinations
14:01 Hunting The Active Compound
17:35 Seed Bottle Time Capsule
21:24 Custodians And Map
21:56 Bottles Remaining Timeline
23:12 Succession And Secrecy
24:51 2021 Dawn Dig
26:30 Why The Experiment Matters
29:10 Long Term Projects
30:48 Science Of Funny Words
36:31 Modeling Humor Categories
40:21 Phonemes And Incongruity
43:22 Destroying Humour And Wrap
SOURCES:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656622000423
https://futurism.com/health-medicine/conspiracy-theories-psychology
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/science/beal-seeds-experiment.html
https://magazine.wfu.edu/2022/10/05/unearthing-time-in-a-bottle/
https://www.mentalfloss.com/science/15-longest-running-scientific-studies-history
https://people.howstuffworks.com/why-poop-and-wiggle-are-funny-words-according-to-science.htm?utm_source=HowStuffWorks+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=themed-words-3-6-25
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[00:00:00]
[00:00:48] ROD: So, conspiracy theorists, right? What kinds of people tend to believe in conspiracy? Like we've
[00:00:52] WILL: got conspiracy
[00:00:52] theorists. Exactly.
[00:00:54] You,
[00:00:54] ROD: You can you read through
[00:00:56] WILL: You answered your own
[00:00:57] ROD: question.
[00:00:57] You've
[00:00:57] read
[00:00:57] this paper. So, we got a, you know, there's sort of a greatest hits of assumptions about them.
[00:01:02] And so there was a study, for example, 2022, meta-analysis.
[00:01:05] Did you want me to guess?
[00:01:06] No.
[00:01:06] Oh.
[00:01:07] If you want to,
[00:01:07] WILL: oh,
[00:01:07] People with mustaches. Yep. people who drive Saabs. Yep.
[00:01:11] Uh, 'cause
[00:01:12] ROD: they're
[00:01:12] all secondhand
[00:01:12] now.
[00:01:13] WILL: Indeed, they are. Indeed they are, uh, mandolin players.
[00:01:17] ROD: Uh, it depends how many
[00:01:18] WILL: you
[00:01:18] have. Uh,
[00:01:18] ROD: Ah, it's a
[00:01:19] WILL: game.
[00:01:20] Fans of Monopoly,
[00:01:21] ROD: which version? Star
[00:01:22] Wars or like your
[00:01:23] your
[00:01:23] no
[00:01:23] WILL: no conspiracy monopoly.
[00:01:25] ROD: like
[00:01:26] WILL: conspiracy.
[00:01:26] it's it's moon landing and JFK, like, like Park
[00:01:29] ROD: late on there. How
[00:01:30] fucking confusing would conspiracy monopoly
[00:01:32] be?
[00:01:33] These rules are bullshit anyway. You made them up. I don't believe you. Show me the manual. So as a rule, like, so from this meta-analysis, for example, journal of Research and Personality, my favorite personality research journal.
[00:01:43] Yeah.
[00:01:44] On the whole people who believe in pseudoscience or conspiracy theories, they seem to bang them together. They suffer from paranoia
[00:01:50] or schizo
[00:01:51] WILL: type. Don't
[00:01:52] necessarily
[00:01:52] ROD: suffer
[00:01:53] from,
[00:01:53] but more likely to be,
[00:01:54] yeah.
[00:01:55] WILL: more likely to, yeah. Let's, let's not put a value judgment. Maybe paranoia
[00:01:58] ROD: is their superpower.
[00:01:59] Yeah. They're not t [00:02:00] they're just saying they suffer from it. No. like I suffer
[00:02:02] from
[00:02:03] WILL: No, but that's like beings. Yeah. No.
[00:02:05] So no one suffer.
[00:02:06] ROD: Intelligence
[00:02:07] WILL: maybe, but
[00:02:07] ROD: no
[00:02:08] one
[00:02:08] suffers from,
[00:02:08] suffer from strength It's got me fired from 12 jobs.
[00:02:12] they tend to be narcissistic.
[00:02:14] Religious or spiritual and of
[00:02:15] course have relatively low cognitive ability. That's a classic from 2022, so freaked out on themselves, like, God
[00:02:23] dumb.
[00:02:24] That's the summary that's from this study. But a lot of people, if you ask 'em to list it and I didn't give you a chance, they'd probably say similar things like they're freaks or they're really conservative, or
[00:02:32] WILL: like God. Depends on, I I get the whole
[00:02:34] spiritual,
[00:02:35] but I kind of question the, I doubt they're members of, consistent classical traditional religions.
[00:02:42] I think they're the people that are more they're, they're open to a wider range of religious beliefs
[00:02:47] than
[00:02:47] they might be spiritual.
[00:02:48] I don't doubt that. You know, it's the
[00:02:49] spiritual versus religious thing.
[00:02:51] they say both Yeah. They, They're not equivalent. summarizes, They're not equivalent. They are. They are. This is in the of Research and person. No, but still I'm just, I'm just saying
[00:03:00] not, not, the same thing. You know, you can have your hippie
[00:03:02] ROD: spiritual
[00:03:02] Yeah, can. And they're they're like, no, I don't believe
[00:03:04] in, I've got no doctrines, man. Yeah, exactly. Unless
[00:03:07] you disagree with me. And then boom, it's, it's on. No, I agree with you. Like it's a bit, let's call it nebulous, a bit fluffy,
[00:03:13] this new study, so it was led by Adrian Ham, I dunno if you've heard of him, but he's relatively famous psychologist. he's been a professor at a bunch of places, including University of New South Wales, but he's now at the Norwegian Business School. I think he's in his seventies now. He's done apparently more than 1200 papers.
[00:03:27] He's written fuck loads of books, like tens of books. and he apparently has published around 20 papers, he says, on conspiracy theories over the past 10 years. So he is interested in exploring factors that might influence whether a person has quote beliefs about coverups.
[00:03:39] Coverups.
[00:03:40] So it's like the idea that there are powerful organizations or collection collectives that are concealing the truth from the whole
[00:03:46] world
[00:03:47] and that only the people with conspiracy insight
[00:03:49] can
[00:03:49] see them,
[00:03:50] that
[00:03:50] kind
[00:03:50] of
[00:03:50] thing.
[00:03:51] So study 253 adults, uk, us, Canada, South Africa, so you know, all four
[00:03:56] countries.
[00:03:56] They averaged to 49 years old. So they [00:04:00] wanted to measure conspiratorial thinking. So of course they created a
[00:04:02] scale
[00:04:03] 10 points. And they were rating statements like, politicians usually do not tell us the true
[00:04:08] WILL: for
[00:04:08] their
[00:04:08] decisions.
[00:04:09] Uh, there's a lot of critique of some of
[00:04:10] these scales.
[00:04:12] No.
[00:04:12] Well, it's like, no. It's like you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to think politicians
[00:04:17] ROD: might have
[00:04:18] WILL: motives.
[00:04:18] ROD: Wait a minute. Okay. Keep going. Are
[00:04:20] WILL: Are you a
[00:04:21] Anyone healthy has to be a little bit of a conspiracy. theorist. Like, You gotta, you gotta maintain skepticism. Yeah.
[00:04:26] ROD: Yeah. Conspiracy. Skepticism. Another one is like this. Government agencies closely monitor all citizens. Again, 10, uh,
[00:04:32] WILL: uh,
[00:04:33] ROD: all of them,
[00:04:33] WILL: all
[00:04:34] citizens.
[00:04:34] Well,
[00:04:35] ROD: they
[00:04:35] do
[00:04:36] Closely,
[00:04:37] WILL: closely. What's your definition of
[00:04:38] ROD: closely? Well, not
[00:04:39] WILL: far. Okay. Details weren't. What else, what else you got?
[00:04:43] ROD: We also, they measured their profiles on the high potential trait or tray indicator. So it measures six traits, conscientiousness, adjustment, curiosity, risk
[00:04:55] approach,
[00:04:56] ambiguity, acceptance and competitiveness. So those are the six
[00:05:00] WILL: that
[00:05:00] it
[00:05:00] measures.
[00:05:01] ROD: It's apparently a reasonably well tested, scale. they found, this is interesting. They found no correlation between a person's level of education and their capacity to believe in, as they put it, absurd
[00:05:11] WILL: conspiracies. Okay.
[00:05:13] ROD: Okay. So education.
[00:05:14] No.
[00:05:14] two big findings though, one strong correlation between endorsement of conspiracy theories and a low tolerance of ambiguity
[00:05:21] so yeah, you're into conspiracy theories coupled with a difficulty or a not good at dealing with
[00:05:28] ambiguity.
[00:05:29] You need, certainty.
[00:05:29] You
[00:05:30] WILL: the world. You need
[00:05:30] certain, and so your way of getting certainty is having a
[00:05:33] conspiracy
[00:05:33] ROD: theory
[00:05:33] That's kind of what they're saying. Yeah. So you're saying people feel, if they feel insecure or uncomfortable, they don't know all the answers, they can't grasp some situations, a complex, multi-dimensional, and may even puzzle experts. And if they're given a complicated set of issues and events, they're more likely to sign on to, as they put it, any old conspiracy theory that offers an easy answer.
[00:05:52] WILL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. To the issue Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:05:53] ROD: also. The second one is they found a significant correlation between those who believe the world is fundamentally unfair [00:06:00] and those who believe in conspiracy theories, but they emphasized far fetched or absurd or ludicrous.
[00:06:05] So they're pretty judgy about the nature of the conspiracy. So I think that's kind of interesting 'cause so it didn't confirm the conspiracy theorist to uneducated
[00:06:12] dumbos,
[00:06:13]
[00:06:13] ROD: but the idea of this, you know, this,
[00:06:14] concern
[00:06:15] with ambiguity
[00:06:16] kinda makes sense to me.
[00:06:17] Yeah,
[00:06:17] it's a small
[00:06:17] WILL: study.
[00:06:18] ROD: It they emphasize, you know, when we're faced with uncertainty of these people, they prefer simple lies to complicated truths.
[00:06:24] But
[00:06:24] arguably, most of us fucking do at some level. We want simple answers to things. If we can get
[00:06:28] them.
[00:06:28] WILL: but this doesn't tell us how to spot
[00:06:30] these
[00:06:30] ROD: in the street.
[00:06:30] Yeah, you can. They wear hats.
[00:06:32] WILL: that I'm a podcaster or
[00:06:33] ROD: something. Yep.
[00:06:33] Or they wear, they just wear hats and you look at it and go, that's not a hat, that's a chair.
[00:06:36] That's how you can tell they stand out.
[00:06:38] They refuse to get the vaccines
[00:06:40] WILL: because
[00:06:40] obviously
[00:06:41] 5G
[00:06:42] But aren't you a conspiracy theorist at some point?
[00:06:44] ROD: Oh no, mine, mine aren't theories.
[00:06:46] I don't know,
[00:06:46] am I, I
[00:06:47] don't discount the idea that there may be some wacky things going on, but I have a fundamental skepticism and cynicism about humanity's ability to
[00:06:55] WILL: organize
[00:06:55] you on
[00:06:55] a
[00:06:55] grand
[00:06:56] scope. totally.
[00:06:56] totally
[00:06:57] ROD: That's, that's what shuts it
[00:06:58] WILL: that. Totally get that. I think that, but um, surely as a scientist, you have to be skeptical of Yeah. Established permanent, for all time truth. And, and you have to
[00:07:09] be
[00:07:09] ROD: skeptical that I do. But does
[00:07:10] that make
[00:07:11] you a
[00:07:11] WILL: conspiracy
[00:07:11] theorist? Uh, no. No, but it, says, you know, a healthy skepticism points to this as well. Now,
[00:07:17] someone,
[00:07:18] someone who then, you know, can't tolerate ambiguity and then signs up for, no, the way to explain it is X, they're all evil. They're
[00:07:24] all
[00:07:25] ROD: you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's a
[00:07:26] WILL: all of
[00:07:27] that's, that's a jump from
[00:07:28] healthy skepticism.
[00:07:29] Yeah. But, but I think, we should always, respect a little bit that healthy skepticism is a key part
[00:07:34] ROD: of
[00:07:34] society
[00:07:35] that I
[00:07:35] agree with conspiracy theories, however, and I mean, obviously we're talking about people who maybe leap to them a bit too
[00:07:40] quickly.
[00:07:41] Yeah.
[00:07:41] Okay.
[00:07:42] And accept them a bit too broadly. And again, I'd say that understandably, right? there's complex stuff going on. There's things that people are getting freaked out every damn day and someone comes along
[00:07:50] WILL: and
[00:07:50] goes,
[00:07:51] ROD: if you don't think too hard about this, this is a vaguely plausible explanation or way through it,
[00:07:54] it's seductive.
[00:07:55] It makes sense.
[00:07:56] You feel
[00:07:56] WILL: better,
[00:07:59] ROD: This one is about [00:08:00] recipe or a particular recipe that you really should follow. At least, yeah, you should probably follow it depending on what you want. So between June and August every year, in the Unan province of China, doctors at this particular hospital especially prepare for a flood of people.
[00:08:12] An influx of people have a very specific June and August. This is summer, uh, between Yeah. June and August. Yep. Yep. And they expect them every year. Very specific, debilitating situation. And they're talking hundreds of people. Okay.
[00:08:23] WILL: Okay.
[00:08:23] ROD: Will appear. And it coincides with mushroom season.
[00:08:25] WILL: seed.
[00:08:25] ROD: So this type of mushroom, the L mower, asiatica. it apparently has a symbiotic relationship with pine trees in the forest nearby. Alright, beautiful. So it's probably got a bit of a tank to it.
[00:08:35] WILL: Uh,
[00:08:36] ROD: it's known that it has scrumptious, savory, umami packed flavors.
[00:08:39] This is, this is your eaten
[00:08:40] WILL: mushroom
[00:08:40] ROD: is your eaten mushroom. Yeah. Like it's legitimately an eating mushroom. Super popular with the locals and they often, they serve it up in restaurants and people will eat it at home like it's popular. Yeah. People look forward to it. They go, yay. It's
[00:08:50] WILL: lamb. they've
[00:08:52] ROD: probably the shorter name.
[00:08:53] WILL: The the
[00:08:53] ROD: And, and, and probably, I don't think the using.
[00:08:56] WILL: Latin
[00:08:56] ROD: Very much
[00:08:57] WILL: in
[00:08:57] ROD: that province. No, that's where Latin was actually first spoken in Unan in China.
[00:09:01] WILL: it
[00:09:01] ROD: And then it got, then the Romans embraced it
[00:09:03] WILL: After they
[00:09:03] ROD: after they overtook , the steps people of Unan.
[00:09:05] WILL: the steps
[00:09:06] ROD: Do you even know where the step is? No. No. In Unan? Well, no, that's not all.
[00:09:09] But I mean, the steps, you know
[00:09:10] WILL: they,
[00:09:11] ROD: butt against Yunan. Unan at the edge of the province is like quite a big wall.
[00:09:15] WILL: Don't come to him for geography.
[00:09:16] ROD: No at all. Or history or science really. So anyway, they serve it up in restaurants, eat it at home, et cetera. . It had some weird properties, but people kind of went, yeah, for many years we don't really know.
[00:09:25] We don't really care. Whatever. Don't worry about it until, uh, university of Utah Biology, PhD students, this guy called Colin Dom now, we'll just call him Colin. He came along recently and he went, I wanna suss out a bit more about this mushroom. Because there's stuff going on here. And he was talking to the BBC, apparently, but he said, so I went to start looking at it.
[00:09:40] I went to a mushroom hot pot restaurant in Yunan. Sounds
[00:09:43] WILL: That sounds
[00:09:44] ROD: so good.
[00:09:44] WILL: doesn't it?
[00:09:44] ROD: of me. You just go like,
[00:09:46] WILL: good.
[00:09:46] ROD: Ugh. And you hear the umami and the flavor, and you're like, nah, with a really cold sing tar and
[00:09:52] WILL: s
[00:09:52] ROD: fuck me. Anyway, they bring a hot pot of mushrooms to your table. How's the drooling going? The server then sets a timer on the table. They said for 15 [00:10:00] minutes. And they, look to them and to all guests and they say, do not eat this until the timer goes off.
[00:10:04] WILL: Oh,
[00:10:04] ROD: You gotta sit there looking at your food 15 minutes and smelling it, embracing it, because if you do, you might see little people,
[00:10:09] WILL: Ah,
[00:10:10] ROD: a lot of them. And for quite a long time.
[00:10:12] WILL: So it's a
[00:10:12] ROD: So it's a hall gym? Yeah. Or
[00:10:13] WILL: Or
[00:10:14] ROD: it's making little people drop into existence. Yeah. you might not be clear which way you fall.
[00:10:18] WILL: Yeah.
[00:10:19] ROD: So apparently the people who eat it before the timer goes off and there appears there's quite a few, often end up in hospital because they have exactly, exactly the same symptoms.
[00:10:29] So it's a consistent hallucination? It's a consistent hallucination. Yeah. Okay.
[00:10:33] WILL: Okay.
[00:10:34] ROD: So there's a 1990s paper. So the part of the research that only slightly looked into it until this century when old Colin got up there, they talk about a patient who, this is a quote from, these people saw these tiny figures, all that kind oflike creatures moving about everywhere.
[00:10:47] Researchers go on and say, usually there were more than 10 tiny beings on the scene. See, that'll be the thing. You know, I'm, I'm the doctor. It's like, you know, when we're documenting the hallucination? Yeah. It's like, okay, how many of them, that's the important thing.
[00:11:00] WILL: Like
[00:11:00] ROD: More than 10. If it's, if it's only five, then fuck it.
[00:11:02] Whatever. You go home happens to everyone. If you've got 50, then yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:11:06] WILL: yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:11:06] ROD: This guy put 'em in the 20 room and we'll see if it, if it grows or shrinks. Uh, apparently people would see them on their clothes when they were dressing. They'd see them on the dishes when they're eating. Some would see them marching under doors, crawling up walls and cleaning to furniture.
[00:11:17] And so, so the, the,
[00:11:18] WILL: people shaped,
[00:11:19] ROD: Yep. Humanoid little figures. And some say the visions would become more vivid when you closed your eyes. So you'd see them when your eyes, which is fucking relaxing. Yeah. Yeah. Great. There was a professor in Nan who had a chat with Colin and he said, this is what happened to me when I lifted the table cloth higher.
[00:11:33] So he'd start to see these people. Their heads came off and stuck to the bottom of the cloth, but the bodies kept marching around. I did this many times. He says at two minute intervals, and each time they were there marching and grinning,
[00:11:46] WILL: regardless
[00:11:47] ROD: of if their heads were either off. Yep. Didn't matter if he put the table cloth down and the grinning, then the grinning.
[00:11:51] And he says, oh, I measure them too. They're about an inch high. So you stand next to a ruler for a sec. Yeah. You ball's tripping creature. But yeah. The insane thing here is [00:12:00] everybody sees the same thing.
[00:12:01] Everyone reports this hallucination. Everyone, if you eat the hot pot, left early, early than 15 minutes. Psychedelics don't do this. Like they produce unique individual experiences. Like, you know, you might say, okay, this one gives you more audio. This one might gives you more visuals, but it's different.
[00:12:18] They do not tend to be consistent across people or space, but, so let's look at the psych literature says Look
[00:12:24] WILL: just,
[00:12:24] ROD: just, just, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:12:25] WILL: I assume,
[00:12:26] ROD: I assume
[00:12:27] WILL: Everyone
[00:12:27] ROD: is culturally aware this thing happened. Like, if they're, keep on. This is one of the questions known for ages. This is one of the questions.
[00:12:33] WILL: is
[00:12:34] ROD: it possible that it's culturally not culturally bound, but the culture is generating the things that they see. Is it possible? It is a question. it is a good question to ask. So the psych literature says apparently the appearance of tiny humans, does appear in academic literature a bit.
[00:12:47] It's called lilipu hallucinations for obvious reasons. So it has been noticed, but not hugely. And it's not a standard reaction to one syndrome or chemical. So some people have these,
[00:12:58] WILL: you can
[00:12:58] ROD: oh, you can get this on other for other things. And it seems that often it's for things like, but
[00:13:02] WILL: you,
[00:13:02] ROD: if you are, if you are wanting to generate a tiny human
[00:13:04] WILL: thing,
[00:13:04] ROD: this is the most consistent.
[00:13:05] Yeah. Not all people who see them have taken the mushroom, but all people who take the mushroom inappropriately see them or appropriately depending on your goal or inappropriately. Yeah. the UN thing is strange. So does it happen elsewhere? There other, mushroom stories about mushrooms and little people?
[00:13:19] Yes, there are.
[00:13:20] WILL: really,
[00:13:20] ROD: So in the Philippines, apparently there's stories and there's the one that I had grabbed the quote was, one Elder tribesman in Papua New Guinea describes the effect explaining how he saw tiny little people with mushrooms around their faces. They were always teasing him and he was trying to chase them away.
[00:13:33] So at least two other countries report. eating a mushroom, and having this particular hallucination. So Colin, our intrepid PhD researcher, says, look, it sounded so bizarre there could be a mushroom out there causing fairytale like visions across cultures and across time and space. I was perplexed. I wanted to look further that
[00:13:51] WILL: if
[00:13:51] ROD: it's coming up in different places,
[00:13:52] WILL: somewhat rules
[00:13:53] ROD: out the culture.
[00:13:54] You would think so. Yeah. You're like, Hmm. So what, was the next obvious thing or one of the next? Give you an answer to this. I'll give you an answer.
[00:13:59] WILL: answer. [00:14:00] Right?
[00:14:00] ROD: I, I didn't say you'll like it.
[00:14:01] WILL: Mm.
[00:14:01] ROD: so one of the obvious things to do next is, okay, let's just double check. What's the active substances in these mushrooms?
[00:14:06] So they're not like traditional magic mushrooms. They don't have
[00:14:09] WILL: sort of,
[00:14:10] ROD: sy, they got something else. And so far, not that long ago, in the last few years, did you publish it as something else? Like, is that the, not, not that I only found the active thing.
[00:14:18] WILL: It's something else.
[00:14:19] ROD: Yes, they still haven't worked out exactly what it is, the active ingredient, unless it's happened in the last like few months.
[00:14:25] And I'll have one of the quotes, one of the studies goes, even Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist, known for being the first to synthesize, ingest and learn about the effects of LSD, failed to identify the molecules that cause these hallucinations. so this guy's really into LSD and shit, and he couldn't find it.
[00:14:40] So people started going, oh. Maybe it is still cultural because we can't find a mechanism.
[00:14:46] WILL: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:46] ROD: Mm. Maybe it's just social cues. Maybe there's no pharmacological basis. Maybe they're just slightly different social cues, but for whatever reason. But it seems that, and so
[00:14:56] WILL: it's
[00:14:56] ROD: not, it's not like you are in a crowd of people and you are seeing the people as tiny.
[00:15:00] No. You're seeing additional time. Yeah. Generated spontaneously, extra people. It seems that the mushrooms in these different places are all genetically similar. Their variations are the same thing. and when they give the extracts of the mushrooms to mice to see if it has an effect on non-human.
[00:15:12] WILL: do they seem
[00:15:13] ROD: Mice.
[00:15:13] WILL: mice or
[00:15:14] ROD: Yes, they do. They talk about it too, which is really freaky. Just, I would like to know if it was the tiny, tiny, I wish mice, I wish they could have told me that 'cause that would be fucking amazing. But as far as they got was, they said, look, they would show these increased hyperactive periods followed by a long stupor and symptoms that mirrored some of the biological, biological physiological effects that humans got.
[00:15:31] So they're saying there's biological effect from these mushrooms. There's at least a biological effect of some description,
[00:15:37] WILL: on.
[00:15:37] ROD: mood states or energy states, whatever. So something's active. It's not just social, cultural, imagine whatever. There's something active going on. So as they try to look for the mechanisms, they really wanna find out because the people who are in the psych literature, who also.
[00:15:52] Have little
[00:15:52] WILL: pollution
[00:15:53] ROD: hallucinations who haven't had the mushrooms. It's people who might have had like organic psychosis. So brain damage from, alcohol.
[00:15:59] Oh, okay. [00:16:00] Not many. Not many. We're talking a few hundred at least since up till 2021. It was first found. 1909. They've only seen a few hundred people, two, 300 people., But the relatively few who get it seriously, about a third of those never fully come down. From those hallucinations, not the mushroom people, the people that just get it in their brain, they potentially continue to see these creatures, these tiny little, tiny little people. Clearly this means they exist, right?
[00:16:24] These people are real. The mid little ones are real.
[00:16:26] WILL: I don't think
[00:16:27] ROD: I don't think clearly means that
[00:16:28] WILL: clearly.
[00:16:29] ROD: So it's a bit mysterious. Like you gotta figure, 'cause you know we're science brain people, we can't help ourselves. You gotta figure there's a very specific mechanism working on particular parts of the brain.
[00:16:37] But it's not a hundred percent yet. 'cause at least as I say, unless it's happened very recently, we're not clear what the mechanism is, which bit of the brain it's fiddling with. But I'll leave you with this. If you're tempted to try the hot pot timing yourself and I, fuck I am like, I'd be so tempted to try it to go in early before the 15 minutes.
[00:16:52] 'cause
[00:16:53] WILL: Well, it doesn't sound
[00:16:53] ROD: it doesn't sound like you're gonna die. No, it sounds like be hilarious. Then you see little things. But it is worth noting before you dive in, before we go to Nan and we would, we will obviously, we'll do a little bit of science field trip. The hallucinations can take 12 to 24 hours to kick in. Oh.
[00:17:06] WILL: Oh.
[00:17:06] ROD: And they can last up to three days. I got work.
[00:17:11] WILL: I, I don't
[00:17:11] ROD: I did. That's the problem. I'm book at work. Otherwise, I'd be fine for seeing little creatures everywhere. I don't wanna be answering emails.
[00:17:17] WILL: and there's little,
[00:17:18] ROD: People beds around.
[00:17:19] WILL: around.
[00:17:19] ROD: No. And you probably wouldn't. And also if you do get,
[00:17:21] hospitalized, I reckon often the hospitalization can last for up to a week for the people who experience it.
[00:17:27] So it probably explains why Colin, the researcher, has yet to try the, mushrooms himself.
[00:17:31] Wow.
[00:17:34] Alrighty. So botany can take a very long view on things and I didn't know this and I don't mean the plants, I mean the botanists.
[00:17:41] William James Bial, you know
[00:17:42] WILL: the
[00:17:42] guy? So he is late 18 hundreds. He was a botanist at what turned into the University of Michigan.
[00:17:47] ROD: pioneer of the development of hybrid corn,
[00:17:50] obviously,
[00:17:50] WILL: it, was it like the university of before Michigan that
[00:17:53] was or was
[00:17:53] ROD: something like the
[00:17:55] WILL: before
[00:17:56] ROD: of
[00:17:56] Michigan.
[00:17:56] It was the Agricultural College of [00:18:00] Lansing
[00:18:00] WILL: Qua. I, knew that the actual result here would be
[00:18:03] ROD: less
[00:18:03] It's not great. Yeah, no, I like your ideas better. It was the pre University of Michigan. So yeah, he, he developed or was one of the people who developed hybrid corn, founder of a particular botanical garden.
[00:18:12] Yay for him. 1879. He fills a bunch of bottles, 20 bottles with over a thousand seeds in each of them. 50 seeds of 21 different kinds of species.
[00:18:22] WILL: All mixed up,
[00:18:23] ROD: All mixed up. All mixed up from this area. So he just basically 50 seeds, different, puts 'em in bottle in some sand, I believe.
[00:18:28] WILL: I was this deliberate.
[00:18:29] ROD: Yeah, deliberate.
[00:18:29] No Oopsy. I filled 20 bottles of
[00:18:31] WILL: seeds,
[00:18:32] ROD: and he buried them in a row somewhere on the campus
[00:18:35] bottles buried.
[00:18:36] Mm-hmm.
[00:18:36] 20 bottles full of seeds all the same.
[00:18:38] WILL: all the same. Are the bottles sealed?
[00:18:39] ROD: Yep.
[00:18:40] WILL: It wasn't like a competition who could grow out the top.
[00:18:42] ROD: Well, yeah, yeah. Well, who could bury the fastest? No, no, it
[00:18:44] WILL: no. Like the seeds. Let's see,
[00:18:45] let's see.
[00:18:45] ROD: Which you
[00:18:45] Oh, no, no. Deliberately sealed. Deliberately
[00:18:47] WILL: Like I'm making silo here. Let's see which one Juliet is
[00:18:50] in. Like, let's you
[00:18:52] ROD: Let's like, knock if you're still alive. No, no. He, and he buried them in, a secret location on the campus. and the plan was that he and people beyond him would dig up one bottle every five years.
[00:19:03] Okay.
[00:19:03] And then they'd plant the seeds and see what grew and how it grew, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. Which is kind of cool. And what he would do in the five
[00:19:10] WILL: year
[00:19:10] shouldn't make it too secret then.
[00:19:12] ROD: Well, that, comes
[00:19:13] up.
[00:19:13] So he would wander out at night every five years to dig up the bottles. 'cause he didn't wanna accidentally expose the remaining bottles till daylight in case that triggered ish reactions.
[00:19:23] So he'd wander out at night and, grab one bottle and he didn't want people to know where it was. So he was a little bit furtive ' cause he didn't want people messing with
[00:19:29] WILL: That's, that's what people love,
[00:19:31] ROD: The furtive.
[00:19:31] WILL: Botanist. Yeah.
[00:19:32] Like furtive is never a positive adjective. It
[00:19:36] ROD: No, it is. If you're protecting your, you know, your, your
[00:19:38] WILL: No, no, no. It's like no one says he was very furtive in a way
[00:19:42] that
[00:19:43] ROD: says, but in a
[00:19:43] WILL: way.
[00:19:43] ROD: way. This helpfully, helpfully
[00:19:47] WILL: if you say, but in a good way, you're like, what's the good way?
[00:19:51] ROD: And now I'm thinking about the bad ways first. So why did he do this though? So what he wanted to do was understand how long plants could last in soil without any light and moisture, et cetera.
[00:19:59] And
[00:19:59] [00:20:00] then to grow. They're in a glass
[00:20:01] WILL: Yeah. Yeah. long a seed last?
[00:20:03] ROD: Yeah. and then can still reoccur,
[00:20:05] WILL: they're, they're packed in with sand, so, we're saying They can't grow at
[00:20:09] ROD: point. No no moisture. Yeah. Just sit there sort of
[00:20:13] inert. Yeah.
[00:20:13] WILL: Yeah.
[00:20:14] ROD: and he was probably trying to help local farmers who were getting really frustrated that they would plow their fields and have to weed all this stuff.
[00:20:20] And there'd be certain weeds that wouldn't appear for a number of years. Then they'd turn the soil over and then suddenly there'd be a shit load of a particular kind of weed. And they'd be like, what the fuck is going on here? How come these things are still
[00:20:29] WILL: get rid of all of the things in the soil
[00:20:31] ROD: Put, put 'em in bottles.
[00:20:32] WILL: Yeah.
[00:20:33] Story over.
[00:20:34] Okay.
[00:20:34] ROD: So, um, they wanted how long also, maybe how long would these seeds take to stop being viable if they were buried? wouldn't they just fucking give up? Was part of why he was motivated to do this? So once he took the bottles out, of course he'd put them in soil, see which would grow and which wouldn't.
[00:20:48] So this is great, but there are 20 bottles. Five year intervals. So we're talking a one century long experiment.
[00:20:53] and He knew maths and he knew that he wouldn't live to see the end of the
[00:20:55] WILL: I reckon he should have gone odd years
[00:20:58] ROD: ad years.
[00:20:59] WILL: As in like you start with five
[00:21:00] ROD: gap
[00:21:00] and then you go
[00:21:01] WILL: 10 year gap. Well, yeah. Okay.
[00:21:03] ROD: You know, nine and a
[00:21:04] WILL: You know, because,
[00:21:05] ' if you've got 20, you don't want, like, you don't want your gap to be the same each time. You want to expand your gap.
[00:21:10] ROD: it did wiggle.
[00:21:11] WILL: Expand your gap.
[00:21:12] ROD: Expand your gap. That's what they'd never say in
[00:21:14] WILL: It's,
[00:21:15] ROD: expand the
[00:21:16] WILL: gap
[00:21:16] Also not a t-shirt slogan.
[00:21:18] ROD: Well, it could be, but I don't know why
[00:21:19] WILL: It's
[00:21:20] ROD: sad. What does it mean? That's the point. That's the point, man. So,
[00:21:24] WILL: um,
[00:21:24] ROD: basically a line of custodians formed at Michigan State University who had passed the torch,
[00:21:29] WILL: The secret knowledge of where
[00:21:30] ROD: were,
[00:21:30] WILL: were
[00:21:30] ROD: of where the seeds were and what to do. And this became pretty critical because after a while.
[00:21:34] The plan changed a little. So at some point the landmarks that originally helped people find the bottles
[00:21:39] WILL: were all bulldozed. Exactly. Disappeared. So someone at some point drew a paper map, which I gather, they said it's a bit more like an architectural plan, but they said basically it wasn't stuck up on the wall in the botany department.
[00:21:50] ROD: Go, there it is. If you wanna go and have a look. It was kept a little
[00:21:52] bit, yeah.
[00:21:53] Between the, the initiates, the known folks. Also the gaps between digs did rise 10 years for a while and then it got [00:22:00] to 20 Got to
[00:22:01] WILL: 20.
[00:22:01] Good.
[00:22:01] That's what I'm
[00:22:02] ROD: hoping.
[00:22:02] Well, you've got your wish and that means the experiment is still going
[00:22:05] now.
[00:22:06] WILL: So how many bottles are left? How many bottles have been opened?
[00:22:08] ROD: 16 have been opened
[00:22:10] WILL: and there's four left.
[00:22:11] ROD: It's four left.
[00:22:11] WILL: That's maths for, you're
[00:22:12] ROD: You're very good at this. So it's still going now. And two of them were delayed for external circumstances, but very similar.
[00:22:19] So the 19 19 1 was moved to 2020 because of something to do probably with the 1918 flu. I dunno. 19
[00:22:26] WILL: was moved to
[00:22:27] ROD: uh, a 1920. Sorry, that, that is a big gap here. Um, something to do with 1980 and flu. They speculate. So there was some stuff and the most recent dig, which was supposed to be in 2020, was moved to 21 because of COVID and, campus shutdowns.
[00:22:40] So there's a little bit of wiggle but I don't think that's particularly No, it doesn't really matter. So the person in charge of the most recent retrieval, the 2021, he was the seventh person to be in charge of
[00:22:50] WILL: this.
[00:22:51] ROD: so The seventh person, Dr.
[00:22:53] Frank Teki, so he's a professor of plant biology at the uni. No surprise. He dug up his first seed bottle in 2000 with his predecessor yarn Siva. Very Dutch Ziva, sorry, I apologize. Yarn. But yarn died in 2009. So luckily it was passed on in 2000. You know, the next person
[00:23:11] WILL: got
[00:23:11] it.
[00:23:12] Do they pass on to someone young or old? Is it like a old pope to old Pope or
[00:23:15] ROD: old
[00:23:15] person? No, No, It's old, older to younger. It seems. They're not that dumb. They, they're less Catholic about it. So the custodians, they don't tell non initiated people where the bottles are. 'cause if it gets out and it gets more famous, obviously people will
[00:23:29] WILL: people
[00:23:30] ROD: good or ill,
[00:23:31] WILL: people will
[00:23:32] ROD: People will mess with it. They'll go and have a little diggy
[00:23:34] WILL: Jesus
[00:23:34] ROD: Christ.
[00:23:35] Someone will, someone will, someone
[00:23:37] WILL: will.
[00:23:38] ROD: There was some pretty intense botanists out there. So in the late 20 teens, teki gave a copy of the map to a guy called Lowry who was an ARS pro of plant biology who said, dude, I want in.
[00:23:50] And so Teki says, cool, you're in. And then a couple of months after he did it, teki has a stroke, so obviously it's cursed.
[00:23:56] WILL: So you don't give it on your deathbed here. Like that would be dangerous. '
[00:23:59] ROD: cause
[00:23:59] then [00:24:00] because then if, you give it on your deathbed and then old mate dies like in a donkey crash straight
[00:24:05] outside,
[00:24:06] WILL: Like that's
[00:24:06] ROD: Michigan's a traditional
[00:24:07] WILL: Well, no, no no doubt. No doubt. But it's just, you should probably share it in enough time in case your
[00:24:13] ROD: initiate
[00:24:14] it before that, or you know, brain damage from a stroke. However, Leski did recover,
[00:24:18] WILL: good,
[00:24:18] ROD: but it made him and Lowry the guy who would inherited the, the calling.
[00:24:23] Pretty aware that you need to make sure you've got a good succession plan. Exactly.
[00:24:27] WILL: So
[00:24:27] that's why you have an air and a spare.
[00:24:28] ROD: You do have an air and a spare. In this case an heir and two spares.
[00:24:31] WILL: So
[00:24:31] they got
[00:24:32] ROD: overkill,
[00:24:32] Two more people
[00:24:33] WILL: in.
[00:24:33] No, then they don't. Then they don't commit.
[00:24:35] ROD: Oh, they committed. And one of them was the first woman to be an initiate in this
[00:24:39] WILL: thing.
[00:24:40] Well, there you go. So the gesture you made
[00:24:42] ROD: doesn't count anymore, but up until that point actually it still could count. You can anoint
[00:24:46] WILL: not, not in that hand gesture,
[00:24:47] ROD: Find that hand gesture with that hand. You can anoint anything. Don't make me prove it. So,
[00:24:50] WILL: um,
[00:24:51] ROD: the most recent dig then we got, we've got Lesky, we've got Lowry, we've got two other doctors, doctors Weber.
[00:24:56] And the names aren't that critical for this, but the most recent dig, the one that was delayed from 2020 to 21. So a few hours before sunrise, the team meets up, ready to go with a plucky and intrepid reporter for the New York Times as well, because of course you gotta cover this shit.
[00:25:10] WILL: You don't get local.
[00:25:11] ROD: No, no, you go, you go national
[00:25:12] WILL: with this,
[00:25:13] not the local
[00:25:13] ROD: paper. This should be the international paper.
[00:25:15] so they, they're all there. They've got their green headlamps, because the green light won't accidentally make the seeds germinate the, in the remaining bottles.
[00:25:23] So it's kinda like having your photographic lamp. You don't have a normal light. map, they've got their digging sticks, et cetera. They get the map out, they go to the spot and they start digging No bottles.
[00:25:31] WILL: What?
[00:25:32] ROD: so they keep making the whole wider and they're like, still no bottles.
[00:25:35] So they're starting to
[00:25:35] WILL: How
[00:25:36] accurate is the map?
[00:25:37] ROD: Apparently, quite accurate. So they're freaking out. The sun's, it's getting towards 6:00 AM so the sun will be rising soon. They're like, oh my God, my God, my God, my God, my God. Oh my God. Then someone goes, I've been reading the map wrong, you idiots.
[00:25:46] It's two feet to the west. So they shuffle a bit sideways. They start digging, and apparently, according to one of them, there are some false alarms. They're hitting tree roots. They hit a rock and one of the doctors is now digging with her hands. So she started to panic, and finally she [00:26:00] finds something smooth and goes, fuck.
[00:26:01] We found a bottle. She says, so she eases the bottle out of the ground as her fellow initiates cheered.
[00:26:07] WILL: She
[00:26:07] ROD: says, it felt kind of like delivering a baby.
[00:26:10] WILL: Yeah,
[00:26:10] ROD: Yeah, I'm with her
[00:26:12] her or finding a really important treasure. I'm like, I'd go with the treasure. I don't, I think it's quite like delivering a baby less soil involved, as I
[00:26:18] WILL: understand it, is. It's definitely closer in the ways of things to the
[00:26:22] ROD: treasure
[00:26:23] I hint.
[00:26:23] WILL: more.
[00:26:24] ROD: But anyway, there was a huge sense of relief. They're all very happy now. They found a bottle. They found a bottle, which is great. So that's cool. So what, what the hell's the point of this experiment any further now? What do you do with it now? Because weeds these days aren't as big an issue because we've got chemicals Yeah.
[00:26:38] WILL: For us.
[00:26:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:40] ROD: What they say. So for the first few rounds of the experiment, a number of the species flourished every time after 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. Many of them still
[00:26:46] WILL: grew.
[00:26:47] ROD: over a time, almost all, in fact all but one stopped
[00:26:51] WILL: sprouting. Which is your, you wanna
[00:26:53] guess
[00:26:53] ROD: La Latin name
[00:26:54] only very close.
[00:26:56] your, the bascu ble,
[00:27:00] WILL: What even,
[00:27:00] ROD: which is, and I know you know this, but others might not know a splay leaved, yellow flowered herb.
[00:27:06] WILL: Well, that was my second
[00:27:07] ROD: I know the first one would've been lavender.
[00:27:09] WILL: No, it was
[00:27:10] ROD: Yeah.
[00:27:11] WILL: zen because I, I gave
[00:27:12] ROD: my
[00:27:12] that was, that's true. You did. So they were still getting about half of them, those to germinate.
[00:27:16] Even in the one, the bottle from the two thousands at least, that was still germinating, which
[00:27:19] is great,
[00:27:19] but because they're not worried about weeds as much and why the fuck things do or do not turn over, we have of course moved on. So plant scientists now really focused on like what and how, what are the reasons internally to the seeds that things do or don't grow?
[00:27:31] And of course we can now look at DNA and stuff, which they didn't even Think about Betty yet planned for. What they're trying to do now is things like resurrect non-viable seeds. So in 2000, apparently they put up one of a bed of soil through a cold treatment to simulate a second winter, and then a single seedling of a species, a meow species called malva silla.
[00:27:51] You know,
[00:27:51] WILL: the one Mm-hmm. malva,
[00:27:53] ROD: it grew, but it hadn't before. So suddenly after the second winter treatment, one of the seeds grew that hadn't grown for many [00:28:00] iterations before. So makes 'em go, oh, there's more going on here than we suspected. And so they're playing with other factors like they smoke some of them because some germinate under fire conditions, but also to see what they might do as pollution increases.
[00:28:12] So there's starting to fuck with these seeds from the past to see
[00:28:15] WILL: I, think well, I mean, I mean the, the chuck 'em in a bottle with a whole bunch of other seeds some sand on top and bury
[00:28:20] them, , is not necessarily as prestige. You know, you think about the modern seed vaults or something like that.
[00:28:26] The point of a seed is to store genetic information for a later time. Yes. Now I think, I think there's probably a lot to be learned here about how long seeds can last and I reckon under pristine conditions and knowing what is gonna trigger them to germinate. Yeah. I
[00:28:40] think, it could be, it could be quite a
[00:28:41] ROD: while.
[00:28:42] Yeah. It's actually quite useful. and they also say that they may be inadvertently hidden amongst the deliberate seeds. Some long lost or unaware of species that are like hitching a ride along the bottles. So they might find some extra stuff, which is kind of cool. So yes, as you, you asked earlier, only four bottles of left from the original cash TKI retired in 2021, and he's aware that he won't see the end of the experiment because it's basically due in 2100.
[00:29:07] Yeah. So obviously we'll be around
[00:29:10] WILL: Well,
[00:29:10] ROD: Well sure.
[00:29:10] But others not so much so, but what amazes me most about this, other than the science and stuff, is this, is this idea of intergenerational projects. Like we're not good at them as humans anymore. We're not as good at 'em as we were. I think we think about time a lot more differently.
[00:29:24] You think back to like St. Peter's Basilica and stuff like
[00:29:27] WILL: this,
[00:29:27] ROD: the person who digs the first hole goes, my grandson's, grandson's grandson might Yeah. That kind of thing, you know, and the planting of a big tree, you know, what is it The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the second best is today.
[00:29:40] But on the whole, but you don't, you It's
[00:29:43] WILL: impressive.
[00:29:43] And I love it, but there are a bunch of like the health and welfare sorts of studies that, that actually they get results straight away. So they go, they go, let's check out on, you know, whatever cohort people see how they're doing in our country and then we keep measuring them.
[00:29:57] Or we might measure, you know, the type of [00:30:00] people and they do get results straight away. But the point then is to go, let's do it every couple of years and just go, let's go into the future. And
[00:30:08] ROD: think
[00:30:09] WILL: I
[00:30:09] I
[00:30:09] totally, I totally get you that maybe we don't think as much in the long term.
[00:30:13] I, I dunno. But, there are
[00:30:15] ROD: Oh
[00:30:16] WILL: and I and I, and I love when people do it. I, I'm with you on that.
[00:30:19] ROD: Like there's a Harvard Study of Health. You're right. And the one that I used to love when I did, um, developmental Psych in the Christ eighties, they were showing us
[00:30:26] the seven up series. Yeah,
[00:30:27] WILL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:28] ROD: and that's, guys, I might even still be having a crack at that. And that's following
[00:30:32] WILL: through. I think they're, they're all well into
[00:30:33] ROD: their
[00:30:34] seventies. Surely. At least
[00:30:35] WILL: I don't know about that,
[00:30:36] ROD: Yeah.
[00:30:37] Yeah. Well, they're older than me and I'm basically 70, give or
[00:30:39] WILL: give or take. Say It ain't so
[00:30:40] ROD: Give or take a decade or two. But no, like they started when film was only black and white. I was born just after
[00:30:45] that.
[00:30:46]
[00:30:48] ROD: science has finally, finally explained. What makes words funny? And as we all know, when you talk about science and
[00:30:58] WILL: you mean individual words like
[00:31:00] ROD: each word, they've, they've checked every word
[00:31:02] WILL: that there's funny words, like
[00:31:03] ROD: some words are funnier than
[00:31:04] WILL: phlo.
[00:31:06] ROD: That is fucking funny.
[00:31:07] WILL: Slutty Bart fast.
[00:31:09] ROD: That is, but it's not a word. It's a name
[00:31:11] WILL: Yeah. Well, yeah.
[00:31:11] ROD: different kind of word.
[00:31:13] WILL: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:13] ROD: I agree. So, um, a couple years ago, late late 20 teens, uh, a University of Alberta psych professor Chris Westbury, Westbury Chris, he developed a theory about why some words are funny.
[00:31:27] And he published this in the Journal of Experimental Psychology and the title, I'm just gonna read the title 'cause it's worth it. Wrigley Squiffy, icks and Boobs. What makes some words funny? We're all cracking up right now.
[00:31:40] WILL: Uh, they, they, they're all good words.
[00:31:41] ROD: all good words. They're good words.
[00:31:42] WILL: They're good words. I mean, some of them are better, like good ending there with boobs.
[00:31:46] ROD: So he took a list of the 5,000 English words rated funniest by people,
[00:31:50] WILL: people
[00:31:51] ROD: people in his study, and built a wor, a working mathematical model for predicting the laugh factor of, I assume this is a laugh factor of [00:32:00] potentially any word.
[00:32:01] WILL: any, any individual. So it's nothing to do with the context. It's not like in middle of a joke.
[00:32:05] Like as a punchline. It's like that word.
[00:32:07] ROD: Yep. The word. and look straight away, I'm trolling myself by doing this, but I have to do it anyway.
[00:32:13] WILL: So we
[00:32:13] ROD: applied this model to a data set of this number's, very specific, 45,516 English words that probably matters. And the model spat out this top 10 list of funny words.
[00:32:26] up?
[00:32:27] WILL: up.
[00:32:27] Chuck's great. Love it.
[00:32:29] ROD: B Bubby. Bubby.
[00:32:31] WILL: I don't mind it. It's not. It's not. Upchuck. Boff, boff,
[00:32:35] ROD: Wrigley. Yaps.
[00:32:39] WILL: Yap.
[00:32:39] ROD: Yaps makes me giggle for no
[00:32:40] WILL: I, I feel like I can use the word yaps in a good sentence. I've got a case of the yaps. Like it's, yeah. Yeah. Giggle.
[00:32:47] Damn.
[00:32:48] ROD: Giggle does make me want to giggle.
[00:32:49] Co cooch. Cooch. Cooch.
[00:32:53] WILL: Uh,
[00:32:54] ROD: gofor.
[00:32:54] WILL: go before. Yeah. Some of these are words that just are about laughing.
[00:32:59] ROD: Yeah. Puff ball.
[00:33:01] WILL: Puff
[00:33:01] ROD: And jiggly. Jiggly puff. Yeah. The next tear
[00:33:05] WILL: are Pokemon.
[00:33:05] ROD: I know. I, no, I dunno. Actually the next tier down included words like squiffy, flappy,
[00:33:12] WILL: flappy. Flappy is better. No, flappy deserves to be higher. Flappy is great.
[00:33:16] ROD: You can't argue with the maths.
[00:33:17] WILL: Don't underwrite flappy.
[00:33:19] ROD: I'm not. It's just That was the next one. Bucko. And of course the classics. Poop, puke and boobs.
[00:33:26] WILL: Yeah. Well. I
[00:33:27] ROD: think there are funnier ones like Interpenetrate.
[00:33:29] WILL: That is a great word.
[00:33:30] ROD: should be there. You,
[00:33:31] WILL: You, you just have to give some context to our listener that, that he and I went, he and I went to a humanities conference once, which was lovely.
[00:33:39] They were all lovely. Everyone was
[00:33:40] ROD: beautiful
[00:33:41] WILL: But there was a lot of people talking about how inter penetrative everything
[00:33:44] ROD: sincerely
[00:33:45] WILL: boy over there could not handle, could
[00:33:47] ROD: me every time. The very sincere, highly scholarly academic go. I think the in penetrative, uh, potentials of this.
[00:33:53] And I'm like, you don't even realize what you're saying or you do. Another word I'd put up there is fistula. [00:34:00] Like that's pretty funny.
[00:34:01] WILL: Yeah, no, totally
[00:34:02] ROD: So penal. Pin.
[00:34:04] WILL: Penal. Yeah. Like prison colony. Yeah.
[00:34:07] ROD: But no it isn't. No. Anyway, I just thought I'd have a crack. Um, according to his model, the least funny word. Oh, wanna guess
[00:34:15] WILL: docent.
[00:34:17] ROD: Docent. No, they're, they can be hilarious. Let me tell you about my museum. Calm
[00:34:22] WILL: Calm. Harassment.
[00:34:23] ROD: harassment or harassment,
[00:34:25] WILL: harassment. Harassment is not a funny word. Like, like there
[00:34:29] ROD: it the least? But,
[00:34:30] WILL: no, even in a joke, there is no, no joke where the punchline and harassment,
[00:34:35] ROD: what is it? Like a, a rabbi, a bishop and an atheist walk into a bar harassment
[00:34:41] WILL: it,
[00:34:41] It doesn't work. doesn't, it's not a funny word.
[00:34:44] And the context it's used in are never funny as well. So like maybe I'm, I'm harassment's not great.
[00:34:49] ROD: I, I've, I've got, I've got a few others that I'd like to put onto the mix as well, because, you know, in the spirit of, you know, I gave you my funny ones, I think least funny words could include leprosy.
[00:34:58] No, no,
[00:34:59] WILL: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:35:00] Leprosy can be quite funny. Like, I'm sorry to,
[00:35:03] ROD: to the lepers
[00:35:04] WILL: Apologies to those with leprosy
[00:35:06] ROD: the
[00:35:07] WILL: don't call them lepers anymore.
[00:35:09] ROD: What do we call them?
[00:35:10] WILL: those with leprosy.
[00:35:11] ROD: Ah, not victims.
[00:35:12] WILL: It could be victims if you want. It depends, depends how you frame it. Like victim is a different state of mind, but I'm just saying they are people with leprosy.
[00:35:20] Uh,
[00:35:21] ROD: What about molestation?
[00:35:22] WILL: Molestation.
[00:35:24] Is that funny? There's a little bit
[00:35:25] ROD: yes. Smiling.
[00:35:26] WILL: some moles out there. Like, like, like, like you look at, you
[00:35:30] ROD: it's like too many
[00:35:31] WILL: doesn't happen in Australia, but an English person looks at their garden. This goes fucking molestation, like
[00:35:36] ROD: of moles Stakeholder.
[00:35:41] WILL: I use stakeholder for jokes quite regularly.
[00:35:43] ROD: Yeah, it's not a funny word though.
[00:35:44] WILL: No, no, it's not inherently funny.
[00:35:45] ROD: Anyway, I would just like to, you know, I like to push back against studies about humor anyway. This is just phase one. So coming up with that top 10 search, that
[00:35:52] WILL: was just
[00:35:52] ROD: phase That was just phase one. Oh, you strap yourself in. So he wanted to find out more and come up with a quote, truly quantifiable [00:36:00] scale of funny.
[00:36:01] WILL: It's, it's, it's a weird moment where someone says, this is what I want. When you were asked by the universe to define what you want, and you go, you know what, I want really global
[00:36:09] ROD: scale of funny,
[00:36:13] WILL: You got three wishes, says the science genie.
[00:36:16] he's like, you know what, that one,
[00:36:18] ROD: and you know, I don't need the other two. I can die
[00:36:21] WILL: no, no, no. Giant mega sex yacht. No, I want the
[00:36:25] ROD: no. Giant mega sex yacht. So many implications. So anyway, he ca, he carries on first he finds the semantic predictors, that group words with similar meanings. Then he used some Google tool, which I looked at, and it was impenetrable to me.
[00:36:44] WILL: which
[00:36:44] ROD: To identify words that are commonly used for one another. So co-occurrence, similar terms, same things.
[00:36:50] WILL: This is, this is like boobs and tits.
[00:36:51] ROD: Yes, it is. Well, well done. I'm very proud of you for that. Very
[00:36:55] WILL: Well, I was just, I was just going to make it,
[00:36:57] ROD: There's a lot. Boobs and
[00:36:58] WILL: So that the listener understood what you're talking about. You were doing, you know,
[00:37:01] ROD: you made me happy though. 'cause it was just so Australian. I mean, there's like boobs and tits, like everything is mapped out. The semantic relationships between 234 of the funniest human picked words. Nice.
[00:37:11] WILL: Nice. And so many of them are gonna be like, not just the sound, but there's some scatological bits here. Like there,
[00:37:19] ROD: oh, I, I'm gonna tell you. Okay. Because he was left with a correlation plot, which if we're gonna get technical and I will for a moment. 'cause you know, he used to do stats and stuff. I feel like it's more, more of a factor analysis job to me. But that's just me. Do
[00:37:31] WILL: do a violin diagram?
[00:37:33] ROD: Yes. They don't.
[00:37:34] Yes, they don't. They may have. I didn't read the whole paper, just, you know, I skimmed it. Anyway, so he does a correlation plot, which kind of is a factor. Anyway, six categories of funny words emerged. Insult. Yeah. Okay. Sex. Yes. Party.
[00:37:49] WILL: Party.
[00:37:49] ROD: Yeah. Party. Party.
[00:37:51] WILL: Party.
[00:37:52] ROD: Party. Animal. Yes. Bodily function. I mean, duh.
[00:37:57] WILL: are all funny things.
[00:37:59] ROD: And [00:38:00] expletive, but which relate as they pointed out, many of these words would fall into many words, would fall into many categories, which is an issue for this study. So gotta fix that. They use more and different stats, and again, for the dorks at home. Linear regression. Nice.
[00:38:14] WILL: Nice.
[00:38:14] ROD: Which I still, I st.
[00:38:16] WILL: no. For the lovely people at home.
[00:38:17] ROD: Yeah. Dorks. I'm a stat. Oh look, I identify as a statistician. I did a lot of stats in my past. I still feel like factor analysis is the guy, but linear regression will do, they're all related. This on earth lists of words most closely related to each of the six categories. I know if this is getting laborious.
[00:38:32] That's 'cause it is. It turns out the funniest words don't necessarily fall cleanly into most categories. They meander.
[00:38:39] WILL: We don't have just one category, like
[00:38:41] ROD: we have those six categories, but the funny words,
[00:38:43] WILL: there's some in each.
[00:38:44] I know.
[00:38:44] ROD: know, right?
[00:38:46] WILL: So weird. So weird.
[00:38:47] We we we animals and poop funny and
[00:38:50] ROD: and they could both be sexy or party categories,
[00:38:53] WILL: possibly.
[00:38:54] ROD: so it turns out the words that the words whose mathematical values are closest on average to the six category defining vectors. If your eyes are starting to roll now, they should be, because this is science, trying to define humor.
[00:39:06] So Westbury, the professor, sums this up in a press release. This is the summary in the press release. The average similarity of a words meaning to these six categories is itself the best measure we found of a words funniness, especially if the word also has strong, positive emotional connotations. Do you want that again? I'll
[00:39:25] WILL: Well, no, surely are.
[00:39:27] ROD: are.
[00:39:27] WILL: Are you saying it's in the category and it's positive? Like what do you
[00:39:30] ROD: what positivity comes into it? Yeah. Or nice poo. Hmm.
[00:39:35] WILL: Hmm.
[00:39:37] ROD: There's more
[00:39:37] WILL: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:39] ROD: meaningless And you kind of brought this up, meaning isn't the only way to rate funniness of words? 'cause there's also things like the length of the word.
[00:39:44] And for me it's things like, you know, one of the, I wanted to call a band that we never formed the Athabasca Baths. Just 'cause it's funny. Yes. And it's long.
[00:39:54] WILL: Yeah. But no one can pronounce it.
[00:39:55] ROD: No they can't. But it's hilarious to say it. We are other Bath, bath. Uh,
[00:39:58] WILL: Yeah. I, you know,[00:40:00]
[00:40:00] ROD: it's just funny
[00:40:00] WILL: not, not wanting listeners.
[00:40:03] ROD: You are not laughing. I, don't understand You're trashing the band. Um, so
[00:40:09] WILL: wasn't my band. That was a different band with your other friends.
[00:40:11] ROD: Yeah. Our band is Squadron. We all know that it's squadron. And one day our album will
[00:40:16] WILL: because you can fit it awkwardly across your eight knuckles.
[00:40:19] ROD: So anyway, word length matters also. And here we get to the crux of it. Commonness of individual sounds, phonemes for the technically minded that make up each word. So phs are the distinct elements of sound in a specified language. So for example, is a pH name in English, and it occurs in words like cat, kit, scat, skit, et cetera.
[00:40:38] But it's nothing to do with spelling. It's the sound. K is a pH name, so is Ba and other such things. So the second analysis he did notes that there are so many words that are hilarious apparently that start with K or or or have K or ooh in them.
[00:40:52] WILL: ooh. No. Who's good?
[00:40:54] ROD: Ooh,
[00:40:54] WILL: Ooh. Who's great?
[00:40:54] ROD: Like poo and Woo and boobs.
[00:40:58] You're right, you're right. Tool. particular phoniums are funny than others. Why? Because they are statistically in improbable A K, A, they don't happen as often. which links into the In incongruity theory of humor.
[00:41:11] WILL: Yes.
[00:41:11] ROD: basically is, we find humor when our expectations and reality
[00:41:15] WILL: Are you gonna tell me, just gimme the funny, like, tell me how to use these things or something. Like, do I just say boobs in every sentence? Yes,
[00:41:21] ROD: you do. We're using 'em now. So basically the fewer times a word or it's phon. Ees are the less common they are, the funnier we think they are according to this.
[00:41:31] Okay. Theory are also words that end in L, like waddle and riggle, but kind of funny. And I agree. And I'd add Womble. Wombles a great word to add to almost anything to make it
[00:41:41] WILL: saw a womble the other day. No, it was a guy that looked like a womble, but um, he very much did commiserations,
[00:41:48] ROD: So, yeah.
[00:41:49] So basically he makes a bunch of conclusions. One of the quotes, people laugh based on how improbable the world is, but for this to work, [00:42:00] he said he suggests for words anyway, our brains are constantly passing language for subtle semantic cross connections and statistical probabilities.
[00:42:09] WILL: Yeah, yeah. Maybe, obviously. Uh, yeah.
[00:42:13] ROD: And the result, at least on this basic one word level, is what we call humor.
[00:42:17] WILL: Oh my
[00:42:18] ROD: In case he didn't know. Oh
[00:42:19] WILL: Oh my God. I know, right? You really did a self troll here.
[00:42:22] ROD: Oh, I really did. I really did. I'm nearly done though, thank God. He says the average person would have no conscious clue whether the B or the sound are more common, but unconsciously they're sensitive to whether they are or not more common.
[00:42:34] So
[00:42:34] WILL: some clue.
[00:42:34] ROD: So if they're less common.
[00:42:36] WILL: that they've, they've got some
[00:42:37] ROD: Unconsciously.
[00:42:38] WILL: Yeah. I, I,
[00:42:40] ROD: And so that means we will giggle at those. Of course, according to him. This all makes sense. Evolutionally. Yes. 'cause our brains, huh, have been hardwired over millions of years, maybe billions, but millions of years to identify anything trillions of years to identify anything that's out of the ordinary as a potential threat
[00:42:55] WILL: or a funny.
[00:42:57] ROD: Well, yeah, I, I stopped at that and went y mm
[00:43:01] WILL: or, or, or strange or
[00:43:03] ROD: strange.
[00:43:04] Potential threat, he said, and,
[00:43:05] WILL: and strange being what the hippos are after. No, the pus
[00:43:08] ROD: The, the humors and human emotions, including humor, are likely to develop as a way of responding to improbable events and environments.
[00:43:15] to be clear, this was me telling a simplified version of a simplified account of the research.
[00:43:20] WILL: I know. It's all right. all right. Don't judge yourself, man.
[00:43:22] ROD: No, I just wanna say I've reached my own conclusion from the research
[00:43:25] WILL: What have you got?
[00:43:26] ROD: What this study proves is like so many before. There is no better way to destroy humor than to analyze it. That's it really? No better way. I mean, the funny, the funniest part of this is how ridiculous it's no,
[00:43:40] WILL: No, but if he, if he statistically pro proved that, um,
[00:43:43] ROD: statistically approved it.
[00:43:44] WILL: boobs is a funny word, then that's nice.
[00:43:47] ROD: Thank god Science backed that up because I,
[00:43:48] WILL: I know that's, I have been waiting
[00:43:50] ROD: I've never gilded boobs before. But now,
[00:43:53] WILL: You, your mate in grade three types it in the calculator and turns it upside down.
[00:43:57] ROD: Fuck. Who had a calculator in grade three? [00:44:00] I'm old. That's right.
[00:44:01] WILL: You were on the First time I got a calculator I allowed to have one year nine. Holy shit.
