October 12, 2010 • 28 mins
For thousands of years people across the world have frightened (and entertained) each other by swapping monster tales, but how do these monsters hold up in the eyes of science? In this podcast, Robert and Allison break down the science behind monsters.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is Alison I don't know if the science editor how
stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
writer at how stuff works dot com. And in this episode,
(00:23):
we've got monsters um. More specifically, we have bouts, battles,
um fights, um coral skirmishes between monsters and science. And
I mean actual science um as opposed to kind. Right,
this is what we're not talking about science fiction here,
(00:44):
as awesome science fiction is. We're talking about actual um
published scientific studies that deal with various fictional monsters. UM.
So we're gonna end include such bouts as the sad
Squatch versus the werewolf, UM, physicist versus ghost and vampires. Well,
(01:05):
that's that's what I'm That one's kind of a tag
teammate because I think it's technically like physicists and mathematicians
against ghost and vampires. And then the final bout is
going to be Robert Smith versus zombies. We're not talking
about the curius Robert Smith, you know, the different Robert Smith.
Although now I'm gonna I'm gonna have a cure song.
Playing in my head the whole podcast. Well, that's a
that's a good problem to have, alright, So let's kick
(01:28):
it off. First, battle Sasquatch versus Werewolves. Tell me a
little about the Sasquatch. You're familiar with the big Foot? Yeah, yeah,
the reportings of sasquatch sighting in North Georgia Mountains a
while back, Right, Yeah, there was those guys that. Yeah,
the fixtures were pretty hilarious. Yeah, most pictures of Bigfoot
(01:49):
are pretty hilarious because they're pretty fake or they're just
just abysmal quality. Um. And he goes by many names
old Bigfoot again's Sasquatch, bigfoot, Yettie, one of my it's
the Skunk Cape if you live in Florida. Yeah, and
I noticed you wrote a couple of other ones down
here that I've not heard of, and perhaps you listeners
haven't heard of. Yeah, Like, how about why don't you
(02:11):
pronounce them? Robberts? Heard of the wind to go right,
I've not heard the window. Oh man, the window goes off.
The window goes off and tied and like, um, sort
of like cannibalism myths, and I think it comes out
of various Native American traditions. Um, but it is also
like an X Men character and stuff. I think it
was in a Stephen King book. But anyway, then there's
also the yehoa, the oma, the rugaru and uh and
(02:37):
the box b o q s. So depending on who's
describing this guy, he runs any who are between seven
and fifteen ft tall. Um. He's extremely hairy, surprisingly hard
to capture on film, and despite having been uh uh
you know reported for centuries. Um, you know, we haven't
managed to catch one and put one in a zoo
(02:57):
or anything. And he walks on two legs, right, he
can have a little bit of a strong odor to him. Yeah,
there are a lot of reports of him smelling like
you don't really smelling before you see him. And uh yeah.
So in this corner, a pretty rough and tumble character. Umquat. Yeah.
In the other corner we have the werewolf. Now, what
comes to mind when you think of a werewolf? I mean,
(03:19):
I'm looking at you and you're you're kind of growing
a beard. So I'm imagining that beard kind of growing
and then hair sprouting on the knuckles. And but it
would work better if you didn't have blonde hair. Yeah,
you don't see very many. You see white werewolves, I guess,
but not, I mean you see them in fiction, not
around town. Do you think a little bit of chebacca
when I tend to think of where I guess, But
(03:40):
but that's not really quite what I'm when I'm after,
what do you think of? Well, I mean, it varies,
you have I want it kind of depends on the
budget of the film that you're watching, because werewolves can
can sometimes just be like trained wolves, like people who
watch True Blood right now, I've been seeing kind of
like semi trained wolves running around as the werewolves. And
then you have for the whole like Lawn Cheney junior
(04:01):
werewolves where it was like a dude with a bunch
of fake hair stuck on his face. Kind that's my favorite,
that's my favorite kind of werewolf. Yeah. And then sometimes
like computers allow us to do something awkward in between
that doesn't really work. Um, but yeah, they're a normal
man by day. And then what turns them into a
wolf A full moon? Right, they suffer from lacanthropy. Uh,
(04:21):
And this was the one. The legends for this has
been around for like seemingly forever. I mean, you have
people turning into wolves as early as the epic of Gilgamesh,
you know, one of the earliest known works of literature,
and now we have been Harry Potter. That's right, Yeah,
the Harry Potter is full. When you can't throw a
stick without hitting a werewolf these days. So so what
do you think who's gonna win between in a battle
between a big foot, between a you know, sasquatch, a yetie,
(04:44):
and a werewolf. Well, I think on either ends you
have a lot of Harry brawn, but I'm going to
give it to sasquatch just for sheer muscle, muscled strength,
and uh, the werewolf, I'm thinking quickness, you know, agile,
laid on its feet kind of the um what is
what is that famous fighting quote, sting like a yeah, um,
(05:07):
fly like a butterfly, sting like a b. Yeah. Yeah,
so I'm thinking that famous fighting quote, you know, fly
like a butterfly, sting like a b yeah. Well okay, yeah,
and also yeah, but then of course the sasquatch has
kind of got this kind of peaceful, uh you know
thing going for him, like people kind of see that
the bigfoot is a as a as a pacifist in
the werewolf is a bloodthirsty killer. So, uh well, the
(05:29):
outcome for this bout, according to Brian Regal, assistant professor
of the history of science at Keene University in Union,
New Jersey, sasquatch wins. But get this, he wins through
interference from Charles Darwin. Really, how does Darwin figure into this? Well? Um,
Regal's argument here is that you know, you had in
(05:50):
eighteen fifty nine Darwin published The Origin Species and all that, right,
and the big take home from from all of this
that everybody just ran nuts within the media was the
connection between man and ape, all right, and you as
we're going too in the How Charles Darwin Works article
which you wrote, which which I wrote, Uh, there's um,
(06:12):
you know, but like people just really lashed into them
with all these like cruel cartoons of like, you know,
how dare this man, you know, say that the noble
uh you know, refined human, this child of God is
in any way you know, related to these you know,
bestial creatures that wander around naked and Harry you know, so, um,
it was a pretty shock. We can't go any farther
(06:32):
because I just have to say it bothers me. This
whole you know, progression, this thought of evolution of uh
you know, leading from directly from uh an ape to
to man. And and of course we've written a lot
about this, and we know that this is not true.
They evolve along too divergent lines with some sort of
common ancestors exactly, just to clear that up. And and
(06:53):
here's the here's the key though, the like the last
common ancestor between man and ape not too terribly far
in the few in the past. I mean yes, like
a long time in the past, like five million years
or like five million years or so. But the last
common ancestor between a man and wolf. Guess when that
would have would have occurred? Um, all right, it was
(07:20):
a It was the hand. It was a hundred million
years ago. Now can you guess what kind of animal
it would have been? Um, I'm guessing Robert held me out.
It would have been something like an art vark. It
would have been an art Where did you pull this
out of there? There was a study a couple we
just back. Some some scientists have said that you have
been a hundred million years ago, like and not just
between man and wolves, between like a varying number of
(07:43):
a million species. But but yeah, so we're a lot
more kin to the to the apes than we are
to the wolves. So so yeah, Darwin's theory gets a
lot of traction. It's kind of like seeps into people's
minds and suddenly the idea of turning into a wolf
is it's very far removed. It's kind of it's far removed.
It's a lot sillier. Yeah, it's it's it's kind of silly.
(08:05):
While while the idea of this connection between man and
ape is a it's a lot more a lot it's
still ridiculous, but it's a lot more plausible that a
man can turn into an ape. And also, um, it's
kind of troubling. I mean, you see horror stories from
the day, like, uh, you know, stuff from HP Lovecraft,
Sir rather Conan Doyle, um Edgar Allan Poe dealing with like,
you know, either people turning into apes or being murdered
(08:28):
by apes or mating with apes. It's the love Craft one, um,
Planet of the Apes, none of that later. But in
a way that's foun off of the same thing. You know,
there's people pondering this connection between you know, what we
are and what we think we are and uh, and
ore you know, evolutionary kin. So the takeaway is really, um,
you know, science playing a role actually in our fears,
(08:50):
you know, to illuminate or to define our our fears
and the things that we don't understand. I guess would
you take in that direction? Yeah, I mean it's like
the where thing and the and the bigfoot thing to
a certain extent, and also like these other ideas of
like wild men in the forest that have been when
this forever like it's they're all ultimately about coming to
terms with our own bestial nature. And it's kind of
(09:12):
like the inner monster, you know. In fact, one fact
that I always find really amusing is that the word
monstrosity itself comes from the word um monstrary. Uh. And
I may be pronouncing that wrong, but it means to
show or illustrate a point. You know. You look back
in medieval text and you see, you know a lot
of thought went into monsters, like why does it have
(09:32):
the head of this and the head of that? Um,
there was like there was I remember seeing some illustration
of like a birdman. He was like he was like
I want to say, it was like it was supposed
to be like Jesus, but with a bird's head with
a really long neck. I've not seen that illustration. Yeah,
it's there were a lot of crazy illustrations back there.
But the idea was that like, uh, the like the
like a really christ like individual, very holy individual. And
(09:54):
what was the bird connection. The bird connection is that, um,
there's a there's a huge distance between the heart and
the mouth, so that any kind of like harsh words
that would rise up, they would have longer to travel
and you'd have more time to think about them before
you express yourself. So you know, there's a lot of
symbolism in it all. But but yeah, that's an important
(10:14):
thing to think about when when contemplating um our relationship
with any fictional monster, what does that monster represent, um,
you know, to us and all of us. And then
you get anthropologists such as Ernestine mq and she's a
cultural anthropologist from Rochester, and she says that a lot
of people are really disenchanted with everyday life. Um, they
(10:35):
long for something that seems kind of magical. Yeah, Like
she points out that even Halloween, which I mean, I'm
still excited about, you know, it's coming up here around
the corner, but she points out it's like a day
for kids. Now, there's nothing scary about Halloween and uh,
and so big Foot for a lot of people is
just one thing you could you could sort of hold
on to. You know, it hasn't No one can say
(10:56):
you've completely you know, you can't say there are no
big Foot like a big big feet, no big foots
out there. Um, you know, you know completely. Someone could
always make the case, well, you know they're hiding here
or there and nobody's proved you know that they exist either,
Like I remember when that thing with the guys in
the Georgia Mountains with a with a cooler with a
monkey suit in it, when that first hit um, and
(11:18):
that the news of it to hit, I felt this
like real excitement and you know rise up in me.
You know, they're like, oh my goodness, or is this
going to be the day that we actually find out
there's the such thing as big Foot? And then on
the other hand, I also felt like this fear's like
what what if it? You know, what if it turns
out that it does exist, that will be like this
one remaining mystery of the world that we've managed to
(11:39):
snuff away forever. I don't know. I think the skeptics
argument is no way. We we got nothing to to
go on here. So I mean, sasquatch or big foot
is a is a pretty interesting and fun idea to
play with. But yeah, we really literally don't have much.
But apparently the groups that are really into them have
been growing like wildfire. Yeah, so we're gonna of this
(12:00):
victory to sasquatch, Sasquatch over the werewolf by means of
Charles Darwin. Sasquatching science take the win. Sorry, werewolves. All right,
So on the bout two we have a physicist and
mathematicians taken on ghosts and vampires. Tell me what you
think of when you think of ghosts, um, Casper, Casper Casper,
(12:23):
the friendly ghost, polter Geist? Yeah, what else? Well, of
course Patrick Swayze, oh right, Patrick Swayze and Denny Moore
and uh that whole scene where they're sculpting that piece.
And Jacob Marley. Jacob Marley is a famous and in
a lot of these cases, you know, you also think
(12:44):
of floating, you know, I'm definitely moving around and often
going through walls, a favorite trick among ghosts. Yes, and vampires,
of course, yeah, they like just like your blood, That's
what they're renowned for they're pretty pretty strong. I gotta
I gotta say, from a purely practical point of view,
that seems I mean, sucking blood. I mean it's it's
(13:06):
pretty nutrient rich. You could you could do less intelligent
things as a fantastic being. Yeah, take the leech for instance,
which we covered recently in a podcast. Those guys get
along just fine on the blood um, but they're not
as sexy as the vampires that fill our television screens
these days. Yeah, I have. So have you seen any
(13:26):
of this true Blood or read that fictional Now? I
haven't read it, but I've watched it. Yeah. Alright, Well,
and then there's the whole series, the Twilight series. Have
you seen that? I have? I have watched them. Nice,
I got there with that on the podcast. Yeah, well
with I watched them with a riff track going, so
it was like they're they're being spoofed a little. But yeah.
(13:47):
So let's for the purposes of this, let's imagine a
physicist and mathematician in one corner, and in the other
corner m Edward the vampire from Twilight and Patrick Swayzy
the ghost. All right, who's gonna win which team? Yeah?
I'm gonna go with the physicists and mathematicians. Okay, yeah,
I mean, I mean, I'm not really thinking of these
guys as particularly skilled in hand to hand combat. I
(14:08):
don't think that they're you know, they have their black
belt by any means. But the wits, the wits will
outsmart these beings. And and here's the here's the thing,
the the paper in question, which is cinema fiction versus
physical reality. Yeah, let's back the sepe with scientific research,
why don't. Yeah, it comes from our tow you know,
people in the physicist corner being so Hong Gandhi and
(14:30):
his mentor and professor uh Costas Femi. Yeah, I think
he sounds like a Greek guy. Yeah, and they're from
what they may be Greek, but they're hanging out in
Florida at the University of Central Florida. Well, the professor
being Greek, I think the other one was not necessarily Greek. Yes, anyway,
that's it. We're diverged. So anyway, here these are the
guys that wrote the study, and like right out of
(14:53):
the gate, their first um, their first argument pretty much
takes the ghost out of the equation because they basically
say that all right, So a ghost by its very
nature is not supposed to take up space. It has
no mass, right, um. But to move forward, a ghost
would have to be capable of producing force downward, you know,
(15:13):
in this case, through feet or something you know. Um,
But to go through a wall, a ghost would have
to be immaterial. See. So it's like you can't have
it both ways. Either either the ghosts it takes you know,
has mass and takes up space and can move, or
it's in material and can go through walls. So their
argument is that ghosts, as typically betrayed in cinema, just
(15:36):
cannot happen. So it would be either So in this
fictional battle, which I like to think is taking place
inside boxing or wrestling ring, Patrick Swayze would either be
you know, moving through the ring and through the ropes,
or he'll just be standing there. Okay, so we've taken well,
I mean, we've only knocked out ghosts in one regard
(15:56):
in that we've we've knocked out a method of look
emotion that true, pretty much a method of moving around
the world. Right. Well, I think basically they're saying the
ghost could move or the ghosts could go through walls.
But you can't have it both ways. Yeah, so, and
you could argue, well, that doesn't really say that ghosts
don't exist, and when they're not really making there even,
they're just saying the ghost has betrayed that they can't
(16:17):
have it both ways from a physics standpoint, Alright, sorry,
what about vampires? How are they faring in this whole battle? Well,
vampire for vampires, they come down to they reduce it
to a pretty simple argument, like what happens when you
get bit by a vampire in something? In some versions
of the myth, I turned into a vampire, right, And
(16:39):
it's a little more complicated in some versions, but they're
going with become a half vampire? Do I become a
half vampire? No? No, no, let's just say you become
a vampire. And again this is vaire. Yeah, do you
get you get bit by a vampire, you become a vampire.
And a lot of people say that doesn't make sense
just from a mathematics standpoint, Well, because they deplete their
food supply to rapidly, right, and they'd eventually just start
(17:00):
to death because it wouldn't be anything left to eat
or to drain. Uh. And it's the it's something called
the mathematical principle of geometric progression. I see, yeah, and
they say, would say that it would play out about
like this, two point two point five years after like
a one vampire arrives on the scene, all of humanity
(17:20):
would be wiped out. Those are some hungry vampires. Yeah,
and it get he breaks down to, like, yeah, it's
it's like you have a vampire feed once a month
and then you know there are two more vampires. It's
it's it's just it just gives, it just gives exponential growth.
And uh and yeah, so it reminds me of this
question of the day that I just edited on. The
(17:41):
Malthfeustian premise is an English economist named Thomas Malthis who
was active in the nineteenth century. Since um, since did
unless he's a vampire, which case he's still living. No,
But Mauthis was saying that his he had this premise
in which it was pretty simple. He stated that humanity
(18:02):
and its current rate of growth would outstrip the food
supply because while humanity, while humans grow in an exponential fashion,
the rate of food production only grows linearly. Anyway, a
little bit of a tangent, but kind of on the
same thread. Well, it's worth pointing out that as as
as much as our physicist and mathematician here may may
celebrate this perceived victory over the vampire. Um, not every
(18:25):
version of the vampire myth entails people coming back to life,
like some um, some versions of it involved like you
have to drink the blood of the vampire to become
the vampire. And then there are a whole bunch of
like really crazy vampire myths out there that Hollywood ignores
because it's too awesome. Like seriously, look up in Vucci
and it's like one of the just crazy awesome Native
(18:47):
American I think vampire myths where it's like a giant
blood bladder that lives in a cave underwater and like
sends out minions to collect people. It's crazy stuff. But
and then, and then I think there have been a
vampire movies, and and what's the fiction that explore the
idea that vampires would have to discipline themselves in order
to keep their food supply intact? Yeah, actually, I mean
(19:10):
you wouldn't think that vampires would be dumb beasts, so
they would have some mechanism of you know, kin selection
keeping themselves alive Survival of the Fittest. But so I
guess when you come down to its science, like firmly
wallops both both ghosts and vampires, it does victory science.
So I think the score is scientists to monster zero.
(19:33):
All right, let's take on our final battle. Yeah, and
then this one is going to involve zombies. So what
comes to mind when when someone mentions zombies? Most recently
the British film what is it Sean Sean of the Dead? Yeah,
that one. Yeah, that's a that's a fun zombie film
that features the more classic slow zombies. I think I
(19:56):
will eliminate us, me and listeners on the a kind
of zombies out there. Well basically, I mean you are
slow zombies and they're fast onmbies. Basically, I think dichotomy.
There it is, and some people get really been out
of shape over, including Simon peg Star of a shot
of the Dead. Um, because you have the classic sort
of George Romero, um, you know, version of the zombie
(20:17):
that shambles along and as you know, it's just like
you know, you know, and they're generally generally the threat
is that there are just lots and lots of them,
and if you you'll and if you don't stay on
your feet and you know, think, then suddenly you'll find
yourself in a situation where you can't escape them. But
along the way you ended up getting some like fast zombie. Um. Um.
Movies come into play, like, uh, I think, yeah, Return
(20:41):
of the Living Dead I think had fast zombies brought
by the reanimator. Movies had past zombies. And then most
notably Twenty eight days Later, the which is a big
hit out of Britain, and that one had fast zombies. Um. Yeah,
And so people get get really really been out of
shape over it because people are like Tomby should never
be fast and and the zombies and twenty eight days
Later aren't technically zombies. They're actually people infected with the disease.
(21:03):
And but but anyway, for for all intents and purposes,
in this podcast, we're talking about slow zombies. Yeah. I'm
with that. Let's stay true to be the old stereotype. Yeah. So, um,
who do we have let's set it up. Yeah, we
have Robert Smith and this is the interest. It's like
I said, it's not the guy with the you mean
(21:23):
that instantly comes to mind, the lead singer of the
Cure Um. Did you like the cure when you were
younger or do you like the cure? Now I have
to ask. I didn't. I did, wasn't really into the
cure when I was younger, but I I dig some
cure here and there now you know. But but this
guy is a Canadian researcher. In his name is Robert
Smith question mark, like his legal last name is Smith
question Mark. And I would like to be louder milk
(21:47):
exclamation point. You should go for it. And this guy
is just one of several researchers that to put out
this study called when Zombies Attack exclamation Point colon Mathematical
Modeling of an Outbreak of Zombie and Action, and that
was published in Infectious Disease Modeling Research Progress. All right,
so he's definitely one of the top tier academic journals
(22:08):
out there. Well, um, and this comes down like we're
talking with the vampires. What happens when you get bit
by a zombie? In most films, you turn into a zombie,
right right, like generally within you know, thirty minutes of
screen time. I'm sorry, guys, I'm not as much of
a horror officionado as Robert. I know that's one. It's
fun to quiz you on these things, um, because you know,
(22:29):
but but yes, the most folks go ahead, No, no, no,
it's just I mean I enjoy hearing like a more
of a mainstream um like less, let's just keep going
with the zombies, okay. So um so yeah, the ideas
that zombies bought you. You turn into a zombie and
it's kind of like with the vampire thing. It's like,
(22:50):
how soon would this situation get way out of control?
So these guys approached it from an infectious disease modeling standpoint.
They said, all right, let's assume you know X, Y,
and Z about a zombie outbreak, and then let's do
the math. What would happen? And uh and what what
did they find? We're kind of doomed. Yeah, it win
zombies attack. So if you to predict the scenario of
(23:12):
a true zombie attacked, this pretty much means a rapid
collapse of civilization as we know it. Cities would fall
in mirror days. Yeah, unless we hit them hard and
hit them often. And that is an actual quote I
believe from the paper. Yeah. They they broke it down
into a few different possible outcomes, and let's talk about
(23:34):
the first one they laid out was latent infection, and
then this humans have about a week before being wiped
out by zombies. And the next step would be quarantine.
And so even if they were to be lucky enough
to sequester they infected away from the general population, it's
going to do not a whole heck of a lot
to stop the outbreak. So humans only have eight days
(23:55):
to live. It's dire scenario. And then the next scenario
they they came up with was one that entailed a cure,
like we would have able to develop a cure for
zombie hood. Then then humans would survive, but only barely.
And this is interesting because I was just talking to
a buddy of mine about the latest zombie game to
(24:17):
come out on all the system, or at least on
the three sixty. It's African what it's called, but anyway,
it entails a cure for zombies. So it's like a
zomb post apocalyptic zombie thing. But then there's also a cure,
but you have to take it every day to keep
from turning into a zombie. Yeah, and we all know
how effective cures that people have to take every day
are not very well well, I mean no, that is
(24:40):
a problem. You prescribe a therapy that is, and it's
it's troublesome. Yeah. Well, if you if you get if
you have a limb transplant or any kind of a transplant,
you have to take medication for the rest of your life. Yeah. Well,
I'm just saying that it can be tricky for people
to actually follow the prescribe therapy. And if it's in
a horror movie or a horror game, you know it's
not going to go right. You're gonna reach a situation
(25:01):
where it's like, oh my goodness, if I got my pills,
I'm turning into a zombie. Um, some people have that
problem in real life. Um, so what's the what's the
final The final scenario is eradication. So we like this
one the most, at least as non zombies do, and
that entails a four pinpointed attacks. But over ten days
and all the zombies are destroyed. Humans prevail. Robert Smith prevails,
(25:25):
but that's hit him hard and hit him often, hit
him early. Kind of a situation, right, So you guys
should definitely keep this in mind the next time you
get wind of a zombie attack in your neighborhood. Yeah,
act fast, don't think so. Sadly, science takes a dive
on that particular fight, and uh and zombies prevail well
(25:47):
except with the eradication, but in three out of the
four scenarios zombies do prevail that. I'm sorry, whoa oh
Robert Smith, Yes, Robert Smith and Company. Hey, what do
you got any listener mail going on? Uh? This little
bit of listener mail comes from Christopher, and Christopher writes,
(26:09):
in the interest of aiding you in your systematic research,
I am writing to tell you that my cat mono,
and there's a note here not named after a disease
as most people initially assume. Think mono versus stereo. Um,
not mono nucleosis as in the kissing disease. That would
be that that could be a good kid. Um anyway, Um,
(26:30):
Christopher says, says that mono also meets that's you know
we're talking about when a cat makes them kind of noise.
The kind of which podcast was that anygain? Uh? Scientific method?
I think um anyway, Christopher says, However, we're we've always
referred to this croaking sound as the quote dusty skeleton
(26:51):
cat noise unquote. He does it when hungry, when he
wants to be picked up and at the mocking birds
that dive bomb on the very yard. But he gets
his grizzly revenge on him every now and then, which
means he eats him. Um. I hope this helps your
reach that your translation. I hope this helps your research study.
Thanks for the podcast, and hello to Allison ry Christopher.
(27:14):
Thanks for writing. Yeah, so I think that wraps it up.
But if you guys want to read more about Bigfoot
and all of his crazy friends, he used to check
out Hustbrooks dot com because we have a lot of
articles on all of these creatures. Yeah. We have how
big Foot Works by Tom Harris. We have how wearableves
worked by Tracy B. Wilson. That's a good one. I'd
like to read Tracy's on where well. She also wrote
(27:35):
how ghost work and how zombies work as well. And uh,
I would call Tracy as skeptic too. Yeah, a skeptic
with an appreciation for, um, you know the fantastic too.
Skeptic skepticism comes from a good place. Yeah, I agreed.
It's not the same. It's very different from cynicism. So
I don't want to talk to anybody's cynical about zombies.
(27:59):
Just skeptic, Yeah, skeptical alright, So check out the site
or hang out with us on Facebook or on Twitter.
On Facebook, we're stuff from the Signs Lab. On Twitter,
We're lab Stuff. So that's all we got for you, guys,
Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
(28:20):
other topics, is it how stuff works dot Com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
house stuff works dot Com home page
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is Alison I don't know if the science editor how
stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
writer at how stuff works dot com. And in this episode,
(00:23):
we've got monsters um. More specifically, we have bouts, battles,
um fights, um coral skirmishes between monsters and science. And
I mean actual science um as opposed to kind. Right,
this is what we're not talking about science fiction here,
(00:44):
as awesome science fiction is. We're talking about actual um
published scientific studies that deal with various fictional monsters. UM.
So we're gonna end include such bouts as the sad
Squatch versus the werewolf, UM, physicist versus ghost and vampires. Well,
(01:05):
that's that's what I'm That one's kind of a tag
teammate because I think it's technically like physicists and mathematicians
against ghost and vampires. And then the final bout is
going to be Robert Smith versus zombies. We're not talking
about the curius Robert Smith, you know, the different Robert Smith.
Although now I'm gonna I'm gonna have a cure song.
Playing in my head the whole podcast. Well, that's a
that's a good problem to have, alright, So let's kick
(01:28):
it off. First, battle Sasquatch versus Werewolves. Tell me a
little about the Sasquatch. You're familiar with the big Foot? Yeah, yeah,
the reportings of sasquatch sighting in North Georgia Mountains a
while back, Right, Yeah, there was those guys that. Yeah,
the fixtures were pretty hilarious. Yeah, most pictures of Bigfoot
(01:49):
are pretty hilarious because they're pretty fake or they're just
just abysmal quality. Um. And he goes by many names
old Bigfoot again's Sasquatch, bigfoot, Yettie, one of my it's
the Skunk Cape if you live in Florida. Yeah, and
I noticed you wrote a couple of other ones down
here that I've not heard of, and perhaps you listeners
haven't heard of. Yeah, Like, how about why don't you
(02:11):
pronounce them? Robberts? Heard of the wind to go right,
I've not heard the window. Oh man, the window goes off.
The window goes off and tied and like, um, sort
of like cannibalism myths, and I think it comes out
of various Native American traditions. Um, but it is also
like an X Men character and stuff. I think it
was in a Stephen King book. But anyway, then there's
also the yehoa, the oma, the rugaru and uh and
(02:37):
the box b o q s. So depending on who's
describing this guy, he runs any who are between seven
and fifteen ft tall. Um. He's extremely hairy, surprisingly hard
to capture on film, and despite having been uh uh
you know reported for centuries. Um, you know, we haven't
managed to catch one and put one in a zoo
(02:57):
or anything. And he walks on two legs, right, he
can have a little bit of a strong odor to him. Yeah,
there are a lot of reports of him smelling like
you don't really smelling before you see him. And uh yeah.
So in this corner, a pretty rough and tumble character. Umquat. Yeah.
In the other corner we have the werewolf. Now, what
comes to mind when you think of a werewolf? I mean,
(03:19):
I'm looking at you and you're you're kind of growing
a beard. So I'm imagining that beard kind of growing
and then hair sprouting on the knuckles. And but it
would work better if you didn't have blonde hair. Yeah,
you don't see very many. You see white werewolves, I guess,
but not, I mean you see them in fiction, not
around town. Do you think a little bit of chebacca
when I tend to think of where I guess, But
(03:40):
but that's not really quite what I'm when I'm after,
what do you think of? Well, I mean, it varies,
you have I want it kind of depends on the
budget of the film that you're watching, because werewolves can
can sometimes just be like trained wolves, like people who
watch True Blood right now, I've been seeing kind of
like semi trained wolves running around as the werewolves. And
then you have for the whole like Lawn Cheney junior
(04:01):
werewolves where it was like a dude with a bunch
of fake hair stuck on his face. Kind that's my favorite,
that's my favorite kind of werewolf. Yeah. And then sometimes
like computers allow us to do something awkward in between
that doesn't really work. Um, but yeah, they're a normal
man by day. And then what turns them into a
wolf A full moon? Right, they suffer from lacanthropy. Uh,
(04:21):
And this was the one. The legends for this has
been around for like seemingly forever. I mean, you have
people turning into wolves as early as the epic of Gilgamesh,
you know, one of the earliest known works of literature,
and now we have been Harry Potter. That's right, Yeah,
the Harry Potter is full. When you can't throw a
stick without hitting a werewolf these days. So so what
do you think who's gonna win between in a battle
between a big foot, between a you know, sasquatch, a yetie,
(04:44):
and a werewolf. Well, I think on either ends you
have a lot of Harry brawn, but I'm going to
give it to sasquatch just for sheer muscle, muscled strength,
and uh, the werewolf, I'm thinking quickness, you know, agile,
laid on its feet kind of the um what is
what is that famous fighting quote, sting like a yeah, um,
(05:07):
fly like a butterfly, sting like a b. Yeah. Yeah,
so I'm thinking that famous fighting quote, you know, fly
like a butterfly, sting like a b yeah. Well okay, yeah,
and also yeah, but then of course the sasquatch has
kind of got this kind of peaceful, uh you know
thing going for him, like people kind of see that
the bigfoot is a as a as a pacifist in
the werewolf is a bloodthirsty killer. So, uh well, the
(05:29):
outcome for this bout, according to Brian Regal, assistant professor
of the history of science at Keene University in Union,
New Jersey, sasquatch wins. But get this, he wins through
interference from Charles Darwin. Really, how does Darwin figure into this? Well? Um,
Regal's argument here is that you know, you had in
(05:50):
eighteen fifty nine Darwin published The Origin Species and all that, right,
and the big take home from from all of this
that everybody just ran nuts within the media was the
connection between man and ape, all right, and you as
we're going too in the How Charles Darwin Works article
which you wrote, which which I wrote, Uh, there's um,
(06:12):
you know, but like people just really lashed into them
with all these like cruel cartoons of like, you know,
how dare this man, you know, say that the noble
uh you know, refined human, this child of God is
in any way you know, related to these you know,
bestial creatures that wander around naked and Harry you know, so, um,
it was a pretty shock. We can't go any farther
(06:32):
because I just have to say it bothers me. This
whole you know, progression, this thought of evolution of uh
you know, leading from directly from uh an ape to
to man. And and of course we've written a lot
about this, and we know that this is not true.
They evolve along too divergent lines with some sort of
common ancestors exactly, just to clear that up. And and
(06:53):
here's the here's the key though, the like the last
common ancestor between man and ape not too terribly far
in the few in the past. I mean yes, like
a long time in the past, like five million years
or like five million years or so. But the last
common ancestor between a man and wolf. Guess when that
would have would have occurred? Um, all right, it was
(07:20):
a It was the hand. It was a hundred million
years ago. Now can you guess what kind of animal
it would have been? Um, I'm guessing Robert held me out.
It would have been something like an art vark. It
would have been an art Where did you pull this
out of there? There was a study a couple we
just back. Some some scientists have said that you have
been a hundred million years ago, like and not just
between man and wolves, between like a varying number of
(07:43):
a million species. But but yeah, so we're a lot
more kin to the to the apes than we are
to the wolves. So so yeah, Darwin's theory gets a
lot of traction. It's kind of like seeps into people's
minds and suddenly the idea of turning into a wolf
is it's very far removed. It's kind of it's far removed.
It's a lot sillier. Yeah, it's it's it's kind of silly.
(08:05):
While while the idea of this connection between man and
ape is a it's a lot more a lot it's
still ridiculous, but it's a lot more plausible that a
man can turn into an ape. And also, um, it's
kind of troubling. I mean, you see horror stories from
the day, like, uh, you know, stuff from HP Lovecraft,
Sir rather Conan Doyle, um Edgar Allan Poe dealing with like,
you know, either people turning into apes or being murdered
(08:28):
by apes or mating with apes. It's the love Craft one, um,
Planet of the Apes, none of that later. But in
a way that's foun off of the same thing. You know,
there's people pondering this connection between you know, what we
are and what we think we are and uh, and
ore you know, evolutionary kin. So the takeaway is really, um,
you know, science playing a role actually in our fears,
(08:50):
you know, to illuminate or to define our our fears
and the things that we don't understand. I guess would
you take in that direction? Yeah, I mean it's like
the where thing and the and the bigfoot thing to
a certain extent, and also like these other ideas of
like wild men in the forest that have been when
this forever like it's they're all ultimately about coming to
terms with our own bestial nature. And it's kind of
(09:12):
like the inner monster, you know. In fact, one fact
that I always find really amusing is that the word
monstrosity itself comes from the word um monstrary. Uh. And
I may be pronouncing that wrong, but it means to
show or illustrate a point. You know. You look back
in medieval text and you see, you know a lot
of thought went into monsters, like why does it have
(09:32):
the head of this and the head of that? Um,
there was like there was I remember seeing some illustration
of like a birdman. He was like he was like
I want to say, it was like it was supposed
to be like Jesus, but with a bird's head with
a really long neck. I've not seen that illustration. Yeah,
it's there were a lot of crazy illustrations back there.
But the idea was that like, uh, the like the
like a really christ like individual, very holy individual. And
(09:54):
what was the bird connection. The bird connection is that, um,
there's a there's a huge distance between the heart and
the mouth, so that any kind of like harsh words
that would rise up, they would have longer to travel
and you'd have more time to think about them before
you express yourself. So you know, there's a lot of
symbolism in it all. But but yeah, that's an important
(10:14):
thing to think about when when contemplating um our relationship
with any fictional monster, what does that monster represent, um,
you know, to us and all of us. And then
you get anthropologists such as Ernestine mq and she's a
cultural anthropologist from Rochester, and she says that a lot
of people are really disenchanted with everyday life. Um, they
(10:35):
long for something that seems kind of magical. Yeah, Like
she points out that even Halloween, which I mean, I'm
still excited about, you know, it's coming up here around
the corner, but she points out it's like a day
for kids. Now, there's nothing scary about Halloween and uh,
and so big Foot for a lot of people is
just one thing you could you could sort of hold
on to. You know, it hasn't No one can say
(10:56):
you've completely you know, you can't say there are no
big Foot like a big big feet, no big foots
out there. Um, you know, you know completely. Someone could
always make the case, well, you know they're hiding here
or there and nobody's proved you know that they exist either,
Like I remember when that thing with the guys in
the Georgia Mountains with a with a cooler with a
monkey suit in it, when that first hit um, and
(11:18):
that the news of it to hit, I felt this
like real excitement and you know rise up in me.
You know, they're like, oh my goodness, or is this
going to be the day that we actually find out
there's the such thing as big Foot? And then on
the other hand, I also felt like this fear's like
what what if it? You know, what if it turns
out that it does exist, that will be like this
one remaining mystery of the world that we've managed to
(11:39):
snuff away forever. I don't know. I think the skeptics
argument is no way. We we got nothing to to
go on here. So I mean, sasquatch or big foot
is a is a pretty interesting and fun idea to
play with. But yeah, we really literally don't have much.
But apparently the groups that are really into them have
been growing like wildfire. Yeah, so we're gonna of this
(12:00):
victory to sasquatch, Sasquatch over the werewolf by means of
Charles Darwin. Sasquatching science take the win. Sorry, werewolves. All right,
So on the bout two we have a physicist and
mathematicians taken on ghosts and vampires. Tell me what you
think of when you think of ghosts, um, Casper, Casper Casper,
(12:23):
the friendly ghost, polter Geist? Yeah, what else? Well, of
course Patrick Swayze, oh right, Patrick Swayze and Denny Moore
and uh that whole scene where they're sculpting that piece.
And Jacob Marley. Jacob Marley is a famous and in
a lot of these cases, you know, you also think
(12:44):
of floating, you know, I'm definitely moving around and often
going through walls, a favorite trick among ghosts. Yes, and vampires,
of course, yeah, they like just like your blood, That's
what they're renowned for they're pretty pretty strong. I gotta
I gotta say, from a purely practical point of view,
that seems I mean, sucking blood. I mean it's it's
(13:06):
pretty nutrient rich. You could you could do less intelligent
things as a fantastic being. Yeah, take the leech for instance,
which we covered recently in a podcast. Those guys get
along just fine on the blood um, but they're not
as sexy as the vampires that fill our television screens
these days. Yeah, I have. So have you seen any
(13:26):
of this true Blood or read that fictional Now? I
haven't read it, but I've watched it. Yeah. Alright, Well,
and then there's the whole series, the Twilight series. Have
you seen that? I have? I have watched them. Nice,
I got there with that on the podcast. Yeah, well
with I watched them with a riff track going, so
it was like they're they're being spoofed a little. But yeah.
(13:47):
So let's for the purposes of this, let's imagine a
physicist and mathematician in one corner, and in the other
corner m Edward the vampire from Twilight and Patrick Swayzy
the ghost. All right, who's gonna win which team? Yeah?
I'm gonna go with the physicists and mathematicians. Okay, yeah,
I mean, I mean, I'm not really thinking of these
guys as particularly skilled in hand to hand combat. I
(14:08):
don't think that they're you know, they have their black
belt by any means. But the wits, the wits will
outsmart these beings. And and here's the here's the thing,
the the paper in question, which is cinema fiction versus
physical reality. Yeah, let's back the sepe with scientific research,
why don't. Yeah, it comes from our tow you know,
people in the physicist corner being so Hong Gandhi and
(14:30):
his mentor and professor uh Costas Femi. Yeah, I think
he sounds like a Greek guy. Yeah, and they're from
what they may be Greek, but they're hanging out in
Florida at the University of Central Florida. Well, the professor
being Greek, I think the other one was not necessarily Greek. Yes, anyway,
that's it. We're diverged. So anyway, here these are the
guys that wrote the study, and like right out of
(14:53):
the gate, their first um, their first argument pretty much
takes the ghost out of the equation because they basically
say that all right, So a ghost by its very
nature is not supposed to take up space. It has
no mass, right, um. But to move forward, a ghost
would have to be capable of producing force downward, you know,
(15:13):
in this case, through feet or something you know. Um,
But to go through a wall, a ghost would have
to be immaterial. See. So it's like you can't have
it both ways. Either either the ghosts it takes you know,
has mass and takes up space and can move, or
it's in material and can go through walls. So their
argument is that ghosts, as typically betrayed in cinema, just
(15:36):
cannot happen. So it would be either So in this
fictional battle, which I like to think is taking place
inside boxing or wrestling ring, Patrick Swayze would either be
you know, moving through the ring and through the ropes,
or he'll just be standing there. Okay, so we've taken well,
I mean, we've only knocked out ghosts in one regard
(15:56):
in that we've we've knocked out a method of look
emotion that true, pretty much a method of moving around
the world. Right. Well, I think basically they're saying the
ghost could move or the ghosts could go through walls.
But you can't have it both ways. Yeah, so, and
you could argue, well, that doesn't really say that ghosts
don't exist, and when they're not really making there even,
they're just saying the ghost has betrayed that they can't
(16:17):
have it both ways from a physics standpoint, Alright, sorry,
what about vampires? How are they faring in this whole battle? Well,
vampire for vampires, they come down to they reduce it
to a pretty simple argument, like what happens when you
get bit by a vampire in something? In some versions
of the myth, I turned into a vampire, right, And
(16:39):
it's a little more complicated in some versions, but they're
going with become a half vampire? Do I become a
half vampire? No? No, no, let's just say you become
a vampire. And again this is vaire. Yeah, do you
get you get bit by a vampire, you become a vampire.
And a lot of people say that doesn't make sense
just from a mathematics standpoint, Well, because they deplete their
food supply to rapidly, right, and they'd eventually just start
(17:00):
to death because it wouldn't be anything left to eat
or to drain. Uh. And it's the it's something called
the mathematical principle of geometric progression. I see, yeah, and
they say, would say that it would play out about
like this, two point two point five years after like
a one vampire arrives on the scene, all of humanity
(17:20):
would be wiped out. Those are some hungry vampires. Yeah,
and it get he breaks down to, like, yeah, it's
it's like you have a vampire feed once a month
and then you know there are two more vampires. It's
it's it's just it just gives, it just gives exponential growth.
And uh and yeah, so it reminds me of this
question of the day that I just edited on. The
(17:41):
Malthfeustian premise is an English economist named Thomas Malthis who
was active in the nineteenth century. Since um, since did
unless he's a vampire, which case he's still living. No,
But Mauthis was saying that his he had this premise
in which it was pretty simple. He stated that humanity
(18:02):
and its current rate of growth would outstrip the food
supply because while humanity, while humans grow in an exponential fashion,
the rate of food production only grows linearly. Anyway, a
little bit of a tangent, but kind of on the
same thread. Well, it's worth pointing out that as as
as much as our physicist and mathematician here may may
celebrate this perceived victory over the vampire. Um, not every
(18:25):
version of the vampire myth entails people coming back to life,
like some um, some versions of it involved like you
have to drink the blood of the vampire to become
the vampire. And then there are a whole bunch of
like really crazy vampire myths out there that Hollywood ignores
because it's too awesome. Like seriously, look up in Vucci
and it's like one of the just crazy awesome Native
(18:47):
American I think vampire myths where it's like a giant
blood bladder that lives in a cave underwater and like
sends out minions to collect people. It's crazy stuff. But
and then, and then I think there have been a
vampire movies, and and what's the fiction that explore the
idea that vampires would have to discipline themselves in order
to keep their food supply intact? Yeah, actually, I mean
(19:10):
you wouldn't think that vampires would be dumb beasts, so
they would have some mechanism of you know, kin selection
keeping themselves alive Survival of the Fittest. But so I
guess when you come down to its science, like firmly
wallops both both ghosts and vampires, it does victory science.
So I think the score is scientists to monster zero.
(19:33):
All right, let's take on our final battle. Yeah, and
then this one is going to involve zombies. So what
comes to mind when when someone mentions zombies? Most recently
the British film what is it Sean Sean of the Dead? Yeah,
that one. Yeah, that's a that's a fun zombie film
that features the more classic slow zombies. I think I
(19:56):
will eliminate us, me and listeners on the a kind
of zombies out there. Well basically, I mean you are
slow zombies and they're fast onmbies. Basically, I think dichotomy.
There it is, and some people get really been out
of shape over, including Simon peg Star of a shot
of the Dead. Um, because you have the classic sort
of George Romero, um, you know, version of the zombie
(20:17):
that shambles along and as you know, it's just like
you know, you know, and they're generally generally the threat
is that there are just lots and lots of them,
and if you you'll and if you don't stay on
your feet and you know, think, then suddenly you'll find
yourself in a situation where you can't escape them. But
along the way you ended up getting some like fast zombie. Um. Um.
Movies come into play, like, uh, I think, yeah, Return
(20:41):
of the Living Dead I think had fast zombies brought
by the reanimator. Movies had past zombies. And then most
notably Twenty eight days Later, the which is a big
hit out of Britain, and that one had fast zombies. Um. Yeah,
And so people get get really really been out of
shape over it because people are like Tomby should never
be fast and and the zombies and twenty eight days
Later aren't technically zombies. They're actually people infected with the disease.
(21:03):
And but but anyway, for for all intents and purposes,
in this podcast, we're talking about slow zombies. Yeah. I'm
with that. Let's stay true to be the old stereotype. Yeah. So, um,
who do we have let's set it up. Yeah, we
have Robert Smith and this is the interest. It's like
I said, it's not the guy with the you mean
(21:23):
that instantly comes to mind, the lead singer of the
Cure Um. Did you like the cure when you were
younger or do you like the cure? Now I have
to ask. I didn't. I did, wasn't really into the
cure when I was younger, but I I dig some
cure here and there now you know. But but this
guy is a Canadian researcher. In his name is Robert
Smith question mark, like his legal last name is Smith
question Mark. And I would like to be louder milk
(21:47):
exclamation point. You should go for it. And this guy
is just one of several researchers that to put out
this study called when Zombies Attack exclamation Point colon Mathematical
Modeling of an Outbreak of Zombie and Action, and that
was published in Infectious Disease Modeling Research Progress. All right,
so he's definitely one of the top tier academic journals
(22:08):
out there. Well, um, and this comes down like we're
talking with the vampires. What happens when you get bit
by a zombie? In most films, you turn into a zombie,
right right, like generally within you know, thirty minutes of
screen time. I'm sorry, guys, I'm not as much of
a horror officionado as Robert. I know that's one. It's
fun to quiz you on these things, um, because you know,
(22:29):
but but yes, the most folks go ahead, No, no, no,
it's just I mean I enjoy hearing like a more
of a mainstream um like less, let's just keep going
with the zombies, okay. So um so yeah, the ideas
that zombies bought you. You turn into a zombie and
it's kind of like with the vampire thing. It's like,
(22:50):
how soon would this situation get way out of control?
So these guys approached it from an infectious disease modeling standpoint.
They said, all right, let's assume you know X, Y,
and Z about a zombie outbreak, and then let's do
the math. What would happen? And uh and what what
did they find? We're kind of doomed. Yeah, it win
zombies attack. So if you to predict the scenario of
(23:12):
a true zombie attacked, this pretty much means a rapid
collapse of civilization as we know it. Cities would fall
in mirror days. Yeah, unless we hit them hard and
hit them often. And that is an actual quote I
believe from the paper. Yeah. They they broke it down
into a few different possible outcomes, and let's talk about
(23:34):
the first one they laid out was latent infection, and
then this humans have about a week before being wiped
out by zombies. And the next step would be quarantine.
And so even if they were to be lucky enough
to sequester they infected away from the general population, it's
going to do not a whole heck of a lot
to stop the outbreak. So humans only have eight days
(23:55):
to live. It's dire scenario. And then the next scenario
they they came up with was one that entailed a cure,
like we would have able to develop a cure for
zombie hood. Then then humans would survive, but only barely.
And this is interesting because I was just talking to
a buddy of mine about the latest zombie game to
(24:17):
come out on all the system, or at least on
the three sixty. It's African what it's called, but anyway,
it entails a cure for zombies. So it's like a
zomb post apocalyptic zombie thing. But then there's also a cure,
but you have to take it every day to keep
from turning into a zombie. Yeah, and we all know
how effective cures that people have to take every day
are not very well well, I mean no, that is
(24:40):
a problem. You prescribe a therapy that is, and it's
it's troublesome. Yeah. Well, if you if you get if
you have a limb transplant or any kind of a transplant,
you have to take medication for the rest of your life. Yeah. Well,
I'm just saying that it can be tricky for people
to actually follow the prescribe therapy. And if it's in
a horror movie or a horror game, you know it's
not going to go right. You're gonna reach a situation
(25:01):
where it's like, oh my goodness, if I got my pills,
I'm turning into a zombie. Um, some people have that
problem in real life. Um, so what's the what's the
final The final scenario is eradication. So we like this
one the most, at least as non zombies do, and
that entails a four pinpointed attacks. But over ten days
and all the zombies are destroyed. Humans prevail. Robert Smith prevails,
(25:25):
but that's hit him hard and hit him often, hit
him early. Kind of a situation, right, So you guys
should definitely keep this in mind the next time you
get wind of a zombie attack in your neighborhood. Yeah,
act fast, don't think so. Sadly, science takes a dive
on that particular fight, and uh and zombies prevail well
(25:47):
except with the eradication, but in three out of the
four scenarios zombies do prevail that. I'm sorry, whoa oh
Robert Smith, Yes, Robert Smith and Company. Hey, what do
you got any listener mail going on? Uh? This little
bit of listener mail comes from Christopher, and Christopher writes,
(26:09):
in the interest of aiding you in your systematic research,
I am writing to tell you that my cat mono,
and there's a note here not named after a disease
as most people initially assume. Think mono versus stereo. Um,
not mono nucleosis as in the kissing disease. That would
be that that could be a good kid. Um anyway, Um,
(26:30):
Christopher says, says that mono also meets that's you know
we're talking about when a cat makes them kind of noise.
The kind of which podcast was that anygain? Uh? Scientific method?
I think um anyway, Christopher says, However, we're we've always
referred to this croaking sound as the quote dusty skeleton
(26:51):
cat noise unquote. He does it when hungry, when he
wants to be picked up and at the mocking birds
that dive bomb on the very yard. But he gets
his grizzly revenge on him every now and then, which
means he eats him. Um. I hope this helps your
reach that your translation. I hope this helps your research study.
Thanks for the podcast, and hello to Allison ry Christopher.
(27:14):
Thanks for writing. Yeah, so I think that wraps it up.
But if you guys want to read more about Bigfoot
and all of his crazy friends, he used to check
out Hustbrooks dot com because we have a lot of
articles on all of these creatures. Yeah. We have how
big Foot Works by Tom Harris. We have how wearableves
worked by Tracy B. Wilson. That's a good one. I'd
like to read Tracy's on where well. She also wrote
(27:35):
how ghost work and how zombies work as well. And uh,
I would call Tracy as skeptic too. Yeah, a skeptic
with an appreciation for, um, you know the fantastic too.
Skeptic skepticism comes from a good place. Yeah, I agreed.
It's not the same. It's very different from cynicism. So
I don't want to talk to anybody's cynical about zombies.
(27:59):
Just skeptic, Yeah, skeptical alright, So check out the site
or hang out with us on Facebook or on Twitter.
On Facebook, we're stuff from the Signs Lab. On Twitter,
We're lab Stuff. So that's all we got for you, guys,
Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
(28:20):
other topics, is it how stuff works dot Com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
house stuff works dot Com home page
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