February 19, 2024 • 54 mins
A new study shows wolves in Chernobyl have developed resistance to cancer. A scammer tries to refinance house behind owner’s back, lawyer saves the day. Shocking new research reveals human beings are host to a previously-unknown, bizarre collection of life forms called "obelisks" -- and no one knows what they're doing. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nol.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Bed.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code
named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
you to know. It's the top of the week. As
we hurtle headlong towards the end of February, our summer
plans are ruined. North Korea has closed down their airbnbs. Catch, Yeah,
(00:53):
that's something we all took. We all took an l
on that one. There are so many things occurring around
the world world today. We're going to explore several of them.
We're going to explore a lawyer who saved the day,
a new cryptid just dropped. And before we do any
of that, we were thinking we might travel to Chernobyl.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh, why not? Maybe they have an airbnbs available there. Perhaps, No, No,
it's the next thing. Let's start getting some tourist traffic
over there at Chernobyl. No, not so much for humans,
but for wildlife. As we've talked about numerous times on
the show, it's a flourishing but very diverse ecosystem with
(01:34):
numerous species of you know, insects, plants, fauna, megafauna, you know,
I mean stuff that could you know, be considered almost
approaching cryptids, especially when we start to talk about some
of the ways that the radiation that the legacy radiation
from that Chernobyl exclusion zone has affected some of these creatures. Today,
(01:57):
we are specifically talking about the wolf population there and
how exposure long term generational exposure. After all, the Chernobyl
catastrophe where one of the reactors there near Pripiat, Ukraine, exploded,
more than two hundred thousand people were evacuated and created
(02:17):
these exclusion zones. That was back in nineteen eighty six.
So we are at a place now where we're actually
starting to kind of see almost evolutionary results from the
exposure that these creatures have had to this legacy radiation. Specifically, today,
we're looking at a study that has come out from
(02:38):
a researcher by the name Well actually there's a couple
of researchers we're talking about today. One is by the
name of Shane Campbell Staton, who is a fellow at
the Princeton Evolutionary Biology Labs, I suppose you could call it.
There is also another fellow researcher by the name of
(02:59):
care In Love, and they have been studying the effects
of the radiation in this exclusion zone or these exclusion
zones on the wolf population. And one thing that has
come out very recently, I believe in the last couple
of weeks, is the idea that wolves, the wolf population
(03:20):
in Belarus's exclusion zone, have started to develop parts of
their genome that are resistant to cancer. Good news, because
this is the kind of thing that can be studied
and can potentially be harnessed and used, you know, in
cancer research for humans. Really fascinating stuff. There's a really
(03:44):
great NPR interview where Love and their fellow Princeton evolutionary biologist,
Shane Campbell Statton, they gave to NPR where they talk
about this research. Campbell Staton said in the interview that
the exclusion zone are quote home to everything from amphibians,
insects and birds to megafauna, so things like European bison,
(04:07):
bore apex predators like wolves. Gray wolves in particular, they say,
offer a really interesting opportunity to understand the impacts of chronic,
low dose, multigenerational exposure to ionizing radiation because of the
role that they play in their ecosystem. Going on to quote,
(04:27):
there may be genetic variation within the wolf population that
may allow some individuals to be more resistant or resilient
in the face of that radiation, in which case they
may still get cancer at the same rate, but it
may not impact their function as much as it would
an individual outside of the exclusion zone. They're just able
(04:48):
to take that burden better for some reason, or it
could be resistance and despite that pressure, that radiation exposure,
they just don't get cancer as much.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Interesting too, doctor loves study focuses on wolf blood, I think,
and it descends from a like earlier studies on different
fauna in the exclusion zone. And I love that you're
pointing out the earlier work we did on the damage
that human beings or human populations posed to wild animals,
(05:24):
wasn't it It wasn't too long ago know that some
study found that humans were more dangerous to animals in
chernoble than the radiation. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I think that's right. I don't have that exact data
in front of me, but what is interesting is the
lack of humans in these exclusion zones, which is largely
what's allowed these populations of wildlife and flora to flourish
kind of untouched. And it also offers a really unique
research opportunity to you know, take a look at how
(05:54):
these these species are developing, because again, you know, we're
looking at decades of data now, so you could consider
this as the researchers do multi generational exposure to this
low level radiation they're starting, they're seeing. The report says
that they're seeing very similar kind of resistance that you
(06:18):
might see in a cancer patient undergoing radiation therapy, which
which makes sense because radiation therapy, chemo treatments and stuff
is exposure to low level radiation that that you know,
obviously it does make people quite sick, but long term
it can cause the body to reject the cancer cells,
you know, and to sort of, yeah, to kind of
(06:40):
evolve in its own way as a result of being
exposed to that. I mean, I guess maybe evolve is
the wrong word, because that's a much shorter timeline. You
know that these these individuals undergoing that kind of treatment
are exposed to stuff. This is like the kind of
thing where we're seeing natural selection at play, where the
wolves that remain are the ones that have that adaptation
(07:01):
that allows them to be much more resilient to cancer
and tumor growth.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
It's so weird, like resilient to cancer and yet you're
still being irradiated. What are the other big problems that
come with radiation. I thought cancer was one of the
big things that radiation could cause, and just destruction of cells.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Sterility would be one. Sterility would be one. There's the
possibility to also limit reproduction through tumors that interfere with
the natural lifespan of the of the creature. To your point, Noel,
I believe check me on this, folks, but I believe
(07:43):
a gray wolf has a relatively short lifespan in comparison
to other large fauna. So if there's a reproductive advantage
to surviving the exposure of radiation and chernobyl, then it
does make sense that they could breed for that trait.
I think they're like they're living there, the wolves with
(08:07):
something like six plus times the safe amount of radiation
for life form. And so if they are, if they
are surviving, what we have to remember is there's probably
a pretty high rate of attrition. There are probably a
lot of pups in a litter that aren't making it
to reproductive age.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, and then that's I think that's where we're able.
And again no evolutionary biology background here is going you know,
from what the experts are saying, and I hope that
we're interpreting it correctly. I think between the three of
us we are. But that's where you start to see
that natural selection at play. Like the individuals that are
born that have that trait, they're the ones that survive longer.
Because to your point, then you know about the impact
(08:50):
of humans. One of the researchers had this to say,
Campbell Statton, that a wolf living within that Chernobyl exclusion
zone might have to deal with these potential pressures from cancer,
but it doesn't have to deal with pressures from say hunting,
for example. And I'm just going to go and read
(09:10):
the quote as they say it better than I could paraphrase.
And it may be that the release from that hunting pressure,
that separation from humans, turns out to be a much
better thing than having to deal with cancer, which is
kind of messed up. That's part of the quote, but
I completely concur with that.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
It's true though. Look at the biodiversity and the DMZ.
Look at the way the natural world quickly recovered a
bit of its population when humans were locked down during COVID. Right,
if you take the human species out of the equation,
then Earth grows back pretty quickly. Also, were we didn't
(09:48):
we talk about years years ago? Didn't we talk about
the wild bars that were running around?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
And then you know, obviously the wild bares are known
for digging for you know, truffles and such, maybe specific
ones that are good at being for truffles, but they
do root and a lot of times the soil content,
you know, deeper down does have you know, higher levels
of radiation. So that was why we were seeing higher
instances of irradiated bores, you know, from that same Chernobyl
(10:19):
exclusion zone. Like I was saying earlier, there are implications
on human healthcare, you know in this Campbell Statin said.
By the way, the interview on NPR was on a
show called Shortwave, and so you can probably just google
the name of the researchers and shortwave and find the
entire transcription or probably even the audio in PR is
pretty good about that, but it says Campbell. Statin told
(10:42):
the interviewer that they are starting to collaborate with cancer
biologists and cancer medication and treatment companies to help interpret
all of this data and to quote them try to
figure out if there are any directly translatable differences that
may offer novel therapeutic targets for cancer and humans, for instance.
(11:04):
And one interesting thing about this too is the pandemic
and also the fact that this area is in fact
not safe for humans has caused this research to be
a little on the slow going side. So you know,
it's kind of a bummer because they probably could have
been a little further along than they are, but because
(11:24):
of these conditions, they're having to kind of take it.
It's a little bit slow and steady.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
It's cool stuff though, even if the research is stymied,
it just shows us yet again the natural world is astonishing.
You know, I wonder too, this makes me think, I
wonder if it were possible if there were a world
wherein we could find an area with high diversity of
(11:50):
natural floora and fauna and then just kick all the
humans out, like, don't even national park, it don't have visitors,
just say no, humans can go here for a secon
century and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
That's really interesting that you say that, Ben, especially since
we recently did an episode on national parks and just
like the whole I know you mentioned that just now,
but it is there is a conceptual kind of similarity
there because if it weren't for people going to bat
for the need for national parks and to have these
areas be protected, commerce and you know, just the need
(12:25):
to develop every possible inch of land would have just
inevitably bulldozed those places. So it requires that kind of
forward thinking, you know, to really have that kind of
flexibility to have these places protected. And I think you
could apply that to areas of research if there was
potential for real, long term studies that could you know,
(12:45):
benefit humanity. I also wanted to mention too. I mentioned
the pandemic and also just the general danger of this
place to humans. But let's not forget Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
That's a big, you know issue in this So it
is again another human intervention that has led to it
being difficult to continue this research just as quickly as
(13:08):
it might be good to.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Do bangor interview from the Swanson Air though, Huh do
you guys watch that?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Oh no, I don't think so.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Tucker Carlson Uh went for Yeah, went full for an
asset and one of the the most like Tim Hideker
level interviews with a dictator. And it's just a masterclass
in how not to do interviews and boot licking.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I'm sure he interviewed Putin.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Yeah, he interviewed Putin. It's it's a cute Okay, Well
the pronunciation may be in dispute, but uh dispute.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yeah, but he so.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
In the interview, Uh, Tucker Carlson, the famous Swanson Air
is asking questions directly, and you know it's it's quite
rare for Putin to have those direct one to one interviews.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
They'll only do it with friendlies. You know, folks were
going to be in his corner to some degree. I
mean right, I kind.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Of tell you he's got he still has some old
spooky moves, like he does some old KGB stuff where
it's like you slide in personal details and he mentions
the time Tucker Carlson attempted to apply to the CIA
and got rejected, just like just as like a sneak
disc a little little.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Little subtweet there. Ye, speaking of which, isn't he still
doing his show on X fka Twitter? Is that still happening?
Because I imagined because remember how it was like not
to sideline. I think we're pretty much done with the
story here. But the viewing numbers for Tucker Carlson's show
on Twitter or on X were like overly, wildly inflated
(14:49):
because of what X counts as a view. There's a
discrepancy between a view and an impression where they can
say Tucker Carlson's getting one hundred gazillion trillion views, but
it's just because they're embedding it on like everybody's timeline,
so someone just scrolls past it and it auto plays.
That counts as a view. So they're like wildly inflated
(15:10):
numbers because you know, based on that, they're saying that
his numbers are higher than the most recent Super Bowl,
which apparently was the largest viewing numbers in network television history.
I want to say, yeah, go Toller Swift, right, that
was crazy.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Usher is so good at concerts. Did you notice he
had a football game before and after his concert.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
It was wild.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
What do you mean, I'm a dumb dumb? Was any good?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Was it any good?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
It was good?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
It was a two thousands Schmorgus board, you know, of
all the hits. I believe we had a lot of
the atl favorites, like Ludacrous main appearance Alicia Keys isn't
really Atlanta, but it's part of that kind of two
thousands scene. Yeah, No, I think he represented I thought
it was good.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Jermaine Dupree shouted out one of my favorite commercials of
all time. He had his berries and crea cause play.
I am not kidding you. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Was it a real reference or was it just a
similarities that you could not ignore. I might just be.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Seeing patterns where none exist.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, that's a great commercial, by the way, some of
the best work star Burst and has ever done. It
inspired an episode of Thirteen Days of Halloween. Noel, I
wonder to sew it up. What do you see as
the future here for the wild Wolves of Chernobyl? Do
you see it as informing cancer research for humans? How
(16:41):
long do you think these wolves have before humans encroach
again upon their territory?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Well, I don't know. It's a good question. Again, there
is sort of a built in like you can't really
go there and and and it's like land that nobody wants, right,
like that other episode that we did recently. I think
because of its irradiatedness, it has to be looked at
differently than other land. And I think for research and
(17:09):
how a radiation affects these creatures and how that can
then be applied to you know, studying their their genome
and their biology. I think that's a built in kind
of safeguard against humans that could potentially, you know, if
it's only these researchers so and then again you start
they say they're talking to cancer companies and big pharmaceutical companies,
(17:30):
you could then start seeing real encroachment, you know, and
just you know, dissecting the hell out of these animals.
But if the intention is right, which it seems like
it is, and it doesn't go off the rails, and
I think it could be a good thing. But I
don't know. I leave it to humans to screw it up.
But what do you think, Matt.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
I just love the idea of being resistant to cancer,
and if that means long period of minor exposure to
radiation for everyone in my family for the next.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Two hundred years.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Then maybe let's go for it, but I would say
probably not.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Doesn't it remind you, guys a little bit of like
a vaccine or an antidote, where it's like, the thing
that gives you the disease is also the thing in
small amounts that can cure you of it or that
can condition your body against it. Yeah. It again, I'm
not a scientist in disrespect in any respect, but it
does kind of remind me of that, you know, or
(18:26):
like the idea of eating drinking a little bit of
snake them, you know, to steal yourself against a particular
type of snake bite. Anyway, last thing, did you guys
see the Michael Sarah skin cream commercial that was broad?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
It's so good.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
My favorite part is just like a unicorn, dolphin, narwhale
or something, and he's like singing beautiful mystical songs to it.
I'm telling our story exactly. Yes, he must prs it
to the cream. And then he's like climbing a mountain,
like a cliff side, and he reaches into his little
bag of chalk and it's just the cream and he
wipes it on the sun. I just love that, you know.
(19:02):
I'm all about celebrities doing interesting actors and artists doing
weird stuff like that and getting paid so that they
can make whatever weird passion projects they want to. I
think that's pretty cool. I'm all about it.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Do you see who directed that commercial?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Is it somebody interesting?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Timinary?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Oh? I thought it was beautiful. I had no idea.
Good for them, man, get that super Bowl money? And
last thing, did you see Yay's seven million dollar super
Bowl ad that he shot on his phone for zero dollars? No?
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Is it about his rampant anti semitism.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
He doesn't mention it directly, but he does say that
he's got some shoes for sale if anyone's interested. He goes,
you didn't go to whatever website that is. I'm not
going to give it here, but.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I've got a warehouse in Oakland.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Basically, yeah, yeah, that guy sucks. And I don't know
if you guys know the Anthony Fantano, the YouTube record
review guy they called the Needle Drop, very very popular
influential music critic. He called Kanye's new record Vultures unreview
you able because of all of the the issues around
him as an individual where you can't really review his
(20:07):
art without taking any of this stuff into consideration. And
the fact that he's basically now that he's finally gone
too far with all of this stuff. Whether or not
it was real or an Andy kaufmanesque stunt irrelevant at
this point because now he's just trying to own it
and acting like he meant it all along and that
he was being canceled and he's a victim. I just
think it's comical and the guy just needs to go
(20:28):
away for a while.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
No opinion really.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Fair, no need to have one. Fantano doesn't well, he
did me and gave a seven minute little speech about it,
and I thought he had some good points. But guys,
what do you say We take a quick break here,
a word from our sponsor, and then come back with
some more strange news.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
And we've returned. Gentlemen, we are traveling to Charlotte, North
Carolina today for this story, and we're gonna meet a
group called the Hands Law Firm. They're in Charlotte, North Carolina,
and I'm gonna go ahead and stop right now because
I have to get this out. When I hear Hands
lawyers like the Hands Law Firm. Do you guys think
(21:11):
of anything? I have a very specific picture in my mind.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I gotta tell you, I think of the hand from
Marvel comic books. I also think of you're in good
hands with all State. What are you hand? Reaching out?
Speaker 5 (21:26):
Matt Kelly, Jack Kelly, would it be okay if you
your hands on.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Top of my.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Philip legendary legend?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
For some reason, I picture the Weird Stalker movie The
Hand that Rocks the Cradle from the nineties. Oh wow, okay, interesting,
nothing to do with lawyer, just about psychos.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Really, Jack Kelly fascinating, fascinating character. Yeah, so, Matt, it
sounds like it took you a second off that initial
reaction to to get to this story because these are
not like sketchy, touching lawyer.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
This is actually a fantastic law firm that I can't
say anything bad about. They're amazing the Hands Law Firm
in Charlotte, North Carolina. But I had to do a
shout out to Andrew Friedman, who's the actor who portrays
Jack Kelly first, because that's just what came into my mind.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Absolute legend.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
So this law firm and specifically an attorney who is
I don't know if this person's a partner there or
just an attorney there. I couldn't ascertain that from their website.
But one of the attorneys, Charles W. Chuck hands the
third esquire, which is so close right, stuff should know, right.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It sounds like a joke name for Chuck.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, okay, okay, wait wait wait wait wait Chuck is
in air quotes. Yeah, that's the familial term is friends
give his last name is hands plural? Is that correct?
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Charles hands their Yeah, Esquire, This is an attorney who
works there. So two shoutouts one to this.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
By the way, it's like a professional, little little addendum, right,
isn't that Usually with the official version of what s fire.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Is, it's an honorific that can go like I guess
you could call a courtesy title. It works differently in
the US versus in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
So Charles known as Charlie to his friends, not Chuck.
I put the chuck in there because of the Charles W.
Which is real.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Is there a Charles Charlie rule, the Brookie rule? Rack.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I'm sure he has opinions.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Sorry, everybody, We're gonna get to the story now, all right.
The hands law firm in Charlotte, North Carolina, received recently
an application from a homeowner to refinance their mortgage, just
like they had countless times in the past. This application
came from a mister Samuel Hellmick, who happens to own
a home in the Highland Creek area, which is northeast
(23:57):
of the city, just outside their like perimeter highway. Most
big cities have a perimeter highway that kind of goes
around the outside. This is right in the northeast area
of that perimeter. This application was for a quote cash
out refinance. This is a type of loan where a
homeowner borrows additional money on top of that big mortgage
(24:18):
loan that they've got. They take it from usually the
same bank as their mortgage lender, sometimes from a secondary bank,
but either way, it's on top of that mortgage and
it's based on the present value of the home versus
how much that homeowner owes on that big old mortgage loan.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Right, Okay, so the discrepancy there, the margin between the
two numbers.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, it's pretty easy.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Like if let's say you've got a four hundred let's
say five hundred thousand dollars house, you've paid one hundred
thousand dollars off on that house. You can borrow from
that one hundred thousand dollars in what's called equity. Yeah,
so that's what this is. The home owner would get
cash and then extra money would be put into that
(25:04):
mortgage loan, which means like a monthly payment would get higher.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
It was a home equity loan basically, right, it is.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
It's a home equity loan, but it's specifically a cash
out refinance, so you would get a huge lump sum
of money.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Ooh, I got it, Hey Matt, what could go wrong?
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Okay, well, let's see. Let's find out. When the hands
law firm got this application, it looked pretty good. It
included all of Samuel's identifying information, including his driver's license
with the photo, his tax returned from the previous year,
all of his banking information for where the money would
get transferred to. But there was something that was a
(25:42):
little off. According to this application, Samuel had already paid
off his mortgage in full. So the law firm was
trying to ascertain, why are you trying to refinance your
home when you've already paid off your mortgage.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
But you could do that, you could average that as
an asset and get a line of credit against your asset.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
Right, it can, but generally you wouldn't, as this application
was attempting to get all of the cash, all of
your home's worth out in a refinancing. In this case,
it would have been around four hundred and fifty thousand
dollars in cash that would have been taken out of,
you know, the value of the home, the equity, and
(26:25):
then the homeowner would have had to make three thousand
dollars monthly payments over the course of the next you know, it's.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Like starting everywhere one.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
No, it's like literally having your back to zero with
your mortgage.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Right. Yeah, why would you do that, right, rather than
as a homeowner, sell your ledgy right or rented out.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
The only other yeah, rent, renting and selling. The only
other answer would be if you were active in investing
and you had a surefire thing that maybe that could
beat the return rate, which is still very dodgy. That's
just the casino.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
I don't think you would do that at the full price.
You might do half the worth of your home or something.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
You know.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
It seems the law firm saw it as a big
red flag. They're like this seems weird. So they decided, hey,
we should discuss this with Samuel before we move forward.
Because we've got the application. All we have to do
is rubber stamp it, and this thing's gone right. All
that money gets taken out or the bank loans all
of that money by putting it into the account that
(27:29):
was provided, and Samuel now has big old payments he's
got to make. So the law firm attempted to hold
a zoom meeting with Samuel, which he didn't show up to.
They thought, man, that's weird. This is such a big
money move. You'd think this guy would be more engaged. Okay,
So our hero, Charles w Charlie Hands, the third Esquire,
(27:51):
took matters into his own hands, and and he drove
through Charlotte traffic all the way up there to Samiel's
front door. He knocked on it, and he met Samuel
in person. Here is a quote from Charles quote. The
face of the homeowner matched the face that we had
on the driver's license that was sent to us online.
(28:13):
But the homeowner had no idea who we were and
didn't know anything about a refinance with us at all.
I don't love it, Yes, and when Samuel has reached
out to by w SOOCTV Action nine News.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
There's a reporter there named Jason.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
He reached out to the homeowner, and the homeowner it
was just like, uh, nope, not this home, No, no thanks,
basically again in the opinion that I think many of
us would have. Once mortgage has been paid off, you're
good to go. Big moves don't exist anymore. We're smooth
salein from here.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Again. You can use that asset to leverage and to
get credit and also your credits spectacular it paid off
home of that, you know, an investment of that amount.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Of Also also, bad faith actors successfully count on people
to make that assumption that things are done when things
haven't ended right right.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
Patience goes a long way when you've got bad intentions.
So this right here, guys, this is a pretty simple
story just to show this kind of thing is going
to be happening more and more. You think of all
those hacks we've talked about where like super super sensitive
information has been leaked right from pretty much every like
(29:37):
everybody's sure this kind of thing like getting a hold
of a copy of a driver's license or a copy
of a tax return with how much how many of
us do our taxes online now with all.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
These city number whatever it might be.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
Well, and they're sharing all of that information with all
these other third parties right that we've talked about last year.
It's just it's so dangero, So what the heck can
we do. We've talked about it a couple of times
of things that we can do to protect ourselves. And
this is also coming from WSOCTV. One of the main
things you can do is freeze your credit. It's like
(30:15):
it's fairly easy to do. You just tell everybody who's
involved with your credit that you're not going to be
making any big moves until you let them know, and
then you can unfreeze your credit and make a move.
But other than that, nobody can touch like take a
loan out in your name or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
It's like a bigger picture version of like putting a
hold on your debit card or something if there's suspicious activity.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Yes, it should also be your default position because the
credit system, at least here in the United States is
obtuse and difficult to navigate by design, So it's kind
of like trigger discipline. If you're not going to pull
the trigger. You don't put your finger on the trigger
ever at all. And so you should always have your
(30:59):
credit frozen if possible, and then go and unfreeze it.
Because if you really need to your appoint Matt, if
you really need to make that move, then you're already
give me on the phone. You're already gonna have a
series of boring conversations. So just make make a couple
more phone calls. That's the only difference, and it can
save you a lot, a lot of trouble.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
It just becomes step one, no, and it's pretty easy.
And if you have a you know, if you have
something like LifeLock with Norton, you it's literally a button
you can push, which is pretty crazy. We have been
sponsored by them in the past. I don't know if
we're sponsored by them right now, but we've gotten to
use that. I'm just using it as an example here.
We are not currently sponsored by them.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
So the other thing, guys, and I'm super guilty of this,
getting junk mail what you think is junk mail, and
then either shredding it or tearing it up and throw
it in the trash.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I almost miss Jerry Summons because it's just on a
tiny little postcard thing that's mixed in with a whole
bunch of other stuff that just looks like spam mail.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
You know, yes, do you guys keep a po bucks
or do you use your actual domastle.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Actual But I genuinely generally just ignore paper mail like bad.
I gotta do better because you know, it's it's so
annoying because there's all these companies that print things to
make it look like important mail, so you get desensitized
to it. It's like, oh haha, nice try you know
the government, your name or current resident.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Yeah, I get a lot of weird correspondence with uh,
with all sorts of stuff. I open all of it.
You know, we read every piece of mail we get.
That's a great point, man, That's what we kind of
have to do.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
That.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
That's exactly the advice that we are giving to you here,
and is what Jason said on his article there, open everything,
it doesn't matter. Just open it, take a look at it.
If your name is on there, look at it. Even
if you are like ninety percent sure this is crap. Yeah,
just give it a quick peruse.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
Actually, if it's slightly misspelled by the way, just like
a low key good side of the unethical life hack thing.
If you get an email that is or like sorry,
you get a piece of correspondence that is to like
bat medric or whatever, you need to open that one first.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
But also it's like, I think we're so used to
like everything being a call or a text or an email.
There are old school institutions that don't do that at all.
They only correspond via the US mail. So if you're
not looking for that or you're not paying attention, you
could miss that stuff easily. I was realized that I
(33:40):
wasn't covered by insurance for two entire months for my
home because for whatever reason, something happened and my policy
was canceled because I did not realize I had to
renew it, and they gave me that correspondence via the
US mail and no call, no text, no email, nothing.
So I was if that's it happened during those two months,
(34:01):
I would have been in big trouble.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Part of the reason for that, by the way, the
reticence to engage in new technology, like part of the
reason some of these institutions cling towards the USPS specifically
is that messing with postal service correspondence is a very
serious crime, and it actually doesn't apply the same way
(34:27):
in things like email or even private carriers like your
local UPS or FedEx.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
So did you guys know that it's there is a
separate rate in the US mail for media mail like
sending like you know, a tape or a CD or whatever,
and that if they open it and they find out
that you've written a correspondence in there, they'll charge you
extra postage. This is irrelevant. I just found that out,
and I think that's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Don't be doing that.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Don't be doing that. Is that cow for cute little
notes in your mixtape?
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Though?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Is that? Is that? I got a one?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
Great area. I would say, speak to my attorney, Jack Kelly,
mister Hans. But there's not much else to say here
besides keep an eye on that kind of stuff because
it's going to be happening more. Thank you to the
Hands Law Firm and Charles W. Charlie Hans and David W.
Hands Bro.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Do you think that do you think they're like the
tagline is you're in good hands.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
Oh come on, come on, guys, come on, come on.
It's really cool. It's David and Charles hands doing their thing.
All right, we'll be right back with more strange news, and.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
We've returned code named Doc. Could I get something like
a gunshot? Perfect? Could I get something like an airhorn? Yeah, guys,
a new crip. It just dropped. And it's one of
the strangest ones that we have encountered. I hit you
guys up over a group chat when I had a
different phone, and I was startled to find that the
(36:14):
newest strangest life form discovered by the human species is
with us on the show now. And folks, there is
a higher than fifty percent chance it's with you as
you listen.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Tarry as well, Spooky ghosts is a crypt possession.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
This is well, well it was. It was a cryptid.
It was suspected. Let's introduce everybody to the obelisk, all right,
how conspiratorial?
Speaker 3 (36:41):
So stand thousand one.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Stanford University researchers recently discovered, through some very smart boffin exercises,
they recently discovered that there is a life form that
humans were not aware of that exist largely in side
human mouths and guts in your microbiome. And we all
(37:04):
know that science continues to sort of wrestle with the
implications of the microbiome in the human intestine today, Like,
we don't understand how it can affect things, but it
can affect behavior, it can affect the immune system, It
can even affect physiology. It may have epigenetic consequences. So
(37:26):
these folks went even further into this. They wrote a
great article, or they wrote a great study that's in
what we call preprint, meaning it hasn't been pure reviewed yet.
But what they've found is that there are tiny, tiny,
tiny bits of are in a collections that are even
(37:47):
smaller than viruses. They're called viroids. Now, if we step
back for a second and stay on viruses, as we've
discussed in previous episodes, viruses are on the very edge
of what humans consider an active life form, right because
viruses cannot reproduce without a host. They don't obviously seem
(38:10):
to have like dreams or ideology or anything, but they
can replicate. Viroids are a step smaller than that. I
had never heard of viroids before, Had you guys ever
heard of this?
Speaker 3 (38:23):
No? No, And the and the image on one of
the links that you sent Ben from Popular Mechanics. The
thing looks like a black hole in your body.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Is that crazing?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
It doesn't the same thing, is it? It's I don't know.
It looks like an obelisk to me.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
No, it looks like it looks like a dark spot.
I was looking at the other objects in here that
look like obelisks to me. Sorry, No, I just don't know.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
You have a black hole in your body.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Yeah, they don't quite have it. Hey, we've got to
be the black holes we want to see in the world, right.
So the this research out of Stanford University found that
this biological entity is probably the closest to a viroid.
But if a virus is on one side of a
spectrum and a viroid is on the other, these things
(39:14):
are sort of a missing link, and they organize into
strands of RNA, but they don't have a protein coat
that would protect them the way other larger actual life
forms do. And it gets even weirder. These researchers just
(39:34):
from doing some forensic database searching, which again they did
in a brilliant way, they found that there are already
almost thirty thousand distinct types of this life form that
they can identify in humans alone. So don't know how
much is in other mammals. Perhaps we don't know what
(39:58):
the effects of these things are. We don't know how
long they've been in humans, probably quite a while, and
we don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
This is so weird, right, like, just how do we
just now find these?
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Right?
Speaker 5 (40:14):
We've been looking through microscopes for a long time, and
crazy powerful microscopes. We're editing stuff on the nano scale
and building structures on the nano scale, and these things
have just been like.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
Just hang, yeah, yeah, just hanging, just hanging. So let's
give a shout out to the authors. There are quite
a few people who wrote this, Ivan in Zeludev, Robert C. Edgar,
Maria Jose Lopez Galiano, Marcos de la Pagna, Artem Babian,
Amy s Bot, Andrew Z Fire And I saved Andrew's
(40:50):
name for the end because I.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Ahrns for that.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Yeah, air horns, let's do it. So what they did
is they looked in to these massive data sets of
microbiome studies in human beings and they said seven percent
of the microbiome studies from the samples from the human
gut had this weird, inexplicable thing. Fifty percent of the
(41:19):
data sets, again from around the world, ethnicity, demographic notwithstanding,
fifty percent had these obelisks in them, which means that
everybody listening now. I don't want to say infected. I
don't want to scare people, but they're in you man,
the calls coming from inside the house. And to your question, Matt,
(41:41):
the reason these seem to have been overlooked for so long,
even with the skyrocketing interest in the human microbiome, it's
because these obelisks are so dissimilar to anything that has
been described as a life form in the history of
human side. I wish that we had at this point
(42:04):
some some more data on what the implications or the
effects could be. You know, we know there's good gut microbes.
We know there are bad gut microbes. We don't know
about the obelisk. They're like a new character in Act three.
We know that they're like a virus always needs a host,
and these viroid like things may be similar. We know
(42:27):
that they are often going to be hosted by different
types of bacteria. One in particular, an ingredient in dental
plaque called Streptococcus seguinous. So brush your teeth if you
don't want the opolisk blood.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
Bacteria ben This is so it's not that I'm feeling
skeptical about this because I'm looking at all the sources
you've sent and everything looks legit. Everything looks like like
it's real. But one of the stories for last week
that I was thinking about maybe be talking about was
a story from The Guardian titled the situation has become appalling.
(43:05):
Fake scientific papers push research credibility to crisis point, and
it was all about how like last year there were
over ten thousand major retractions in huge scientific journals, that's correct, Yeah,
where there was a like they had to just completely
remove papers that were published in these in these journals
(43:29):
because they were they were fraudulent in one way or another, right,
Which is like, I'm not saying this has anything to
do with that. What I mean is I've got this
lens that has been over my eyes for the past
week or so thinking about this stuff, and this new
thing is so mind blowing that my brain is kind
of just going, WHOA, which is it?
Speaker 4 (43:52):
Isn't it? Yeah, isn't it? Oh gosh, I read a
story with this guy too. He needs a shout out
sholto David an unemployed scientist who has been instrumental in
pouring over research and scientific papers, and he's one of
the folks who is leading the charge on sussing out
(44:13):
errors in academic journals. Everybody, please do check out our
episode previously well and some of the stuff they don't
want you to know about how the academic journal sausage
gets made. We promise you it's it's weird. But I
see what you're say in Matt, there's this there's this
disonance sometimes between the actual science that is done, the
(44:36):
way it is interpreted, and the way that it is
reported in popular media. We also are well aware that
there is an at time conspiratorial hierarchy over the existence
of scientific journals. I am hoping that we can return
to this story in the future and figure out what
(44:57):
the obelisk mean for the human experiment. Do they mean that, like,
is it some sort of evolutionary vestige that has no
real reverence, no harm, or no benefit to humans. Is
it something that we don't understand yet that may be
affecting behavior or growth or reproduction in some way? What
(45:20):
happens when you make out with people?
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Do you trade that modo? Now? I gotta say, Ben,
I really appreciate you catching this in terms of a cryptid,
because we never really think about cryptids being like undiscovered
microbes or like things in our bodies. But you know,
let's let's let's give credit where credit is due. They
are biological beings, so they should be considered on the.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Table for cryptid conversation. So well done, sir, Oh, thank you, sir.
What if they're I mean, that's the other thing. The
safe answer is, what if they're just sort of hitching
a ride in the in the biological credits of What
Makes Your Life if You're human? You know what I mean?
How sometimes you're watching the credits of a very long
film and someone just slides in with one credit. What
(46:07):
if that's what if that's the opolisk? What if they're
just running the time out to stay as part of
the franchise. I don't know. I don't know, but we
do have a lot to learn about I don't know
about the human question. It seems like the more humans
learn about the very very big things and the very
(46:28):
very small things, the more questions proliferate, like what would
if we gamed this out? If we just played you know,
sort of conspiracy cinematic universe here, what would be the
coolest implication of an undiscovered life form in the human body?
What would be like the coolest thing a superpower?
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Maybe?
Speaker 4 (46:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Well, I mean, you know, we recently did a video
which you can find and believe on Instagram and also
YouTube shorts about the fungus space fungus right, and the
idea of fungi fungi being alien beings that are really
good at hitching rides, you know, out into space, and
they're also like uniquely suited to exist out there. So this,
(47:14):
to me is part of that same kind of conversation.
I don't know, it's very interesting stuff, Matt, What do
you have?
Speaker 4 (47:20):
What kind of superpower would you want to discover with
an obelisk population?
Speaker 5 (47:27):
Let's see, it's got minor amounts of genetic information. Certain
obelisks can transfer rapid mutations into genetic material. So one
of them would allow me to grow actual wings back
here into it, thinking, I don't know, let's go, let's
(47:50):
go full owl style wings with some big old feathers.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yep, that's what I want.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Tight massive talents perhaps.
Speaker 5 (47:58):
No, no, no, I don't want the talents. Some of
the grab grabby hands.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Got to get the thumbs.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Classic owls are freaky, dude, the way they turn their
heads three hundred and sixty degrees like Exorcist style. They're neary,
scary guys, beautiful but also matt Your owl style wings
would allow you to fly soundlessly.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
If your bones are also hollow.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Oh wow, it does does that too? Okay, called it.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
Let's let's change it up. Let's do super dense bones,
dragon wings.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Go for it now at the fire end too. It's
like guacamole at the Chipotle of superpowers. I am good
friends with a couple of owls in in my US neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Here we have a neighborhood owl as well. Ben.
Speaker 4 (48:45):
Yeah, hey, it might be the same one they get around,
you know, uh soundlessly right right. They've sacrificed agility for stealth,
which happens, you know. Aircraft are slowly learning to imitate
things that birds and vented are discovered or evolved years
and years ago. I do think we are on the
(49:07):
verge of a fascinating exploration here. Now, to be clear,
if you have types of obelisk life forms or viroids
in your mouth or your gut, right now, they're probably
not a forever gift. The Stanford boffins currently believe that
you could harbor a single type of obelisk for maybe
(49:29):
around a year. So we don't know how they transmit,
we don't know where they've come from or where they're going,
but we do know they're real and that that is
a strange discovery. There's one one more thing I'd like
to set up if we have time before we end today.
Is that Okay, guys, it's a true crime story.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Yeah. Please.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
So, just as we were coming into record this evening,
we read some frankly disturbing news named Victoria Hill in
Connecticut found out that her she purchased a DNA testing
kid from twenty three and me, and she found out
(50:11):
that she had many more siblings than she had ever thought.
She has around twenty two and maybe more. And that's
because she is a victim of what is now being
called fertility fraud. Remember when we did the story about
that guy who was like super into donating in sperm everywhere? Sure,
(50:32):
oh yeah, yeah, it seems like it seems like there's
another case of this. Hill found out that her biological
father was not the guy she grew up with, but
it was the fertility doctor who had been helping her
mother to conceive. Further, she found that one of her
(50:54):
newly discovered siblings was her former high school boyfriend.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
Okay, ye, heavy, heavy, Yeah, there's that podcast. I can't
remember some Uh sick maybe is the name of the podcast.
Some it's about a fertility doctor that was doing all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
And there's something there set.
Speaker 5 (51:13):
There's so many right now where it's like, fertility doctors
be doing stuff.
Speaker 4 (51:18):
Yeah, and apparently it's another problem of they do be
doing stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yes, I'm sorry that was I'm so sorry. Guys.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
We do see though that it is another case of
some of a flag I've been waving for years, which
is legislation not catching up with technology. There are no
there aren't really comprehensive laws against this kind of pretty
serious crime with clear intergenerational consequences. I don't think lawmakers
(51:50):
are very clear yet on how to how to legislate
on it. But the a CNN investigation found that the
majority of you states do not have laws against what
we would call fertility fraud. And if you want some
kind of justice, some kind of recourse, the doctors are
(52:10):
bad faith actors that you're accusing. They have a huge
advantage in court and it's very difficult to get them
to even stop practicing, much less face criminal consequences. So
if you'd like to read more about this, check out
the excellent work by CNN which is ongoing now, the
journalist Rob Kusnia, Alison Gordon, Nellie Black and kill law.
(52:35):
This again, this is breaking news. The Valentine's Day timing
is unfortunate. And with that, thank you, as always so
much for tuning in this evening. Fellow conspiracy realist. We
hope this finds you wealthy. We hope this finds you healthy.
We hope you have made friends with the strange cryptids
in your guts?
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Uh for that?
Speaker 4 (52:55):
Man? Oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Let us know what
you think about any and all all of these tales.
We try to be easy to find online, correct.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
You can find this at the handle conspiracy Stuff where
we exist on Facebook in our Facebook group Here's where
it gets crazy. We are also that handle on x FKA,
Twitter and you too, where you can find all sorts
of fun video content every single week. We are Conspiracy
Stuff Show. However, on Instagram and TikTok want to get
(53:26):
in touch with us another way, Well, you can do
that too.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
That's true if you don't sip the social needs. Fellow
conspiracy realists, never fear. You can call us directly on
a telephonic device. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
You'll hear a hopefully familiar voice and then a beep
like soap beep that means you'll have three minutes. Those
three minutes are yours, folks, Go nuts, go ham. All
(53:50):
we ask is that give us your nickname, a street
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of that quite bad, your badgers. There is an absolutely
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drop us a line at our good old fashioned email address.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (54:32):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nol.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Bed.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code
named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
you to know. It's the top of the week. As
we hurtle headlong towards the end of February, our summer
plans are ruined. North Korea has closed down their airbnbs. Catch, Yeah,
(00:53):
that's something we all took. We all took an l
on that one. There are so many things occurring around
the world world today. We're going to explore several of them.
We're going to explore a lawyer who saved the day,
a new cryptid just dropped. And before we do any
of that, we were thinking we might travel to Chernobyl.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh, why not? Maybe they have an airbnbs available there. Perhaps, No, No,
it's the next thing. Let's start getting some tourist traffic
over there at Chernobyl. No, not so much for humans,
but for wildlife. As we've talked about numerous times on
the show, it's a flourishing but very diverse ecosystem with
(01:34):
numerous species of you know, insects, plants, fauna, megafauna, you know,
I mean stuff that could you know, be considered almost
approaching cryptids, especially when we start to talk about some
of the ways that the radiation that the legacy radiation
from that Chernobyl exclusion zone has affected some of these creatures. Today,
(01:57):
we are specifically talking about the wolf population there and
how exposure long term generational exposure. After all, the Chernobyl
catastrophe where one of the reactors there near Pripiat, Ukraine, exploded,
more than two hundred thousand people were evacuated and created
(02:17):
these exclusion zones. That was back in nineteen eighty six.
So we are at a place now where we're actually
starting to kind of see almost evolutionary results from the
exposure that these creatures have had to this legacy radiation. Specifically, today,
we're looking at a study that has come out from
(02:38):
a researcher by the name Well actually there's a couple
of researchers we're talking about today. One is by the
name of Shane Campbell Staton, who is a fellow at
the Princeton Evolutionary Biology Labs, I suppose you could call it.
There is also another fellow researcher by the name of
(02:59):
care In Love, and they have been studying the effects
of the radiation in this exclusion zone or these exclusion
zones on the wolf population. And one thing that has
come out very recently, I believe in the last couple
of weeks, is the idea that wolves, the wolf population
(03:20):
in Belarus's exclusion zone, have started to develop parts of
their genome that are resistant to cancer. Good news, because
this is the kind of thing that can be studied
and can potentially be harnessed and used, you know, in
cancer research for humans. Really fascinating stuff. There's a really
(03:44):
great NPR interview where Love and their fellow Princeton evolutionary biologist,
Shane Campbell Statton, they gave to NPR where they talk
about this research. Campbell Staton said in the interview that
the exclusion zone are quote home to everything from amphibians,
insects and birds to megafauna, so things like European bison,
(04:07):
bore apex predators like wolves. Gray wolves in particular, they say,
offer a really interesting opportunity to understand the impacts of chronic,
low dose, multigenerational exposure to ionizing radiation because of the
role that they play in their ecosystem. Going on to quote,
(04:27):
there may be genetic variation within the wolf population that
may allow some individuals to be more resistant or resilient
in the face of that radiation, in which case they
may still get cancer at the same rate, but it
may not impact their function as much as it would
an individual outside of the exclusion zone. They're just able
(04:48):
to take that burden better for some reason, or it
could be resistance and despite that pressure, that radiation exposure,
they just don't get cancer as much.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Interesting too, doctor loves study focuses on wolf blood, I think,
and it descends from a like earlier studies on different
fauna in the exclusion zone. And I love that you're
pointing out the earlier work we did on the damage
that human beings or human populations posed to wild animals,
(05:24):
wasn't it It wasn't too long ago know that some
study found that humans were more dangerous to animals in
chernoble than the radiation. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I think that's right. I don't have that exact data
in front of me, but what is interesting is the
lack of humans in these exclusion zones, which is largely
what's allowed these populations of wildlife and flora to flourish
kind of untouched. And it also offers a really unique
research opportunity to you know, take a look at how
(05:54):
these these species are developing, because again, you know, we're
looking at decades of data now, so you could consider
this as the researchers do multi generational exposure to this
low level radiation they're starting, they're seeing. The report says
that they're seeing very similar kind of resistance that you
(06:18):
might see in a cancer patient undergoing radiation therapy, which
which makes sense because radiation therapy, chemo treatments and stuff
is exposure to low level radiation that that you know,
obviously it does make people quite sick, but long term
it can cause the body to reject the cancer cells,
you know, and to sort of, yeah, to kind of
(06:40):
evolve in its own way as a result of being
exposed to that. I mean, I guess maybe evolve is
the wrong word, because that's a much shorter timeline. You
know that these these individuals undergoing that kind of treatment
are exposed to stuff. This is like the kind of
thing where we're seeing natural selection at play, where the
wolves that remain are the ones that have that adaptation
(07:01):
that allows them to be much more resilient to cancer
and tumor growth.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
It's so weird, like resilient to cancer and yet you're
still being irradiated. What are the other big problems that
come with radiation. I thought cancer was one of the
big things that radiation could cause, and just destruction of cells.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Sterility would be one. Sterility would be one. There's the
possibility to also limit reproduction through tumors that interfere with
the natural lifespan of the of the creature. To your point, Noel,
I believe check me on this, folks, but I believe
(07:43):
a gray wolf has a relatively short lifespan in comparison
to other large fauna. So if there's a reproductive advantage
to surviving the exposure of radiation and chernobyl, then it
does make sense that they could breed for that trait.
I think they're like they're living there, the wolves with
(08:07):
something like six plus times the safe amount of radiation
for life form. And so if they are, if they
are surviving, what we have to remember is there's probably
a pretty high rate of attrition. There are probably a
lot of pups in a litter that aren't making it
to reproductive age.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, and then that's I think that's where we're able.
And again no evolutionary biology background here is going you know,
from what the experts are saying, and I hope that
we're interpreting it correctly. I think between the three of
us we are. But that's where you start to see
that natural selection at play. Like the individuals that are
born that have that trait, they're the ones that survive longer.
Because to your point, then you know about the impact
(08:50):
of humans. One of the researchers had this to say,
Campbell Statton, that a wolf living within that Chernobyl exclusion
zone might have to deal with these potential pressures from cancer,
but it doesn't have to deal with pressures from say hunting,
for example. And I'm just going to go and read
(09:10):
the quote as they say it better than I could paraphrase.
And it may be that the release from that hunting pressure,
that separation from humans, turns out to be a much
better thing than having to deal with cancer, which is
kind of messed up. That's part of the quote, but
I completely concur with that.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
It's true though. Look at the biodiversity and the DMZ.
Look at the way the natural world quickly recovered a
bit of its population when humans were locked down during COVID. Right,
if you take the human species out of the equation,
then Earth grows back pretty quickly. Also, were we didn't
(09:48):
we talk about years years ago? Didn't we talk about
the wild bars that were running around?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
And then you know, obviously the wild bares are known
for digging for you know, truffles and such, maybe specific
ones that are good at being for truffles, but they
do root and a lot of times the soil content,
you know, deeper down does have you know, higher levels
of radiation. So that was why we were seeing higher
instances of irradiated bores, you know, from that same Chernobyl
(10:19):
exclusion zone. Like I was saying earlier, there are implications
on human healthcare, you know in this Campbell Statin said.
By the way, the interview on NPR was on a
show called Shortwave, and so you can probably just google
the name of the researchers and shortwave and find the
entire transcription or probably even the audio in PR is
pretty good about that, but it says Campbell. Statin told
(10:42):
the interviewer that they are starting to collaborate with cancer
biologists and cancer medication and treatment companies to help interpret
all of this data and to quote them try to
figure out if there are any directly translatable differences that
may offer novel therapeutic targets for cancer and humans, for instance.
(11:04):
And one interesting thing about this too is the pandemic
and also the fact that this area is in fact
not safe for humans has caused this research to be
a little on the slow going side. So you know,
it's kind of a bummer because they probably could have
been a little further along than they are, but because
(11:24):
of these conditions, they're having to kind of take it.
It's a little bit slow and steady.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
It's cool stuff though, even if the research is stymied,
it just shows us yet again the natural world is astonishing.
You know, I wonder too, this makes me think, I
wonder if it were possible if there were a world
wherein we could find an area with high diversity of
(11:50):
natural floora and fauna and then just kick all the
humans out, like, don't even national park, it don't have visitors,
just say no, humans can go here for a secon
century and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
That's really interesting that you say that, Ben, especially since
we recently did an episode on national parks and just
like the whole I know you mentioned that just now,
but it is there is a conceptual kind of similarity
there because if it weren't for people going to bat
for the need for national parks and to have these
areas be protected, commerce and you know, just the need
(12:25):
to develop every possible inch of land would have just
inevitably bulldozed those places. So it requires that kind of
forward thinking, you know, to really have that kind of
flexibility to have these places protected. And I think you
could apply that to areas of research if there was
potential for real, long term studies that could you know,
(12:45):
benefit humanity. I also wanted to mention too. I mentioned
the pandemic and also just the general danger of this
place to humans. But let's not forget Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
That's a big, you know issue in this So it
is again another human intervention that has led to it
being difficult to continue this research just as quickly as
(13:08):
it might be good to.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Do bangor interview from the Swanson Air though, Huh do
you guys watch that?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Oh no, I don't think so.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Tucker Carlson Uh went for Yeah, went full for an
asset and one of the the most like Tim Hideker
level interviews with a dictator. And it's just a masterclass
in how not to do interviews and boot licking.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I'm sure he interviewed Putin.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Yeah, he interviewed Putin. It's it's a cute Okay, Well
the pronunciation may be in dispute, but uh dispute.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yeah, but he so.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
In the interview, Uh, Tucker Carlson, the famous Swanson Air
is asking questions directly, and you know it's it's quite
rare for Putin to have those direct one to one interviews.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
They'll only do it with friendlies. You know, folks were
going to be in his corner to some degree. I
mean right, I kind.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Of tell you he's got he still has some old
spooky moves, like he does some old KGB stuff where
it's like you slide in personal details and he mentions
the time Tucker Carlson attempted to apply to the CIA
and got rejected, just like just as like a sneak
disc a little little.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Little subtweet there. Ye, speaking of which, isn't he still
doing his show on X fka Twitter? Is that still happening?
Because I imagined because remember how it was like not
to sideline. I think we're pretty much done with the
story here. But the viewing numbers for Tucker Carlson's show
on Twitter or on X were like overly, wildly inflated
(14:49):
because of what X counts as a view. There's a
discrepancy between a view and an impression where they can
say Tucker Carlson's getting one hundred gazillion trillion views, but
it's just because they're embedding it on like everybody's timeline,
so someone just scrolls past it and it auto plays.
That counts as a view. So they're like wildly inflated
(15:10):
numbers because you know, based on that, they're saying that
his numbers are higher than the most recent Super Bowl,
which apparently was the largest viewing numbers in network television history.
I want to say, yeah, go Toller Swift, right, that
was crazy.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Usher is so good at concerts. Did you notice he
had a football game before and after his concert.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
It was wild.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
What do you mean, I'm a dumb dumb? Was any good?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Was it any good?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
It was good?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
It was a two thousands Schmorgus board, you know, of
all the hits. I believe we had a lot of
the atl favorites, like Ludacrous main appearance Alicia Keys isn't
really Atlanta, but it's part of that kind of two
thousands scene. Yeah, No, I think he represented I thought
it was good.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Jermaine Dupree shouted out one of my favorite commercials of
all time. He had his berries and crea cause play.
I am not kidding you. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Was it a real reference or was it just a
similarities that you could not ignore. I might just be.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Seeing patterns where none exist.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, that's a great commercial, by the way, some of
the best work star Burst and has ever done. It
inspired an episode of Thirteen Days of Halloween. Noel, I
wonder to sew it up. What do you see as
the future here for the wild Wolves of Chernobyl? Do
you see it as informing cancer research for humans? How
(16:41):
long do you think these wolves have before humans encroach
again upon their territory?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Well, I don't know. It's a good question. Again, there
is sort of a built in like you can't really
go there and and and it's like land that nobody wants, right,
like that other episode that we did recently. I think
because of its irradiatedness, it has to be looked at
differently than other land. And I think for research and
(17:09):
how a radiation affects these creatures and how that can
then be applied to you know, studying their their genome
and their biology. I think that's a built in kind
of safeguard against humans that could potentially, you know, if
it's only these researchers so and then again you start
they say they're talking to cancer companies and big pharmaceutical companies,
(17:30):
you could then start seeing real encroachment, you know, and
just you know, dissecting the hell out of these animals.
But if the intention is right, which it seems like
it is, and it doesn't go off the rails, and
I think it could be a good thing. But I
don't know. I leave it to humans to screw it up.
But what do you think, Matt.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
I just love the idea of being resistant to cancer,
and if that means long period of minor exposure to
radiation for everyone in my family for the next.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Two hundred years.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Then maybe let's go for it, but I would say
probably not.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Doesn't it remind you, guys a little bit of like
a vaccine or an antidote, where it's like, the thing
that gives you the disease is also the thing in
small amounts that can cure you of it or that
can condition your body against it. Yeah. It again, I'm
not a scientist in disrespect in any respect, but it
does kind of remind me of that, you know, or
(18:26):
like the idea of eating drinking a little bit of
snake them, you know, to steal yourself against a particular
type of snake bite. Anyway, last thing, did you guys
see the Michael Sarah skin cream commercial that was broad?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
It's so good.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
My favorite part is just like a unicorn, dolphin, narwhale
or something, and he's like singing beautiful mystical songs to it.
I'm telling our story exactly. Yes, he must prs it
to the cream. And then he's like climbing a mountain,
like a cliff side, and he reaches into his little
bag of chalk and it's just the cream and he
wipes it on the sun. I just love that, you know.
(19:02):
I'm all about celebrities doing interesting actors and artists doing
weird stuff like that and getting paid so that they
can make whatever weird passion projects they want to. I
think that's pretty cool. I'm all about it.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Do you see who directed that commercial?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Is it somebody interesting?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Timinary?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Oh? I thought it was beautiful. I had no idea.
Good for them, man, get that super Bowl money? And
last thing, did you see Yay's seven million dollar super
Bowl ad that he shot on his phone for zero dollars? No?
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Is it about his rampant anti semitism.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
He doesn't mention it directly, but he does say that
he's got some shoes for sale if anyone's interested. He goes,
you didn't go to whatever website that is. I'm not
going to give it here, but.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I've got a warehouse in Oakland.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Basically, yeah, yeah, that guy sucks. And I don't know
if you guys know the Anthony Fantano, the YouTube record
review guy they called the Needle Drop, very very popular
influential music critic. He called Kanye's new record Vultures unreview
you able because of all of the the issues around
him as an individual where you can't really review his
(20:07):
art without taking any of this stuff into consideration. And
the fact that he's basically now that he's finally gone
too far with all of this stuff. Whether or not
it was real or an Andy kaufmanesque stunt irrelevant at
this point because now he's just trying to own it
and acting like he meant it all along and that
he was being canceled and he's a victim. I just
think it's comical and the guy just needs to go
(20:28):
away for a while.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
No opinion really.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Fair, no need to have one. Fantano doesn't well, he
did me and gave a seven minute little speech about it,
and I thought he had some good points. But guys,
what do you say We take a quick break here,
a word from our sponsor, and then come back with
some more strange news.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
And we've returned. Gentlemen, we are traveling to Charlotte, North
Carolina today for this story, and we're gonna meet a
group called the Hands Law Firm. They're in Charlotte, North Carolina,
and I'm gonna go ahead and stop right now because
I have to get this out. When I hear Hands
lawyers like the Hands Law Firm. Do you guys think
(21:11):
of anything? I have a very specific picture in my mind.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I gotta tell you, I think of the hand from
Marvel comic books. I also think of you're in good
hands with all State. What are you hand? Reaching out?
Speaker 5 (21:26):
Matt Kelly, Jack Kelly, would it be okay if you
your hands on.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Top of my.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Philip legendary legend?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
For some reason, I picture the Weird Stalker movie The
Hand that Rocks the Cradle from the nineties. Oh wow, okay, interesting,
nothing to do with lawyer, just about psychos.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Really, Jack Kelly fascinating, fascinating character. Yeah, so, Matt, it
sounds like it took you a second off that initial
reaction to to get to this story because these are
not like sketchy, touching lawyer.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
This is actually a fantastic law firm that I can't
say anything bad about. They're amazing the Hands Law Firm
in Charlotte, North Carolina. But I had to do a
shout out to Andrew Friedman, who's the actor who portrays
Jack Kelly first, because that's just what came into my mind.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Absolute legend.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
So this law firm and specifically an attorney who is
I don't know if this person's a partner there or
just an attorney there. I couldn't ascertain that from their website.
But one of the attorneys, Charles W. Chuck hands the
third esquire, which is so close right, stuff should know, right.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It sounds like a joke name for Chuck.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, okay, okay, wait wait wait wait wait Chuck is
in air quotes. Yeah, that's the familial term is friends
give his last name is hands plural? Is that correct?
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Charles hands their Yeah, Esquire, This is an attorney who
works there. So two shoutouts one to this.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
By the way, it's like a professional, little little addendum, right,
isn't that Usually with the official version of what s fire.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Is, it's an honorific that can go like I guess
you could call a courtesy title. It works differently in
the US versus in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
So Charles known as Charlie to his friends, not Chuck.
I put the chuck in there because of the Charles W.
Which is real.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Is there a Charles Charlie rule, the Brookie rule? Rack.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I'm sure he has opinions.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
Sorry, everybody, We're gonna get to the story now, all right.
The hands law firm in Charlotte, North Carolina, received recently
an application from a homeowner to refinance their mortgage, just
like they had countless times in the past. This application
came from a mister Samuel Hellmick, who happens to own
a home in the Highland Creek area, which is northeast
(23:57):
of the city, just outside their like perimeter highway. Most
big cities have a perimeter highway that kind of goes
around the outside. This is right in the northeast area
of that perimeter. This application was for a quote cash
out refinance. This is a type of loan where a
homeowner borrows additional money on top of that big mortgage
(24:18):
loan that they've got. They take it from usually the
same bank as their mortgage lender, sometimes from a secondary bank,
but either way, it's on top of that mortgage and
it's based on the present value of the home versus
how much that homeowner owes on that big old mortgage loan.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Right, Okay, so the discrepancy there, the margin between the
two numbers.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, it's pretty easy.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Like if let's say you've got a four hundred let's
say five hundred thousand dollars house, you've paid one hundred
thousand dollars off on that house. You can borrow from
that one hundred thousand dollars in what's called equity. Yeah,
so that's what this is. The home owner would get
cash and then extra money would be put into that
(25:04):
mortgage loan, which means like a monthly payment would get higher.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
It was a home equity loan basically, right, it is.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
It's a home equity loan, but it's specifically a cash
out refinance, so you would get a huge lump sum
of money.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Ooh, I got it, Hey Matt, what could go wrong?
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Okay, well, let's see. Let's find out. When the hands
law firm got this application, it looked pretty good. It
included all of Samuel's identifying information, including his driver's license
with the photo, his tax returned from the previous year,
all of his banking information for where the money would
get transferred to. But there was something that was a
(25:42):
little off. According to this application, Samuel had already paid
off his mortgage in full. So the law firm was
trying to ascertain, why are you trying to refinance your
home when you've already paid off your mortgage.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
But you could do that, you could average that as
an asset and get a line of credit against your asset.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
Right, it can, but generally you wouldn't, as this application
was attempting to get all of the cash, all of
your home's worth out in a refinancing. In this case,
it would have been around four hundred and fifty thousand
dollars in cash that would have been taken out of,
you know, the value of the home, the equity, and
(26:25):
then the homeowner would have had to make three thousand
dollars monthly payments over the course of the next you know, it's.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Like starting everywhere one.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
No, it's like literally having your back to zero with
your mortgage.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Right. Yeah, why would you do that, right, rather than
as a homeowner, sell your ledgy right or rented out.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
The only other yeah, rent, renting and selling. The only
other answer would be if you were active in investing
and you had a surefire thing that maybe that could
beat the return rate, which is still very dodgy. That's
just the casino.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
I don't think you would do that at the full price.
You might do half the worth of your home or something.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
You know.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
It seems the law firm saw it as a big
red flag. They're like this seems weird. So they decided, hey,
we should discuss this with Samuel before we move forward.
Because we've got the application. All we have to do
is rubber stamp it, and this thing's gone right. All
that money gets taken out or the bank loans all
of that money by putting it into the account that
(27:29):
was provided, and Samuel now has big old payments he's
got to make. So the law firm attempted to hold
a zoom meeting with Samuel, which he didn't show up to.
They thought, man, that's weird. This is such a big
money move. You'd think this guy would be more engaged. Okay,
So our hero, Charles w Charlie Hands, the third Esquire,
(27:51):
took matters into his own hands, and and he drove
through Charlotte traffic all the way up there to Samiel's
front door. He knocked on it, and he met Samuel
in person. Here is a quote from Charles quote. The
face of the homeowner matched the face that we had
on the driver's license that was sent to us online.
(28:13):
But the homeowner had no idea who we were and
didn't know anything about a refinance with us at all.
I don't love it, Yes, and when Samuel has reached
out to by w SOOCTV Action nine News.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
There's a reporter there named Jason.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
He reached out to the homeowner, and the homeowner it
was just like, uh, nope, not this home, No, no thanks,
basically again in the opinion that I think many of
us would have. Once mortgage has been paid off, you're
good to go. Big moves don't exist anymore. We're smooth
salein from here.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Again. You can use that asset to leverage and to
get credit and also your credits spectacular it paid off
home of that, you know, an investment of that amount.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Of Also also, bad faith actors successfully count on people
to make that assumption that things are done when things
haven't ended right right.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
Patience goes a long way when you've got bad intentions.
So this right here, guys, this is a pretty simple
story just to show this kind of thing is going
to be happening more and more. You think of all
those hacks we've talked about where like super super sensitive
information has been leaked right from pretty much every like
(29:37):
everybody's sure this kind of thing like getting a hold
of a copy of a driver's license or a copy
of a tax return with how much how many of
us do our taxes online now with all.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
These city number whatever it might be.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
Well, and they're sharing all of that information with all
these other third parties right that we've talked about last year.
It's just it's so dangero, So what the heck can
we do. We've talked about it a couple of times
of things that we can do to protect ourselves. And
this is also coming from WSOCTV. One of the main
things you can do is freeze your credit. It's like
(30:15):
it's fairly easy to do. You just tell everybody who's
involved with your credit that you're not going to be
making any big moves until you let them know, and
then you can unfreeze your credit and make a move.
But other than that, nobody can touch like take a
loan out in your name or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
It's like a bigger picture version of like putting a
hold on your debit card or something if there's suspicious activity.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Yes, it should also be your default position because the
credit system, at least here in the United States is
obtuse and difficult to navigate by design, So it's kind
of like trigger discipline. If you're not going to pull
the trigger. You don't put your finger on the trigger
ever at all. And so you should always have your
(30:59):
credit frozen if possible, and then go and unfreeze it.
Because if you really need to your appoint Matt, if
you really need to make that move, then you're already
give me on the phone. You're already gonna have a
series of boring conversations. So just make make a couple
more phone calls. That's the only difference, and it can
save you a lot, a lot of trouble.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
It just becomes step one, no, and it's pretty easy.
And if you have a you know, if you have
something like LifeLock with Norton, you it's literally a button
you can push, which is pretty crazy. We have been
sponsored by them in the past. I don't know if
we're sponsored by them right now, but we've gotten to
use that. I'm just using it as an example here.
We are not currently sponsored by them.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
So the other thing, guys, and I'm super guilty of this,
getting junk mail what you think is junk mail, and
then either shredding it or tearing it up and throw
it in the trash.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I almost miss Jerry Summons because it's just on a
tiny little postcard thing that's mixed in with a whole
bunch of other stuff that just looks like spam mail.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
You know, yes, do you guys keep a po bucks
or do you use your actual domastle.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Actual But I genuinely generally just ignore paper mail like bad.
I gotta do better because you know, it's it's so
annoying because there's all these companies that print things to
make it look like important mail, so you get desensitized
to it. It's like, oh haha, nice try you know
the government, your name or current resident.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Yeah, I get a lot of weird correspondence with uh,
with all sorts of stuff. I open all of it.
You know, we read every piece of mail we get.
That's a great point, man, That's what we kind of
have to do.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
That.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
That's exactly the advice that we are giving to you here,
and is what Jason said on his article there, open everything,
it doesn't matter. Just open it, take a look at it.
If your name is on there, look at it. Even
if you are like ninety percent sure this is crap. Yeah,
just give it a quick peruse.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
Actually, if it's slightly misspelled by the way, just like
a low key good side of the unethical life hack thing.
If you get an email that is or like sorry,
you get a piece of correspondence that is to like
bat medric or whatever, you need to open that one first.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
But also it's like, I think we're so used to
like everything being a call or a text or an email.
There are old school institutions that don't do that at all.
They only correspond via the US mail. So if you're
not looking for that or you're not paying attention, you
could miss that stuff easily. I was realized that I
(33:40):
wasn't covered by insurance for two entire months for my
home because for whatever reason, something happened and my policy
was canceled because I did not realize I had to
renew it, and they gave me that correspondence via the
US mail and no call, no text, no email, nothing.
So I was if that's it happened during those two months,
(34:01):
I would have been in big trouble.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Part of the reason for that, by the way, the
reticence to engage in new technology, like part of the
reason some of these institutions cling towards the USPS specifically
is that messing with postal service correspondence is a very
serious crime, and it actually doesn't apply the same way
(34:27):
in things like email or even private carriers like your
local UPS or FedEx.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
So did you guys know that it's there is a
separate rate in the US mail for media mail like
sending like you know, a tape or a CD or whatever,
and that if they open it and they find out
that you've written a correspondence in there, they'll charge you
extra postage. This is irrelevant. I just found that out,
and I think that's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Don't be doing that.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Don't be doing that. Is that cow for cute little
notes in your mixtape?
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Though?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Is that? Is that? I got a one?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
Great area. I would say, speak to my attorney, Jack Kelly,
mister Hans. But there's not much else to say here
besides keep an eye on that kind of stuff because
it's going to be happening more. Thank you to the
Hands Law Firm and Charles W. Charlie Hans and David W.
Hands Bro.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Do you think that do you think they're like the
tagline is you're in good hands.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
Oh come on, come on, guys, come on, come on.
It's really cool. It's David and Charles hands doing their thing.
All right, we'll be right back with more strange news, and.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
We've returned code named Doc. Could I get something like
a gunshot? Perfect? Could I get something like an airhorn? Yeah, guys,
a new crip. It just dropped. And it's one of
the strangest ones that we have encountered. I hit you
guys up over a group chat when I had a
different phone, and I was startled to find that the
(36:14):
newest strangest life form discovered by the human species is
with us on the show now. And folks, there is
a higher than fifty percent chance it's with you as
you listen.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Tarry as well, Spooky ghosts is a crypt possession.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
This is well, well it was. It was a cryptid.
It was suspected. Let's introduce everybody to the obelisk, all right,
how conspiratorial?
Speaker 3 (36:41):
So stand thousand one.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Stanford University researchers recently discovered, through some very smart boffin exercises,
they recently discovered that there is a life form that
humans were not aware of that exist largely in side
human mouths and guts in your microbiome. And we all
(37:04):
know that science continues to sort of wrestle with the
implications of the microbiome in the human intestine today, Like,
we don't understand how it can affect things, but it
can affect behavior, it can affect the immune system, It
can even affect physiology. It may have epigenetic consequences. So
(37:26):
these folks went even further into this. They wrote a
great article, or they wrote a great study that's in
what we call preprint, meaning it hasn't been pure reviewed yet.
But what they've found is that there are tiny, tiny,
tiny bits of are in a collections that are even
(37:47):
smaller than viruses. They're called viroids. Now, if we step
back for a second and stay on viruses, as we've
discussed in previous episodes, viruses are on the very edge
of what humans consider an active life form, right because
viruses cannot reproduce without a host. They don't obviously seem
(38:10):
to have like dreams or ideology or anything, but they
can replicate. Viroids are a step smaller than that. I
had never heard of viroids before, Had you guys ever
heard of this?
Speaker 3 (38:23):
No? No, And the and the image on one of
the links that you sent Ben from Popular Mechanics. The
thing looks like a black hole in your body.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Is that crazing?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
It doesn't the same thing, is it? It's I don't know.
It looks like an obelisk to me.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
No, it looks like it looks like a dark spot.
I was looking at the other objects in here that
look like obelisks to me. Sorry, No, I just don't know.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
You have a black hole in your body.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Yeah, they don't quite have it. Hey, we've got to
be the black holes we want to see in the world, right.
So the this research out of Stanford University found that
this biological entity is probably the closest to a viroid.
But if a virus is on one side of a
spectrum and a viroid is on the other, these things
(39:14):
are sort of a missing link, and they organize into
strands of RNA, but they don't have a protein coat
that would protect them the way other larger actual life
forms do. And it gets even weirder. These researchers just
(39:34):
from doing some forensic database searching, which again they did
in a brilliant way, they found that there are already
almost thirty thousand distinct types of this life form that
they can identify in humans alone. So don't know how
much is in other mammals. Perhaps we don't know what
(39:58):
the effects of these things are. We don't know how
long they've been in humans, probably quite a while, and
we don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
This is so weird, right, like, just how do we
just now find these?
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Right?
Speaker 5 (40:14):
We've been looking through microscopes for a long time, and
crazy powerful microscopes. We're editing stuff on the nano scale
and building structures on the nano scale, and these things
have just been like.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
Just hang, yeah, yeah, just hanging, just hanging. So let's
give a shout out to the authors. There are quite
a few people who wrote this, Ivan in Zeludev, Robert C. Edgar,
Maria Jose Lopez Galiano, Marcos de la Pagna, Artem Babian,
Amy s Bot, Andrew Z Fire And I saved Andrew's
(40:50):
name for the end because I.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Ahrns for that.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Yeah, air horns, let's do it. So what they did
is they looked in to these massive data sets of
microbiome studies in human beings and they said seven percent
of the microbiome studies from the samples from the human
gut had this weird, inexplicable thing. Fifty percent of the
(41:19):
data sets, again from around the world, ethnicity, demographic notwithstanding,
fifty percent had these obelisks in them, which means that
everybody listening now. I don't want to say infected. I
don't want to scare people, but they're in you man,
the calls coming from inside the house. And to your question, Matt,
(41:41):
the reason these seem to have been overlooked for so long,
even with the skyrocketing interest in the human microbiome, it's
because these obelisks are so dissimilar to anything that has
been described as a life form in the history of
human side. I wish that we had at this point
(42:04):
some some more data on what the implications or the
effects could be. You know, we know there's good gut microbes.
We know there are bad gut microbes. We don't know
about the obelisk. They're like a new character in Act three.
We know that they're like a virus always needs a host,
and these viroid like things may be similar. We know
(42:27):
that they are often going to be hosted by different
types of bacteria. One in particular, an ingredient in dental
plaque called Streptococcus seguinous. So brush your teeth if you
don't want the opolisk blood.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
Bacteria ben This is so it's not that I'm feeling
skeptical about this because I'm looking at all the sources
you've sent and everything looks legit. Everything looks like like
it's real. But one of the stories for last week
that I was thinking about maybe be talking about was
a story from The Guardian titled the situation has become appalling.
(43:05):
Fake scientific papers push research credibility to crisis point, and
it was all about how like last year there were
over ten thousand major retractions in huge scientific journals, that's correct, Yeah,
where there was a like they had to just completely
remove papers that were published in these in these journals
(43:29):
because they were they were fraudulent in one way or another, right,
Which is like, I'm not saying this has anything to
do with that. What I mean is I've got this
lens that has been over my eyes for the past
week or so thinking about this stuff, and this new
thing is so mind blowing that my brain is kind
of just going, WHOA, which is it?
Speaker 4 (43:52):
Isn't it? Yeah, isn't it? Oh gosh, I read a
story with this guy too. He needs a shout out
sholto David an unemployed scientist who has been instrumental in
pouring over research and scientific papers, and he's one of
the folks who is leading the charge on sussing out
(44:13):
errors in academic journals. Everybody, please do check out our
episode previously well and some of the stuff they don't
want you to know about how the academic journal sausage
gets made. We promise you it's it's weird. But I
see what you're say in Matt, there's this there's this
disonance sometimes between the actual science that is done, the
(44:36):
way it is interpreted, and the way that it is
reported in popular media. We also are well aware that
there is an at time conspiratorial hierarchy over the existence
of scientific journals. I am hoping that we can return
to this story in the future and figure out what
(44:57):
the obelisk mean for the human experiment. Do they mean that, like,
is it some sort of evolutionary vestige that has no
real reverence, no harm, or no benefit to humans. Is
it something that we don't understand yet that may be
affecting behavior or growth or reproduction in some way? What
(45:20):
happens when you make out with people?
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Do you trade that modo? Now? I gotta say, Ben,
I really appreciate you catching this in terms of a cryptid,
because we never really think about cryptids being like undiscovered
microbes or like things in our bodies. But you know,
let's let's let's give credit where credit is due. They
are biological beings, so they should be considered on the.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
Table for cryptid conversation. So well done, sir, Oh, thank you, sir.
What if they're I mean, that's the other thing. The
safe answer is, what if they're just sort of hitching
a ride in the in the biological credits of What
Makes Your Life if You're human? You know what I mean?
How sometimes you're watching the credits of a very long
film and someone just slides in with one credit. What
(46:07):
if that's what if that's the opolisk? What if they're
just running the time out to stay as part of
the franchise. I don't know. I don't know, but we
do have a lot to learn about I don't know
about the human question. It seems like the more humans
learn about the very very big things and the very
(46:28):
very small things, the more questions proliferate, like what would
if we gamed this out? If we just played you know,
sort of conspiracy cinematic universe here, what would be the
coolest implication of an undiscovered life form in the human body?
What would be like the coolest thing a superpower?
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Maybe?
Speaker 4 (46:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Well, I mean, you know, we recently did a video
which you can find and believe on Instagram and also
YouTube shorts about the fungus space fungus right, and the
idea of fungi fungi being alien beings that are really
good at hitching rides, you know, out into space, and
they're also like uniquely suited to exist out there. So this,
(47:14):
to me is part of that same kind of conversation.
I don't know, it's very interesting stuff, Matt, What do
you have?
Speaker 4 (47:20):
What kind of superpower would you want to discover with
an obelisk population?
Speaker 5 (47:27):
Let's see, it's got minor amounts of genetic information. Certain
obelisks can transfer rapid mutations into genetic material. So one
of them would allow me to grow actual wings back
here into it, thinking, I don't know, let's go, let's
(47:50):
go full owl style wings with some big old feathers.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yep, that's what I want.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Tight massive talents perhaps.
Speaker 5 (47:58):
No, no, no, I don't want the talents. Some of
the grab grabby hands.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Got to get the thumbs.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Classic owls are freaky, dude, the way they turn their
heads three hundred and sixty degrees like Exorcist style. They're neary,
scary guys, beautiful but also matt Your owl style wings
would allow you to fly soundlessly.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
If your bones are also hollow.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Oh wow, it does does that too? Okay, called it.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
Let's let's change it up. Let's do super dense bones,
dragon wings.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Go for it now at the fire end too. It's
like guacamole at the Chipotle of superpowers. I am good
friends with a couple of owls in in my US neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Here we have a neighborhood owl as well. Ben.
Speaker 4 (48:45):
Yeah, hey, it might be the same one they get around,
you know, uh soundlessly right right. They've sacrificed agility for stealth,
which happens, you know. Aircraft are slowly learning to imitate
things that birds and vented are discovered or evolved years
and years ago. I do think we are on the
(49:07):
verge of a fascinating exploration here. Now, to be clear,
if you have types of obelisk life forms or viroids
in your mouth or your gut, right now, they're probably
not a forever gift. The Stanford boffins currently believe that
you could harbor a single type of obelisk for maybe
(49:29):
around a year. So we don't know how they transmit,
we don't know where they've come from or where they're going,
but we do know they're real and that that is
a strange discovery. There's one one more thing I'd like
to set up if we have time before we end today.
Is that Okay, guys, it's a true crime story.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Yeah. Please.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
So, just as we were coming into record this evening,
we read some frankly disturbing news named Victoria Hill in
Connecticut found out that her she purchased a DNA testing
kid from twenty three and me, and she found out
(50:11):
that she had many more siblings than she had ever thought.
She has around twenty two and maybe more. And that's
because she is a victim of what is now being
called fertility fraud. Remember when we did the story about
that guy who was like super into donating in sperm everywhere? Sure,
(50:32):
oh yeah, yeah, it seems like it seems like there's
another case of this. Hill found out that her biological
father was not the guy she grew up with, but
it was the fertility doctor who had been helping her
mother to conceive. Further, she found that one of her
(50:54):
newly discovered siblings was her former high school boyfriend.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
Okay, ye, heavy, heavy, Yeah, there's that podcast. I can't
remember some Uh sick maybe is the name of the podcast.
Some it's about a fertility doctor that was doing all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
And there's something there set.
Speaker 5 (51:13):
There's so many right now where it's like, fertility doctors
be doing stuff.
Speaker 4 (51:18):
Yeah, and apparently it's another problem of they do be
doing stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yes, I'm sorry that was I'm so sorry. Guys.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
We do see though that it is another case of
some of a flag I've been waving for years, which
is legislation not catching up with technology. There are no
there aren't really comprehensive laws against this kind of pretty
serious crime with clear intergenerational consequences. I don't think lawmakers
(51:50):
are very clear yet on how to how to legislate
on it. But the a CNN investigation found that the
majority of you states do not have laws against what
we would call fertility fraud. And if you want some
kind of justice, some kind of recourse, the doctors are
(52:10):
bad faith actors that you're accusing. They have a huge
advantage in court and it's very difficult to get them
to even stop practicing, much less face criminal consequences. So
if you'd like to read more about this, check out
the excellent work by CNN which is ongoing now, the
journalist Rob Kusnia, Alison Gordon, Nellie Black and kill law.
(52:35):
This again, this is breaking news. The Valentine's Day timing
is unfortunate. And with that, thank you, as always so
much for tuning in this evening. Fellow conspiracy realist. We
hope this finds you wealthy. We hope this finds you healthy.
We hope you have made friends with the strange cryptids
in your guts?
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Uh for that?
Speaker 4 (52:55):
Man? Oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Let us know what
you think about any and all all of these tales.
We try to be easy to find online, correct.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
You can find this at the handle conspiracy Stuff where
we exist on Facebook in our Facebook group Here's where
it gets crazy. We are also that handle on x FKA,
Twitter and you too, where you can find all sorts
of fun video content every single week. We are Conspiracy
Stuff Show. However, on Instagram and TikTok want to get
(53:26):
in touch with us another way, Well, you can do
that too.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
That's true if you don't sip the social needs. Fellow
conspiracy realists, never fear. You can call us directly on
a telephonic device. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
You'll hear a hopefully familiar voice and then a beep
like soap beep that means you'll have three minutes. Those
three minutes are yours, folks, Go nuts, go ham. All
(53:50):
we ask is that give us your nickname, a street
name you've always wanted, give us permission to use your
name and or message on the air. And if none
of that quite bad, your badgers. There is an absolutely
fantastic way to reach us twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week. All you have to do is
drop us a line at our good old fashioned email address.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (54:32):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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