September 17, 2013 • 32 mins
Improvised explosive devices were the primary killer of American troops in Iraq and continue to top the list in Afghanistan. Their use is so prevalent among guerrillas and insurgents because they are so effective. They are easy to put together with parts that are easy to obtain and they are easy to hide. Learn about these terrible weapons in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know run House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryant's with me, etcetera, etcetera.
Stuffy should know. How you doing attention of people? In
the blink of an eye, Yeah, this podcast would be over. Yeah,
(00:24):
Jerry's getting a lot more loose with the laughter. Have
you noticed. Yeah, she wants to be noticed. Either that
or her sense of humor has been ratcheted up. We're
gonna look one day she's like literally pulled up to
our downs with her chin on her hand, like, Hey, yeah,
what are you guys do? Hey, nice shirt, Hey, thank you.
You compliment the shirt every time I wear I know.
Let me set the scene. We're in our serial killer
(00:45):
like room and Josh is wearing his Mystery Science Theater shirt. Yeah,
that's the one, and it's got the guys there. It's
a silhouette, the famous silhouette in the movie theater seats
and it's just a great shirt. Yeah. Um one time you,
me and I were at home watching it on I
don't know, the Internet or something like that, laugh and
(01:08):
laugh and laughing, and uh, she had such a good
time that she got me this T shirt. You commemorate it.
That's a great reason. So thanks a lot, mst three
K guys, Yeah, Emily does. I got a Dexter shirt.
I got a true Blood shirt. I got a Madman shirt.
You guys are laughing at Dexter parks and red shirt
every time, Children's hospital shirts on the way. I'm like
enough with the shirts exactly fun TV events, right, you
(01:32):
can just show what TV show you've watched recently by
wearing that T shirt. Well, do like Michael Stipe remember
that ear He were like tin shirts at the vm as. No,
he kept taking off his shirt for each award they won,
and it was another like a statement, political statement, you
know Stipe. Yeah, I found his best. Just let Stipe
(01:52):
do his thing. Let's Stipe be Stipe. Yeah, that's a shirt.
You know. He's got a sculpture like right there, what
do you mean? He has a an outdoor sculpture at
the next building over the Sovereign building in the back
really right next to the valet um, there's like six
seven eight like cute little larger than life foxes and
(02:13):
he running around in a circle and it's Michael Stipe
did he do it or did he conceive it and
then had some sculpture go do it. If he did,
he's taking full credit for it. Okay, I mean I
believe he did it. They're called the Stipe Boxes. I
can't remember what it is, but it's got like or
what the name is, but it's got like a plaque
that says, you know who the artist is and give
some background and well look at that. Michael Stipe had
(02:33):
no idea yea, and it's pretty good too. I have
to say, I'm gonna go check that out. You should
write it for them, Okay, Chuck, Yes, do you know
what an I E. D Is? I do. I bet
some folks might not, though you hear that where. It's
one of those things you hear on the news a lot.
Some people might just sort of, you know, it gets
lodged in the brain is. I don't know what that is,
(02:54):
but I hear it enough spell it out for him.
I the improvised explicit device, and that is the I
believe still the leading cause of troop death in the
Middle East. Uh. Yeah, the mission in Iraq is over right,
like we've totally drawn with drawn. Yeah, I strong about Afghanistan.
(03:20):
It remained then forever now the number one killer of
US troops in Iraq, and it still is now in
Afghanistan as far as I know. Yes, I have a
couple of stats here. Um, it is still the top threat.
You're correct, killed a hundred four U. S troops compared
with one. That's a significant drop. Yeah. Yeah, they're they're
(03:44):
getting better at fine, and we'll get to this of
their methods of getting better at rooting them out with
machines and from what I gathered reading the stuff, just
the soldiers being there, they just sort of get in
that mind. They're just getting better at this, like sniffing out,
sniffing them off the case. Yeah, these guerrilla tactics. You know,
more you're there, the more you just understand the enemy.
(04:06):
That article also though, said that that statistic reflects just
fewer troops to be attacked though as well. Um, but yeah,
we definitely have gotten better, um as a military over
the last decade or so. Yeah, like twelve years. I
guess wasn't a two thousand one that we invaded Afghanistan
or two to mission accomplished. Um, And we came face
(04:30):
to face with I E. D. S pretty quickly. UM
And really kind of had to learn what we were doing.
Like I remember the the soldiers were just driving around
in regular humpies and getting like blown to smitherreens from
I E d S left and right. And it took
like a year or two before they had humpies that
were armored enough to protect them against humpy blasts. Yeah.
Well it's sort of new though, because this article points
(04:52):
out at the beginning of the war they weren't as
popular and it was mainly gunfire. Mortars and grenades were
the cause of the age because we were fighting a
non insurgent group. We're fighting the Iraqi military. We were fighting, um,
but the Taliban, Well, yeah, you're right, they were Yeah, no,
I guess yeah, but yeah, in Iraq, we were definitely
(05:15):
fighting the Iraqi military, but then the insurgency came after that. Yeah,
they definitely have realized how effective they can be. When
you can put it in a dead dog's carcass on
the side of the road or a cow or something
like that, very scary stuff. You can hide it just
about anywhere. Um, And they're not new. The insurgents um
(05:36):
in Iraq in Afghanistan didn't invent I E d S.
They go back at least into the Vietnam War, where
the viet Cong figured out that a good way to
get American troops blown up is to put an I
D in like an old coke can or something, or
an old beer can't leaving along the side of the
road where you knew they were going to be walking,
because everyone knows that Americans like to kick cans down
(05:58):
the road. And apparently all it took was one kick
and then boom, the whole platoon was in danger. Yeah,
that was an I E D. Yeah, the i R
a Irish Republican Army obviously used those in the sixties
and seventies. And then you know when you hear about
the Boston bomber or the Centennial Park bomber, the d
s yeah, actually homemade bombs, right, it's an improvised explosive device,
(06:22):
which basically the big distinction is you didn't buy it
from a from a commercial manufacturer, or it didn't come
from a commercial manufacturer like a pipe bomb. That's an
e D. Doesn't have to be in a rock or Afghanistan.
And like you said, I mean, the reason that they
are in use and man, they are in use um
(06:43):
is because they are an effective weapon against a larger,
especially larger conventional army. Um. It's it's they're cheap, they're
easy to get the parts too, they're fairly easy to
put together, and apparently there's a lot of information out
there about how to do it. Like the Times Square
(07:04):
bombing that was foiled a couple of years back. The
bomb that that guy had was virtually identical to the
ones used in the Boston marathon bombing. So clearly there's
some instruction out there that people who want to can
get to and make these things from just part you
buy at the store. Yeah, the internet, giveth in it
take it away for sure. Yeah right, all right, So
(07:26):
you want to talk about the basic parts of an
I D. Yeah, there's five of them. You've got your
power supply um. You basically you're trigger in your detonator.
Need electricity um usually from like say a battery or
UM battery. Yeah, I mean it should be as simple
(07:46):
as like a flashlight battery. Yeah, so that's pretty scary.
The trigger is, uh, the switch that sets the device off.
It's usually like sometimes can be a trip wire, but
usually or a timer. But most times it's like a
firing button where someone is watching that they actually press
or a radio signal from like say a cell phone
(08:07):
or something. Yeah, anything that can relay information that can
trigger an event to that trigger, like a garage store opener,
cell phone, radio whatever. Um, that makes a pretty handy
trigger switch. That's right. So the detonator that is the uh,
the small charge that sets off the larger charge. I
(08:29):
don't know, we talked about this since something oh building
implosions exactly. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's kind of
the same thing. Yeah, you're taking a little charge because
it doesn't take quite as much to set that one off,
and then you use the energy, the force created from
that one to explode the larger charge, the main charge
of the primary charge. And um, you can actually use
(08:53):
conventional weapons, conventional bombs like an unexploded landline as um.
The primary charge, right, fertilizer is very handy apparently. Um.
And then from the main charge, we move on to
the container. That's the thing that holds everything together, whether
it's a pressure cooker or an old washing machine or whatever.
(09:16):
What did they do in Boston pressure cookers? Was that
what it was? Okay? But they snuck in and backpacks?
Is that right? Yeah? That is some scary stuff. It
really takes a lot to not be super freaked out
at any public event after something like that. You know,
it definitely takes a little while too for even the
most rational stable person and say, no, I'm just gonna
(09:39):
I'm gonna go to this marathon and hang out and
not worry about things. Yeah, I think it increases vigilance
for sure. Um, And then of course, like in the
NFL this year, you know I got the Falcon season tickets,
they sent out a statement to all the ticket holders
that you can't like bring bags into the game anymore
unless they're those clear bags that like high school stud
(10:01):
it's apt to use. Now, I didn't know you could
ever bring bags, Like you could bring a backpack into
the game or something, or a purse or anything like.
You can't bring any of that stuff in. You can't
bring a person any longer. No, it's got to be
like they have a size requirement. It's basically, you know,
a little small purse that can fet your I D
and stuff. But yeah, they're putting the kih on that.
Yeah I can figure I D, but not your I
(10:21):
E D. That's right. Yeah, that should be their slogan,
which I mean, I guess it's not much to give
up like a purse. Of course, I don't carry purses,
so it's not a big inconvenience for me. But you know,
I mean to ensure that much more safety, yeah, that
doesn't seem like enough. But it's also part of that
slippery slope where it's like, Okay, we made that concession,
(10:43):
and what's the next concession? Taking off your shoes and
line at the airport? Not that big of a deal.
But when you add it together with all this other stuff,
all of a sudden, we're pretty much constantly thinking. There's
constantly an awareness of the threat that's out there. That's
probably good to a certain degree that anything. Yes, it is,
but I think it's also a double edged sword where
(11:03):
it's like you're maybe you're safer, but you're also more
stressed out right, you know. Yeah, And it certainly doesn't
limit the racial profiling and stuff like that, you know,
after events like that and you're people are staring down
people of different colors and races and oh yeah, I'm
sure like the random pat down through like a T
(11:24):
S A line is pretty far from random. Yeah, you know. True.
See our podcast on on No flight lists. Wright do
one on that, Yeah, I genuinely don't recall it. Give
yourself a break, buddy, Yeah, but I would think like
I could remember any of them eventually if you said
(11:45):
the title. Yeah, we did one on no fly lists,
like how do you land yourself on a no fly list? Okay,
on a government list of like no fly That was
my fault. I said the wrong title. That's why I
wasn't jogged. Yeah, we did one on like flying and stuff.
All right, So there's there are other things packed inside
these devices as well, basically for use to shrapnel, um,
(12:09):
anything from nails to ball bearings. Um. Sometimes it can
be toxic chemicals to cause fire. It can be all
sorts of nasty things, um. Yeah. And it could be
part of a dirty bomb. It can be like the
means to get a dirty bomb exploded. Right, Well, Chuck,
before we go any further, you want to do maybe
(12:29):
a message break, I think so, Chuck. So we've talked
about what parts there are to a um an I e.
Ed Um, let's talk about how they fit together. And
obviously we're not going to give you any kind of
instructional step by step, um, but there I mean, there's
(12:51):
just general information about how how they fit together. So
you've got your power source, which we talked about, and
that's going to give you the electricity that you need
to power the trigger and the detonator. So that's how
those fit together, right, Um. And then you've got the
trigger which activates the detonator, which also requires some sort
(13:13):
of power um or also draws power from the power source. Uh.
And the trigger can be it can be said on
a timer like the old like sticks of dynamite with
the clock. The timer that's an I E. D. I
suppose um the Yeah, it could be activated by a
(13:34):
trip wire. Um, it could. There's all sorts of things
you can do. Somebody could be standing off in the
distance watching and pressing a calling a phone. I remember
we talked about it before. I don't remember which one
it was, but we talked about supposedly a separatist, the
Chechen separatist. Maybe it was planning on bombing Red Square
(13:55):
in Moscow in the New Year's before last. And she
blew up because she got a text message from her
phone before she made it out of her apartment. She
got like a happy New Year message from the phone provider.
I never followed up to make sure that wasn't an
urban legend. But it is a heck of a story.
I do remember talking about that, and I believe it
(14:17):
you could just because why not, you know, why not? Uh?
And then you've got, like I said, we got the
detonator which provides the energy for the main one, and
then the main charge which sends a shock wave or
a blast wave and shrapnel and fire or toxic chemicals
or whatever outward very fast. Yeah. And the big problem,
like we said, with I E d s and with
(14:39):
combating I E d s, is you can make them
from so many different materials. There's all sorts of different
types of explosives you can use. Um, the parts you
can get from just about anywhere. I know, in the
Boston bombings they used, um, the trigger was triggered via
an RC car part. They used regular like battery D
(15:00):
cell batteries. Um. You, so you can get this stuff
from anywhere. So, like, if you were really interested in
stopping i E d s from being produced and made
your supply lines, following supply lines is really difficult. Yeah,
it's not like you can trace things. Yeah, and they're
just coming from so many different places. It's like we're
(15:20):
banning our c cars can't really do that. Yeah, I
did see where the government is UM trying to track
this stuff a little bit more. Um, they spent more
than two hundred million dollars to Pentagon has UH basically
just trying to get ahold of the problem altogether. But
they have something called the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat
(15:42):
Organization or JAI DID right and UM, I think they're
gonna get about two d and seventeen million dollars this year.
And one of the things that they're trying to do
is track some of the stuff out of Pakistan. It
seems to be one of the main countries where things
like how see um ammonium nitrate or coming from fertilizer. Yeah,
(16:03):
in Pakistan saying we kind of have an agricultural um
sector that needs fertilizer soon. We're not gonna stop making fertilizer.
What part of the problem is that's also the main
source of explosive material being used in I E D S.
Shows you the problem. You're part of the problem at least. UM.
The The other part of the problem is there's so
(16:23):
many different ways to deliver an I D. You can
just put it somewhere. They're very easily hid. Um and
say like a rubble or trash pile or like you said,
in the carcass of a dog or a cow or
something like that, to something that seems innocuous. They can
be buried. Um, they can be left in a car. Yeah,
(16:44):
those are vehicle born I E. D. S and uh
that have you seen I'm really into these modern war movies.
Have you seen hurt Locker is one? I haven't seen
that one man So good and zero Dark thirty was
the worst part of the movie. What part where the
ladies like jumping up and down like yeah, my informants
(17:06):
coming for the car bomb. That's what happened though, dude,
and the other girls on the other aunt saying like,
oh mg, I'm so excited for you. It's like their
characters suddenly just totally deteriorate, like into just these caricatures,
like what happened at that part she was jumping up
and down like yeah, I don't know, man, I think
(17:26):
she was probably pretty excited. Dude. I just thought it
was very weird so much so I'm like, what is
the director trying to do here? Like what she's trying
to say something that I'm not picking up on it.
It was just odd. But yes, it was a vehicle
born explosion, But you liked the movie aside from that.
Aside from that, yeah, that was pretty cool. Both those
were Katherine Bigelow by the way, right, but yeah, I
(17:49):
never saw hurt Locker. Hurt Locker is great. And then
Green's On was another good one. The Matt Damon one.
Wasn't that like, um, the born identity for Isn't there
a lot of people called that? Really? Yeah, well that's
just silly, wasn't I by the same guy who directed
it too? Maybe I think it was Paul green Grass
And yeah, but it was not. That's just silly. It
was because it was Matt Damon kicking but and Paul
(18:11):
green Grass. But it was a war movie, not a
spy movie or whatever those Born movies were. Yeah. Um,
I'll take issue with that statement. Okay, um, all right,
So let's talk a a little bit about the explosion itself.
I said that gas heats up expands rapidly, and how
rapidly Josh? Um, Well, if you're talking explosion, usually at
(18:36):
least ft per second four eight meters per second, which
is a lot that's your blast wave. If you're anywhere
near that, then you probably are not going to make
it out. And it um creates a lot of um
force measured in atmospheric pressure gez. Oh yeah, how many?
(18:57):
Up to a thousand times the normal atmospheric pressure at
sea level. So you remember in the diving bell episode
we're talking about or no, it was the the ejection
seat episode, we talked about how when you eject from
a plane, you can be depending on how fast you're going,
you can be subjected up to twenty g s all
of a sudden when you when your seat shoots out.
(19:20):
This is a thousand gees. Alright, so that's gonna send
that shrapnel at that same speed, which is gonna do
tons of damage. Their secondary shrapnel from stuff like windows
and buildings that are going to be splintered and flying around. Uh,
there's the fire itself, Uh secondary fires. And then this
(19:41):
one I didn't really think about though. The the vacuum. Yeah,
apparently can it leaves a vacuum that can like cause
you to go blind or deaf, And well it blows
it out so much that, yeah, it causes a partial vacuum,
and then the air rushes back in to fill it,
and it brings all that other debris that it's just
shot out right back into you. So you get it twice.
(20:02):
I guess if you're in the blast zone, and I
guess the atmosphere pressure is what can give you like concussions.
That's the shock wave swelling of the brain, like, um,
what what is it? A traumatic brain injury which is
so similar to PTSD. Oh yeah, um. And it also
points out to I'd never really would have thought about this,
but air filled tissues and organs like your lungs and
(20:24):
your bowels can actually be perforated with this pressure change. Yeah,
that's just unbelievable. Yeah. Um. And like we said, if
you're close to one of these, you're probably not gonna
make it out alive. If you're a little further way
outside that primary blast radius, um, you're likely going to
be injured. A lot of I think of wounds in
(20:47):
Afghanistan are still caused by I E. D S. So
while deaths are down, there's still a lot of guys
and ladies being wounded. Yeah, you know, losing limbs, there's
a lot. There's a huge increase in a rock and
Afghanistan to lost limbs and brain traumatic brain injuries because
they're being protected from kevlar. Whereas before these these protections
(21:12):
and the measures that that the military took to protect
soldiers um were instituted. Prior to that, they would have
just died, so they wouldn't have been chalked up to
the casualty or the injured list. They would have been
chalked up to the dead list. Right. So now it's like, yeah,
they're being protected, but they're also losing limbs. They're also
(21:34):
like they they have brain injuries. There's big problems that
they're carrying along with them as well, which is one
of the things that's made this war so expensive, um,
not just financially but in like you know, human costs
as well. And of course civilians aren't protected at all,
so they're dying at a rapid rate. So you've got
(21:54):
I D S. They are out there. There's a problem.
What have we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, Like, how
do you detect against the either use of I E
d S. Well, one thing that uses dogs to sniff
them out. I don't know. At some point we have
a good article on war dogs that we might cover,
but dogs is one way. Um, like I said, just
living in country and learning that. You know, every time
(22:19):
one of those goes off, they probably learn a new
method to add to the list, which is scary but
also great to be there and sort of get inside
their head a little bit. Paying attention and being suspicious
is another one. Yeah, Like there's an instance that's given
in this article about a marine spotter who noticed a
man outside of Habania, Iraq who is videotaping a convoy. Yeah,
(22:46):
it's like that's kind of a dig giveaway that this
guy should be checked out. I guess they looked at
him and saw that he had a high powered rifle
on the seat next to him, and they shot and
killed him and went over and apparently he had a
bunch of parts to make I E. D. S with.
That's right, So I guess he was scouting or what
have you. And then not very surreptitiously either, like, um,
(23:07):
and he probably well you never know. I was going
to say he might have one of those video cameras
from like the eighties too. It's like set on, it's
not even a small one. Um. They do have some
new technology though, which is pretty cool, and it makes
sense because if you're using like a signal from a
cell phone, let's say, to set these things off. You
might think, hey, can they jam those things? And they can,
(23:30):
And they're trying to something terribly named UM device called
the NERF and I r F which stands for neutralizing
improvised explosive devices. Oh no way? Yeah? Oh yeah? Is
that nerve? Isn't there a terrible acronym? So nerve with
(23:51):
radio frequency? Okay, sorry, give him the whole thing. Neutralized
neutralizing improvised explosive devices with radio frequency ner Yes, And
that emits a high frequency pulse that basically just shorts
out all the electronics in the area. Yeah. They also
have devices that emit births of microwave radiation that fry
the electronics anywhere around. So if you have an I E.
(24:13):
D coming up and you shoot it with some microwaves,
it probably isn't gonna work, that's right. And they have lasers,
the the libs, l ibs man the military and their
acronyms like everything. They love those. When I'm talking with
my brother in law, he's just like and he's so
used to saying what they are too, and it's just
like rapid fire. We'll say like LIBS laser and just
break down spectoc See I can't even say that that
(24:35):
spectroscopy well, the spect spectroscopy is a difficult word to
say either way. That's what they call it LIBS. And
these detect I D explosives within about a hundred feet,
which is pretty good because these things, you know, most
of the time it's not like it's not a daisy cutter.
You know, the explosion is large, but it's not you know,
(24:56):
if you're five yards away, it's not gonna have much
of an impact on you. And they um, the gun
a lot better at detecting devices. Um. Apparently of I
E d s in Afghanistan were detected before they went off.
And I think two thousand eleven, two thousand twelve. Um.
And uh, did you hear about the guy who sold
(25:19):
fake bomb detectors like around the world. He's this British
guy named James McCormick, and for ten years he sold
this device called the a d E six fifty one,
which stood for Advanced Detection Equipment And basically what it
was was a device called the gopher, which is used
to find lost golf balls. And it actually doesn't work.
(25:41):
It doesn't even find lost golf balls. It has no
better no better chance than random chance to detect a
golf ball or anything else. This guy just repackaged these
things and sold them. He sold one to a government
for three grand. Apparently the Iraqi police fought six thousand
of them. They're still in use all over the country.
(26:02):
They don't do anything. This guy means sixty million dollars
over ten years selling these things, and he's a total fraud.
Is he in jail or anything? Yeah, they got him
finally doing ten years in prison. Wow, and they took
his money. Yeah, but who knows how many people like Yeah, Yeah,
it's pretty scary. They also have like you talked about
their the humpies and stuff were more armored now. But um,
(26:26):
they also have things called mind resistant ambush Protected Vehicles
m wraps, and they have a flat undercarriage in the
shape of a V which will supposedly divert the blast. Yeah,
rather than flat, it's like it goes it comes to
a point. Yeah, it makes makes sense. It diverts it
away instead of just right up under the vehicle. So
(26:47):
you just have to hope you're not standing next to
the vehicle and the thing goes off because it's going
to direct all that stuff towards straight out. And then
just today, um, we learned that a company called Ashkosh
not Ashkosh but no, but I wonder if they're related.
The military Vehicle division of Oshkosh Bagosh in Wisconsin. Is
Oshkosh Bagosh, Wisconsin? Yeah, is it really? Yeah? This Oshkosh
(27:10):
is probably a place there. Yeah, you think I believe
it is. All right, we'll look into that. Maybe they
make onesies and military vehicles. But in Washington, d C.
Right now, today's August. What today in DC? This week
they have a trade show and oshkos is an unveiling
(27:32):
the Terra Max and the Terra not terror Terra is
in land. The Terra Max is um unmanned, which is
kind of cool, and it has counter I D payloads
and uh, it's basically a little UM a TV that
I guess is remote controlled or it says it can
(27:53):
run UM in a supervised autonomous mode remote control? Is
that what that is? It's just the way I think moment. Yeah,
they should just say RV man UM. Yeah. So that's
pretty cool. So they're they're definitely spending money at the
rate of about two hundred and two twenty million a
year to try and combat desk. Ye. Well, and that's
(28:15):
all I got. That's all I got too. Um. If
you're interested in this, you can also another way of
delivering an I D is via suicide bomber. And we
did an entire episode on suicide bombers, did we not?
We did? Okay, so you might want to check that
out as well. Uh. And if you want to learn
more about I E d s and how to combat them,
you can type I E D into the search bar
(28:36):
at how stuff works dot com. And since I said
search bar, it's time for a message break, all right, chuckers,
how about listener mail? All right? This is called I've
worked with a hyperbolic chamber? Uh Jeric hyperbaric? Would I
(28:57):
say hyperbolic? The guys like it's the largest chamber in
the world. It's so full of hyperbole. Um, thanks for
catching that. By the way, I just finished listening to
the how does a Diving Bell Work? And I couldn't
help but think about a guy. I think about a lot.
I used to live on a Caribbean island called Utilla.
It's in Honduras. Utila or Utila is known for backpackers
(29:21):
learning to dive whilst traveling around Central America as a
scuba instructor on the island and also drove the hyperbaric
chamber or hyperbolic chamber set up and funded by small
the charge to all divers, although we treated locals for
three um all of us non Hondurans learned to dive
as safely as possible. But the locals will go for lobster.
(29:42):
They called them bugs. Had horrific diving conditions. They would
have a guy in about a couple of dive tanks
without pressure gauges attached along hoses that the fishermen would
use to breathe. They knew that they were running out
of air when it became hard to breathe. Once they
realized they were running out of air, they would surface quickly,
but stay in the water, drink a coke uh and
(30:03):
smoke a joint. It would be attached to a new
tank then and go down looking for more lobsters or
bugs of stuff in their sacks. This what's going down
down here. There's an article about um this industry and
in this way of getting lobsters in Mexico by hand
in harpers that people last month's Harpers or this month's
hard Yeah, it's like just like that, really really dangerous. Yeah,
(30:26):
they're really cavalier and they get hurt a lot. Apparently
they smoke we'd while they're doing it. Uh. This one
guy came into the chamber room in pain and twisted up.
We were pretty sure he wouldn't walk again. He gave
him a couple of rides in the chamber over a
couple of days. This entailed trips down to the equivalent
of sixty only to be slowly brought back to the
surface quote unquote uh sorry quote surface end quote over
(30:51):
a few hours time. Um. We also did some hydrotherapy
on our small pool. Because he wasn't getting any better,
we had to fly him off the island to the mainland.
Keep the plane just above the water so it's not
to elevate them much higher than sea level. After leaving
him at the hospital, I never saw I heard about
him again. He was a husband and father of two
and I was twelve years ago and I think about
him often. That's from James, Thanks James. I thought that
(31:15):
was a pretty great email too. Yeah. Um, and he
sent a picture the hyperbolic hyperferic change. Yeah, it was
pretty cool. Yeah he said it was a bad picture.
If that was great, Yeah, it seems fine. Your heart
on yourself, James, let yourself up. Uh. If you want
to send us a picture of something cool that you operate,
we'd like to see that. Um. You can tweek to
us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
(31:36):
us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our
home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
it how Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to stuff you should know run House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryant's with me, etcetera, etcetera.
Stuffy should know. How you doing attention of people? In
the blink of an eye, Yeah, this podcast would be over. Yeah,
(00:24):
Jerry's getting a lot more loose with the laughter. Have
you noticed. Yeah, she wants to be noticed. Either that
or her sense of humor has been ratcheted up. We're
gonna look one day she's like literally pulled up to
our downs with her chin on her hand, like, Hey, yeah,
what are you guys do? Hey, nice shirt, Hey, thank you.
You compliment the shirt every time I wear I know.
Let me set the scene. We're in our serial killer
(00:45):
like room and Josh is wearing his Mystery Science Theater shirt. Yeah,
that's the one, and it's got the guys there. It's
a silhouette, the famous silhouette in the movie theater seats
and it's just a great shirt. Yeah. Um one time you,
me and I were at home watching it on I
don't know, the Internet or something like that, laugh and
(01:08):
laugh and laughing, and uh, she had such a good
time that she got me this T shirt. You commemorate it.
That's a great reason. So thanks a lot, mst three
K guys, Yeah, Emily does. I got a Dexter shirt.
I got a true Blood shirt. I got a Madman shirt.
You guys are laughing at Dexter parks and red shirt
every time, Children's hospital shirts on the way. I'm like
enough with the shirts exactly fun TV events, right, you
(01:32):
can just show what TV show you've watched recently by
wearing that T shirt. Well, do like Michael Stipe remember
that ear He were like tin shirts at the vm as. No,
he kept taking off his shirt for each award they won,
and it was another like a statement, political statement, you
know Stipe. Yeah, I found his best. Just let Stipe
(01:52):
do his thing. Let's Stipe be Stipe. Yeah, that's a shirt.
You know. He's got a sculpture like right there, what
do you mean? He has a an outdoor sculpture at
the next building over the Sovereign building in the back
really right next to the valet um, there's like six
seven eight like cute little larger than life foxes and
(02:13):
he running around in a circle and it's Michael Stipe
did he do it or did he conceive it and
then had some sculpture go do it. If he did,
he's taking full credit for it. Okay, I mean I
believe he did it. They're called the Stipe Boxes. I
can't remember what it is, but it's got like or
what the name is, but it's got like a plaque
that says, you know who the artist is and give
some background and well look at that. Michael Stipe had
(02:33):
no idea yea, and it's pretty good too. I have
to say, I'm gonna go check that out. You should
write it for them, Okay, Chuck, Yes, do you know
what an I E. D Is? I do. I bet
some folks might not, though you hear that where. It's
one of those things you hear on the news a lot.
Some people might just sort of, you know, it gets
lodged in the brain is. I don't know what that is,
(02:54):
but I hear it enough spell it out for him.
I the improvised explicit device, and that is the I
believe still the leading cause of troop death in the
Middle East. Uh. Yeah, the mission in Iraq is over right,
like we've totally drawn with drawn. Yeah, I strong about Afghanistan.
(03:20):
It remained then forever now the number one killer of
US troops in Iraq, and it still is now in
Afghanistan as far as I know. Yes, I have a
couple of stats here. Um, it is still the top threat.
You're correct, killed a hundred four U. S troops compared
with one. That's a significant drop. Yeah. Yeah, they're they're
(03:44):
getting better at fine, and we'll get to this of
their methods of getting better at rooting them out with
machines and from what I gathered reading the stuff, just
the soldiers being there, they just sort of get in
that mind. They're just getting better at this, like sniffing out,
sniffing them off the case. Yeah, these guerrilla tactics. You know,
more you're there, the more you just understand the enemy.
(04:06):
That article also though, said that that statistic reflects just
fewer troops to be attacked though as well. Um, but yeah,
we definitely have gotten better, um as a military over
the last decade or so. Yeah, like twelve years. I
guess wasn't a two thousand one that we invaded Afghanistan
or two to mission accomplished. Um, And we came face
(04:30):
to face with I E. D. S pretty quickly. UM
And really kind of had to learn what we were doing.
Like I remember the the soldiers were just driving around
in regular humpies and getting like blown to smitherreens from
I E d S left and right. And it took
like a year or two before they had humpies that
were armored enough to protect them against humpy blasts. Yeah.
Well it's sort of new though, because this article points
(04:52):
out at the beginning of the war they weren't as
popular and it was mainly gunfire. Mortars and grenades were
the cause of the age because we were fighting a
non insurgent group. We're fighting the Iraqi military. We were fighting, um,
but the Taliban, Well, yeah, you're right, they were Yeah, no,
I guess yeah, but yeah, in Iraq, we were definitely
(05:15):
fighting the Iraqi military, but then the insurgency came after that. Yeah,
they definitely have realized how effective they can be. When
you can put it in a dead dog's carcass on
the side of the road or a cow or something
like that, very scary stuff. You can hide it just
about anywhere. Um, And they're not new. The insurgents um
(05:36):
in Iraq in Afghanistan didn't invent I E d S.
They go back at least into the Vietnam War, where
the viet Cong figured out that a good way to
get American troops blown up is to put an I
D in like an old coke can or something, or
an old beer can't leaving along the side of the
road where you knew they were going to be walking,
because everyone knows that Americans like to kick cans down
(05:58):
the road. And apparently all it took was one kick
and then boom, the whole platoon was in danger. Yeah,
that was an I E D. Yeah, the i R
a Irish Republican Army obviously used those in the sixties
and seventies. And then you know when you hear about
the Boston bomber or the Centennial Park bomber, the d
s yeah, actually homemade bombs, right, it's an improvised explosive device,
(06:22):
which basically the big distinction is you didn't buy it
from a from a commercial manufacturer, or it didn't come
from a commercial manufacturer like a pipe bomb. That's an
e D. Doesn't have to be in a rock or Afghanistan.
And like you said, I mean, the reason that they
are in use and man, they are in use um
(06:43):
is because they are an effective weapon against a larger,
especially larger conventional army. Um. It's it's they're cheap, they're
easy to get the parts too, they're fairly easy to
put together, and apparently there's a lot of information out
there about how to do it. Like the Times Square
(07:04):
bombing that was foiled a couple of years back. The
bomb that that guy had was virtually identical to the
ones used in the Boston marathon bombing. So clearly there's
some instruction out there that people who want to can
get to and make these things from just part you
buy at the store. Yeah, the internet, giveth in it
take it away for sure. Yeah right, all right, So
(07:26):
you want to talk about the basic parts of an
I D. Yeah, there's five of them. You've got your
power supply um. You basically you're trigger in your detonator.
Need electricity um usually from like say a battery or
UM battery. Yeah, I mean it should be as simple
(07:46):
as like a flashlight battery. Yeah, so that's pretty scary.
The trigger is, uh, the switch that sets the device off.
It's usually like sometimes can be a trip wire, but
usually or a timer. But most times it's like a
firing button where someone is watching that they actually press
or a radio signal from like say a cell phone
(08:07):
or something. Yeah, anything that can relay information that can
trigger an event to that trigger, like a garage store opener,
cell phone, radio whatever. Um, that makes a pretty handy
trigger switch. That's right. So the detonator that is the uh,
the small charge that sets off the larger charge. I
(08:29):
don't know, we talked about this since something oh building
implosions exactly. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's kind of
the same thing. Yeah, you're taking a little charge because
it doesn't take quite as much to set that one off,
and then you use the energy, the force created from
that one to explode the larger charge, the main charge
of the primary charge. And um, you can actually use
(08:53):
conventional weapons, conventional bombs like an unexploded landline as um.
The primary charge, right, fertilizer is very handy apparently. Um.
And then from the main charge, we move on to
the container. That's the thing that holds everything together, whether
it's a pressure cooker or an old washing machine or whatever.
(09:16):
What did they do in Boston pressure cookers? Was that
what it was? Okay? But they snuck in and backpacks?
Is that right? Yeah? That is some scary stuff. It
really takes a lot to not be super freaked out
at any public event after something like that. You know,
it definitely takes a little while too for even the
most rational stable person and say, no, I'm just gonna
(09:39):
I'm gonna go to this marathon and hang out and
not worry about things. Yeah, I think it increases vigilance
for sure. Um, And then of course, like in the
NFL this year, you know I got the Falcon season tickets,
they sent out a statement to all the ticket holders
that you can't like bring bags into the game anymore
unless they're those clear bags that like high school stud
(10:01):
it's apt to use. Now, I didn't know you could
ever bring bags, Like you could bring a backpack into
the game or something, or a purse or anything like.
You can't bring any of that stuff in. You can't
bring a person any longer. No, it's got to be
like they have a size requirement. It's basically, you know,
a little small purse that can fet your I D
and stuff. But yeah, they're putting the kih on that.
Yeah I can figure I D, but not your I
(10:21):
E D. That's right. Yeah, that should be their slogan,
which I mean, I guess it's not much to give
up like a purse. Of course, I don't carry purses,
so it's not a big inconvenience for me. But you know,
I mean to ensure that much more safety, yeah, that
doesn't seem like enough. But it's also part of that
slippery slope where it's like, Okay, we made that concession,
(10:43):
and what's the next concession? Taking off your shoes and
line at the airport? Not that big of a deal.
But when you add it together with all this other stuff,
all of a sudden, we're pretty much constantly thinking. There's
constantly an awareness of the threat that's out there. That's
probably good to a certain degree that anything. Yes, it is,
but I think it's also a double edged sword where
(11:03):
it's like you're maybe you're safer, but you're also more
stressed out right, you know. Yeah, And it certainly doesn't
limit the racial profiling and stuff like that, you know,
after events like that and you're people are staring down
people of different colors and races and oh yeah, I'm
sure like the random pat down through like a T
(11:24):
S A line is pretty far from random. Yeah, you know. True.
See our podcast on on No flight lists. Wright do
one on that, Yeah, I genuinely don't recall it. Give
yourself a break, buddy, Yeah, but I would think like
I could remember any of them eventually if you said
(11:45):
the title. Yeah, we did one on no fly lists,
like how do you land yourself on a no fly list? Okay,
on a government list of like no fly That was
my fault. I said the wrong title. That's why I
wasn't jogged. Yeah, we did one on like flying and stuff.
All right, So there's there are other things packed inside
these devices as well, basically for use to shrapnel, um,
(12:09):
anything from nails to ball bearings. Um. Sometimes it can
be toxic chemicals to cause fire. It can be all
sorts of nasty things, um. Yeah. And it could be
part of a dirty bomb. It can be like the
means to get a dirty bomb exploded. Right, Well, Chuck,
before we go any further, you want to do maybe
(12:29):
a message break, I think so, Chuck. So we've talked
about what parts there are to a um an I e.
Ed Um, let's talk about how they fit together. And
obviously we're not going to give you any kind of
instructional step by step, um, but there I mean, there's
(12:51):
just general information about how how they fit together. So
you've got your power source, which we talked about, and
that's going to give you the electricity that you need
to power the trigger and the detonator. So that's how
those fit together, right, Um. And then you've got the
trigger which activates the detonator, which also requires some sort
(13:13):
of power um or also draws power from the power source. Uh.
And the trigger can be it can be said on
a timer like the old like sticks of dynamite with
the clock. The timer that's an I E. D. I
suppose um the Yeah, it could be activated by a
(13:34):
trip wire. Um, it could. There's all sorts of things
you can do. Somebody could be standing off in the
distance watching and pressing a calling a phone. I remember
we talked about it before. I don't remember which one
it was, but we talked about supposedly a separatist, the
Chechen separatist. Maybe it was planning on bombing Red Square
(13:55):
in Moscow in the New Year's before last. And she
blew up because she got a text message from her
phone before she made it out of her apartment. She
got like a happy New Year message from the phone provider.
I never followed up to make sure that wasn't an
urban legend. But it is a heck of a story.
I do remember talking about that, and I believe it
(14:17):
you could just because why not, you know, why not? Uh?
And then you've got, like I said, we got the
detonator which provides the energy for the main one, and
then the main charge which sends a shock wave or
a blast wave and shrapnel and fire or toxic chemicals
or whatever outward very fast. Yeah. And the big problem,
like we said, with I E d s and with
(14:39):
combating I E d s, is you can make them
from so many different materials. There's all sorts of different
types of explosives you can use. Um, the parts you
can get from just about anywhere. I know, in the
Boston bombings they used, um, the trigger was triggered via
an RC car part. They used regular like battery D
(15:00):
cell batteries. Um. You, so you can get this stuff
from anywhere. So, like, if you were really interested in
stopping i E d s from being produced and made
your supply lines, following supply lines is really difficult. Yeah,
it's not like you can trace things. Yeah, and they're
just coming from so many different places. It's like we're
(15:20):
banning our c cars can't really do that. Yeah, I
did see where the government is UM trying to track
this stuff a little bit more. Um, they spent more
than two hundred million dollars to Pentagon has UH basically
just trying to get ahold of the problem altogether. But
they have something called the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat
(15:42):
Organization or JAI DID right and UM, I think they're
gonna get about two d and seventeen million dollars this year.
And one of the things that they're trying to do
is track some of the stuff out of Pakistan. It
seems to be one of the main countries where things
like how see um ammonium nitrate or coming from fertilizer. Yeah,
(16:03):
in Pakistan saying we kind of have an agricultural um
sector that needs fertilizer soon. We're not gonna stop making fertilizer.
What part of the problem is that's also the main
source of explosive material being used in I E D S.
Shows you the problem. You're part of the problem at least. UM.
The The other part of the problem is there's so
(16:23):
many different ways to deliver an I D. You can
just put it somewhere. They're very easily hid. Um and
say like a rubble or trash pile or like you said,
in the carcass of a dog or a cow or
something like that, to something that seems innocuous. They can
be buried. Um, they can be left in a car. Yeah,
(16:44):
those are vehicle born I E. D. S and uh
that have you seen I'm really into these modern war movies.
Have you seen hurt Locker is one? I haven't seen
that one man So good and zero Dark thirty was
the worst part of the movie. What part where the
ladies like jumping up and down like yeah, my informants
(17:06):
coming for the car bomb. That's what happened though, dude,
and the other girls on the other aunt saying like,
oh mg, I'm so excited for you. It's like their
characters suddenly just totally deteriorate, like into just these caricatures,
like what happened at that part she was jumping up
and down like yeah, I don't know, man, I think
(17:26):
she was probably pretty excited. Dude. I just thought it
was very weird so much so I'm like, what is
the director trying to do here? Like what she's trying
to say something that I'm not picking up on it.
It was just odd. But yes, it was a vehicle
born explosion, But you liked the movie aside from that.
Aside from that, yeah, that was pretty cool. Both those
were Katherine Bigelow by the way, right, but yeah, I
(17:49):
never saw hurt Locker. Hurt Locker is great. And then
Green's On was another good one. The Matt Damon one.
Wasn't that like, um, the born identity for Isn't there
a lot of people called that? Really? Yeah, well that's
just silly, wasn't I by the same guy who directed
it too? Maybe I think it was Paul green Grass
And yeah, but it was not. That's just silly. It
was because it was Matt Damon kicking but and Paul
(18:11):
green Grass. But it was a war movie, not a
spy movie or whatever those Born movies were. Yeah. Um,
I'll take issue with that statement. Okay, um, all right,
So let's talk a a little bit about the explosion itself.
I said that gas heats up expands rapidly, and how
rapidly Josh? Um, Well, if you're talking explosion, usually at
(18:36):
least ft per second four eight meters per second, which
is a lot that's your blast wave. If you're anywhere
near that, then you probably are not going to make
it out. And it um creates a lot of um
force measured in atmospheric pressure gez. Oh yeah, how many?
(18:57):
Up to a thousand times the normal atmospheric pressure at
sea level. So you remember in the diving bell episode
we're talking about or no, it was the the ejection
seat episode, we talked about how when you eject from
a plane, you can be depending on how fast you're going,
you can be subjected up to twenty g s all
of a sudden when you when your seat shoots out.
(19:20):
This is a thousand gees. Alright, so that's gonna send
that shrapnel at that same speed, which is gonna do
tons of damage. Their secondary shrapnel from stuff like windows
and buildings that are going to be splintered and flying around. Uh,
there's the fire itself, Uh secondary fires. And then this
(19:41):
one I didn't really think about though. The the vacuum. Yeah,
apparently can it leaves a vacuum that can like cause
you to go blind or deaf, And well it blows
it out so much that, yeah, it causes a partial vacuum,
and then the air rushes back in to fill it,
and it brings all that other debris that it's just
shot out right back into you. So you get it twice.
(20:02):
I guess if you're in the blast zone, and I
guess the atmosphere pressure is what can give you like concussions.
That's the shock wave swelling of the brain, like, um,
what what is it? A traumatic brain injury which is
so similar to PTSD. Oh yeah, um. And it also
points out to I'd never really would have thought about this,
but air filled tissues and organs like your lungs and
(20:24):
your bowels can actually be perforated with this pressure change. Yeah,
that's just unbelievable. Yeah. Um. And like we said, if
you're close to one of these, you're probably not gonna
make it out alive. If you're a little further way
outside that primary blast radius, um, you're likely going to
be injured. A lot of I think of wounds in
(20:47):
Afghanistan are still caused by I E. D S. So
while deaths are down, there's still a lot of guys
and ladies being wounded. Yeah, you know, losing limbs, there's
a lot. There's a huge increase in a rock and
Afghanistan to lost limbs and brain traumatic brain injuries because
they're being protected from kevlar. Whereas before these these protections
(21:12):
and the measures that that the military took to protect
soldiers um were instituted. Prior to that, they would have
just died, so they wouldn't have been chalked up to
the casualty or the injured list. They would have been
chalked up to the dead list. Right. So now it's like, yeah,
they're being protected, but they're also losing limbs. They're also
(21:34):
like they they have brain injuries. There's big problems that
they're carrying along with them as well, which is one
of the things that's made this war so expensive, um,
not just financially but in like you know, human costs
as well. And of course civilians aren't protected at all,
so they're dying at a rapid rate. So you've got
(21:54):
I D S. They are out there. There's a problem.
What have we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, Like, how
do you detect against the either use of I E
d S. Well, one thing that uses dogs to sniff
them out. I don't know. At some point we have
a good article on war dogs that we might cover,
but dogs is one way. Um, like I said, just
living in country and learning that. You know, every time
(22:19):
one of those goes off, they probably learn a new
method to add to the list, which is scary but
also great to be there and sort of get inside
their head a little bit. Paying attention and being suspicious
is another one. Yeah, Like there's an instance that's given
in this article about a marine spotter who noticed a
man outside of Habania, Iraq who is videotaping a convoy. Yeah,
(22:46):
it's like that's kind of a dig giveaway that this
guy should be checked out. I guess they looked at
him and saw that he had a high powered rifle
on the seat next to him, and they shot and
killed him and went over and apparently he had a
bunch of parts to make I E. D. S with.
That's right, So I guess he was scouting or what
have you. And then not very surreptitiously either, like, um,
(23:07):
and he probably well you never know. I was going
to say he might have one of those video cameras
from like the eighties too. It's like set on, it's
not even a small one. Um. They do have some
new technology though, which is pretty cool, and it makes
sense because if you're using like a signal from a
cell phone, let's say, to set these things off. You
might think, hey, can they jam those things? And they can,
(23:30):
And they're trying to something terribly named UM device called
the NERF and I r F which stands for neutralizing
improvised explosive devices. Oh no way? Yeah? Oh yeah? Is
that nerve? Isn't there a terrible acronym? So nerve with
(23:51):
radio frequency? Okay, sorry, give him the whole thing. Neutralized
neutralizing improvised explosive devices with radio frequency ner Yes, And
that emits a high frequency pulse that basically just shorts
out all the electronics in the area. Yeah. They also
have devices that emit births of microwave radiation that fry
the electronics anywhere around. So if you have an I E.
(24:13):
D coming up and you shoot it with some microwaves,
it probably isn't gonna work, that's right. And they have lasers,
the the libs, l ibs man the military and their
acronyms like everything. They love those. When I'm talking with
my brother in law, he's just like and he's so
used to saying what they are too, and it's just
like rapid fire. We'll say like LIBS laser and just
break down spectoc See I can't even say that that
(24:35):
spectroscopy well, the spect spectroscopy is a difficult word to
say either way. That's what they call it LIBS. And
these detect I D explosives within about a hundred feet,
which is pretty good because these things, you know, most
of the time it's not like it's not a daisy cutter.
You know, the explosion is large, but it's not you know,
(24:56):
if you're five yards away, it's not gonna have much
of an impact on you. And they um, the gun
a lot better at detecting devices. Um. Apparently of I
E d s in Afghanistan were detected before they went off.
And I think two thousand eleven, two thousand twelve. Um.
And uh, did you hear about the guy who sold
(25:19):
fake bomb detectors like around the world. He's this British
guy named James McCormick, and for ten years he sold
this device called the a d E six fifty one,
which stood for Advanced Detection Equipment And basically what it
was was a device called the gopher, which is used
to find lost golf balls. And it actually doesn't work.
(25:41):
It doesn't even find lost golf balls. It has no
better no better chance than random chance to detect a
golf ball or anything else. This guy just repackaged these
things and sold them. He sold one to a government
for three grand. Apparently the Iraqi police fought six thousand
of them. They're still in use all over the country.
(26:02):
They don't do anything. This guy means sixty million dollars
over ten years selling these things, and he's a total fraud.
Is he in jail or anything? Yeah, they got him
finally doing ten years in prison. Wow, and they took
his money. Yeah, but who knows how many people like Yeah, Yeah,
it's pretty scary. They also have like you talked about
their the humpies and stuff were more armored now. But um,
(26:26):
they also have things called mind resistant ambush Protected Vehicles
m wraps, and they have a flat undercarriage in the
shape of a V which will supposedly divert the blast. Yeah,
rather than flat, it's like it goes it comes to
a point. Yeah, it makes makes sense. It diverts it
away instead of just right up under the vehicle. So
(26:47):
you just have to hope you're not standing next to
the vehicle and the thing goes off because it's going
to direct all that stuff towards straight out. And then
just today, um, we learned that a company called Ashkosh
not Ashkosh but no, but I wonder if they're related.
The military Vehicle division of Oshkosh Bagosh in Wisconsin. Is
Oshkosh Bagosh, Wisconsin? Yeah, is it really? Yeah? This Oshkosh
(27:10):
is probably a place there. Yeah, you think I believe
it is. All right, we'll look into that. Maybe they
make onesies and military vehicles. But in Washington, d C.
Right now, today's August. What today in DC? This week
they have a trade show and oshkos is an unveiling
(27:32):
the Terra Max and the Terra not terror Terra is
in land. The Terra Max is um unmanned, which is
kind of cool, and it has counter I D payloads
and uh, it's basically a little UM a TV that
I guess is remote controlled or it says it can
(27:53):
run UM in a supervised autonomous mode remote control? Is
that what that is? It's just the way I think moment. Yeah,
they should just say RV man UM. Yeah. So that's
pretty cool. So they're they're definitely spending money at the
rate of about two hundred and two twenty million a
year to try and combat desk. Ye. Well, and that's
(28:15):
all I got. That's all I got too. Um. If
you're interested in this, you can also another way of
delivering an I D is via suicide bomber. And we
did an entire episode on suicide bombers, did we not?
We did? Okay, so you might want to check that
out as well. Uh. And if you want to learn
more about I E d s and how to combat them,
you can type I E D into the search bar
(28:36):
at how stuff works dot com. And since I said
search bar, it's time for a message break, all right, chuckers,
how about listener mail? All right? This is called I've
worked with a hyperbolic chamber? Uh Jeric hyperbaric? Would I
(28:57):
say hyperbolic? The guys like it's the largest chamber in
the world. It's so full of hyperbole. Um, thanks for
catching that. By the way, I just finished listening to
the how does a Diving Bell Work? And I couldn't
help but think about a guy. I think about a lot.
I used to live on a Caribbean island called Utilla.
It's in Honduras. Utila or Utila is known for backpackers
(29:21):
learning to dive whilst traveling around Central America as a
scuba instructor on the island and also drove the hyperbaric
chamber or hyperbolic chamber set up and funded by small
the charge to all divers, although we treated locals for
three um all of us non Hondurans learned to dive
as safely as possible. But the locals will go for lobster.
(29:42):
They called them bugs. Had horrific diving conditions. They would
have a guy in about a couple of dive tanks
without pressure gauges attached along hoses that the fishermen would
use to breathe. They knew that they were running out
of air when it became hard to breathe. Once they
realized they were running out of air, they would surface quickly,
but stay in the water, drink a coke uh and
(30:03):
smoke a joint. It would be attached to a new
tank then and go down looking for more lobsters or
bugs of stuff in their sacks. This what's going down
down here. There's an article about um this industry and
in this way of getting lobsters in Mexico by hand
in harpers that people last month's Harpers or this month's
hard Yeah, it's like just like that, really really dangerous. Yeah,
(30:26):
they're really cavalier and they get hurt a lot. Apparently
they smoke we'd while they're doing it. Uh. This one
guy came into the chamber room in pain and twisted up.
We were pretty sure he wouldn't walk again. He gave
him a couple of rides in the chamber over a
couple of days. This entailed trips down to the equivalent
of sixty only to be slowly brought back to the
surface quote unquote uh sorry quote surface end quote over
(30:51):
a few hours time. Um. We also did some hydrotherapy
on our small pool. Because he wasn't getting any better,
we had to fly him off the island to the mainland.
Keep the plane just above the water so it's not
to elevate them much higher than sea level. After leaving
him at the hospital, I never saw I heard about
him again. He was a husband and father of two
and I was twelve years ago and I think about
him often. That's from James, Thanks James. I thought that
(31:15):
was a pretty great email too. Yeah. Um, and he
sent a picture the hyperbolic hyperferic change. Yeah, it was
pretty cool. Yeah he said it was a bad picture.
If that was great, Yeah, it seems fine. Your heart
on yourself, James, let yourself up. Uh. If you want
to send us a picture of something cool that you operate,
we'd like to see that. Um. You can tweek to
us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
(31:36):
us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our
home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
it how Stuff Works dot com
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