July 29, 2025 • 11 mins
Science can be curious, as these two tales definitely prove.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
In the twenty eleven action film X Men First Class,
the metal bending super villain Magneto triumphantly declares that mutants
are the next step in human evolution. It's a bold idea,
and one that crops up in a lot of science fiction.
Just imagine a future where humans brought wings, manipulate objects
with their minds, or control the elements. Definitely cool, but
(00:59):
not exactly scientifically sound. In reality, the idea that our
next stage in evolution will be some kind of obviously
superior human is a complete misreading of how natural selection works.
Evolution isn't a ladder leading to perfection. It's more like
a chaotic, slow motion shuffle where environmental pressures select for
(01:21):
unpredictable and seemingly innocuous traits. And yet, if we had
to name a real evolutionary success story, a creature that's
withstood the test of time and emerged again and again
in nature's bizarre roulette wheel. We wouldn't be looking at
a human with psychic powers. We would be looking at
a crab. That's right, those sideways, scuttling, beach patrolling, pinch
(01:43):
happy crustaceans. It turns out nature loves making crabs, and
it's done it over and over through completely independent genetic trees.
The phenomenon was first noticed by British zoologist Lancelot to
Alexander Boridale. He worked at the turn of the twentieth century,
several decades after Charles Darwin rocked the scientific world with
on the Origin of species. By then, evolutionary theory was
(02:07):
widely accepted, although scientists were still puzzling out many of
its mechanisms. For researchers like Boradale, evolution became a lens
through which to re examine the entire natural world, And
as he looked closely at marine invertebrates, he noticed something unexpected.
Crustaceans that weren't closely related kept evolving into crabs. It
(02:28):
seems like nature kept arriving at the same general blueprint
consisting of a flat body armoured shell, scuttling legs, and
a set of handy claws. These traits would appear in
totally unrelated lineages at different times and in different places.
Boradale called this repeated trend carconization and described it as
an i quote, one of the many attempts of nature
(02:51):
to evolve a crab. More recently, in twenty nineteen, Bordale's
work inspired a group of Yale scientists to delve deeper
into this biological curd. Work they identified at least five
distinct cases of carsonization, meaning that five different animals independently
evolved into something that you or I would recognize as
a crab. To help put that into context, as best
(03:14):
as we can tell, powered flight with wings has only
evolved independently four times in history, suggesting that the crabs
are a more efficient resilient organism than all species of birds, bugs,
and bats put together. If you're wondering why that might be,
consider that crabs actually have a lot going on for them.
Their shape is compact and armored, which is great for
(03:36):
defending against predators. Their claws are multipurpose tools good for grabbing, crushing, digging,
and self defense. While they have gills. Like fish, they
can survive out of water for as long as those
gills stay wet, and their weird scuttling walk, unnerving as
it might appear to us, is actually pretty useful, allowing
them to burrow in the sand or climb straight up
(03:58):
cliff walls. In a sense, crabs are the Swiss Army
knife of the animal kingdom, and thanks to their incredible adaptability,
they can be found all over the planet, from deep
ocean trenches to arid deserts and even tree tops. This
has led to a delightful Internet meme which claims that
all life is slowly evolving into crabs. It's funny because
(04:19):
it's absurd and kind of terrifying to think about humans
sparting claws and shells, even if that's not the point
of carconization. Bordale never suggested that all organisms would eventually
become crabs, and really that's not how evolution works at all.
But let's just say that we want to play along
for a moment. Picture a future Earth ravaged by rising
(04:40):
sea levels, where cities drown and humanity is forced to
adapt to aquatic environments over millions of years, assuming the
right pressures. Of course, could we become something vaguely crab like?
Trade our soft, squishy forms for hardened shells, our hands
for pincers, our legs for ones that are more suited
to scurrying over s, And as wild as it sounds,
(05:02):
it's not impossible, And as Boradale showed, evolution has a
soft spot for the crab shape. So forget Magneto and
his mutants. If any species has earned our admiration, it's
the humble crab. Masters of adaptation, survivors across oceans, caves,
treetops and tides. They're nature's quiet champions and maybe, just
(05:24):
maybe the final form for us. All natural disasters are
existentially terrifying. While some are avoidable, others strike suddenly and
(05:47):
without warning. Their sheer scale and ability to kill massive
amounts of people at one time makes the universe seem
like an especially cruel and uncaring place. It's hard to
imagine so many lives being snuffed out in an instant.
These disasters are so preoccupying that they've led to their
own genre of action films, where Titanic forces wipe out
(06:08):
whole cities. But sometimes in real life, natural disasters aren't
loud and exciting sometimes they're silent, but just as deadly.
In nineteen eighty six, a woman named Prudensia Kane was
settling down for a night in her village near Lake
NEOs in Cameroon, Africa. It's a mid sized country on
(06:28):
the western shore of the continent, right up in the
crook where the coast starts to shift from north to west.
It's a lush region, made so by the volcanic soil
that covers the landscape. Prudencia and others like her live
there for a reason, and the nearby Lake Nios only
adds to its beauty. After Prudencia put her children down
for the night, it wasn't long before she herself drifted
(06:50):
off to sleep. It would be a while before she
woke again, and when she did, her whole world had changed.
She awoke suddenly late in the day with a heavy cough.
Her throat burned as a strange white powder flew out
of her mouth with each spasm. Immediately she knew that
something was wrong. She stumbled to her feet, feeling dizzy,
and made her way to where her children were sleeping.
(07:12):
As she bent down to shake them awake, her heart stopped.
They weren't moving no fluttering in their eyelids, no rising
and falling of their chests. When she checked their necks,
there was no pulse. Her pain was immeasurable. She could
hardly process what was happening. It seemed like a nightmare. Eventually,
she stumbled out her door and into the village. For
(07:32):
the first time, she realized just how unusually quiet it was.
There were no birds chirping, no cicadas in the trees,
no voices. Her eyes were ringing with the silence, and
as Prudencia made her way down the street, she checked
in on her neighbor's homes and found that many of
them were just as still as her children. What had happened.
(07:52):
Her heart nearly broke when she made it a few
more blocks and finally found another survivor. They had strange
red blisters on them their face, and they were just
as scared as Prudensia. Neither of them had any idea
what had happened. In the weeks that followed, government authorities
came to the village and began to treat the survivors
while also counting the dead. They soon found that eighteen
(08:14):
hundred people and thirty five hundred livestock had perished as
well as birds and insects. Many had fluid in their
lungs and the strange blisters on their bodies. The doctors
were just as confused as the victims. They needed outside help. Thankfully,
doctors from England heeded their call, intrigued by the mystery
and anxious to provide assistance. As they examined the victims,
(08:37):
both living and dead, they were able to eliminate several hypotheses.
This wasn't some chemical weapon attack. The blisters were not burns,
but rather the result of asphyxiation. These people had been
deprived of oxygen and their blood had practically cried out,
breaking through their skin. Some of the victims also had
pneumonia and other respiratory issues, showing that they had been
(08:58):
in comas for a short time and deprived of oxygen.
All signs pointed to carbon dioxide poisoning. But where could
the gas have come from. The doctors needed to look
no further than Lake NEOs, the large body of water
just outside the village. The lake is actually a crater lake,
meaning that it was formed from volcanic activity and there
(09:19):
is still magma deep below. Over time, carbon dioxide from
the magma seeps upward to the bottom of the lake,
where it builds up, literally forming a large bubble, and
when the pressure becomes too much, that bubble bursts, releasing
a massive amount of gas into the air, gas that
traveled on the wind and wiped out the local population.
(09:40):
It's called a limnic eruption, and the one on Lake
Nios was one of only three in recorded history, and
it was by far the most deadly as well. Today
the villages around the lake have been resettled. This was
made possible by the installation of large tubes that release
the gas at the bottom of the lake in safe quantities,
keeping it from building up. But the disaster remains a
(10:01):
curious episode in the history of mankind struggle against Mother Nature.
Our planets is large and it's run by colossal forces
like gravity, tectonic shifts, particle decay, the water cycle, solar energy.
The list just goes on and on. All you can
do is pray that you won't end up on the
wrong side of any one of those things, because if
(10:23):
that happens, there's nothing we can do about it. I
hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities,
subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
(10:46):
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore
dot com. And until next time, a Curious
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
In the twenty eleven action film X Men First Class,
the metal bending super villain Magneto triumphantly declares that mutants
are the next step in human evolution. It's a bold idea,
and one that crops up in a lot of science fiction.
Just imagine a future where humans brought wings, manipulate objects
with their minds, or control the elements. Definitely cool, but
(00:59):
not exactly scientifically sound. In reality, the idea that our
next stage in evolution will be some kind of obviously
superior human is a complete misreading of how natural selection works.
Evolution isn't a ladder leading to perfection. It's more like
a chaotic, slow motion shuffle where environmental pressures select for
(01:21):
unpredictable and seemingly innocuous traits. And yet, if we had
to name a real evolutionary success story, a creature that's
withstood the test of time and emerged again and again
in nature's bizarre roulette wheel. We wouldn't be looking at
a human with psychic powers. We would be looking at
a crab. That's right, those sideways, scuttling, beach patrolling, pinch
(01:43):
happy crustaceans. It turns out nature loves making crabs, and
it's done it over and over through completely independent genetic trees.
The phenomenon was first noticed by British zoologist Lancelot to
Alexander Boridale. He worked at the turn of the twentieth century,
several decades after Charles Darwin rocked the scientific world with
on the Origin of species. By then, evolutionary theory was
(02:07):
widely accepted, although scientists were still puzzling out many of
its mechanisms. For researchers like Boradale, evolution became a lens
through which to re examine the entire natural world, And
as he looked closely at marine invertebrates, he noticed something unexpected.
Crustaceans that weren't closely related kept evolving into crabs. It
(02:28):
seems like nature kept arriving at the same general blueprint
consisting of a flat body armoured shell, scuttling legs, and
a set of handy claws. These traits would appear in
totally unrelated lineages at different times and in different places.
Boradale called this repeated trend carconization and described it as
an i quote, one of the many attempts of nature
(02:51):
to evolve a crab. More recently, in twenty nineteen, Bordale's
work inspired a group of Yale scientists to delve deeper
into this biological curd. Work they identified at least five
distinct cases of carsonization, meaning that five different animals independently
evolved into something that you or I would recognize as
a crab. To help put that into context, as best
(03:14):
as we can tell, powered flight with wings has only
evolved independently four times in history, suggesting that the crabs
are a more efficient resilient organism than all species of birds, bugs,
and bats put together. If you're wondering why that might be,
consider that crabs actually have a lot going on for them.
Their shape is compact and armored, which is great for
(03:36):
defending against predators. Their claws are multipurpose tools good for grabbing, crushing, digging,
and self defense. While they have gills. Like fish, they
can survive out of water for as long as those
gills stay wet, and their weird scuttling walk, unnerving as
it might appear to us, is actually pretty useful, allowing
them to burrow in the sand or climb straight up
(03:58):
cliff walls. In a sense, crabs are the Swiss Army
knife of the animal kingdom, and thanks to their incredible adaptability,
they can be found all over the planet, from deep
ocean trenches to arid deserts and even tree tops. This
has led to a delightful Internet meme which claims that
all life is slowly evolving into crabs. It's funny because
(04:19):
it's absurd and kind of terrifying to think about humans
sparting claws and shells, even if that's not the point
of carconization. Bordale never suggested that all organisms would eventually
become crabs, and really that's not how evolution works at all.
But let's just say that we want to play along
for a moment. Picture a future Earth ravaged by rising
(04:40):
sea levels, where cities drown and humanity is forced to
adapt to aquatic environments over millions of years, assuming the
right pressures. Of course, could we become something vaguely crab like?
Trade our soft, squishy forms for hardened shells, our hands
for pincers, our legs for ones that are more suited
to scurrying over s, And as wild as it sounds,
(05:02):
it's not impossible, And as Boradale showed, evolution has a
soft spot for the crab shape. So forget Magneto and
his mutants. If any species has earned our admiration, it's
the humble crab. Masters of adaptation, survivors across oceans, caves,
treetops and tides. They're nature's quiet champions and maybe, just
(05:24):
maybe the final form for us. All natural disasters are
existentially terrifying. While some are avoidable, others strike suddenly and
(05:47):
without warning. Their sheer scale and ability to kill massive
amounts of people at one time makes the universe seem
like an especially cruel and uncaring place. It's hard to
imagine so many lives being snuffed out in an instant.
These disasters are so preoccupying that they've led to their
own genre of action films, where Titanic forces wipe out
(06:08):
whole cities. But sometimes in real life, natural disasters aren't
loud and exciting sometimes they're silent, but just as deadly.
In nineteen eighty six, a woman named Prudensia Kane was
settling down for a night in her village near Lake
NEOs in Cameroon, Africa. It's a mid sized country on
(06:28):
the western shore of the continent, right up in the
crook where the coast starts to shift from north to west.
It's a lush region, made so by the volcanic soil
that covers the landscape. Prudencia and others like her live
there for a reason, and the nearby Lake Nios only
adds to its beauty. After Prudencia put her children down
for the night, it wasn't long before she herself drifted
(06:50):
off to sleep. It would be a while before she
woke again, and when she did, her whole world had changed.
She awoke suddenly late in the day with a heavy cough.
Her throat burned as a strange white powder flew out
of her mouth with each spasm. Immediately she knew that
something was wrong. She stumbled to her feet, feeling dizzy,
and made her way to where her children were sleeping.
(07:12):
As she bent down to shake them awake, her heart stopped.
They weren't moving no fluttering in their eyelids, no rising
and falling of their chests. When she checked their necks,
there was no pulse. Her pain was immeasurable. She could
hardly process what was happening. It seemed like a nightmare. Eventually,
she stumbled out her door and into the village. For
(07:32):
the first time, she realized just how unusually quiet it was.
There were no birds chirping, no cicadas in the trees,
no voices. Her eyes were ringing with the silence, and
as Prudencia made her way down the street, she checked
in on her neighbor's homes and found that many of
them were just as still as her children. What had happened.
(07:52):
Her heart nearly broke when she made it a few
more blocks and finally found another survivor. They had strange
red blisters on them their face, and they were just
as scared as Prudensia. Neither of them had any idea
what had happened. In the weeks that followed, government authorities
came to the village and began to treat the survivors
while also counting the dead. They soon found that eighteen
(08:14):
hundred people and thirty five hundred livestock had perished as
well as birds and insects. Many had fluid in their
lungs and the strange blisters on their bodies. The doctors
were just as confused as the victims. They needed outside help. Thankfully,
doctors from England heeded their call, intrigued by the mystery
and anxious to provide assistance. As they examined the victims,
(08:37):
both living and dead, they were able to eliminate several hypotheses.
This wasn't some chemical weapon attack. The blisters were not burns,
but rather the result of asphyxiation. These people had been
deprived of oxygen and their blood had practically cried out,
breaking through their skin. Some of the victims also had
pneumonia and other respiratory issues, showing that they had been
(08:58):
in comas for a short time and deprived of oxygen.
All signs pointed to carbon dioxide poisoning. But where could
the gas have come from. The doctors needed to look
no further than Lake NEOs, the large body of water
just outside the village. The lake is actually a crater lake,
meaning that it was formed from volcanic activity and there
(09:19):
is still magma deep below. Over time, carbon dioxide from
the magma seeps upward to the bottom of the lake,
where it builds up, literally forming a large bubble, and
when the pressure becomes too much, that bubble bursts, releasing
a massive amount of gas into the air, gas that
traveled on the wind and wiped out the local population.
(09:40):
It's called a limnic eruption, and the one on Lake
Nios was one of only three in recorded history, and
it was by far the most deadly as well. Today
the villages around the lake have been resettled. This was
made possible by the installation of large tubes that release
the gas at the bottom of the lake in safe quantities,
keeping it from building up. But the disaster remains a
(10:01):
curious episode in the history of mankind struggle against Mother Nature.
Our planets is large and it's run by colossal forces
like gravity, tectonic shifts, particle decay, the water cycle, solar energy.
The list just goes on and on. All you can
do is pray that you won't end up on the
wrong side of any one of those things, because if
(10:23):
that happens, there's nothing we can do about it. I
hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities,
subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
(10:46):
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore
dot com. And until next time, a Curious
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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