May 1, 2017 • 10 mins
Are humans nutritous enough to make cannibalism feasible? Could Trump's proposed border wall be improved with a Hyperloop?. Plus: Should the FBI be able to use everyone's photos in their crime-solving facial recognition program?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to has To Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
a researcher and writer. Here it has To Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
This week, a suggestion has arisen for improving Trump's potential
border wall, making it a host to a hyperloop, and unrelated,
(00:24):
a study has found that there aren't enough calories in
the human body to fully explain cannibalism. But First Senior
writer and forward Thinking host Jonathan Strickland explores the controversy
surrounding a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation facial recognition program.
The Bureau has access to a huge number of Americans photos,
even those without criminal records, for use in criminal investigations.
(00:51):
If the FBI had an unlabeled photo of you and
ran a search using facial recognition technology, do you think
they'd find you if you're an adult living in the
United States. The answer is they'd have a fifty fifty shot.
We know that because Georgetown University's Center on Privacy and
Technology research law enforcement's use of facial recognition technology and
(01:13):
found one in every two adult Americans has an image
stored on some official agencies database. Some of the images
in these databases are from criminal investigations, but others come
from applications for licenses, official identification cards, security clearance forms,
and other non criminal sources. Depending upon the type of search,
(01:36):
your photo could end up in an FBI virtual lineup
without your knowledge. The practice is problematic for many reasons.
Perhaps most troubling is there are no official laws or
regulations that set parameters for conducting facial recognition matches. Each
agency has its own set of guidelines, but they vary widely,
(01:56):
and in many cases there's little to no oversight. Critics
say this could potentially violate Fourth Amendment rights, which protect
against unreasonable search and seizure. To complicate matters, these various
agencies rely on different software vendors for facial recognition technology.
Most of these agencies have no system in place to
audit the technology to make certain it is accurate. Several
(02:19):
agencies require human analysts to look at potential matches between
a probe photo and their search results, but Georgetown University's
research showed humans make the wrong call on these matches
fifty percent of the time. Chances are you don't want
the FBI investigating you for a criminal act because of
a bad coin flip. There are a lot of other
(02:39):
potential issues with facial recognition searches. In March two thousand seventeen,
Congress held hearings about the FBI's use of these databases.
The discussion became heated, with members of both major political
parties criticizing the implementation of facial recognition procedures without first
establishing the legality of them in an investigation. It's likely
(03:02):
that we'll see a call for regulating law enforcement's use
of facial recognition software in the near future. That doesn't
change the fact that for more than five years, the
FBI has used this tech to identify and pursue investigative leads,
but regulations will help prevent future misuse of a technology
that has the potential to restrict civil rights to a
significant degree. Next up, staff editor Eaves, Jeff Coote and
(03:28):
our freelance writer Michelle Konstantinovski dig into one group's plans
to give the proposed border wall between the US and
Mexico and extra dimension of speed. They want to use
the structure to build hyperlink In June, the Trump administration
plans to announce ten companies it wants to hire to
(03:50):
build prototypes of this planned border wall between Mexico and
the United States. A group of fourteen Mexican and American engineers,
urban planners, ecologists, and architects, dubbed the Made Collective, hopes
it will be among them. While dozens of private contractors
likely took heat of the Customs and Border Protections request
(04:12):
for design prototypes depicting a solid concrete barrier between nations,
the main collective offered and alternative, a hyperloop. A hyper
loop is a type of mass transit that uses low
pressure tubes and transports people and goods at lightning fast speeds.
Based on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's original concept, hyper loop
(04:35):
pods will hypothetically travel over seven hundred miles per hour
or about one thousand, one hundred kilometers per hour. In
the main collectives version, the hyper loop system would stretch
one thousand, two hundred fifty miles or two thousand kilometers
from San Diego and Tijuana across the Texas Mexico border.
But this chunk of land wouldn't just be a standalone
(04:57):
transit system. According to the Make Collectives proposal, it would
also become an entirely new territory called Ultra Nation. That's right.
In response to Trump's call for designs, the group offered
to create an independent nation that the U S and
Mexico share. The full proposal was submitted to both governments,
(05:18):
with the budget costs to the US of about ten
billion dollars to fifteen billion dollars. The Main Collective's proposal
also includes the additional eleven billion dollars Trump has earmarked
for the border wall to be reinvested into healthcare, education,
and the arts in the United States. In addition to that,
it proposes plans for stations throughout the hyper loop network
(05:40):
to serve people from all nations, and for solar farms
to power the system. The group's members laid out their
full plan on a dedicated Ultra Nation website, and they've
also launched a change dot org petition to replace the
border's current fencing with this hyper loop design. On this website,
the group calls the hyperlop plan a trans national new
(06:00):
deal and says it will be built on local economic empowerment,
energy independence, and revolutionary infrastructure and transit. The group hops
to plan will get people on both sides of the
border talking, but it remains unclear whether the proposed wall
will ever be a reality. Trump initially assured Americans that
he would stick Mexico with a construction bill, but he
(06:22):
has since turned to Congress to ask for funding. The
plan has also been the subject of skepticism and scrutiny
from both Democrats and Republicans, and some people suspect US
taxpayers would actually be forced to foot the bill, which
an m I T study estimates could cost anywhere from
twenty seven billion dollars to forty billion dollars. Finally, this week,
(06:49):
staff editor Christopher Hassiotas and our freelance writer Laurie L.
Dove bring us the results of a slightly strange study.
The researchers set out to discover exactly how nutritious human
flesh is, and therefore how likely it is that ancient
humans eight other ancient humans to survive. By this point
in our still young century, you've likely heard of the
(07:11):
Paleo diet thousands of times. That trendy regiment's name is
short for Paleolithic, the Stone Age, and supposedly mimics the
nutrition of ancient humans who lived about ten thousand years ago,
although it really doesn't, but that's another story. Cave people
ate meats, seafood, nuts, and a few fruits and vegetables
and one other food source that doesn't show up on
(07:33):
today's protein focused food blogs other people. Archaeologists in Western
Europe have evidence that the precursors to modern humans ate
their neighbors during the Paleolithic era, particularly due to butchery
marks found on human bones. Most experts, though, debate whether
cannibalism was part of a balanced diet of our ancestral
hominins or whether it was something more ritualistic or ceremonial.
(07:55):
To be classified as nutritional cannibalism, the people that Paleolithic
clans eight needed to be well nutritious, So just how
many calories are in a human thigh or an ear?
Archaeologist James Cole of the University of Brighton in England
wondered the same thing, and so, being a scientist, he
decided to find out. Think of the diagrams of cattle
(08:16):
and pig that illustrate different cuts of meat you might
see in a butcher's shop, Cole mapped out the human
body in much the same way, then determined the caloric
count within each segment, showing how much energy each would
transfer to an eater if consumed, publishing his findings in
the journal Scientific Reports. A human thigh, for instance, contains
a hefty thousand, three hundred and fifty calories, while the
(08:37):
spleen offers up only a modest one hundred and thirty calories.
If you're more of a head and torso diner, that'll
let you about five thousand, four hundred and twenty calories,
and those upper arms seven thousand, four hundred and fifty
calories total. Overall, the average human body has anywhere from
one thousand to a hundred and forty four thousand consumable calories.
(08:58):
Some parts may take longer to digest. You'll rack up
ten thousand, two hundred and eighty calories from human skin alone,
while others are snacks, eyes like the kidneys, containing just
three D eighty calories. The brain, spinal cord, and nerves.
We're thinking of stew might be the most appropriate cooking
method for that will provide you two thousand, seven hundred calories,
and human bones contain about twenty five thousand, three D
(09:20):
and thirty bone broth is so on trend right now,
after all, Despite all this talk of ancient eating habits,
Cole concluded that other humans are probably not a regular
meal of choice, eaten for nutritive value. Disappointment is other people,
after all, and it turns out that that holds true
for nutrition, especially when compared to competing available food sources.
(09:41):
The carcass of one single wooly mammoth, for instance, contains
a whopping three point six million calories and would have
given an entire tribe food for about eight weeks. A human,
on the other hand, would have provided enough calories for
a tribe to subside on for only a half day,
leaving everyone to wonder what's for dinner after just a
few hours. Cole concludes that because of the relatively meager
(10:03):
calorie counts of human body, people ate other people only
for social or cultural reasons, not for their own health.
Modern paleo dieters be glad the recipe books skip this
particular ingredient. That's our show for this week. Thank you
so much for tuning in. Further thanks to our audio
producer Dylan Fagan and our editorial Liaison's Christopher Hasiotas and
(10:26):
Alison louder Milk. Subscribe to now Now for more of
the latest science news, and send us links to anything
you'd like to hear us cover. Plus who's your favorite
Star Wars character? I might be seriously in love with
Triple Zero from the Darth Vader comics. Let us know.
You can send us an email at now podcast at
how stuff works dot com, and of course, for lots
more stories like these, head on over to our home planet,
(10:47):
now dot how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to has To Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
a researcher and writer. Here it has To Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
This week, a suggestion has arisen for improving Trump's potential
border wall, making it a host to a hyperloop, and unrelated,
(00:24):
a study has found that there aren't enough calories in
the human body to fully explain cannibalism. But First Senior
writer and forward Thinking host Jonathan Strickland explores the controversy
surrounding a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation facial recognition program.
The Bureau has access to a huge number of Americans photos,
even those without criminal records, for use in criminal investigations.
(00:51):
If the FBI had an unlabeled photo of you and
ran a search using facial recognition technology, do you think
they'd find you if you're an adult living in the
United States. The answer is they'd have a fifty fifty shot.
We know that because Georgetown University's Center on Privacy and
Technology research law enforcement's use of facial recognition technology and
(01:13):
found one in every two adult Americans has an image
stored on some official agencies database. Some of the images
in these databases are from criminal investigations, but others come
from applications for licenses, official identification cards, security clearance forms,
and other non criminal sources. Depending upon the type of search,
(01:36):
your photo could end up in an FBI virtual lineup
without your knowledge. The practice is problematic for many reasons.
Perhaps most troubling is there are no official laws or
regulations that set parameters for conducting facial recognition matches. Each
agency has its own set of guidelines, but they vary widely,
(01:56):
and in many cases there's little to no oversight. Critics
say this could potentially violate Fourth Amendment rights, which protect
against unreasonable search and seizure. To complicate matters, these various
agencies rely on different software vendors for facial recognition technology.
Most of these agencies have no system in place to
audit the technology to make certain it is accurate. Several
(02:19):
agencies require human analysts to look at potential matches between
a probe photo and their search results, but Georgetown University's
research showed humans make the wrong call on these matches
fifty percent of the time. Chances are you don't want
the FBI investigating you for a criminal act because of
a bad coin flip. There are a lot of other
(02:39):
potential issues with facial recognition searches. In March two thousand seventeen,
Congress held hearings about the FBI's use of these databases.
The discussion became heated, with members of both major political
parties criticizing the implementation of facial recognition procedures without first
establishing the legality of them in an investigation. It's likely
(03:02):
that we'll see a call for regulating law enforcement's use
of facial recognition software in the near future. That doesn't
change the fact that for more than five years, the
FBI has used this tech to identify and pursue investigative leads,
but regulations will help prevent future misuse of a technology
that has the potential to restrict civil rights to a
significant degree. Next up, staff editor Eaves, Jeff Coote and
(03:28):
our freelance writer Michelle Konstantinovski dig into one group's plans
to give the proposed border wall between the US and
Mexico and extra dimension of speed. They want to use
the structure to build hyperlink In June, the Trump administration
plans to announce ten companies it wants to hire to
(03:50):
build prototypes of this planned border wall between Mexico and
the United States. A group of fourteen Mexican and American engineers,
urban planners, ecologists, and architects, dubbed the Made Collective, hopes
it will be among them. While dozens of private contractors
likely took heat of the Customs and Border Protections request
(04:12):
for design prototypes depicting a solid concrete barrier between nations,
the main collective offered and alternative, a hyperloop. A hyper
loop is a type of mass transit that uses low
pressure tubes and transports people and goods at lightning fast speeds.
Based on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's original concept, hyper loop
(04:35):
pods will hypothetically travel over seven hundred miles per hour
or about one thousand, one hundred kilometers per hour. In
the main collectives version, the hyper loop system would stretch
one thousand, two hundred fifty miles or two thousand kilometers
from San Diego and Tijuana across the Texas Mexico border.
But this chunk of land wouldn't just be a standalone
(04:57):
transit system. According to the Make Collectives proposal, it would
also become an entirely new territory called Ultra Nation. That's right.
In response to Trump's call for designs, the group offered
to create an independent nation that the U S and
Mexico share. The full proposal was submitted to both governments,
(05:18):
with the budget costs to the US of about ten
billion dollars to fifteen billion dollars. The Main Collective's proposal
also includes the additional eleven billion dollars Trump has earmarked
for the border wall to be reinvested into healthcare, education,
and the arts in the United States. In addition to that,
it proposes plans for stations throughout the hyper loop network
(05:40):
to serve people from all nations, and for solar farms
to power the system. The group's members laid out their
full plan on a dedicated Ultra Nation website, and they've
also launched a change dot org petition to replace the
border's current fencing with this hyper loop design. On this website,
the group calls the hyperlop plan a trans national new
(06:00):
deal and says it will be built on local economic empowerment,
energy independence, and revolutionary infrastructure and transit. The group hops
to plan will get people on both sides of the
border talking, but it remains unclear whether the proposed wall
will ever be a reality. Trump initially assured Americans that
he would stick Mexico with a construction bill, but he
(06:22):
has since turned to Congress to ask for funding. The
plan has also been the subject of skepticism and scrutiny
from both Democrats and Republicans, and some people suspect US
taxpayers would actually be forced to foot the bill, which
an m I T study estimates could cost anywhere from
twenty seven billion dollars to forty billion dollars. Finally, this week,
(06:49):
staff editor Christopher Hassiotas and our freelance writer Laurie L.
Dove bring us the results of a slightly strange study.
The researchers set out to discover exactly how nutritious human
flesh is, and therefore how likely it is that ancient
humans eight other ancient humans to survive. By this point
in our still young century, you've likely heard of the
(07:11):
Paleo diet thousands of times. That trendy regiment's name is
short for Paleolithic, the Stone Age, and supposedly mimics the
nutrition of ancient humans who lived about ten thousand years ago,
although it really doesn't, but that's another story. Cave people
ate meats, seafood, nuts, and a few fruits and vegetables
and one other food source that doesn't show up on
(07:33):
today's protein focused food blogs other people. Archaeologists in Western
Europe have evidence that the precursors to modern humans ate
their neighbors during the Paleolithic era, particularly due to butchery
marks found on human bones. Most experts, though, debate whether
cannibalism was part of a balanced diet of our ancestral
hominins or whether it was something more ritualistic or ceremonial.
(07:55):
To be classified as nutritional cannibalism, the people that Paleolithic
clans eight needed to be well nutritious, So just how
many calories are in a human thigh or an ear?
Archaeologist James Cole of the University of Brighton in England
wondered the same thing, and so, being a scientist, he
decided to find out. Think of the diagrams of cattle
(08:16):
and pig that illustrate different cuts of meat you might
see in a butcher's shop, Cole mapped out the human
body in much the same way, then determined the caloric
count within each segment, showing how much energy each would
transfer to an eater if consumed, publishing his findings in
the journal Scientific Reports. A human thigh, for instance, contains
a hefty thousand, three hundred and fifty calories, while the
(08:37):
spleen offers up only a modest one hundred and thirty calories.
If you're more of a head and torso diner, that'll
let you about five thousand, four hundred and twenty calories,
and those upper arms seven thousand, four hundred and fifty
calories total. Overall, the average human body has anywhere from
one thousand to a hundred and forty four thousand consumable calories.
(08:58):
Some parts may take longer to digest. You'll rack up
ten thousand, two hundred and eighty calories from human skin alone,
while others are snacks, eyes like the kidneys, containing just
three D eighty calories. The brain, spinal cord, and nerves.
We're thinking of stew might be the most appropriate cooking
method for that will provide you two thousand, seven hundred calories,
and human bones contain about twenty five thousand, three D
(09:20):
and thirty bone broth is so on trend right now,
after all, Despite all this talk of ancient eating habits,
Cole concluded that other humans are probably not a regular
meal of choice, eaten for nutritive value. Disappointment is other people,
after all, and it turns out that that holds true
for nutrition, especially when compared to competing available food sources.
(09:41):
The carcass of one single wooly mammoth, for instance, contains
a whopping three point six million calories and would have
given an entire tribe food for about eight weeks. A human,
on the other hand, would have provided enough calories for
a tribe to subside on for only a half day,
leaving everyone to wonder what's for dinner after just a
few hours. Cole concludes that because of the relatively meager
(10:03):
calorie counts of human body, people ate other people only
for social or cultural reasons, not for their own health.
Modern paleo dieters be glad the recipe books skip this
particular ingredient. That's our show for this week. Thank you
so much for tuning in. Further thanks to our audio
producer Dylan Fagan and our editorial Liaison's Christopher Hasiotas and
(10:26):
Alison louder Milk. Subscribe to now Now for more of
the latest science news, and send us links to anything
you'd like to hear us cover. Plus who's your favorite
Star Wars character? I might be seriously in love with
Triple Zero from the Darth Vader comics. Let us know.
You can send us an email at now podcast at
how stuff works dot com, and of course, for lots
more stories like these, head on over to our home planet,
(10:47):
now dot how stuff works dot com.
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