November 11, 2010 • 27 mins
Inspired by Robert's childhood fear of being turned completely inside out, our podcasters attempt to answer the age-old question: Can people really be turned inside out? Listen in and learn more in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm a senior writer
here at how stuff works dot com. And hello there,
I'm Julie Douglas, writer, editor and lead flip bottomist. This
(00:23):
is our second episode. Last time we talked about animals
going to sleep shutting off half their brain, and this
week we're gonna go in a slightly grosser direction. Tell me, Julie,
did you have any like strange childhood fears? Um? I
don't know that I've had really any terribly odd childhood fears. Um.
Fear of clowns, of course, Uh, fear of my neighbors, right, windows, latches,
(00:50):
things like that. What about you? Just okay, so you
just had like clowns other people and things that open.
But otherwise, yeah, stepping on vertical cracks on the left
hand side, okay when when going in the direction of
the north. Yeah, okay, Yeah, Well I don't see how
that could have gotten in the way at all. No, No,
(01:11):
honestly I didn't. I was a fairly uh normal child
when it came to that. Well, I had this fear
for a while um of turning inside out, which I
suspect that a lot of people had this on some level,
um for reasons I'm gonna get to in a moment,
but I it all goes back to when when I
(01:31):
was a kid, my family would go to the local
video store and we you know, you know, me and
my sisters, we were all kids, you know, in my family.
They weren't really into getting horror movies. But the horror
movie aisle was there, and they had all these just
crazy um covers in the vhs, uh, you know, cases
and um, and you just walked by them and you'd
see these things and you you know, you're my mind
(01:53):
would just sort of run wild with what they could
possibly contain. And there was this one box for this
film called Screamers, which was a nineteen nine film, and
you can look the cover art up online by doing
like the Google search, and because it's like really crazy,
because it's like this dude that's like turned inside out
and he, you know, he just looks horrific. And then
(02:14):
the like the tag at the bottom of the boxes
they turned men inside out and worse yet, they were
still alive, you know, And so it just it it
got into my head that turning inside out was something
that could happen to you, or happen your body would do,
or that's something that would be done to your body
and that you'd still be alive, and it'd be horrendous.
(02:34):
And then you know, I imagine you'd go to the
doctor and you know, your parents are taking is like
what can you do for him? He's turned inside out?
And they would be like, wait, I can't do anything
for him. I'm sorry, your son is just inside out.
From now on, you'v sitting in in what your third
grade class, just sitting there using your workings, just using
all over the place and like pulsating and stuff. That's
(02:55):
really horrible. I mean, were you sitting there in the
middle of the night saying to myself, you know, saying
to yourself, oh my god, this could happen at any
moment um. Well, it wasn't that paralyzing, but it was
just kind of it was just this feeling of like,
you know, I guess when youre a kid, you don't
think as much about mortality, but certainly it was kind
of a a lesson in Oh my goodness, it's like
(03:17):
we're really fragile. We could just we could turn inside
out and then we're you know, so it was like
the moment where you just lost your innocence. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pretty much every time we all went to the via
the video store would see something like that that would
you know, it would beat down your your your innocence
a little. But I suspect that that other people have
(03:39):
this problem as well, because I don't know if you've
ever seen, um, people turning inside out in cartoons, like
kids cartoons, but it happens like more than you think
it would, like you can dial up horror movies. Besides,
the other interesting thing about Screamers is that it actually
I found out years and years later, it doesn't have
anybody turning inside out in it. It's actually like an
Italian uh film about fishmen. It stars Joseph Cotton, of
(04:04):
all people. Yeah he was his seminal Italian film actor.
Yeah and um and so yeah, they just like decided
that they were going to distribute it in the US
with this crazy cover with the guy turned inside out,
and they think they shot something for a trailer that
I've never seen that has like a dude supposedly turning
inside out. So it was like a bait and switch
of turning inside out. But you know, as a kid,
(04:26):
I never really really thought about it or a question
why in the cover art the guy is inside out
but wearing jeans, like yeah, I think I think I'm
familiar with this, and he's got a belt and is
it is it possible that the top is that button
is undone as well, so it's like he's in partial
(04:47):
undressed or yeah, like I don't know if he's like,
oh my goodness, I've turned inside out, I'd better throw
in some jeans or if you like, ingested jeans and
then turned inside out and that's how con he happens
to be wearing the jeans correctly. But I didn't think
about those things right, right. But but no, like you
look at like children's cartoons like Invader Zim, Are you
familiar with that one? That was the Nickelodeon show kind
(05:07):
of Dark because there is a scene where a kid
gets sucked through a portal and he comes out like
inside out and then he kind of like you know,
shakes it off and he like flaps it back to normal.
And then there was another Nickelodeon show, Nickelodeon, There's Somebody
in Nickelodeon was really into turning inside out. Apparently there
was a show called inside Out Boy about a kid
who's on the swing. Yeah, have you seen this? I'm
(05:27):
familiar with it, Okay, I've heard descriptions of it before.
And he like went over he like swung so high
that he did a complete like three sixty. But it
turned him inside out. So he's just just like grotesque
little gut boy walking around, you know. And it's and
he just I don't know, he has powers or something,
and it's it's totally fine for for kids. Well yeah,
(05:47):
maybe because it's uh, it's it's sort of a lesson, right,
like don't go too high in your swing, yeah, or
inside out, and um, it's a neat way maybe to
work out our fears. But what I want to know is,
could you actually turn yourself inside out and live to
tell it? Um? I think I figured out pretty early,
and I think most of our listeners will't. We'll realize
(06:09):
that you can't really because the human body is just
a little too complicated and a little too rugged, you know,
like like basically like for it to happen, you have
to be like a sock puppet, you know, where you know,
you could just like when you pull a sock puppet
off or when you pull a sock off your foot
and it just goes completely inside out. Like we're just
(06:30):
you know, the human anatomy isn't geared to that to
living with our organs on the other side, right, and
any like any you know force that would it would
even like apply that kind of pressure on the human body.
I mean it would it would you know, you would
have like total body fragmentation before you had anything of
that nature happened. We're both too fragile and not rugged
(06:50):
enough to undergo that kind of transformation. Interesting paradox. Yeah, okay,
But just because the human body can't turn completely inside out,
as we all should know, that doesn't mean that this process,
which is called aversion, uh doesn't exist all over the
place in the natural world. UM. So you know that's
(07:10):
what we're gonna talk about today. Just run through some
of the examples of aversion in animals, um and and
to eliminated extent with humans and uh, and just how
amazing and gross it can be. And it's it's it's
some good grotesque stuff. What's the so what do you
what one stands out to you? Just right off the
bat in terms of a very simple process of aversion. Well,
(07:33):
in human anatomy, you can have, um, the examples of
like like, there's bladder aversion that can happen. And we're
not gonna got a whole lot of detail on this
because it's you know, it's kind of gross. It sounds convenient,
though I have to say, yeah, it's It's different from
bladder evacuation, um, which is rather generally a rather pleasant
(07:55):
experience as long as you know it's not in your
pants on a roller coaster or something. But but no,
this is a situation where the bladder, being an internal organ,
ends up on the outside through a you know, generally
a naturally occurring orifice. But you can you can also
have a version occur with injuries where something will get
kind of glooped out to the outside, right um and um.
(08:20):
And so yeah, it tends to be like an injury
or internal trauma type situation. Uh, you know, it becomes
prolapsed to where it's it's on the outside now and
it needs to be pushed back in or you know,
in some way repaired. But but you have a lot
of animals where a version is just part of like
their daily routine, just how they go about eating or
digesting things or defending themselves. So um of those like
(08:43):
the the c Star is a classic example of that.
And if anybody out there watched the Discovery UH and
Slash BBC documentary series Life this year, Uh, they had
a whole segment where it's c Stars feeding on this
corpse underwater. Their cadaver were not cadaver, just a dead
seal um. But they spit their stomachs out. They avert
(09:06):
their stomachs under the outside of their bodies to work
at the digesting. So it just kind of sucks up
everything and pulls it back in. Yeah, exactly, which again
that's convenient. You see yourself at a buffet doing that.
Maybe not you, but yeah, I would. You're not going
to go to a buffet and then this this same
(09:28):
it's just you don't you don't get your your money's
worth out of it, and like you just really pick
out You're completely right unless you just completely avert your
your your your stomach you know. Oh and the documentary
series Life also shows these nimmertine worms feeding and they
actually use they actually have what's called any versible probiscus
and this is just their they're feeding mechanism is completely averted,
(09:52):
and then they just kind of like pump it out
with these muscles and it's like a snout sort of
going Yeah, it's like a long snout, but it's basically
it's about the length of their body, but it's adverted,
so it's kind of like completely cool. Yeah, it's just
like completely pulled inside and then they just it's they're
kind of like a party favor, you know, where you
(10:12):
like blow on it, rhythm kind of like extends, it's
like that, and then it snaps back, yeah, and then
they pull it back in. And so that's I think
that's our good examples of getting your food from inversion.
I think uh sharks and raised they are sort of
doing the opposite, right, like dumping. Yeah, they have this
(10:35):
thing called gastric aversion, and it's kind of like if
you're you know you weren't like if you're wearing blue
jeans and you turn the pocket out to get rid
of lent and find some loose change. They do the
same thing with their stomachs out of their mouth, um,
and you can find videos of it online. It's like
a real it's like a really quick function, you know,
because you know your shark, you're you live in a
(10:56):
dangerous situation. You don't just want to, you know, be
swimming around owned all day with your stomach hanging out
your mouth. So they just go it's kind of like
this quick coolaw and then then it's you know, it's
out shakes, free some you know, debris, and then it's
right back in. So it's like ancient Rome for the
animal kingdom and that there, it's like the vomitorium, except
that there's no loot playing in the background to cover
(11:17):
up the noise. Yeah, but it's exactly like like I
think the way I was thinking of it's like with cats.
Like we both know that cats love to puke, you know,
it's where I don't know if they love it, but
they do it without it's no big deal. It's just
a part of their lives. Sometimes you got a puke
and they do it. So with sharks and rays, puking
isn't isn't the option, it's gastric aversion. So it's just
it's no big deal for them, right, and so that
(11:39):
way they can scoop up even more food rights that right, Okay,
And another really cool animal is the vampire squid. Oh yes, yeah,
tell us about that, because that little creature for large creature,
not quite sure how large it is, it's pretty fascinating. Yeah,
I'm I'm gonna attempt to make a shot at its
Latin name because it's pretty awesome. Um Vampora toothist infernales.
(12:05):
It's like the the infernal vampire or something uma the
dark seas. It lives about a half mile deep in
the ocean, and it has these um, this like webbed
array of eight inch arms, so you know, it has
like the the squid arms like your you know, cephalopod
arms like you typically see, except they're all webb together,
(12:26):
and it looks like a cape like a vampire's cloak.
Perhaps it's very like steam punky looking, I think, yeah,
you can. I can easily imagine like wearing a little
like top hat and having a you know. But but
he will do this thing where he goes into a
threat response stance that is sometimes called pumpkin or pineapple posture,
(12:47):
which kind of I mean that doesn't sound you know,
these cools vampire and in infernal you know. But but
he'll basically take this um, you know, his array of
arms these web this web array of arms and and
like pull it back over the rest of his body.
So it's kind of like if you were to take
your lower lip and your upper lip and you were
able to like stretch your lips back all the way
(13:08):
over your body until you were just like, you know,
pink glistening meat. That's kind of what they do. And
so that's so a predator might go, WHOA, that wasn't
what I thought it was, right, And also also they
have these little they're not really spikes, but they have
these lines of things on the inside. It looked like spikes.
So then when they go into pineapple stands, they look
(13:29):
a little spiky. So again, lad the impale are there? Yeah, yeah,
I think that that's fascinating that you can turn yourself,
you can essentially shape shift as an animal to say
to a predator, you know, hey, watch out, or I
am not what you thought I was. And and one
of the things that I'm thinking about is the c cucumber.
(13:51):
Oh this is a good one, yeah, which is much
exalted in Japanese culture, and the c cucumber to me,
cuc where I can see where they got the name,
but it really looks more like a sea sausage. Yeah,
it's it's like you look at it and you can't
really tell that it's a little I don't know, it's
it's not the most vibrant of living things, you know,
it's just kind of looks kind of gross and still. Yeah,
(14:14):
And and it comes into a ton of varieties like that.
Some of them look like they've been oxidized, and some
of them, um look like very psychedelic with warts on them,
not warts. And they're anywhere from like under one inch
to six and a half feet in length. So in
terms of um how they're represented out there, there's a
(14:34):
huge variety. And not all of them do what I'm
about to talk about, but some of them have a
really interesting defense mechanism. And if you don't mind me
being so bold, I'll just get right to the point.
They can take their internal organs and jettison them from
their anus. That's and this is of course a trick
(14:58):
best performed when you can read inter rate said organs right,
exactly right. You don't want to lose organs unless you
can get them back in about a week to four
weeks or something like that. But the reason why I
think that is so fascinating. Is that to me? Like,
that's the ultimate bow up movement that you might have
like in a bar fight. You know, if you if
you were able to expel your internal organs for your
(15:20):
anus and just splat them on your opponent. I mean
to me, that's pretty intimidating. Yeah, I would think. So.
I've run across other, you know, situations where an animal
have some for response like that, Like there's um they're
like there are different animals that like to go into
a defensive posture. They either like vomit blood or they
(15:41):
I think there's a frog that actually um like fractures
some of its bones and like it creates compound fractures.
Yeah you know, um yeah, but any of those techniques
if you were to pull that on Marta on the
local transit system, if you were threatened, I mean, I
don't think anybody would message oh no, yeah, everybody would
move out of the car for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Have
maybe like the one person that was still asleep, Yeah,
(16:02):
I'm fortunate for them. But this, this uh, what's also
called the sea slug the c cucumber, is just pretty
fascinating in the sense that really does embody all those
shape shifting elements to it. It also can collapse itself,
which is really cool, the collagen fibers of it and
pretty much the liquefy itself and go through cracks. And
(16:24):
I mean again, that's an incredible shape shifting talent. I
love to have that. Yeah. So it's not just a
sea sausage. They're just sitting on the ocean floor. Actin
like a bottom dweller has a rich life. Yeah. And
if you think it's gross before you start messing with it,
just wait until it has to like run away. It's
gonna possibly shoot out its organs and and then turn
(16:46):
into a liquid. That's yeah, that's right, de materialized. Yeah,
and I was actually not I wasn't aware of before today,
just how how much of a role it apparently plays
in Japanese culture, Like I didn't know. I guess I
knew on some level that you could eat it because
I think I've seen it on menus Like, have you
ever had it anywhere? I have not. I think I
have as well seen it on menus um and I'm
(17:08):
thinking of Sushia. It could be completely wrong, but that's
what I'm thinking about. And I guess it's a huge
delicacy in Japan. Yeah, I think, uh, I think, you know,
I I now, I do remember where I saw it.
There's like a they're these little hot pot restaurants. It's
like a Chinese thing where you have this. It's kind
of like fon do, except you have a little pot
to cook your pile of vegetables and and one of
(17:32):
the meats that is available, I believe is cea cucumber. Wow.
I did not have it. A friend of mine had it,
and he I don't think he said he liked it,
but he I think he said it was interesting. And
it's uh also again referred to as sea slug. So
you've you've got sea slug fon do. Yeah, it just
doesn't it doesn't, you know, roll off the tongue is
(17:52):
sounding quite delicious. But that and I think it's called
sea slug because cucumber is not really translatable. Um from
Japanese East English, which I think is in the book.
What is it it called? Again, it's very it's just
oh it's called namacomo. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Because we are
(18:15):
in researching this, we both ran across the same book. Um,
there's a it's called Risey Sea Slugs by Robin D.
Gil and h it is a book about sea slug haiku.
There are one thousand hi q about sea slugs. See
that's just I mean, I really had to look at
it against them, like this is a joke. This is
(18:35):
some joke entry on Amazon, like back in the day
when people would put fake movies on IMDb, Like this
is just somebody's making this up. But it's it's legit.
It's like they're that important in uh, you know, in
in understanding like Japanese culture. Yeah, they're that celebrated. And
what I like about is that the sections are defined
by its various traits I guess as as we humans
(18:56):
see it. And a couple of sections are um in
the order of scatological, uh, melancholy. Um. There are a
couple other ones in there, but you have to understand
that um. The book is not only just celebrating the
humble c cucumber, but it's also sort of talking about
(19:17):
of the culture itself and how it is expressing itself
through its love of the sea slug. Yeah, like there
was and this makes perfect sense now that I you know,
once I've I've read it. But there's a point in
the book where they're talking about comparisons between this act
of aversion that the c that the c cucumber performs
with its guts, comparing that to the like the traditional um,
(19:40):
you know, samurai act of sefuku um and maybe saying
that wrong and then the westernized version of that is
what Harry carry um and you know, so there are
obvious similarities between you know, this this creature expelling its
organs to escape of you know, danger, comparing that to say,
a shame you know samurai if somebody you know, basically
(20:03):
visrating themselves with a knife in order to save face. Yeah, yeah,
so yes, that's the honor thing is a very interesting
to bring up and to relate that back. Do you
have one of the hiku a translation of the hiku? Yes, idea,
I hope, Well you have to read that so people
will get Well, this one is from seventy one, and
(20:23):
I feel like it's still very relatable now. And it
is from a writer whose name was Joe and I'm
pronouncing that right. And it is a few drinks and
I am a cea slug out of water. Oh that's
that's that's actually really pretty yeah. And also I feel like, uh,
(20:45):
in terms of of our predilection for maybe over extending
ourselves with libations. It's it's still rings true today. There
are times when after a few drinks, I feel that
I am out of water as well. Well, some of
the ones I found we're a little more grotesque. Um
like this is one here, life's hard, no doubt. Sea
(21:05):
slugs end up inside out. I love it. Oh and
then there's this one sea slugs their guts are made
to swim one days. It's a reminder. Yeah, and of
course these are translations, so we can't really experience the
true beauty of of you know, C cucumber aversion poetry. No, no,
(21:27):
but I would say that. I mean, the holidays are
coming up, so got a herrine biologist in your family?
I think that you just found their present. Yeah, I
think Amazon has one copy left, so jumped to it. Yea,
get on it. Yeah. So, I mean the thing about
the c cucumbers is that we see this as a phenomenon.
This inside out is something in nature. What about in
(21:50):
terms of injuries, something self inflicted or even in pop culture? Um, well, yeah,
it's one of those things where like the first thing
that incident comes to mind for me when I think
of something that could actually turn you inside out. Oh, which,
by the way, another instance of a child's children's story
featuring inside out things. How to Train Your Dragon, there's
mention of a dragon that turns people inside out, so
(22:12):
which it's a great movie, but it's like these like
that was just the other day, like after I had
researched the podcast some and then I saw that movie
and I'm like, whoa, this is all over the place.
People can't get enough of inside out things for children.
It's embedded in our subconscious. There's also Slim Good Buddy,
who I'm kind of on the fence, whether that's inside
out this or just a dude in a suit we've
gouts on the front of it. You remember Slim Good No, no,
(22:34):
I can't tell me about something. Oh god, he's um.
I believe he's Canadian. Could be wrong on that, but
he's a Slim Good Bodies like a TV personality, and
he was like generally you think of like the classic
Slim Good body where he's got like kind of like
he's got kind of like curly hair, and he was
this like spandex body suit with all of the organs
painted on the outside and he like talks to kids
(22:55):
about like the importance of like eating healthy and you know,
like the guy still travels around the day. Yeah, yes,
I know, yes, yeah yeah, And so that's basically his
whole stick is, you know, educating children about you know
the importance of health and you know that taking care
of your insides. Wow, there's gonna be one kid that
just freaked out, you know, and he's saw him come
to a school. It was like your organs running outside. Yeah,
(23:19):
And I think I've I've seen parodies before where like
people have done costumes where it's like Slim Bad Body,
where they like show like you know, organs that have
been like like the lungs are all blackened from smoking
and things like like a huge momentum. Yeah, but outside
of Slo good like Slim Good Body, again, I don't
I don't necessarily think he was actually inside out. I
think you just had a suit with cuts on it.
(23:39):
But but the the thing and instantly comes to mind
is like, you know, like rapid depressurization like in a
like in an airplane or you know, it's like it's
always happening in space movies, but it's it's rarely. Um
all that accurate. So I mean, are you talking more
like suction or for something sally force and then also
just like you know pressures, you know, the outside pressure
(24:00):
changing and then destabilizing pressures inside the body. Um. Like
there's a film called Outland that came back out in
the seventies. I believe it's like a Sean Connery western
in space, and it was one of these where people
would like float out into you know, into the void
without their helmet on and their head would explode, you know,
like a balloon. Uh. And I think I think that
happened in total recall as well, but you know, it's
(24:21):
like it's things wouldn't really happen like that. I believe
the Air Force conducted some some tests, um and you
can find them results of it online where they took
some salmon and uh and expose them to you know,
rapid depressurreization, and they they did not turn inside out,
because that's just silly, but but they did there was
like some stomach aversion like through like holes. So so yeah,
(24:45):
it's it's the depression ization can cause some aversion, but
it's not the kind of thing would turn the inside out. Okay,
I'm also thinking to you about some of the horrible
urban myths that I've heard about before, and I'm thinking
about like, oh good, I'm not gonna say this. Yeah,
like airplane toilets section. I mean I think that you
can probably figure out yeah, that kind of stuff, um,
(25:06):
you know, without like going into an actual like you know,
case by case, you know, Snopes esque, and you know,
analysis of the stories. It's like even even that at
the most, you know, any kind of like um, you know,
pressure based injury, um is going to just I think
result in in like a pro lapse or a version
(25:27):
of organs. But right, if they're not gonna get sucked out,
I mean, if you're gonna sit on a toilet, see,
I mean, the odds are that the section that you
would create wouldn't be nearly strong enough to even lend
itself to creating yeah, in evacuation of your bells, right,
so to speak. Again, Yeah, this is and this is
also a topic where we could we could go into
(25:47):
more detail about all this. But well, if you're really
that interested, there's some you know, you can do some
more research on line. But we're good in trouble if
we get into it too. Yeah, I think I feel
like we're we've entered into the zone. Yeah, yeah, but
one more, it's like again, going all the way around
on the swing set will not turn you inside out, No,
it will not. It may make you vomit, but you
(26:09):
will not turn inside out. It will scare any adults viewing,
and children could be more of it. Yeah, we're not abdicating. Well,
I think you do. You do get a certain so,
I mean I never I was never the type of
child to even attempt that. But like the kids who
would go really high in the swing set, like, that's
instant cred right, I mean that's oh yeah, yeah again.
(26:29):
I mean I guess that is the kid equivalent of
just ejecting your your internal organs and spotting them on
someone else's. That the metaphorical like, don't mess with me
on this playground, kid. Well, well, on that note, we
did you I do? Yeah, we did you? I do.
If if you have any interesting tidbits about things turning
(26:50):
inside out, either in your life or in fiction or
in the realm of science, we may have missed something
really awesome example from the biological world, let us know.
Oh and if you have your own high qu to
share with us, please we want to hear it. Yes,
but only if it's about thanks turning inside out, and
that could be anything. Thanks for listening. For more on
(27:15):
this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
works dot com. The How stuff Works dot Com I
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Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm a senior writer
here at how stuff works dot com. And hello there,
I'm Julie Douglas, writer, editor and lead flip bottomist. This
(00:23):
is our second episode. Last time we talked about animals
going to sleep shutting off half their brain, and this
week we're gonna go in a slightly grosser direction. Tell me, Julie,
did you have any like strange childhood fears? Um? I
don't know that I've had really any terribly odd childhood fears. Um.
Fear of clowns, of course, Uh, fear of my neighbors, right, windows, latches,
(00:50):
things like that. What about you? Just okay, so you
just had like clowns other people and things that open.
But otherwise, yeah, stepping on vertical cracks on the left
hand side, okay when when going in the direction of
the north. Yeah, okay, Yeah, Well I don't see how
that could have gotten in the way at all. No, No,
(01:11):
honestly I didn't. I was a fairly uh normal child
when it came to that. Well, I had this fear
for a while um of turning inside out, which I
suspect that a lot of people had this on some level,
um for reasons I'm gonna get to in a moment,
but I it all goes back to when when I
(01:31):
was a kid, my family would go to the local
video store and we you know, you know, me and
my sisters, we were all kids, you know, in my family.
They weren't really into getting horror movies. But the horror
movie aisle was there, and they had all these just
crazy um covers in the vhs, uh, you know, cases
and um, and you just walked by them and you'd
see these things and you you know, you're my mind
(01:53):
would just sort of run wild with what they could
possibly contain. And there was this one box for this
film called Screamers, which was a nineteen nine film, and
you can look the cover art up online by doing
like the Google search, and because it's like really crazy,
because it's like this dude that's like turned inside out
and he, you know, he just looks horrific. And then
(02:14):
the like the tag at the bottom of the boxes
they turned men inside out and worse yet, they were
still alive, you know, And so it just it it
got into my head that turning inside out was something
that could happen to you, or happen your body would do,
or that's something that would be done to your body
and that you'd still be alive, and it'd be horrendous.
(02:34):
And then you know, I imagine you'd go to the
doctor and you know, your parents are taking is like
what can you do for him? He's turned inside out?
And they would be like, wait, I can't do anything
for him. I'm sorry, your son is just inside out.
From now on, you'v sitting in in what your third
grade class, just sitting there using your workings, just using
all over the place and like pulsating and stuff. That's
(02:55):
really horrible. I mean, were you sitting there in the
middle of the night saying to myself, you know, saying
to yourself, oh my god, this could happen at any
moment um. Well, it wasn't that paralyzing, but it was
just kind of it was just this feeling of like,
you know, I guess when youre a kid, you don't
think as much about mortality, but certainly it was kind
of a a lesson in Oh my goodness, it's like
(03:17):
we're really fragile. We could just we could turn inside
out and then we're you know, so it was like
the moment where you just lost your innocence. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pretty much every time we all went to the via
the video store would see something like that that would
you know, it would beat down your your your innocence
a little. But I suspect that that other people have
(03:39):
this problem as well, because I don't know if you've
ever seen, um, people turning inside out in cartoons, like
kids cartoons, but it happens like more than you think
it would, like you can dial up horror movies. Besides,
the other interesting thing about Screamers is that it actually
I found out years and years later, it doesn't have
anybody turning inside out in it. It's actually like an
Italian uh film about fishmen. It stars Joseph Cotton, of
(04:04):
all people. Yeah he was his seminal Italian film actor.
Yeah and um and so yeah, they just like decided
that they were going to distribute it in the US
with this crazy cover with the guy turned inside out,
and they think they shot something for a trailer that
I've never seen that has like a dude supposedly turning
inside out. So it was like a bait and switch
of turning inside out. But you know, as a kid,
(04:26):
I never really really thought about it or a question
why in the cover art the guy is inside out
but wearing jeans, like yeah, I think I think I'm
familiar with this, and he's got a belt and is
it is it possible that the top is that button
is undone as well, so it's like he's in partial
(04:47):
undressed or yeah, like I don't know if he's like,
oh my goodness, I've turned inside out, I'd better throw
in some jeans or if you like, ingested jeans and
then turned inside out and that's how con he happens
to be wearing the jeans correctly. But I didn't think
about those things right, right. But but no, like you
look at like children's cartoons like Invader Zim, Are you
familiar with that one? That was the Nickelodeon show kind
(05:07):
of Dark because there is a scene where a kid
gets sucked through a portal and he comes out like
inside out and then he kind of like you know,
shakes it off and he like flaps it back to normal.
And then there was another Nickelodeon show, Nickelodeon, There's Somebody
in Nickelodeon was really into turning inside out. Apparently there
was a show called inside Out Boy about a kid
who's on the swing. Yeah, have you seen this? I'm
(05:27):
familiar with it, Okay, I've heard descriptions of it before.
And he like went over he like swung so high
that he did a complete like three sixty. But it
turned him inside out. So he's just just like grotesque
little gut boy walking around, you know. And it's and
he just I don't know, he has powers or something,
and it's it's totally fine for for kids. Well yeah,
(05:47):
maybe because it's uh, it's it's sort of a lesson, right,
like don't go too high in your swing, yeah, or
inside out, and um, it's a neat way maybe to
work out our fears. But what I want to know is,
could you actually turn yourself inside out and live to
tell it? Um? I think I figured out pretty early,
and I think most of our listeners will't. We'll realize
(06:09):
that you can't really because the human body is just
a little too complicated and a little too rugged, you know,
like like basically like for it to happen, you have
to be like a sock puppet, you know, where you know,
you could just like when you pull a sock puppet
off or when you pull a sock off your foot
and it just goes completely inside out. Like we're just
(06:30):
you know, the human anatomy isn't geared to that to
living with our organs on the other side, right, and
any like any you know force that would it would
even like apply that kind of pressure on the human body.
I mean it would it would you know, you would
have like total body fragmentation before you had anything of
that nature happened. We're both too fragile and not rugged
(06:50):
enough to undergo that kind of transformation. Interesting paradox. Yeah, okay,
But just because the human body can't turn completely inside out,
as we all should know, that doesn't mean that this process,
which is called aversion, uh doesn't exist all over the
place in the natural world. UM. So you know that's
(07:10):
what we're gonna talk about today. Just run through some
of the examples of aversion in animals, um and and
to eliminated extent with humans and uh, and just how
amazing and gross it can be. And it's it's it's
some good grotesque stuff. What's the so what do you
what one stands out to you? Just right off the
bat in terms of a very simple process of aversion. Well,
(07:33):
in human anatomy, you can have, um, the examples of
like like, there's bladder aversion that can happen. And we're
not gonna got a whole lot of detail on this
because it's you know, it's kind of gross. It sounds convenient,
though I have to say, yeah, it's It's different from
bladder evacuation, um, which is rather generally a rather pleasant
(07:55):
experience as long as you know it's not in your
pants on a roller coaster or something. But but no,
this is a situation where the bladder, being an internal organ,
ends up on the outside through a you know, generally
a naturally occurring orifice. But you can you can also
have a version occur with injuries where something will get
kind of glooped out to the outside, right um and um.
(08:20):
And so yeah, it tends to be like an injury
or internal trauma type situation. Uh, you know, it becomes
prolapsed to where it's it's on the outside now and
it needs to be pushed back in or you know,
in some way repaired. But but you have a lot
of animals where a version is just part of like
their daily routine, just how they go about eating or
digesting things or defending themselves. So um of those like
(08:43):
the the c Star is a classic example of that.
And if anybody out there watched the Discovery UH and
Slash BBC documentary series Life this year, Uh, they had
a whole segment where it's c Stars feeding on this
corpse underwater. Their cadaver were not cadaver, just a dead
seal um. But they spit their stomachs out. They avert
(09:06):
their stomachs under the outside of their bodies to work
at the digesting. So it just kind of sucks up
everything and pulls it back in. Yeah, exactly, which again
that's convenient. You see yourself at a buffet doing that.
Maybe not you, but yeah, I would. You're not going
to go to a buffet and then this this same
(09:28):
it's just you don't you don't get your your money's
worth out of it, and like you just really pick
out You're completely right unless you just completely avert your
your your your stomach you know. Oh and the documentary
series Life also shows these nimmertine worms feeding and they
actually use they actually have what's called any versible probiscus
and this is just their they're feeding mechanism is completely averted,
(09:52):
and then they just kind of like pump it out
with these muscles and it's like a snout sort of
going Yeah, it's like a long snout, but it's basically
it's about the length of their body, but it's adverted,
so it's kind of like completely cool. Yeah, it's just
like completely pulled inside and then they just it's they're
kind of like a party favor, you know, where you
(10:12):
like blow on it, rhythm kind of like extends, it's
like that, and then it snaps back, yeah, and then
they pull it back in. And so that's I think
that's our good examples of getting your food from inversion.
I think uh sharks and raised they are sort of
doing the opposite, right, like dumping. Yeah, they have this
(10:35):
thing called gastric aversion, and it's kind of like if
you're you know you weren't like if you're wearing blue
jeans and you turn the pocket out to get rid
of lent and find some loose change. They do the
same thing with their stomachs out of their mouth, um,
and you can find videos of it online. It's like
a real it's like a really quick function, you know,
because you know your shark, you're you live in a
(10:56):
dangerous situation. You don't just want to, you know, be
swimming around owned all day with your stomach hanging out
your mouth. So they just go it's kind of like
this quick coolaw and then then it's you know, it's
out shakes, free some you know, debris, and then it's
right back in. So it's like ancient Rome for the
animal kingdom and that there, it's like the vomitorium, except
that there's no loot playing in the background to cover
(11:17):
up the noise. Yeah, but it's exactly like like I
think the way I was thinking of it's like with cats.
Like we both know that cats love to puke, you know,
it's where I don't know if they love it, but
they do it without it's no big deal. It's just
a part of their lives. Sometimes you got a puke
and they do it. So with sharks and rays, puking
isn't isn't the option, it's gastric aversion. So it's just
it's no big deal for them, right, and so that
(11:39):
way they can scoop up even more food rights that right, Okay,
And another really cool animal is the vampire squid. Oh yes, yeah,
tell us about that, because that little creature for large creature,
not quite sure how large it is, it's pretty fascinating. Yeah,
I'm I'm gonna attempt to make a shot at its
Latin name because it's pretty awesome. Um Vampora toothist infernales.
(12:05):
It's like the the infernal vampire or something uma the
dark seas. It lives about a half mile deep in
the ocean, and it has these um, this like webbed
array of eight inch arms, so you know, it has
like the the squid arms like your you know, cephalopod
arms like you typically see, except they're all webb together,
(12:26):
and it looks like a cape like a vampire's cloak.
Perhaps it's very like steam punky looking, I think, yeah,
you can. I can easily imagine like wearing a little
like top hat and having a you know. But but
he will do this thing where he goes into a
threat response stance that is sometimes called pumpkin or pineapple posture,
(12:47):
which kind of I mean that doesn't sound you know,
these cools vampire and in infernal you know. But but
he'll basically take this um, you know, his array of
arms these web this web array of arms and and
like pull it back over the rest of his body.
So it's kind of like if you were to take
your lower lip and your upper lip and you were
able to like stretch your lips back all the way
(13:08):
over your body until you were just like, you know,
pink glistening meat. That's kind of what they do. And
so that's so a predator might go, WHOA, that wasn't
what I thought it was, right, And also also they
have these little they're not really spikes, but they have
these lines of things on the inside. It looked like spikes.
So then when they go into pineapple stands, they look
(13:29):
a little spiky. So again, lad the impale are there? Yeah, yeah,
I think that that's fascinating that you can turn yourself,
you can essentially shape shift as an animal to say
to a predator, you know, hey, watch out, or I
am not what you thought I was. And and one
of the things that I'm thinking about is the c cucumber.
(13:51):
Oh this is a good one, yeah, which is much
exalted in Japanese culture, and the c cucumber to me,
cuc where I can see where they got the name,
but it really looks more like a sea sausage. Yeah,
it's it's like you look at it and you can't
really tell that it's a little I don't know, it's
it's not the most vibrant of living things, you know,
it's just kind of looks kind of gross and still. Yeah,
(14:14):
And and it comes into a ton of varieties like that.
Some of them look like they've been oxidized, and some
of them, um look like very psychedelic with warts on them,
not warts. And they're anywhere from like under one inch
to six and a half feet in length. So in
terms of um how they're represented out there, there's a
(14:34):
huge variety. And not all of them do what I'm
about to talk about, but some of them have a
really interesting defense mechanism. And if you don't mind me
being so bold, I'll just get right to the point.
They can take their internal organs and jettison them from
their anus. That's and this is of course a trick
(14:58):
best performed when you can read inter rate said organs right,
exactly right. You don't want to lose organs unless you
can get them back in about a week to four
weeks or something like that. But the reason why I
think that is so fascinating. Is that to me? Like,
that's the ultimate bow up movement that you might have
like in a bar fight. You know, if you if
you were able to expel your internal organs for your
(15:20):
anus and just splat them on your opponent. I mean
to me, that's pretty intimidating. Yeah, I would think. So.
I've run across other, you know, situations where an animal
have some for response like that, Like there's um they're
like there are different animals that like to go into
a defensive posture. They either like vomit blood or they
(15:41):
I think there's a frog that actually um like fractures
some of its bones and like it creates compound fractures.
Yeah you know, um yeah, but any of those techniques
if you were to pull that on Marta on the
local transit system, if you were threatened, I mean, I
don't think anybody would message oh no, yeah, everybody would
move out of the car for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Have
maybe like the one person that was still asleep, Yeah,
(16:02):
I'm fortunate for them. But this, this uh, what's also
called the sea slug the c cucumber, is just pretty
fascinating in the sense that really does embody all those
shape shifting elements to it. It also can collapse itself,
which is really cool, the collagen fibers of it and
pretty much the liquefy itself and go through cracks. And
(16:24):
I mean again, that's an incredible shape shifting talent. I
love to have that. Yeah. So it's not just a
sea sausage. They're just sitting on the ocean floor. Actin
like a bottom dweller has a rich life. Yeah. And
if you think it's gross before you start messing with it,
just wait until it has to like run away. It's
gonna possibly shoot out its organs and and then turn
(16:46):
into a liquid. That's yeah, that's right, de materialized. Yeah,
and I was actually not I wasn't aware of before today,
just how how much of a role it apparently plays
in Japanese culture, Like I didn't know. I guess I
knew on some level that you could eat it because
I think I've seen it on menus Like, have you
ever had it anywhere? I have not. I think I
have as well seen it on menus um and I'm
(17:08):
thinking of Sushia. It could be completely wrong, but that's
what I'm thinking about. And I guess it's a huge
delicacy in Japan. Yeah, I think, uh, I think, you know,
I I now, I do remember where I saw it.
There's like a they're these little hot pot restaurants. It's
like a Chinese thing where you have this. It's kind
of like fon do, except you have a little pot
to cook your pile of vegetables and and one of
(17:32):
the meats that is available, I believe is cea cucumber. Wow.
I did not have it. A friend of mine had it,
and he I don't think he said he liked it,
but he I think he said it was interesting. And
it's uh also again referred to as sea slug. So
you've you've got sea slug fon do. Yeah, it just
doesn't it doesn't, you know, roll off the tongue is
(17:52):
sounding quite delicious. But that and I think it's called
sea slug because cucumber is not really translatable. Um from
Japanese East English, which I think is in the book.
What is it it called? Again, it's very it's just
oh it's called namacomo. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Because we are
(18:15):
in researching this, we both ran across the same book. Um,
there's a it's called Risey Sea Slugs by Robin D.
Gil and h it is a book about sea slug haiku.
There are one thousand hi q about sea slugs. See
that's just I mean, I really had to look at
it against them, like this is a joke. This is
(18:35):
some joke entry on Amazon, like back in the day
when people would put fake movies on IMDb, Like this
is just somebody's making this up. But it's it's legit.
It's like they're that important in uh, you know, in
in understanding like Japanese culture. Yeah, they're that celebrated. And
what I like about is that the sections are defined
by its various traits I guess as as we humans
(18:56):
see it. And a couple of sections are um in
the order of scatological, uh, melancholy. Um. There are a
couple other ones in there, but you have to understand
that um. The book is not only just celebrating the
humble c cucumber, but it's also sort of talking about
(19:17):
of the culture itself and how it is expressing itself
through its love of the sea slug. Yeah, like there
was and this makes perfect sense now that I you know,
once I've I've read it. But there's a point in
the book where they're talking about comparisons between this act
of aversion that the c that the c cucumber performs
with its guts, comparing that to the like the traditional um,
(19:40):
you know, samurai act of sefuku um and maybe saying
that wrong and then the westernized version of that is
what Harry carry um and you know, so there are
obvious similarities between you know, this this creature expelling its
organs to escape of you know, danger, comparing that to say,
a shame you know samurai if somebody you know, basically
(20:03):
visrating themselves with a knife in order to save face. Yeah, yeah,
so yes, that's the honor thing is a very interesting
to bring up and to relate that back. Do you
have one of the hiku a translation of the hiku? Yes, idea,
I hope, Well you have to read that so people
will get Well, this one is from seventy one, and
(20:23):
I feel like it's still very relatable now. And it
is from a writer whose name was Joe and I'm
pronouncing that right. And it is a few drinks and
I am a cea slug out of water. Oh that's
that's that's actually really pretty yeah. And also I feel like, uh,
(20:45):
in terms of of our predilection for maybe over extending
ourselves with libations. It's it's still rings true today. There
are times when after a few drinks, I feel that
I am out of water as well. Well, some of
the ones I found we're a little more grotesque. Um
like this is one here, life's hard, no doubt. Sea
(21:05):
slugs end up inside out. I love it. Oh and
then there's this one sea slugs their guts are made
to swim one days. It's a reminder. Yeah, and of
course these are translations, so we can't really experience the
true beauty of of you know, C cucumber aversion poetry. No, no,
(21:27):
but I would say that. I mean, the holidays are
coming up, so got a herrine biologist in your family?
I think that you just found their present. Yeah, I
think Amazon has one copy left, so jumped to it. Yea,
get on it. Yeah. So, I mean the thing about
the c cucumbers is that we see this as a phenomenon.
This inside out is something in nature. What about in
(21:50):
terms of injuries, something self inflicted or even in pop culture? Um, well, yeah,
it's one of those things where like the first thing
that incident comes to mind for me when I think
of something that could actually turn you inside out. Oh, which,
by the way, another instance of a child's children's story
featuring inside out things. How to Train Your Dragon, there's
mention of a dragon that turns people inside out, so
(22:12):
which it's a great movie, but it's like these like
that was just the other day, like after I had
researched the podcast some and then I saw that movie
and I'm like, whoa, this is all over the place.
People can't get enough of inside out things for children.
It's embedded in our subconscious. There's also Slim Good Buddy,
who I'm kind of on the fence, whether that's inside
out this or just a dude in a suit we've
gouts on the front of it. You remember Slim Good No, no,
(22:34):
I can't tell me about something. Oh god, he's um.
I believe he's Canadian. Could be wrong on that, but
he's a Slim Good Bodies like a TV personality, and
he was like generally you think of like the classic
Slim Good body where he's got like kind of like
he's got kind of like curly hair, and he was
this like spandex body suit with all of the organs
painted on the outside and he like talks to kids
(22:55):
about like the importance of like eating healthy and you know,
like the guy still travels around the day. Yeah, yes,
I know, yes, yeah yeah, And so that's basically his
whole stick is, you know, educating children about you know
the importance of health and you know that taking care
of your insides. Wow, there's gonna be one kid that
just freaked out, you know, and he's saw him come
to a school. It was like your organs running outside. Yeah,
(23:19):
And I think I've I've seen parodies before where like
people have done costumes where it's like Slim Bad Body,
where they like show like you know, organs that have
been like like the lungs are all blackened from smoking
and things like like a huge momentum. Yeah, but outside
of Slo good like Slim Good Body, again, I don't
I don't necessarily think he was actually inside out. I
think you just had a suit with cuts on it.
(23:39):
But but the the thing and instantly comes to mind
is like, you know, like rapid depressurization like in a
like in an airplane or you know, it's like it's
always happening in space movies, but it's it's rarely. Um
all that accurate. So I mean, are you talking more
like suction or for something sally force and then also
just like you know pressures, you know, the outside pressure
(24:00):
changing and then destabilizing pressures inside the body. Um. Like
there's a film called Outland that came back out in
the seventies. I believe it's like a Sean Connery western
in space, and it was one of these where people
would like float out into you know, into the void
without their helmet on and their head would explode, you know,
like a balloon. Uh. And I think I think that
happened in total recall as well, but you know, it's
(24:21):
like it's things wouldn't really happen like that. I believe
the Air Force conducted some some tests, um and you
can find them results of it online where they took
some salmon and uh and expose them to you know,
rapid depressurreization, and they they did not turn inside out,
because that's just silly, but but they did there was
like some stomach aversion like through like holes. So so yeah,
(24:45):
it's it's the depression ization can cause some aversion, but
it's not the kind of thing would turn the inside out. Okay,
I'm also thinking to you about some of the horrible
urban myths that I've heard about before, and I'm thinking
about like, oh good, I'm not gonna say this. Yeah,
like airplane toilets section. I mean I think that you
can probably figure out yeah, that kind of stuff, um,
(25:06):
you know, without like going into an actual like you know,
case by case, you know, Snopes esque, and you know,
analysis of the stories. It's like even even that at
the most, you know, any kind of like um, you know,
pressure based injury, um is going to just I think
result in in like a pro lapse or a version
(25:27):
of organs. But right, if they're not gonna get sucked out,
I mean, if you're gonna sit on a toilet, see,
I mean, the odds are that the section that you
would create wouldn't be nearly strong enough to even lend
itself to creating yeah, in evacuation of your bells, right,
so to speak. Again, Yeah, this is and this is
also a topic where we could we could go into
(25:47):
more detail about all this. But well, if you're really
that interested, there's some you know, you can do some
more research on line. But we're good in trouble if
we get into it too. Yeah, I think I feel
like we're we've entered into the zone. Yeah, yeah, but
one more, it's like again, going all the way around
on the swing set will not turn you inside out, No,
it will not. It may make you vomit, but you
(26:09):
will not turn inside out. It will scare any adults viewing,
and children could be more of it. Yeah, we're not abdicating. Well,
I think you do. You do get a certain so,
I mean I never I was never the type of
child to even attempt that. But like the kids who
would go really high in the swing set, like, that's
instant cred right, I mean that's oh yeah, yeah again.
(26:29):
I mean I guess that is the kid equivalent of
just ejecting your your internal organs and spotting them on
someone else's. That the metaphorical like, don't mess with me
on this playground, kid. Well, well, on that note, we
did you I do? Yeah, we did you? I do.
If if you have any interesting tidbits about things turning
(26:50):
inside out, either in your life or in fiction or
in the realm of science, we may have missed something
really awesome example from the biological world, let us know.
Oh and if you have your own high qu to
share with us, please we want to hear it. Yes,
but only if it's about thanks turning inside out, and
that could be anything. Thanks for listening. For more on
(27:15):
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