One Flew Over

Can animals suffer from mental illness? We explore issues of mental health, imprisonment, and midlife crisis in animals and humans, while also clearing the good name of cuckoos. With special guest Hana Michels. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Creature feature the show where we crack open
the brains of animals, humans and make a delicious omelet.
We'll discover our shared quirks with all of nature's creatures.
Today we're talking about mental health. Humans aren't the only
animals that suffer from mental distress. In fact, we may
be able to take lessons from animal welfare to heal ourselves.

(00:31):
Lest you think it's all in your head, we'll also
discuss how mental health affects physical health, right down to
the cellular level. I did a little digging because I
was curious, why does the word cuckoo mean insanity? What
does the title One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest have
to do with insane silence? So cuckoo is on a

(00:52):
monopeia of the call male cuckoo birds make, But why
is it synonymous with being crazy? The idea that cuckoo
birds are quote insane comes from the observation that they
make that one repetitive, silly call of cuckoo, but also
that the cuckoos lay their own eggs in the nests
of other birds. So cuckoo became synonymous with foolish than

(01:17):
with crazy. But cuckoos aren't crazy, as we've discussed on
the podcast before, they're actually really clever brewed parasites, meaning
they intentionally lay their eggs in the nests of unsuspecting
host families so that their own chicks will be carefully
fed and raised by a stranger, leaving the cuckoo free

(01:37):
to mate and lay more eggs elsewhere. So the title
one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is factually incorrect. Cuckoos
don't have nests at all, So cuckoos being cuckoo has
been debunked. But is there actual mental illness amongst animals?
We can't sit them down on a couch and talk
to them like we're in a New Yorker cartoon, So

(02:00):
how do we understand what's going on inside their heads?
And do animals experience human emotional ailments such as depression
and midlife crisis? On today's episode will look at mental illness, captivity,
and midlife crisis in animals and humans. You may have
heard of o c D obsessive compulsive disorder. As we'll

(02:23):
discuss it's a lot more complicated than how the popular
media presents it is just being tidy or obsessively clean.
People with o c D must complete certain rituals, whether
it's handwashing, turning lights on and off, saying a mantra,
or checking of doors are locked and it's not their fault.
The brain literally starts skipping like a record. A recent

(02:46):
University of Michigan study found that O c D brains
get stuck in a quote loop of wrongness. Technically speaking,
there's a malfunction in this singular opercular network that is
a central part of the brain linked by nerve connections.
This is, generally speaking, the quality control area of the brain.

(03:07):
It checks for errors happening during a task and is
responsible for adjusting or stopping a behavior. What happens in
the brains of people with o c D is that
this coldly control area over detects errors and has a
less functional stop action neural network. So you're stuck in
a loop. You're stuck in a loop. You're stuck in

(03:27):
a sorry, You're stuck in a loop where you think
you may have made an error and you can't stop
trying to correct it. And as we'll see, humans aren't
the only ones trapped in the O c D carousel.
With me today is Hannah Michael's comedian writer, anthropology major
and koala over welcome Hannah, Hey, what's up? Coal is

(03:48):
are gross? And I like that, So why are the gross?
All our supials are gross? All our supials are disgusting.
They are an evolutionary pit stop. Then we should not
have evidence of but we do because Australia, and they're real,
real nasty, all of them. They have weird junk and

(04:09):
they do weird stuff with it and it offends, it's
offensive to everyone. And they let you they let you
hold koalas in Australia because really, yeah, they're they don't
have rules or laws in Australia. You can do what
you can murder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to the

(04:29):
zoo where they let you hold it and they were like, no,
you have to cradle its but you have to cradle
its button. So there's like just a photo of me
lest in a koala. And then I found out they
all have chlamydia. It's a oh yeah, yeah, yeah they do.
Actually there is um chlamydia outbreaks amongst koalas. And it's
interesting this book I read about, it's called Zubiquity. She's

(04:51):
talking about like how maybe we can learn about the
spread of STDs and humans by studying koalas because they're
just a bunch of disease riddled Yeah they're gross, like up, yeah, yeah,
they're they're They also poop a lot in their sleep,
Like they sleep a lot because the eucalyptus leave that
doesn't provide much. Yeah, it's toxic, really fibrous, not a

(05:14):
lot of nutrition, so it takes a lot of energy
and time to actually digest. So they're like sleeping and
pooping almost the whole day, so like up to twenty
two hours a day. Yeah. Yeah, so we're exactly like
you're living the dream. They kind of are. We also
feed our young out of a kloacas ah chloacas. So

(05:36):
I'm glad we're starting on this note. Chloaca is always
a strong opener. So I want to talk about O
c D, which is the acronym for obsessive compulsive disorder.
It's kind of been a part of the public discourse
in a way that's like not too accurate, not too good.
I'm sure you've heard people say off hand like I'm

(05:58):
a neat freak, I'm so O c D. Yeah, or
like like I like to organize my socks. I'm o
c D. Um My best friend has O c D
and his apartment is disgusting. It's just a poster of
female trouble, single chair, no soap. Yeah, well so I
have O c D. I actually had it as a
kid mostly, and like I mean, if you've ever seen

(06:21):
my college dorm, which thank god nobody has, but it
was disgusting. They all are. It's true, but it's not.
It's like there's not an exception. You're not like, oh,
I'm O c D. And therefore there is an underwear
hanging from the ceiling fan like there is there always is. Um. So,
there are a lot of misconceptions about a c D.

(06:42):
First is that it's either like a minor quirk. Some
people think it's just like this sort of minor thing,
and then other like there's also sort of the monk
perception of it, where it's all consuming part of your personality,
and it's like the truth is sort of like on
a spectrum. So for some people it's not that big
of a deal. For others it can be really like

(07:03):
a huge nuisance because they can't really function that well.
It's so it's so strong. It's also I think there's
this misperception that people that have it are like delusional,
Like I know that when I turn off the stove
and then I check like five minutes later, I know
it's not like magically turned back on by like stove gremlins.

(07:24):
I'm just like it's it's almost like it's kind of
rewriting your memory where it's like, well, I think I
turned it off, but like did I? And you know,
because like when you do a kind of repetitive action,
I think most people have had that where you're like, oh, well,
did I kind of lock the door and you sort
of forget You're not sure. It's like that, except like
it happens like ten times and you're like, I'm pretty

(07:46):
pretty sure the fifth time around that got locked. So
it's really interesting because it's caused by a dysfunction of
neural networks, as we're going to discuss uh soon. Um,
And it's it's not like this just like a little
thing that you can kind of ignore because compulsion is

(08:08):
really powerful. It's um, it's like a short circuiting of
the brain where it's like a record skipping on a turntable,
like you don't mean to play the first ten seconds
of Babo O'Riley over and over, but like the hardware
is malfunctioning, like there's dust on the record or the
needles messed up. I don't really actually know because I've

(08:28):
never owned a record player because I'm a terrible millennial
that's killing the records industry. So I want to take
you on an imagination journey to to think land. So
it's my favorite kind of journey because I'm scared to
drive it. I was like when I talked about like, oh,

(08:48):
I'm kind of scared to find someone's like, oh, well
driving is way more dangerous, and I'm just like cool,
now I'm scared to drive. Yeah. Yeah. I love people
who think that they can logic you out of anxiety. No,
you can't. You can't because like all of the potential
solutions to the to the worry that you have, we've

(09:11):
already thought of, and then you can make a new
worry out of right. Right, we're problem wizards, right, Like, oh,
you're more likely to be struck by lightning and you're like,
oh my god, lightning. Um. So, as we approach a
future where gene therapy seems more plausible, there's kind of
some like upsetting possibilities, So like you could have a

(09:34):
doctor turn behaviors on or off depending on their desirability.
Like so like for certain mental illness, that would be
great because it's like there's a lot of suffering. Um.
But then it gets it's like gets into this uncomfortable
territory of like, well, do we want to get rid
of everything that's not just like totally neurotypical? Does art

(09:58):
die if we do that? Maybe? I don't know. Have
you seen Gattica? So the premise of that is like
your ability to do a job, your applicability to like
be an astronaut or something, is they look at your
genes and they're like, oh, you have the strong genes
of an astronaut, or you have like so I haven't

(10:19):
seen Getica, but I've seen a thousand parodies of Gaetica
basically yeah yeah, um. And and in the movie, it's
like the guy's like, oh, you know, I'm not genetically
fit to be an astronaut, but I really want to
do it. So he's got to like have fake skin
cells that he collects from this other guy and like, um,
you know, like get a bunch of yearine. I guess

(10:42):
for tests. It's been a long time since I remember
what bodily fluids he uses to check the system. But
I think, you know this concept of like we are
hitting upon this thing where it's like, as we start
to get to the point where we can turn things
on and off, like how far can that go? To

(11:03):
the point where it's like, oh, we're actually taking all
of the diversity out of the human brain. And but
then so typically we think about it like, oh, you know,
we'll get rid of all of the sort of quirks
or mental abnormalities. But what if you could actually give

(11:24):
someone something, Say you could give someone O c D
so that they'd be a really good copy editor, or
like quality control, so it'd be like gatica and reverse.
But yeah, I wish you could do that later in
life too, because I feel like a lot of adults
growing up with problems was very helpful informative, and now

(11:49):
it's destroying their lives, just hypothetically a lot of adults.
So it's kind of interesting because I can't decide whether
it'd be worse if you would like give someone against
their will O c D or take it away against
their will. But unfortunately we do this to mice because

(12:12):
we always do stuff to mice. Oh yeah, we do.
So scientists knocked out gene and mice which caused them
to engage in O c D behaviors. It's actually got
a really catchy name. It's called sap app three um.
It's a protein that helps brain cells communicate, so it's

(12:33):
like really good for There's this part of the brain
called the cortex stri item that it's like this bundle
of brain cells that help regulate reward motivation, stimulus response,
and motor function. So when you don't have that protein,
it's like trying to run a car that isn't properly oiled.

(12:53):
So given how O c D functions, it's this like
inability to correctly process information and give a response. So
there's a bunch of things that you can have where
it's these like repetitive loop compulsions that are a result
of that reward system malfunctioning. So like you have handwashing,
checking intrusive thoughts. There's even like fear of authority, like

(13:16):
where you're like, oh, I have to pray to God
like ten times otherwise you know he'll smite me with lightning.
So for mice, like what what do you think that
would look like like they're not praying to mouse God
or washing their hands. I don't know, I guess maybe
checking their feet or even there's they know there's no

(13:38):
food or Yeah, I feel like these mice have very
limited habitats. I don't know, Sniffing their babies, eating their
babies they do, like they do that anyway. Yeah, they
just like to eat their babies. I think that's just
a normal mouse thing, Like like they're watching their little
mice TV and just have a bowl of babies that
they eat, maybe like eating a tail that they know

(14:01):
is their tail, but they keep biting it. Yeah, so
that's actually pretty close to what they do. They groom
their face um and like like they do this fur
grooming over and over again. Um, so they like start
to get these open sores. It's really it's actually really
kind of creepy looking because they like, I know, it's
really sad. They have like these big bald patches on

(14:22):
their face and on their bodies where they keep grooming.
So when these scientists altered that gene that regulates the
function of the cortex stri item, they started developing all
of these sores, all of these bald patches. Uh, they
showed more anxiety and unfamiliar environments. And when I was

(14:43):
a kid, actually had a hamster that had this big
bald spot on its head. He looked like one of
his friends siskan monks, like you know how they like shaved.
Why did they? I don't know why they did that. Okay,
my guests solidarity with one bald monk like at that
isn't fucking years ago. He's like the head monk and

(15:04):
they're all like, oh, well, we've got to be like
Jerry or he's gonna feel sad. Yeah, yeah, no, that
has to be it because that is not a handsome
hairstyle and sorry, it's not a good look. So I
had no idea that my hamster maybe had a CD
or something. And dermatillomania is a kid that's basically what

(15:25):
that is. Oh really yeah, yeah, that that is very
closely linked actually, So like when you have that that
reward system where it's like you do an action that
fulfills some kind of needs, So like scratching something, because
we all like do some amount of skin picking. It's
it's a dermotil mania is skin picking, like where it's

(15:46):
like you scratch. Yeah, I still bite the hell out
of my fingers when I'm nervous and gross, which a
lot of people do. People did that, I just as
a kid. It was at the point where it was yeah,
but yeah, that's because like that is sort of like
what the mice are doing. They're like scratching sort of uncontrollably,
like I'm itchy. They can't they can't stop because that

(16:07):
reward system is going like no, no, you need to
keep like like turning yourself into a Franciscan monk. So
I have mixed feelings on gene therapy. I mean, obviously
like bestowing mice with o c DS bad or giving
it to people, But you know, it's like at the

(16:29):
same time, it's like if you get rid of every
deviation from the norm, you won't get like you know,
Pabo pacasas and like um van go or sorry van
GoF um, who's like, you know, he had depression and
obviously him suffering isn't worth all of the beautiful art.

(16:49):
Well maybe I know. I don't know, but you know,
from a humanist perspective, it's not. But then again, like
you would, it seems like there's a lot of like
artistic nous to like having a non near typical brain. Uh,
but like, primarily, can we just stop giving my society?

(17:10):
I feel like if TV shows are right, they're going
to become like these super intelligent detectives and then like
the next thing, you know, they're gonna put all humans
in jail for their crimes against mice, and they're gonna
be all like quirky and be like, I don't have
time for interpersonal relationships. I'm the mouse detective. Even though

(17:34):
I wouldn't necessarily want to get rid of my o
c D, for many people it is a huge burden
or even debilitating. So what are the options. There's cognitive
behavioral therapy and medication, of course, but for people with
intractable o c D there are more drastic methods. Transcranial
magnetic stimulation is a method of targeting areas of the

(17:56):
brain suspected to be associated with o CP and stimulating
the neurons with repetitive magnetic puluss Another alternative treatment that
is very slowly being researched is ketamine, you know, special
K vitamin K K ways blind squid ketamine. It's been
shown to have a pretty striking effect in a case

(18:19):
study a person with severe debilitating O c D that
was resistant to other treatments was given ketamine. Almost immediately,
his O c D symptoms vanished, and this lasted for
two weeks after a controlled dose of the drug. Researchers
aren't even exactly sure why it works, so obviously they've
started giving ketamine a mice to try and get to

(18:41):
the bottom of it. These my studies suggest that a
chemical byproduct of breaking down kettamine in the body might
be responsible. Is called Oh boy, here we go, hydro
oxyen or ketamine. Nicely nailed it, and alone it has
none of the addictive properties that edamine has. A Bunch
of people with O c D right now are like, oh, yes, great,

(19:05):
give me the drug that won't get me high. Thanks
a lot, scientists, Hey, get out of that khole. We'll
be right back after a few quick messages. When someone
tells the story of an alien abduction, we may think
they're just cuckoo, but researchers at Harvard aren't so sure.

(19:26):
There's a study that compared the physiological reactions of people
calling alien abductions to those who are calling real traumatic
events such as car accidents or combat experiences. What they
found was surprising people claiming to have been abducted by
aliens are the same sorts of physiological reactions when we're

(19:47):
calling their abductions as those who are called real life traumas.
So are aliens real or are these real memories implanted
not by aliens but by our our own brains. As
we've discussed on a previous episode of the podcast, sleep
paralysis can make you believe you are being abducted by

(20:08):
aliens because you see sleep paralysis interrupts the normal sleep cycle,
causing hallucinations while half awake. So these waking nightmares actually
implant themselves as real memories that haunt the abductees for years. Later,
turns out, deep inside, we were the aliens all along.

(20:30):
So why are we so scared of alien abductions? I
understand why we're scared of aliens. Their gross and they
have tinnacles and brains on the outside and whatever, But
shouldn't we been more afraid of them just straight up
murdering us. The idea of getting beamed up into a
flying saucer, living amongst creatures that you can't communicate with
or understand is kind of uniquely scary, And I have

(20:54):
a theory for why we're so preoccupied with it. But
before we do that, we're going to have to take
a trip to the mat genation station and board the
brain train to do so. Imagine you're going about your
daily life when you feel a pain in your butt.
You turn around and try to see who your assailant is,
but your vision starts to swim and you fall unconscious.

(21:16):
You wake up in what looks like a comfortable living room.
You have a headache. Okay, that's where my being able
to relate to this has stopped. So you try to
lie down on the couch. It's really stiff and uncomfortable,
and you kind of try to adjust from the pillows,
but it's like attached to the rest of the couch
and it's like plastic. You've got to open the door

(21:39):
to escape, but it's locked, and you try to open
a window to get some fresh air. And you noticed
that the scene outside is very sunny and still and calm,
and the clouds aren't moving, and like there's a bird
just like midair midflight, just totally stationary. So you run

(22:01):
over to the phone to try to call nine one one,
but the receiver won't budge. It's just like a big
lump of plastic and like all the numbers just spell
out like phone. The TV is has a picture painted
on into your horror. It's the fixed image of Jay Leno.
And so in a panick, you go to the bedroom,

(22:23):
which is surrounded in ceiling to floor windows, and outside
you see the faint, shifting shapes of unknown creatures eagerly
watching your every move. So I think there's a reason
that human zoos are a trope in science fiction. The
idea of being condemned to the rest of your life
to live in a small exhibit alone and trapped amongst
like alien creatures that can never relate to you or

(22:46):
know your needs for like food and sleep, is really terrifying.
Like they don't know your social needs. They have like
maybe like a person shaped like pillow. That's like, I
am Steve Spawns. You see the television last night. But

(23:07):
it's just you know, their aliens. They don't know what
you need. But here's the mind fuck. We've been the
aliens the whole time. What, Yeah, because we remember zoos
and how we put animals in them and to the
animals worthy aliens uck. Yeah, yeah, it's have you ever
been to the san Diego Zoo. Uh when I was

(23:29):
a kid. Yeah, it's it's huge. Um, that's not the
one where the elephants keep dying. Maybe I'm not sure. Actually,
I mean, like elephants are there, and I would assume
that they die at some point. I haven't heard of
their being like immortal elephants like we we we'd probably know,
we'd probably know. I mean, I don't think that there's

(23:53):
been a rash of elephants dying there, but maybe I
don't know. An elephant died at Sydney's Taranga Zoo died
from herpes. What Okay, Australian animals are just plagued with STDs. There,
there's Australian animals like must be just having unprotected well,
I guess all animals have unprotected sex. Huh, I'm smart.

(24:18):
I don't know. But Nobo's sword fight with their dicks,
I feel like that's but I don't know what you
can get from that after tech the attack and he
also dick. That's yeah, I mean, like I read this thing.
It's is the elephant at Sydney's Taranga Zoo had a

(24:39):
sudden and acute battle with herpes, which is not how
I thought herpies worked. I think it's how it works
in babies, so it's possibly and elephants. I guess some
the adult human immune system can handle herpes, right, yeah,
because it says it was a young agean elephant, um,

(24:59):
so maybe was too young. Oh man, this was It
started out really funny about like sex or elephant STDs.
Now it's like elephant babies dying. You know, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for starting you guys on this elephant death search. No,
that's okay that we need to know. But but at

(25:19):
this point I am a certain I have made up
that there is one zoo around the southern California area
with a bunch of elephant deaths. It's far too late.
They're gonna sue you that there's already like a herd
of lawyers writing like giraffes and rhino is just like
stampeding towards going like Hannah. So I actually really like

(25:44):
the San Diego through They do make a lot of
efforts to do animal Enrichmond, and they, like you said,
they're really big, so they are able to make pretty
good environments for their animals. But I mean even at
zoos like that out where it's like they really care
about conservation, they really care about their animals, there can
still be issues of the animals mental welfare. Even if

(26:07):
like their health is perfectly fine, they have enough exercise,
they can still have these issues. So, like going back
to the human zoo example, you know, even if you're
like taken care of and you're given healthy meals every
day and your captors seem to love you, you're gonna
get really bored of your fake house. Uh, You're gonna like,

(26:31):
I don't know, just like seeing to yourself, bounce walls,
pretend to read all the fake books, like pacing around,
which is what animals do in zoos, exactly what they
do in zoos, and sometimes the researchers have to go
mining in a big pile of stinky polar bear poop
to check on their mental state. So in zoos like

(26:53):
these repetitive behaviors it wouldn't be called O c D.
They call them stereotypees, which is defined as like a repetitive,
unvarying and apparently functionless behavior pattern. So polar bears in
captivity will engage in repetitive pacing behaviors. They can also
do like facial ticks over and over which I feel

(27:16):
like if I was looking at a polar bear who's
like pacing and like eye twitching, like that would be
really scary because they're already huge and my entire face
could like fit in their jaw easily, and if they're
just pacing and like twitching, going like, oh geez, day
number one thousand, uh man. But some brave researchers wanted

(27:43):
to get to the bottom of this, literally because it's
bear poop, so they looked at levels of fecal glutico
cortoid metabolites. Okay, so basically it means there's stressed use
in or poop. So they found that the polar bears
who spent more time pacing also showed higher levels of

(28:06):
stressed juice in their poop. So the researchers concluded that
quote variables associated with reduced pacing at zoos were enrichment
numbers of bears in the group and bears having a
view out of their exhibit, with a strong suggestion that
the existence of positive reinforcement training program may also be important.

(28:27):
So like basically having a view outside social interactions like
everything you don't have at a cubicle job, right, So
aside from these lifestyle changes, Like, what can you do
for the polar bears that have the stereotypies? You know,
it's too bad. We can't just give them some prozac,

(28:49):
or can we? We can? It's like a facetious question
because the science we're looking into medications that they could
give polar bears, and so tranquilizers are not really great
for calming them down because it just makes them sleepy,

(29:10):
but no less dressed out. They're just like, I'm tired
and on board. This is the worst. And so like
when they tried prozac, it actually showed some promise. So like,
there's this case study of female polar bear where she
had pacing behaviors, facial ticks, huffing and coughing, all of

(29:30):
the these stereotypes that the polar bears can exhibit. It
was because she had been separated from her parents, and
then the zookeepers, because most zoop keepers aren't monsters like,
they wanted to help her. They reunited her with her
parents to try to calm the behavior, and it stopped
for a while, and then it re emerged a couple
of months later, which it's kind of like the diathesis

(29:53):
stress model and psychology where it's like you have physiological
predisposition towards like O c D or in the polar
bears case, the stereotypes, and then you have UM the trigger,
which would be being separated. So even once they corrected
the separation anxiety, she still developed the disorder because it

(30:15):
already kind of triggered that that progression. So she suffered
from that for twenty two years, and then researchers started
treating her with prozac and eighty four days after starting medication,
the pacing behaviors stopped, which, yeah, it's it's crazy because
it's like even in the field of clinical psychology, that

(30:37):
would be an incredible that's a really good UM outcome.
So it was very surprising that this would be like
the outcome for polar bears that we don't know nearly
as much about in terms of their brain physiology. UM.
And remember those poor mice who were given O c
D and looked like scarface. They are also treated with

(31:00):
prozac and they stopped showing symptoms. So that's good. I mean,
like the scientists gave them those CD in the first place.
I feel like they don't deserve any like out of boys,
But you know, But then the question is like, oh,
was there o c D cured? It's kind of hard
to say because like the behavior stopped, but we don't

(31:22):
necessarily know, like if their emotional state went back to normal.
What's neat about the poop thing is that that's a
sort of more objective measure of like stress levels, because
it's like, we'll see how stressed out your poop is. Yeah,
and if you have terrified if my toilet told me
I was your toilets like, yeah, you've been looking intense lately,

(31:45):
you know, I know, toilet, get your job, take my pop.
Just want just shut up and take my poop, willya?
So we're left with moral questions from this this poop study,
like our zoo is bad for large animals mental health,

(32:07):
and does that justify keeping them there even for conservation?
I mean, I feel like if you're willing to dig
into a big steaming pile of polar bear poop, like
you're probably doing things right. I think. So I wouldn't
if Yeah, it's it's a hero's work. It's an unsung

(32:28):
hero's work of just like just scooping that up, And
I mean I would hope they would have some like
safety things, but like what if you're just in there
with the bear like sorting through their poop, and then
the bears like go on, like what are you doing? Bro?
It's like, it's fine, it's private. You don't need to
know about it. Bear. I remember when I first got

(32:49):
my dog, and I started like, you know, you take
them on the walk and you clean up their poop.
Like the first time she saw me do that, she
gave me such a look, where are you putting that?
Why are you collecting it? Like she's is like, I
mean she wanted to eat it, is the thing, like
she would eat her own poop when she was I

(33:10):
was gonna say, what a snob your dog is? Usually
they just eat that. Oh no, they eat it. But
but she was like she looked offended, like like you're
taking my poops and just throwing them away. That's a
perfectly good turn. I've been having a lot of really
weird thoughts because some that ship happened to me, And

(33:31):
now I think weird is the best literally my therapist
diagnosis looking for someone new hi um. And it goes
back to this so much because I just I start
thinking about like scary sex scenarios and I started thinking, literally,
if aliens come to Earth, what do I do? The

(33:51):
first thing I do show them the pandas, ask isn't
it weird that we forced these pandas to fuck? And
if they say no, that's not weird, you run, Oh, yeah,
that's a really good litmus test, like because you know,
if we do that to pandas and aliens see that,

(34:12):
they might get ideas. Yeah, I'm sorry, that is weird
because like we are so obsessive about panda's sex lives.
It's like it's really grossive us. Yeah, it's like, oh,
you're not having enough sex pandas. It's like, could you
just like not do that? Like could you leave them alone?

(34:33):
Is it any of your business how sex the pandas
are having, Like maybe they don't feel like it, you know,
maybe they have a headache every night. It's just none
of your business. So I was interested in confinement since
it affects polar bears and presumably a lot of other
animals mental health so much whether it affects the mental

(34:56):
health of people, and intuitively, it just makes that being
in prison is going to affect your mental health. That's right.
But there's actually a study published in the American Journal
of Public Health that looked at the rates of self
harm amongst incarcerated people, and they found that it was
significantly linked to solitary confinement. And the numbers were pretty

(35:20):
like pretty crazy because it's like, so only seven percent
of the prison population were held in solitary and over
fifty percent of the these incidents of like self harm
or behaviors sort of like the polar bears would go
through or or the mice where it's like kind of right,

(35:41):
we're all linked to people who had been in solitary,
which is it's really upsetting to me that like also
just like that we seem to care more about like
zoo animals than like people in solitary confinement, which is
a really uncomfortable thing. But it's like, you know, I
feel like if we're willing to like sift through polar

(36:05):
bear poop, like we're gold miners, like like old forty
niners panning for gold, Like maybe we could put a
little more effort into looking into like prison reform, you know,
maybe I mean, considering that they can talk to us
instead of to us probably, yeah, I mean, they're human
people who can use their words, and they don't. We

(36:28):
don't need to communicate to them through poop, like like
polar bears can we That's true, It's like you know,
I mean these people are bored. Yeah, for some reason
that made me think of like a poop Luigi board,
just using one of those see through things. It's like, oh,

(36:50):
now it's going towards like the rat poop. So that's
not how I pictured Quiji board. Yours is better. Did
you just picture like AUGI board made out of poop?
It's just like a Weiji board. But like I just
pictured the pointy wand is poop like like you just have.

(37:14):
You wouldn't really change the function of the Wegi like
you're so you're all seven of your girlfriends that you're
sleepovers are like touching them one poop and likes seeing
where the poop goes. This is a haunted a haunted turd. Yeah,
I can see that. I mean, you know, Hasbro look
into that. I feel like we need a story of

(37:39):
gory revenge to make up for all the sad polar
bear science. Binkie was a polar bear who lived at
the Alaska Zoo and Anchorage. Pinkie maybe the name you've
given undersized balding chihuahua, but he was over one thousand
pounds of concentrated muscular spite. When a tourist scaled two

(38:00):
safety fences in order to get the perfect photo of Binkie,
he grabbed her leg, snapped through her bone, and kept
her shoe as a souvenir for three days. There are
photos of Binkie holding his shoe trophy. Humans, when learning
about a bad decision another human has made, will often
attempt to replicate that bad decision. So teens decided to

(38:24):
go pool hopping in Binkie's private pond. Binkie did not
appreciate this and mauled one kid, who was lucky to
end up alive. The zoo was kind of cagy about
whether Binkie was the one who attacked the kid, but
he reportedly had blood around his muzzle and what I
can only assume was a smug ass bear grin following
the incident. He also a bit off a zookeeper's finger.

(38:48):
Despite all this, the zoos still loved him. They said,
Binkie is quote independent and quote likes to play games
and is a very smart bear. No doubt, be Key
achieved celebrity dumb for his maulings. Binky merchandise was produced
with photos of him holding the tourist shoe and saying, quote,
send another tourist. This one got away. I'm not kidding.

(39:12):
This is a real shirt. People sent in letters supporting
Binkie's decision to chew on intruders, and unfortunately Binkie passed away.
In people left him flowers, but I don't really understand
why they didn't leave a wreath of shoes instead. So
hopefully Binkie is frolicking in heaven, ripping angels to shreds. Hey,

(39:34):
spit that show out. We're gonna take a quick break
and we'll be right back after these messages. So is
it just confinement that can cause mental anguish or is
it loneliness as well? Could fomo fear of missing out
one day be a medical diagnosis? Loneliness and isolation feel terrible.

(39:56):
There's this pain in your stomach when you yearn for
other people, that lump in your wrote when you feel rejected,
the tight sensation in your chest when you're left on read.
It's all in your head, right, Well, it's possible that
your body can actually be damaged by social seclusion. So
parents are very intelligent social animals. You can tell this

(40:17):
because once I was at the fair and I asked
this guy if I could pet his parrot, and he
said yes, and then I pet it in it like
nearly bit my finger off. They have very powerful beaks
for like crushing nuts, and this one like just bit
a big chunk out of my finger, like I was
like pulling my hand away and painted. It's kind of

(40:38):
like doing this like laughing noise. Parrots worse than thinky,
like it's like get me a shoe. So other than
that sociopathic bird, most parents require social stimulation to remain
emotionally healthy. Um. So there's this really creepy study where

(40:59):
these searchress looked at socially isolated African gray parrots, which
they're one of the most intelligent social species of birds.
Like parrots are really intelligent, and then of parrots, African
grays are like super smart. They're like the Stephen Hawkings.
It's hot because you know hawks well, Stephen Hawking is

(41:22):
a physicist. His name also it is shared with Anyway,
the loneliness deeply affected these parrots right down to their DNA.
So I'm gonna have to explain some stuff about DNA.
It's gonna be really really exciting. Tell him, yours are

(41:44):
the caps at the end of our chromosomes, so you know,
like how yeah, like your your little like noodles that
are DNA, and like on the end of him like
you have like an X or Y or both or um,
I'm got understand, I got my noodles, You've got you
got your gene noodles. And then at the end of

(42:05):
these is like a chunk of DNA that's kind of
effectively junk, like it isn't actually used to build anything
in your body, but it's essential because when the chromosome
is being duplicated, there are these enzymes that do the duplication.
They can't travel all the way down to the ends

(42:26):
of the DNA because like think of sort of like
a jacket zipper, like you can't zip it all the
way down or like comes off and like flies into
the void and then your jackets broken. So the telomere
is kind of like you know that little thing at
the end of your jacket that like stops the zipper.
It's like that where it's like this buffer that protects

(42:47):
all of the important parts of your chromosome. So the
enzyme that's duplicating. It doesn't cut it off right up
create hand part um. So uh, but every time it
goes through the duplication process, it's shortened because it does
cut off a little bit of that telomere. So that's

(43:07):
why it's like associated with aging because like once you
start cutting down that tell mere enough, then like you
start to cut out the essentials like make more blood. Um.
As you can tell, I'm very good at understanding genetics. Um. So,
this study of these these isolated African gray parents showed

(43:31):
that the telomeres are shortened by stress and loneliness. Um So,
the test subjects that were kept alone instead of in
pairs had shorter telomeres than the ones that had someone
to be with. So don't get mad at the researchers
because like they didn't like evily like be like we're

(43:54):
gonna put this parrot alone. They just took um data
from these aternarians that like, I guess when the vets
were looking at African gray parents, are like, oh is
it alone or in pairs? And then when they would
do routine checkups, they had blood samples. And so this
study took place in Austria and it's illegal in Austria

(44:17):
to house African gray parents alone, which I totally agree
with the sentiment of the law, but it's so crazy
that there's such a specific law. They're like there's an
a parent lobby there that's like looking after parents, feeling like, no,

(44:37):
you have to buy two, you can't have one parent.
But obviously it's very poorly enforced because they were able
to do the study. So the researchers just took like
the existing blood work from the Vets Office and found
that loneliness can actually shorten the parent's lifespan. So I

(44:58):
feel like we should start a parent tinder and do
a good for the nature. So it's not just parrots though,
because there's a study of people over the age of
fifty in the UK and they found that a combination
of feeling lonely and not having much contact with family

(45:18):
or friends can actually predict that they would have a
shorter lifespan. So maybe we should start a parrot tinder.
But for humans, So, can you actually die of a
broken heart? This is a hypothetical question because because I'm
about to say yes, you can, um so broken heart

(45:44):
syndrome is a real thing. It's this really rare event
when like you have a sudden stress like learning a
loved one has died, actually causes this cardiac muscle malfunction
that can be fatal. Um. It also goes by another name.
Here we go, I can do this tackets subo cardio myopathy. UM,

(46:07):
damn you, thank you, thank you, thank you everybody. Um,
here's where it gets really interesting. So Barbara and Nadderson Herowitz,
who is a cardiologist here at U c l A.
I don't know why I said here. We're not at
U c l A right now, but it is, you
know over there, Yeah, it's in LA. So she made

(46:28):
the connection between broken heart syndrome and humans and something
called capture myopathy and animals. Uh So when a small
prey animal is captured, it can just like die of
cardiac or s. So like these researchers who are trying
to capture these birds wants to like put the little
bands and then like a lot of them would just die,

(46:48):
I know, And they're like, you know, they're not trying
to kill them. They're just like trying to give them
a little bracelets. But the birds just like gave up.
I guess they're just like no, we're done. So Naderson
Horowitz found that there's this clinical similarity between animal capture
myopathy and human broken heart syndrome. She was saying that

(47:09):
we could learn a lot about human medicine from animals
and vice versa. But like, personally, I'm just waiting for
them to be able to like implant a lion heart.
Uh it means so like because like they're not scared
of anything, so they'll never die of a heart attack, right, scientists? Sure, Yeah,

(47:31):
I'm pretty sure I'm going with lobster heart here. Oh really,
why I think some species don't die unless they're like named.
Oh that's interesting. Yeah, so they do actually have a
really long lifespan. Yeah, no, you're totally correct. You take
that lobster heart with confidence that that's a very good,

(47:54):
good choice. But then, like, I mean, would you start
like having the qualities of the animal, like just like
pinching people all the time. I did that already. It's
like you can like get a rubber band on your
fingers and like, oh no, I don't know what to
do already done, Oh this is an audio podcast. I

(48:16):
do have a rubber beating. Remind me to do something
I don't know what it is right, and she's she's
left like her hands are functionally useless now because she's like,
I can't figure out these rubber bands. No, it's I
tried biting them and that's the end of the list.
You've tried waving your hands around very slowly and nothing works.

(48:38):
So in Denver was being plagued by a wig wearing menace.
The quote midlife crisis banded has been responsible for three
bank robberies. He's called the midlife crisis banded because he
appears to be in his forties to fifties. His weapon
of choice and open umbrella, which makes me suspect you

(49:00):
might be the penguin or Mary Poppins's delinquent son. As
far as I know, he's still at large, although maybe
he's outgrown his midlife crisis banditry. Where the police right
to label this man is going through a midlife crisis?
Does such a thing even exist? Well, as we'll discuss,
we might find the answers lie with a ringutans who

(49:21):
seemed to experience a midlife crisis at their own. Now,
I'm not suggesting that Denver deputized in a orangutan to
get inside the mind of a bandit dealing with a
midlife crisis. But wait, no, no, I'm totally suggesting that
get a grizzled, hard drinking orangutan detective to begrudgingly come
out of retirement so he can catch a bandit can

(49:44):
maybe make a few friends along the way. So, Hannah,
would you believe that the concept of a midlife crisis
is very contentious amongst psychologists, sociologists, and economists. Uh? Sure,
I thought it was in sink because like I went
to um, uh the seminar by uh this economist Andrew Oswald,

(50:08):
and he was talking about like like all of the
drama behind like his research into midlife crisis, and it
was it was really fine to me. How it's like
there's just a lot of like frustration and drama and
anger into the research into midlife crisis. Like, well, I
guess you know, that's a pretty lively topic for economists,

(50:32):
so their attempts being made to quantify the phenomenon it
kind of may seem silly, like they're gonna research are
you kidding? They quantified the hotness of servers, like they'll
do anything like the hotness of computer servers or no,
like like human wait waiters and waitresses. Oh, like when

(50:54):
they're hot, the economy is bad? What again, could be
makeing this up? No? No, no, no, no, you're not.
This sounds I'm this sounds correct. I feel like how
they're doing this. I don't know. I want to know
who proposed this and got funding? I mean, what fucking creep?

(51:15):
I don't know. I mean like like I feel like
it's like like the the motivation behind the studies, Like
I'm just gonna go to a bunch of restaurants and
check out hot waitresses. Um, that's incredible, man, Yeah, like
just like funded by the boob Inspectors Society or something,

(51:41):
is it? I wonder which way the causality is going, Hannah,
Like if it's that hot servers cause the economy to crash,
or when the economy is crashing, only hot servers get hired.
I'm gonna say hot servers are gods. Okay, So like
so like they can actually control knew it. I knew

(52:01):
hot people were behind the economy always. So how do
you quantify midlife crisis? Are you like, oh, the amount
of like penis enhancement drugs that you take or like
cool impractical cars? Um? So actual midlife crisis. Clinically speaking,
you would measure it through like higher rates of anxiety depression,

(52:24):
and but the main measure would be overall life satisfaction.
Um funk, I'm gonna die at sixty. So Andrew all
Oswald again, because I mean, it's of course an economist
would do this, like when are people the most sad?
Uh So he studied surveys of mental well being and

(52:48):
across many different countries, and he found this consistent dip
during midlife. And to be fair, this is a little
bit of a contentious finding. It's an effect that's only
found in moralists fluent countries, and there's been yet to
be a study that like definitively isolates what variables are
affecting the levels of mental wellness, and so it's kind

(53:09):
of a it's a study in progress. So I'm interested
if we can look to our animal cousins for answers.
And so during this talk about humans being sad, he
also brought up animals being sad and that really that
was really a seems like a fun guy. Yeah, he
he was very fun. I actually I talked to him

(53:31):
after the thing and like he's like, so, so, what
do you do. And I was like, oh, I'm a comedian,
and he like gave me this blank look and then
just turned away to talk to someone. To be fair,
that is better than tell me a joke. But right, right, no,
it's but I don't think he was being intentionally rude.

(53:52):
I think it was just like he was not expecting
bad answer because these were all like like economists, thing
like like maybe he thought I was like making fun
of him. It's like, no, no, no, no, it's it's I.
I take it very seriously. So he was saying that
the midlife crisis isn't just a human phenomenon. That there

(54:13):
are studies of chimpanzees and ringatans that the animal caretakers
report there being a dip in their perceived happiness around
the chimp's middle age. So there are a bunch of
really great personality measures that were used in the study
that the caretakers would report they're all really interesting, but

(54:36):
I'm just going to point out a few of my favorites. Um,
there's stingy, lazy, depressed, defiant, predictable, jealous, sensitive, stable, manipulative,
and clumsy. So it's like the worst version of the
seven form just all terrible. And I also really liked

(54:57):
the idea of like a caretaker being like this champ
is stingy. It's like it's uh so, it's a little
bit subjective as you can't imagine. Um. Oh. Another good
one though, is that the caretakers were being asked if
they felt like the animals are, we're reaching their goals,
and that makes me wonder, like what would be like

(55:21):
a chimpanzee or an orangutan's goal. I feel like instinctively,
it seems like they live pretty day to day like scratch,
but get nice insects and eat them. I mean there's
a hierarchy. Yeah, I guess. Just get to the top
of that and get a lot of food right for later,

(55:45):
become the cool rang a tan that everyone looks up to. Yeah,
get get others to to pick the bugs off your
button right right, like you do a skateboard flip, and
then every next thing, you know, everyone's picking bugs out
of your ass. Crack. Yeah. When I was in Costa Rica,
you could actually tell the Capuchin's, You could tell what
their social ranking was by hony stars. They had all

(56:07):
their faces. Yeah. It started out cool, yeah, yeah, and
then it got real dark. Real quickly, so like I
would imagine that the ones that are less high up
on the hark you have a lot of scars because
they're like bullied. Ye. It's sort of like in like
monkeys can be such dicks. The snow monkeys, you know,

(56:27):
the really cute ones with the red faces and like
the big poofy for codes in the Japanese hot springs,
y uh, And they're adorable because they go into the
hot springs and they just like chill out, but they're
also really clicky and mean. They like yeah, yeah exactly.

(56:48):
Like they're just like Karen at your local spa, who's
like giving you judge looks, so like if you're not
a socially accepted um snow monkey, they're like no, no,
you don't get to be in the hot springs, which
really sucks because it's very cold there. And like there's

(57:08):
I remember watching one of the probably in Attenborough one
where it's like a video of like this like snow
monkey and her child like shivering in the cold. Well
all these like posh monkeys were like like laughing it
up in the hot springs society, Man, are we in
mirrors too? The monkeys are the monkeys mirrors of us,

(57:31):
you know. Yeah, m hm, I'm sorry. I don't provide
free pot with the podcast, Like you don't just get
to get weed, so it's a little unfair for me
to spring those questions on you. Now, that's okay. These
questions are the weed. They are the weed, that's true. Yeah,

(57:53):
just getting a little high on some some questions about
monkey society. Um, so why do we see this dip
in the happiness of rayantans and chimpanzees, So sort of
like with the human midlife crisis, there's not really a
scientific answer yet. But I asked my friend who she's
actually worked with orangutans, and I wanted to see, like

(58:16):
what she thought about this study. And she thinks that, um,
because it's focused on primates and captivity, it could be
an effect that isn't found in the wild, So like
there's something about the captivity that affects their happiness around midlife.
So this is just like wild speculation, but it's my podcast, damnit,
and I can speculate as much as I want. I

(58:38):
wonder if there's like this sense of boredom or like
a realization of like a routine, like because I feel
like this may be the case for human midlife, Like
you've settled down, you have a job that you kind
of at this point where you're like, oh, maybe I
can't really switch jobs and I can't switch families, and
so you're just sort of like you get this sense

(59:00):
of like, oh, like this is the routine, and I'm
going to be doing this like X amount of years
until I get really old. So you feel like this
absence of choice, which I think can be a really
like kind of a downer when you feel like, oh, man,
I you know, I've been an accountant for ten years.
This is just this is my life now. My resume
is all freelance comedy. Yeah. I feel like for most

(59:25):
people when they think about being stuck in in jobs,
they don't think like freelance comedy, well, they should be dying.
It's like it's like that Gary Larson cartoon where the P. T. Barnum,
the kids of P. T. Barnum like escaped the circuits
to go become accountants. Yeah. Yeah, it's this is an

(59:50):
audio podcast, and that's a very visual gag, but I
want want you to imagine it like these two little
rascally kids exiting the circus tant it's Ry Larson. There
probably cows. Oh yeah, there, I mean everyone's cows. That's
Gary Larson's brand. So there's actually like and this sort

(01:00:10):
of gets into I'm gonna try to end the podcast
on a much happier note, which is how do you
be happy? And how do orangutans be happy? So for humans,
there's some interesting ideas about how to become happier, and
one of them is the psychologist named Robert Holden who

(01:00:31):
hosts laughing workshops, which is just like a circle of
people laughing. So like it's literally like I've seen videos
of it, like people like sitting on the floor in
a circle or lying down. I've seen these you know
you have in me hope and now I just want
to hunt down this guy. So like he just says

(01:00:53):
like now laugh and they all laugh like a bunch
of terrifying you're telling me it there is a way
to be happy, and then you're telling me the thing
that we all used to measure our jobs is worthless.
Well no, So what's interesting is the I mean, the
clinic is a little more complicated than just like laugh

(01:01:14):
my robot um. They're also like told to remind themselves
of happy things in their lives and like this is
not so this to be clear, this is not like
for people with clinical depression. This is not like a
substitute for something like that. It's just people who are
maybe like dissatisfied in life but not depressed, and so

(01:01:35):
like they do cognitive things like you don't have to earn,
deserve or work for happiness. But researchers recorded brain activity
and participants before and after to the clinic, and they
found that after the participants actually did have activity in
the left prefrontal lobe, which more closely resembled that of
generally happy people. So people who wrote on a survey

(01:01:57):
like yeah, I'm fine, which it's crazy to me that
you can like like simulate it by pretending to laugh,
which again is maybe a dangerous thing to say as
a commedian, like we could automate the comedy. I mean,
they tried it, um and again, I'm making all these
things up. Why are you pausing to listen to me?

(01:02:19):
I don't know. I think they tried it in Edinburgh
and they tried to make a computer tell jokes and
it was just really racist and sexist. Oh no, see
you say you're making this up, but you're not. I yeah,
there have been multiple attempts at like these AI algorithms
that always just turned in a Nazis. Like there was
a there was a yeah, the Twitter gu Yeah, there

(01:02:41):
was the Twitter bot the girl who what was her
name this talk about that was trying to impersonate a
teenage girl and then she just turned into full like
like saying Nazi slogans and really racist stuff. Smarter child
never became a Nazi. Smarter Child out stayed pure. Yeah.

(01:03:01):
I mean a lot of robots turn evil, but it's
death to all humans, not like humans based on your race.
But if like the idea of like forcing laughter at
like in a group like your occultists doesn't appeal to you,
there are other ideas on how to be happy. So
Dan Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist who says we're really

(01:03:26):
bad that predicting, like what's going to make us happy?
We overestimate things that will make us happier, like elections,
although hang on, I have a small problem with that
because I think, like maybe for more minor elections where
you're like I kind of want this guy in, Like
maybe that's true, but I think ones where it's like

(01:03:49):
it really is important. It does have I mean, I
know that has an impact life. Yeah, I mean because
like I feel like the study may have been done
in those wonderful pastimes when uh, when elections seemed more normal. Um,
but other things are like romances, promotions, moving to your

(01:04:11):
destination of choice, or even like winning the lottery, which
again small point. There's actually this interesting curve of like
how money improves quality of life, and it's sort of
it shoots up obviously because like money is important to
be able to live and be comfortable. But then after
you know your first cool million, it kind of plateaus

(01:04:32):
because like, you know, there's not a lot of difference
between your first mega yacht and your second mega Like
I don't think a rich person is like you know,
I wasn't really feeling it, but like once I got
like my third Lamborghini, I really just was satisfied. It's
really happy. But a few things that I can actually predict,

(01:04:54):
like how happy you're going to be is one, like, um,
your last memory of an event will kind of color
your whole emotional response to it. So like if you
have a great vacation, but on the last day, like
you pooped your pants, Like you're gonna think, Oh, that
vacation sucked. I pooped my pants. That was the vacation

(01:05:14):
to Hawaii where I pooped my pants, not the one
where it's like because I've been reading my words. So like,
even if you have like like of your vacation was fine,
you snorkeled, you like you served, you know, all these
fun things, but like that one percent was you pooping
your pants, Like that's gonna taint your whole experience. And

(01:05:36):
so some of the best predictors of overall human happiness is, uh,
the amount of time spent with family and friends, which
sounds really sappy, but it's also kind of corresponse to
the studies we talked about earlier with like the African
Gray parents and study of people in the UK, where
it's like, you know, it doesn't it doesn't even have

(01:05:58):
to be like a spouse, like being married or even
having kids don't necessarily predict your happiness, but just like
generally spending time with friends, people you care about, like
or maybe plants. There's this study that shows that so
seniors living in a nursing home we're given a plant
to water, and those that weren't given the plant had

(01:06:23):
like much higher rates of mortality than those that just
were given like this plant to take care of in water.
And it's an interesting thing because like the the ideas
that maybe like having that control over your environment actually
sort of improves your quality of life, and like an
improvement in your quality of life will make you live
a little bit longer because you're like, you know, maybe

(01:06:43):
have more motivation to get up and walk around. And
but I don't think you can just like give an
orangutan a plant, because like they're typically surrounded by plants,
even in zoos, So how do you make them happy?
I mean it is actually pretty similar to human happiness,
like you need like enrichment, socializing control over their environment.

(01:07:06):
And I talked to my friend again who like worked
with orientans, and she said, there's five categories of enrichment.
There's social, cognitive, physical, and sensory, and then my favorite
one food. Uh so, like food is different from sensory.
It is, well yeah, so like physic Yeah, so like

(01:07:26):
sensory would be like you know how like kittycats like
to scratch things, so that would be like they're getting
this sensory feedback from scratching your couch up and then
like the physical is actually like the physical habitat that
they live in, so like the space, so like having
having a place to like go and eat in private,

(01:07:47):
you can do things like give them puzzles with food rewards,
as actually at the San Diego Zoo kind of recently
and I saw the girl has had these little like
envelopes filled with I guess pumpkin seeds or some kind
of food reward, and they're just like it's really kind
of funny because like this huge really just like bussing

(01:08:09):
with this little tiny owned block really long periods of time.
They were just like so interested and they were getting
tiny tiny pieces of food out of it. Like it
just doesn't seem like it would be that like motivating,
but I guess it was interesting enough, and like there's
like a little hole they had to like figure out.
It wasn't the most complicated puzzle, but we gave them jobs. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:08:32):
it's like you're a Maleman now, and it's like, yes,
I am a Maleman. So also, this is really cute.
She was saying that like really social animals need to
have a good relationship with their caretakers, so like with dolphins,
and sea lions if you're if you're training them. Before
they get trained, they're shown photos of different trainers and

(01:08:55):
then the dolphins like boop their noses to the photo
of the person they want to work with, and then
that's that's who they'll work with. Um. And then imagine
being an ugly trainer, like you're the last one picked
by the dolphin and I don't know what dolphin standards are,
and then like that dolphin that gets stuck with you

(01:09:16):
just kind of looks at you guys like, um, I
feel like, you know, maybe looking at these kind of
like enrichment things that we do for animals might help people,
like you know, maybe we should put our sandwiches inside
of a puzzle or like uh, but you know, more realistically,

(01:09:39):
like the kind of like socialization stuff where it's like
with a lot of things, like you know, you just
kind of eat food regularly, but like I feel like,
and you're you're the anthropology person, but like food seems
like a very social thing. So so it's like we're
sort of more in the fast food era of like

(01:10:00):
you shove a thing in your mouth while you're driving
to your six jobs. But like I think it's interesting
because I think maybe like part of like human enrichment
would like actually being making food and then having it
be like a social experience. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I
mean we do that. We do that a lot. We

(01:10:21):
have ceremonies around that, we have Oh wait, you were
saying Thanksgiving. Okay, Oh it's I don't know if that
would be pro social though. Thanksgiving more of a combat arena.
I mean, but that's what most of our like meal
gatherings are combat arenas. There are a lot of both,
and that it's kind of enriching in no way, and

(01:10:42):
actually it's infuriating. Yeah, it's fucking I swear to God
if Grandpa says anything about Israel. But that causes me
to research to state solution issues. And yeah, it's a
form of enrichment, except like, like the puzzle is like
how do I get out of this conversation with my

(01:11:03):
uncle without like how do I get him to not
use the word Palestinian. Yes, it's not just human contact
that helps make us happier. Animals have been scientifically proven
to improve moon and stress levels. A cute stress was
reduced when study participants pet a soft, fuzzy rabbit versus

(01:11:24):
when they pet a soft puzzy toy. Grooming and caring
for horses can help with reducing the negative impacts of PTSD,
and it's not just the fuzzy, cute animals that can
help us. A study found that when elderly people were
given pet crickets, they reported feeling less depressed than a
cricketless control group. I guess the key to happiness is

(01:11:46):
lots and lots of crickets. So how do you got
anything to plug? I probably have shows, Okay, I will
tweet it if I have a show, probably unless it's
a bad show, in which case I won't do that.
But please book me anyway. It's at Hannah Michael. So

(01:12:09):
it's h A N A M I C h E
L S. I know, I don't know, but it's it's
a long story, awesome. And you don't have to apologize
for your name named name. Gotta gotta use your lobster
heart and just like put your name out there when
I slam this claw on the table, you accept that name.

(01:12:31):
So you can follow me on Twitter at Katie Golden
or I mean, I would also suggest very strongly following
at pro bird writes my bird Twitter, where I'm definitely
a human doing a bird and not a bird controlling
a human puppet. Um, And you can follow us at
Creature feet Pod. That's not beat pot like, like, it's

(01:12:52):
not about beat so it's like the shortened feature anyway,
just just you can. You can probably find us on Twitter, Instagram,
m on Facebook, and of course join us next Wednesday
for a more creature feature m hm