Where's My Sage ?!! Episode 112 - Darby Orcutt - Paranormal, Bigfoot and DNA

Join Mike and Kristie from Where's My Sage?!! A Taste of the Universe as they speak with Professor Darby Orcutt about topics ranging from the paranormal and Bigfoot to a new DNA research project. This episode has a little something for everyone.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Hey everyone, it's Tuesday night again. You know what that means, don't
you. It's time to join Mikeand Christie for another episode of Where's My
Sage, a show hosted by asecond medium and a guy on the quest
to fund Bigfoot. Together, theywill take you on all sorts of adventures
and not with lots of different people. Christie even gives readings. It's time

(00:29):
to sit back. No, no, get up and get ready. You
can't sample the universe sitting down.Your hosts are waiting. Come on,
let's go. Good evening, ladiesand gentlemen, and welcome to Where's My
Stage. I'm Mike with my wonderfulco host, Christy London. How are

(00:52):
you doing this evening? Christie?Hello, good evening everybody. I'm well,
how are you good? Manage todrag you into two shows on a
week weekend? And folks are startingto come on in so weekend week that's
how my day is going. We'reh I don't want to hear. No,
no, it's the way we're rocking. So we're gonna get things out

(01:19):
here. We got an amazing guesttonight, and I think that's why my
brain is completely spinning around We're goingto get the oh buttons out of the
way first. Uh. As folksare tuning in, please like, share,
or subscribe, hit those buttons.We are coming to you tonight from
where's my sage on YouTube and Facebook. We're coming at you from Christy London's

(01:40):
page on YouTube and Facebook. We'realso coming to you from where's my Stage
on Twitter and of course tactical Bigfootresearch on Facebook and YouTube. And as
folks come in, we'll say acouple of hellos as folks is going through.
And Hi, Melissa and Larson's here. So Matt, the guys at

(02:04):
work when I wasn't paying attention todaypulled up are your interview with me down
there in Florida. It was kindof interesting paying attention to my voice at
work. Hi, Liz, Hi, Ronda. So everybody's coming in from
all different places. H Matt says, he can take over if you want
to get rid of me. Heis a professional journalist. He would probably

(02:24):
do much better on this side.Waiting from my invite to Florida. Okay,
still waiting Florida. So far it'sbeen all the boys boys trips because
just leave me on everything. Sohere I am what's going on? So,
so what do you got coming upfor adventures? What's new going that
way? Anything? Nothing you cantalk about right now. Yeah, but

(02:51):
well I'm doing the thing in Caledoniain July, Tia, yes, um
yeah, and that's already. Um, it's out there like it's you know,
the tickets are sale II rashell Umyeah, drop me at Lincoln there.
So Christie's doing any reading back inCaledonia, New York. And I
can't do the name of the building, but it's where we did Rochester Parafast.

(03:14):
She'll be there on the twenty ninthof July. And it's historical and
it's just it's really cool building.It's it's gonna be fun. And uh,
now I got to watch my language. Not that I wasn't my language
for my for for our guests thisevening. But Christmas, yeah, we

(03:35):
miss you. Yes, yeah,uh, there's your invite. You can
stay in the airstream. Matt's gotthat whole REDU redone tearstream. Yes,
man, I should drink something differentthan water tonight. Um, but yeah,
you've got that. I'm there thetwenty second with Joe Schneider there the

(03:57):
Atheist. I think that's Matt Is. That's what he's going by this week.
Um, but U Joe's down thestreet. Uh. He actually took
me to his sighting location. Sowe're gonna work some of those color things.
He doesn't know it yet, buthe's gonna find out. But Matt's
or yeah, I'm looking at Matt'sstuff. Joe's stuff is great. And
we're going in a couple of weeks. Were yeah, oh my god,

(04:20):
a couple of weeks. We're goingto Ohio. Yes, we're going to
Ohio. Tommy's crew. We're gonnado a live investigation out there elementary school.
Wait, cannot wait to get inthere for Catholic do I there's the

(04:40):
man? I think it over.I just got here. I said,
you and I are doing a doinga presentation in Caledonia in a couple of
weeks. So dud, they can'tremember if I did two minutes ago.
Come on, you gotta just gottabe with us here. Yes, four
guests to night. At least he'shad enough conversations with me over the last
years to know how I can't talkright. Ronda wants to go to Ohio

(05:02):
with us. We got an upcomingmoose trip coming and they had sightings in
the area where we missed him.Um, and let's see tomorrow night.
I'm on Night Callers Radio seven thirtyCentral or six thirty Central, seven thirty
eastern. Yes, spun around,so we're gonna tell Lauren over there.

(05:26):
Um. Yeah, we've just beenbusy. We've just been everywhere lately and
bouncing around, but there has notbeen really freaking cool the works. But
I can't say anything yet, andit's going to be a while, but
I am super excited because things arealready starting to be put out there about
it, and I you know,but I can't live on that. I'm
about whatever this might be. Soyeah, freaking wait what I was gonna

(05:53):
say, Just so you'd miss anything. Podcast locations or our YouTube channels,
where's my stage Christy London or tackleickod research for the replays if you're ans
Um, So we've got folks inhere. We've got a great guest tonight.
And he has been busy because he'sbeen on everybody's podcasts and stuff like

(06:15):
that, and you've been talking abouthim since you got back from Monster Fust
So I can't wait to talk withhim. Wow. Yeah, I mean
it might be fan growing over someof these people a little bit. We
get things things. I think it'sawesome. Joe. I am not bringing
up yeah will being a power point. But we're gonna talk before I totally
get you there. Your jeep schoolgot cooler stickers than mine. Jeep does

(06:39):
so so so our guest is ifhe's ready, if you can give me
the thumbs up, is as Derbyor caught. I mess up everybuddy's name,
everybody's name, So I'm even gonnaI, you know, had this
whole thing now for proper thing,and here's my buddy Derby. He's here

(07:02):
with us, and I've messed upeverybody's name. How many times have you
I talked to you once a weekat least, uh tax message. It
is completely fine mcne hey. Youare now in the ranks of right and

(07:30):
Jake he's not here from so yes, Um yeah, welcome Derby. It's
nice to meet you. Great tomeet you, Christy, thanks for joining
us. I'll just get my bread. I'll tell I'll help the poor gay
out because you know, if hegets any runner, he's good. Larson
says he can come and help out. I take over my computer. Also

(07:51):
all right, oh my god,you probably get a better investigative journalists working
too. Oh god, so Derby, we ranked yanked you on here.
I know your little stuff here,but tell me what you do for a
living or where you're from, becauseI went through and five times and I've

(08:16):
been correcting everybody, and I've beencorrecting myself to while well, that's all
right, it wasn't completely your fault. You. You made me realize looking
at my website that my web guychanged my university name to another one with
my accident in itself. We're gonnaget that. Yeah, but again.

(08:43):
Yeah, my name is Darby orCut. I am on faculty at North
Carolina State University. UM. Myprimary faculty appointment as is as a librarian
or I'm assistant had for Collections andResearch Strategy. UM. The main thing
that I do was a librarian.That was not something that you would think
of as library work, but II work supporting interdisciplinary research. I put

(09:11):
together research teams that cross all kindsof of diverse fields in order to solve
really thorny, real world issues.UM. And so that was that was
part of part of the background thatI brought applying when I first got interested

(09:35):
in looking into strange things and particularlyinto the sasquatch phenomenon. That's a figuring
out what what is going on thereis a really thorny issue and really requires

(09:56):
taking perspectives from a lot of alot of different yields. And so that's
that that background has been really useful. UM. I also I also hold
various affiliate affiliate factory appointments with ourArtificial and Intelligence Artificial Intelligence and Society Group,

(10:16):
with our Genetic Engineering and Society Center, and I teach in our Science,
Technology and Society program. And soI'm all over the map. I'm
highly interdisciplinary, and I'm engaged ina lot of really interesting work that crosses

(10:39):
just about every area that you canimagine. What kind of was going back
to your job at the university,what kinds of different situations and things do
you actually try to figure out?Like can you talk about that or no?
Yeah, oh absolutely, I meanit's a little bit of everything.

(11:01):
And like I say, what Ido is is I work to to help
put these teams together, to helpfind funding to help support them. I
do a lot of translation work acrossfields. So for example, um,

(11:22):
just for example, I do workwhere I have computer scientists, civil engineers,
and philosophers collaborating and they need tounderstand one another's language, and so
uh that that takes a bit ofbridging to to pick get those folks working
together. Um, and so Iwork on anything, all sorts of interesting

(11:46):
things, any anything from uh justjust very recently, I've been part of
giving a response to the federal governmentwith regard to artificially intelligence regulation that was
just this week. We submitted that. A month ago, I was working

(12:07):
on plans to deploy sensors in coastalforests in order to monitor forest health and
to be able to create a sustainableecosystem that would hold carbon, which is
very important. And thinking about climatechange in particularly sea level rise in coastal

(12:31):
areas which are threatening this coastal forest. You name it, probably worked on
something, uh you know any youknow any of these any of the again,
any of these thorny issues. I'mI'm trying to figure out who are
the folks that we need to bringtogether in order to address them. So

(12:52):
you're the network, You're the glueguy, And I apologize for laughing.
All I can see is that Melbrookscene, the stand up philosopher when you
said that, and I'm just youknow, just three of the world there,
Matt thinks, So, see,I think they're doing forest park thing
here in Florida. I remember hearingof those censors. Are they down there

(13:16):
in Florida that you know, itwouldn't surprise me a single bit. I
wouldn't be surprised if they were interesting. Now, I'm going to wrap us
back to the bigfoot thing, butyou're interested in the paranormal as well,
correct, I am. And itwas actually my work with putting together these

(13:37):
interdisciplinary research teams that led me tomy interest in all kinds of strange things.
I was working quite a few yearsago, and I can completely talk
about this because this is all publicinformation, but I was the university had
been invited by DARPA, the DefenseAdvanced Research Project ex Agency, to submit

(14:01):
a preproposal for a particular technology thatthey wanted us to develop. And this
was and this was many years agonow, so it may not sound as
strange now as it did then tothe general public. But what they wanted

(14:22):
was they wanted a no larger thanone cubic centimeter microship that could be implanted
in the human brain that could readand write to the brain. And so
here I was. I was,I was helping bring together this team.
And I'm sitting in a room ifwe're six or eight of us. I've
got a biomedical engineer, I've gotelectrical engineer, I've got a design specialist,

(14:46):
psychologist, you know, psychology researcher, a number of other things.
And I had this moment of feelingone like I was in a science fiction
movie, because I knew that whilewe're sitting here taking this thing seriously within
this room, probably even at thattime, probably most of my colleagues at

(15:13):
the university would have thought this wassomething very very strange, and certainly the
general public at that time would haveset up maybe this is even impossible to
really think about. We think ofour minds as you know, our own
you know, nobody can put informationin or take information out directly. But

(15:35):
it was really interesting to me becauseI at this moment of thinking also about
here we are at an elite scienceand engineering university, and we are thinking
about how to accomplish telepathy through technology. And yeah, I was at that

(15:58):
time only somewhat aware that there werepeople called parapsychologists who were looking into natural
means for telepathy and somehow considered outsideof mainstream science, and it struck me
as an interesting question. Why wouldthat be? You know, why can't

(16:23):
we essentially ask the same question witha technological solution. And it's wow,
this is getting edge science. Ifyou ask if there could be a natural
mechanism for this, that's somehow pseudoscienceor fringe science or whatever. It seemed
a really interesting question to me.It still seems a very interesting question to

(16:45):
me. And I had been teachingfor many years about how science works,
not just in its not just inits ideal form, but how it works
culturally, institutionally, And I thought, you know, this is a really

(17:11):
interesting way to think about those questions. Let me look into some of these
fringe science fields. Let me lookinto these strange these areas with you know,
strange things that people are attempting tostudy scientifically. And I end up
building a course around this. SoI teach a course, and hey,

(17:36):
I named it so the students wouldcome. It's called science PSI sasquatching spirits
cool, that's pretty cool. Welook into all sorts of strange ideas,
not just claims, but potential evidenceand we use this as a lens into

(18:00):
how science defines itself, how itsinstitutions function. And I haven't been afraid
to ask these questions of where,you know, where should we perhaps draw
the boundaries? Are we drawing themin the right ways and in the right
places? And so it's a veryfun course to teach. It's of course

(18:26):
that the students really love and engagewith, and it's led me also to
working in some really interesting areas,putting together some research projects, some collaborative
and interdisciplinary research projects that take,you know, take very serious inquiry into

(18:56):
areas that you just don't find thatin. Do you find your students changing
majors after taking that class or expandingyou know, what they're doing, because
it sounds like almost o you know, disciplines. Once you're like, hey,

(19:17):
this is what I wanted to goto school, but there's so much
other stuff I can breathe for that. Well, that's the idea, and
we're hoping, we're hoping that willhappen in the future. Up until now,
however, I've unfortunately the last coupleof times I've offered the course,
it has filled so quickly that onlythe seniors who have priority for registration have

(19:41):
been able to get a seat,so so it's too late for them to
change their majors and their last semester, but it's certainly been something they've really
appreciated the course. But what I'mdoing, what I'm in the process of
doing, I just taught the coursein this spring. I'm getting ready to
teach it again this fall, isthat I've worked with the department to to

(20:07):
greatly expand the class and have alot more students and also to hold at
least half of the seats for underclassmen. Because that's what I really want to
do, is and that's why theI teach and the I teach it.
As I mentioned in the Science,Science, Technology, and Society program,
and it showcases in many ways thevery a lot of the various ways that

(20:36):
you think within the Science, Technology, and Society and Society major, which
is to really think about not justthe technical aspects of science, not just
to learn the scientific theory, butto learn something of the history, the
philosophy, the regulatory environment, allof the cultural aspects, the social aspects

(21:03):
of science that have a tremendous impacton how science has done, what science
is done, and what happens withthe results. What kind of backlash do
you get from this? Have youreceived any? And what kind of students

(21:26):
do you receive people? Or doyou have people sign up that are skeptical,
um, that are there to challengethe whole concepts? Yeah, well
I do have. UM, I'vehad a mix of students I've had.
I've had. I would say thatI've had a few real hardcore skeptical students

(21:48):
and a few real anything paranormal isfantastic kind of students. I mean,
but I would day that, Yeah, I mean, I would say that
mostly, and I've been really I'vebeen really happy. Mostly I've drawn the
curious. I've drawn students who arefairly middle of the road in terms of

(22:15):
the ways they think about these things, UM, and and students who have
an open mind and are willing toconsider both creative and critical perspectives towards the
subjects. UM. I I haveto say, I really haven't had too

(22:41):
much backlash. I've actually had anawful lot of support. UM. The
university uh has you know, it'sit's you know, the courses, the
courses approved. It's a full permanentcourse. Now. UM. I've I've
had I had one person through theapproval process who seemed to be highly skeptical

(23:11):
that that just should be, ofcourse, but that was fine. UM.
Yeah, I mean, you know, more than more than anything I
think I've had. UM. Imean part of that is is that the
way that I teach the course,it isn't a you know, let's let's
let's let's blindly accept any any strangeidea that comes along. One of the

(23:34):
things that I do is distinguished verycarefully in my own work and when I
talk about these things that UM,because I think that a lot of the
UM. I guess you'd say thecapital s skeptical community UM focuses on critique
of of of paranormal ideas. Okay, UM, which is fine, we

(24:00):
should be critical of paranormal ideas,UM. But unfortunately, I think the
nuance that they miss is is thateven though people may promote strange ideas,
they may promote ideas that are notfully baked or perhaps even sometimes baked at

(24:22):
all. UM, They're embedded inthat the questions that people have, the
questions that people are trying to answerwith these ideas are rooted in experiences that
people have. They're rooted in thingsthat people see, that they they hear,

(24:45):
they they they that they experience andin some cases they you know,
these phenomena things that people have beenreporting, you know, for thousands of
years, UM and so UM tonot take those questions seriously, Yeah,

(25:10):
seems just strange to me. SoI think there's a there's a difference between
um investigating these areas scientifically, beinginterested in exploring them. That is not
something that I that I think youshould be that people should should shut.

(25:33):
I mean, we have to facethe questions that people have, and I
think, you know, scientists havenot always been open to that in certain
areas, and I get it becauseit's sometimes it's hard. I mean sometimes
it's hard to separate the the theideas of the theories that people put forward

(26:00):
from the questions that they have.So that's that's what you have to do
if you're going to try to understandthese things through a scientific leans. Right.
Do you have a lab component partof the class at all? Um?
You know, it's funny because Italked about the classes being kind of

(26:22):
like a lab class because we dowe do do a lot of lab things.
One of the things that we dois we actually I have the students
build their own EMF meters electromagnetic fieldmeters from scratch, so they have the

(26:44):
opportunity to see what goes into thatto understand how an MF meter works,
what it measures, how it measureson what scale. And that's really important
for thinking about how how you considerthe pop culture idea that you know,

(27:07):
oh, a change in EMF equalsa ghost, which there's one of these
you know again, is one ofthese ideas that we have in popular culture.
It's something you see on television.And yet that is a largely uninvestigated

(27:30):
question as to whether what what EMFchanges even might mean, let alone do
they connect to some idea that couldbe considered as as a ghost, which
is a ghost is not something thatyou can even define scientifically. That's kind
of a catch all for a lotof a lot of ideas. So we

(27:53):
try to really unpack that um andwe do. We do actually go out
in the field. I've I've takenstudents on you know, ghost hunts.
I have I have a project wherethe students actually do take environmental readings in

(28:14):
purportedly haunted sites and non haunted sitesto compare those readings and start to start
to to build an idea of youknow, is there are there differences because
that you know, we to saythat, you know, to say that
particular environmental changes are connected with hauntingexperience is to claim that, you know,

(28:42):
you'd have to really understand what whatenvironmental changes happen in normal environments,
and that's largely undocumented, so youdon't even know. So there's a question
from Matt from Florida, Um,how effective wouldn't EMF meter b if used

(29:02):
in the Florida swamp and what doesa spike to fifteen to thirty or so
meet? I know there's a coupleof guys down there, they're starting to
use things down in Florida. Soyeah, well, you know, I'm
gonna leave that up there. That'sa very that's a very long question.
We could probably spend the rest ofthe interview on that, but I'll give

(29:23):
a short answer. UM, Imean, what the biggest thing is It
really depends on what EMF meter you'reusing and uh, whether you uh you
understand how to use it and whatit's measuring. Uh. Most most of

(29:44):
which you see deployed in in mediaghost hunting are very simple MF meters.
They're they're k two meters or somethinglike that. Uh, those meters they
only measure. There's let's put itthis way. There's three components to an
MF field, and those meters onlymeasure one of them. They also only

(30:08):
measure within the scale of of essentiallyof household wiring, because they're intended as
tools to find problems with with wiringin a house. UM. Also,
you'll often see on the on theon the ghost shows on television, they'll

(30:29):
they'll be waving them around and yeahthat if you actually read the instructions,
it'll say you have to hold itstill in order to get inaccurate reading.
If you wave it around, ofcourse it's going to light up or or
register something different. U. Andactually, because it's only measuring, you
know, one of these aspects ofan MF field, even turning it slightly
can change what you're measuring. UM. So again, there's it's it's a

(30:56):
it's very it's it's very very veryum uh complicated. But but you know,
if you if you really look intowhat you know what MF is,
UM and you really you know,you read that instruction book for the meter.
UM. Most people who do anykind of scientific work with an MF

(31:19):
meter are our work, you know, certainly work with one that that uh
uh with a tri field type meter, so with a catch all three of
those uh those aspects of the field. Um. And again it depends on
what you're If you're in the swampwhere you're not going to be likely to

(31:40):
be encountering uh uh wiring or humanyou know, human uh you know,
uh, human produced EMF UM,then you probably are going to be wanting
to use a something's called like anatural EMF meter that is actually uh calibrated

(32:05):
to a completely different uh part ofthe scale, part of the spectrum where
you will be able to determine what'sa natural EMF field. UM. It's
yeah, it's it's very uh youknow, it's there's there's a lot that
goes into it. Like I say, that's the really short synopsis, but

(32:30):
uh, you know, the troubleis that most people who are out in
the field using trying to use EMFreally have no idea what it is that
they're measuring. And so that's whyI really try to get the students to
get an understanding of you know,where are they, where are they where
are they measuring within the frequency spectrum. What does the instrument do? How

(32:54):
does it work? Um? Andyou know that's that's to even get to
the point where you can take anaccurate measurement, let alone know what that
measurement might possibly mean. And again, we don't have a lot of data
for that period in any field toknow how common EMF changes are and you

(33:22):
know in what sorts of context dothey do? They normally occur, So
if you don't want it's normal,it's really hard to know what's not normal.
So I had two questions. Onehave you ever brought in a psychic
or a medium especially to work withyour students and help maybe do some experiments?

(33:50):
And two when you bring your studentson these these ghost hunts, right,
these investigations to these hunted locations,Um, how are you conducting the
investigations? And what example are youdoing when you bring them there? Great
questions. The answer your first questionis yes, I have I have brought

(34:15):
I have brought a psychic medium intomy class before. Um. Uh,
you know, and I think Iwill probably do that again. It's it's
hard to you know, I havea lot of I have the biggest problem
I have with the classes. There'sso much content I could possibly cover and

(34:37):
cramming it all in is yeah,sure, I'm sure, but um,
you know, I have done that. I did do that in an earlier
semester, and I think it wasan interesting experience. And I think that,
um, while it wasn't a itdidn't end up being like a you

(34:59):
know, watershed moment. I thinkit was really interesting for the students to
see the the culture of mediumship,if you will, And I think that
that was something to see that theways in which one thinks and speaks within

(35:24):
a scientific environment is quite different thanthe ways that most mediums converse and think
and talk about what they do.And it's you know, I think it's
one of the things that I hopeto do in the future is I have
a a friend who's a psychic medium, but who also is very conversant with

(35:49):
the science pair of psychology, andso I'm hoping in the future to be
able to draw on him and tryto try to bridge that little bit more,
because I think that's one of thethings that's to my mind that's really
interesting. It's not so much eventhe phenomenon of mediumship, but just the

(36:10):
way that it represents a such avery different worldview than than a scientific worldview,
but that doesn't mean that it's anincompatible worldview. Interesting. So what
about when you bring your students onthese investigations. Yeah, well, the

(36:34):
the investigations are you know, nottrue investigations in the sense I mean,
we do go out and do whatwe do, but I have so many
students there's no you know, there'sno way that they're not you know,
tripping over each other, and youknow, you know, it's very difficult
to know, like you know,to to stop and listen and know that,

(36:59):
oh I heard that and not knowthat it wasn't one of the you
know, twenty some odd other studentswho are shapesing around right now. But
it's good enough for them. Theysort of have have an have an experience
of it and to sort of understandlike what goes on in an investigation even
though it's you know, it's it'sa it's a it's a it's a model

(37:23):
rather than any any sort of realinvestigation. Sure, I understand that.
So but do you just kind ofgo to this place and say, okay,
here, go ahead and explore thisis what we're looking for, Trying
this, Trying that is that basicallywhat happens. Um. You know,
I'm changing, I'm changing actually theway that I do that. I'm constantly

(37:45):
evolving the course. I have donesomething similar to that a couple of times
in the past, where um,I've had the students going sort of a
traditional almost like the type of ghosthunt that you'd see on television, to
sort of have that experience, tocritique that experience. UM and uh and

(38:10):
yes somebody who knows the building inplace, Yes, yes, absolutely,
UM And again that's a really interestingexperience for the students. You I hurt
you in the intro mentioning an elementaryschool, we actually went to an all
retired elementary school that was reportedly haunted, and that was that was an interesting

(38:36):
experience, and it was it wasactually very hilarious too, because what we
didn't realize, the students didn't realize, was that there was one wing of
that elementary school that had been renovatedand was being used as a community center.
And so while we were in sortof the abandoned like completely oh hellish,

(39:00):
hellishly looking, some of the studsome of the some of the students
had wandered off and actually found thethe community center apart, and uh and
they and this this, this smallgroup came back and this this this one

(39:21):
young one was telling the story.She's like, yes, we were,
we were there and and and wewalked into this area and it was a
big presentation area with a stage andand then we heard a voice behind us
and we looked and there was alittle girl sitting there. And you know,
they proceed to tell about this conversationthey had with a little girl,

(39:44):
you know, this little girl,and and um and you know, and
my other students are like wrapped,They're like what and you heard what?
You heard what? And then atsome point the students had gone off the
community center in to come back,realized that the other students didn't know that

(40:05):
that existed, and so she stopped. She's like, no, no,
no, it was a real littlegirl. I think there were people there.
There was something. We're talking withthis real little girl. She's like,
I can't believe I'm having to saythis, but I guess. So

(40:30):
here we are in this moment.That's funny. They're they're all trying to
talk to ghosts. And I mean, honestly, everybody that's that's popping in,
please like share subscribe. Hello forthe old timers that are coming back.
I see some old face popping intothe chat. Derby's with us tonight.

(40:52):
We got him on the paranormal thingand now we're gonna kind of drag
him towards that big free creature bigFoot. But just thinking about your students,
even though you're doing that science stuff, do you haven't an architecture program
at the university or no? Ohwe do, yes, absolutely, because

(41:12):
I mean if you're going to studythese old buildings and everything like that.
I mean that's one thing we've noticedgoing to different places like Mansfield Prison where
they still do weddings in the oldyou know, dining hall and stuff because
the marble. I mean there's aprison. You're getting married in a prison
because of the architecture, you know. And it's just thinking about that kind

(41:32):
of thing. So now you've gotthe paranormal you're working this. Now comes
that big free guy or girl orwhatever, we don't know what it is.
How do you get involved with withthis watch? Yeah. So it
was one of those things where whenI first started developing the course, having

(41:54):
an interest in this area, andyou know, I thought, yeah,
I mean, like I said,I mean, I thought, initially,
hey, this would be a greatway to teach how science works in the
real world. And it's it's provena wonderful way to teach that. And
uh yeah, And so obviously thesasquatch phenomenon is one of those big one

(42:22):
of those big big ones. AndI think that it gives a different it
gives a different a different perspective,and it offers a different set of issues
and a different set of of ofthings to consider them thinking about ghosts or
mediums or psychic powers or what haveyou. Um uh. And in fact,

(42:45):
I mean, I'm sure as asas you say that, there there
are lots of folks. I meanall the time, I'll meet folks who
are, you know, really interestedin psychic medium stuff and they think the
bigfoot stuff is silly? Who howcould anybody leave that? And you meet
bigfoot people who are like all aboutbigfoot, Oh my gosh, this must
be out there, and you know, and like, you know the idea

(43:09):
that you know, mind reading couldhappen. No, no, no,
that's ridiculous, you know. So, um so you have a lot of
these different areas, um and youknow, and I you know, of
course I have you know, uh, my own questions about all of these
things, because they are you know, these these are you know, human

(43:30):
experiences that people have UM. Andthe sasquatch phenomenon is really interesting because there
is also in a way that thereisn't UM. There isn't in some of
these other fields. There are uh, there's more trace evidence. There is

(43:53):
uh some alleged physical evidence UM.And of course, you know, a
consistency to reports that is greater thanlike, I never I first didn't and
I still haven't dealt a whole lotin the class with like the UFO phenomena,

(44:17):
because it seems so diverse to me, at least initially it seems so
diverse. So some people see flyingsaucers, some people see little green men,
some people see cigar shapes. Youknow, at least when you're talking
about the sasquatch phenomena, you know, you don't have some people saying,
oh, it's big and hairy,and they're saying it was tiny and bald.

(44:43):
So there's at least an idea that, you know, maybe there's an
underlying reality or at least you know, some some shared reality that people are
experiencing. M. So it's itwas one of the It was one of
the It was one of the phenomenathat I really knew that I wanted to
cover in the course. Um andso I had to really, uh you

(45:07):
know, I had to read upon it. I spent a lot of
time actually going out with amateur bigfootinvestigators in the field to see what they
do, um, see what particularlythose who were who were taking you know,
or so they were taking scientific approaches, to see if that, you

(45:30):
know, to what extent was thatindeed the case, and what did that
mean for them? And how didthey go about observing and documenting what it
was that they observed and documented?Um it uh, yeah, it was
really and I know I've mentioned toyou, Mike. One of the one

(45:51):
of the folks that I uh uhthat I met along the way, unfortunately
never met in person. Um,I became very fast friends with over the
telephone was the late doctor John Pendernogle, who was a wildlife biologist, Canadian
wildlife biologist and one of a fewfolks with a relevant PhD who took the

(46:20):
phenomenon very seriously. And it wasinteresting because John had written a book,
his second book called The Discovery ofthe sasquatch where he had after years of
as a wildlife biologist trying to gethis field to look at potential evidence and

(46:47):
finding finding that very difficult to evenhave it looked at examined by by scientists.
In that book he worked that out. He got into issues of the
history, the philosophy of science,the culture of science as a way to

(47:10):
understand for himself why he was havingsuch a tough time making this case.
When I met him, it wasafter I taught the course. I think
I taught the course once. Atthat point I was getting set to teach
it again the next year, andwe used to laugh because I had come,

(47:37):
I had come to the sasquatch phenomenafrom the other angle, which was
I was very engaged with trying toteach and explain the history, the philosophy,
the culture and how that impacts scientificpractice, and that had got me
interested in the sasquatch. So herewe were coming, you know, essentially

(48:00):
essentially to a very similar place,um, but from completely opposite directions.
UM. And that was something thatthat was really that was really neat um.
And it was first and actually itwas first in talking to him.
He was the first one that Ithat I shared with my my plans,

(48:23):
which which took years to come tothe point where they are now. Um,
to actually um wrap true you know, top notch scientific work into to
to bring those scientists in in away that could hopefully give us some real

(48:49):
insight into the sasquatch question. Um. And that's where I am now with
the with the DNA study. Andthat's just that that's I knew we'd we'd
be able to wrap it right intothere. So you took from A to
B to C. And now inthe last couple of weeks you've managed to

(49:12):
come out and what have you donewith your networking? And then you have
some questions in there, Denise,I'm going to get to your question.
And then, uh, I gotone that's kind of running in the back
of my mind on a thing,you know, with your background as a
librarian. But so you've had yourclass, you've got your thing. Now

(49:35):
we're here, we're what about thisDNA? What are we doing with DNA?
Yeah? So UM, this isone of the things that that struck
me was that there have been anumber of reports, certainly a number of
claims over many many years, uh, from investigators and experience of of of

(50:00):
sasquatch that they you know, theysay, oh, well, you know,
at the place where this happened,I found this hair, and this
hair looks unusual or what have you? And I had been asked by a
number of investigators over the years,you know what, you know, where

(50:22):
do I send this to get tested? I've got this, I've got this,
and and I actually looked into that. I looked into a lot of
the commercial labs, the work thatthey do UM. I looked into how
they did it and how professionally theydid it. And I really found that
I wasn't able to make a recommendationto anyone because I wasn't convinced from what

(50:50):
I've seen, what I'd seen ofthe few commercial lab reports that have been
shared with me and such, Iwasn't convinced that if there were something truly
unique there, that those commercial labswould even necessarily notice or care UM.

(51:12):
And I say that because I hadseen a number of of UM, a
number of reports, a small numberof reports where the labs had obviously given
an answer, but not necessarily theyhad they had it seemed that they had
been more than happy to take someone'smoney and to give them an answer that

(51:37):
way. Um. And unfortunately,you know, particularly when you're talking about
something that is would would be ifyou know, if if Bigfoot exists,
and if Bigfoot, you know,if if if somebody has a sample of
that, that would be um monumentalAnd so you really need to be able

(51:59):
to trust that and have a credibleplace to take a look at that.
And unfortunately, you know, therereally have been very few opportunities over the
years for for for folks who hadsuch samples to even potentially have them looked

(52:22):
at by somebody who was credible,credible in the sense that they could do
the work and you could rely onthe results. Um. So that was
one problem that I was determined tofix. And I knew from my work
with you know, putting together differentteams, and this is what I had
talked about with John bender Nagle whereU and that he was really intrigued by

(52:51):
this and he would have loved tohave seen this come together, I know.
But my idea was this from fromyears of putting together teams, I
always reckonize that when you bring togetherthese experts in these different domains, you
need to you need to have aproject that has multiple outcomes, and particularly

(53:17):
that has outcomes that address the needsof the research agenda of each individual participant,
and those agendas are very very different. So with this study, for
example, I am interested in thesasquatch phenomenon. I'm the only one of

(53:44):
my collaborators who's interested in the sasquatchphenomenon. My other collaborators all bring interest
in other other things, in developingnew forensic techniques, in training PhD students
into looking into a true unknowns,which is something that they rarely get to

(54:12):
do. They rarely look at somethingthat you know, usually when they're doing
particularly genetic analysis, is something therethey are they know what it is they're
looking at, and they're looking atmaybe a small unknown about some particular aspect
of it. But this is wonderfultraining for them to be able to look
at something that they don't know necessarilywhat it is heading in and they have

(54:38):
to figure that out from scratch.They so and I, you know,
I'm working with a really top notchmy cross Fist that I found kind of
laid in the game and working withhim on developing forensic techniques as well as

(54:59):
I'm sorry, I don't know whatthat is oh, I'm sorry. I
want to understand the rest of whatyou're saying, and I don't know what
that is. He works with,he works with viewing things through through a
microscope. Okay, he looks atvery he looks at very small things.

(55:21):
Those are the people down the hallfrom you at work, Christie. UM,
thank you. Now I can understandthe rest of what you're saying.
Okay, Um. But actually helooks at you know, he actually does.
Okay, here's the thing, umUh. He actually looks looks at

(55:44):
the microscope and looks at things tothe molecular level. So he looks at
molecules and things as small as molecules. And so UM. I actually met
him through our our mutual interest inartificial intelligence because he's using he's using artificial
intelligence to find certain things in thatwasn't very nice man. So he's using

(56:15):
artificial intelligence to look at at atlots and lots and lots of images to
find the very small pieces in therethat he's looking for, um and so
forth and so um, I havesome ideas about how we might use how
we might do some things without.So the idea is is that there are
all these other possible outcomes apart fromapart from you know, my interest in

(56:42):
seeing these unusual samples looked at.Um, there's all sorts of other other
interests. And so the way toput together a really successful interdisciplinary collaboration is
to make sure that you have makesure that you're make sure that it's doing

(57:04):
something for all participants. Um,that's awesome. I mean, just to
take all those different disciplines to putthem together and it's just not blinders on.
We're looking for X. Yeah,the whole benefit, you know,
and you've you've heard me preach aboutboth you and most of our audience has

(57:30):
and Central Florida for big Foot's mybuddy Matt and that's why I do a
lot of stuff with and usually mattsand when he gets stuck, when I
go, hey, here's a newapp, here's a new three D scanner,
here's something. He's the guy thatthrows me all the camera stuff.
Is our research into this topic bringsus so much other, so many other
disciplines. You know, when youand I started talking back in the day,

(57:52):
Hey did you talk to somebody aprimatologist on soul loris or those those
primitive aspects and hearing you know,you know, I'm doing the stuff with
with Doug, and who knows whatmight happen with this UV thing. You
know, probably not much of anything. But we're going to collect a whole
bunch of hair in the process andtake a look at it and if we
had something that past, but we'regonna have known samples that I can and

(58:15):
over to you. And and youknow that's you know, not to to
drag you through because I know youhad a long week. Is somebody does
have something? Matt said, youknow, he's got a friend or acquaintance,
Tim t that we know, andTim's been on the show with us.
Um, he's got a bunch ofsamples. Um, is the study

(58:38):
open? I know right now you'reyou're working on some of the processes and
stuff. We know, yes andyes, And I know I shared the
link for the the initial intakes surveywith you. Is that something you've if
you could drop that in the shownotes or go ahead and work on getting

(58:59):
that into the show once again,I've got it in text message all right,
So I will get over to theother side of the house. Here,
I'm using a different I'm on myremote computer instead of my regular computer
because nobody's watching the dogs tonight.Um, but if somebody does have it

(59:22):
here you know, yes, youknow, I've I've gone through this.
But now we actually have lots offolks listening because you know, we've we've
got the paranormal thing going. We'vegot this going. How do you want
a package? You know? Imean, I know I do it all
the time, but for you inthe lab, you know, people don't
want to go out the different thingslike bring kits and I hand him gets

(59:44):
here, here's all the paper orwhatever, and while I try to find
the webs Yep, here we go. Well, let me make it easy
for you, please the U sothat the survey the survey form is online.
Um. Now, somebody can reachout to me if they you know,

(01:00:06):
if somebody doesn't do online, Ican. I'm happy to get your
print version if you need it.But I assume if they're they're watching this,
hopefully they're online in some way.Um. The but the the surveys
online, you can just fill thatout it and don't don't stress about it.

(01:00:29):
If there's a question you're not surehow to answer, don't worry about
it. Take your best stab atit, because um, it's It's what
that initial survey is meant to dois just for us to know who has
samples, to offer, kind ofwhat kind of samples they are, tell
us a little bit about the contextof them, why you think they're interesting

(01:00:53):
or unusual, uh, and youknow, and and tell us something about
how they've been collected and stored.And again, don't fret if you haven't
you know, if you haven't collectedand stored them and using the best forensic
techniques, don't worry about that becauseyou know, hey, you know,

(01:01:17):
crime scene investigators all the time haveto work with crime scenes that are less
than perfect. That's what a lotof forensic work is about. So there's
your sample form. They okay,fantastic, thank you. Yeah, and
you can trupt the URL for thatin there so that philps have it.
You are always dropped down on allof them. Right there we go.

(01:01:44):
So for those folks listen on streamyard or Spotify or whatever, just go
to our YouTube channel it where's mystage or Tactical Big Food Research and the
link will be in the don'ts there, Thank you very much, Mike.
Yeah. So what will happen isis that folks will fill this out UM
at some point with you know,with with these we're going to use this

(01:02:08):
to to prioritize UM. That doesn'tmean that, you know, if you
don't hear back right away, itdoesn't mean we're not going to look at
your sample or we don't want it. It just means that, uh,
you know, we're human. Wehave only a certain amount of bandwid And
it depend on you know, whatthe flow of the flow of offers,
the samples coming in is um,what will what will happen in these cases,

(01:02:32):
it will use this to do aninitial prioritization UM based on what we
think might hopefully yield an interesting result. A lot of that calculation will will
depend on the age of the sample, the circumstances in which has been found
and stored, because you know,DNA does tend to degrade. And so

(01:02:57):
if somebody says, hey, I'veI've had I've had this sample for thirty
years and I've kept it out inmy garage and it gets one hundred degrees
in the summer every summer then andit's been in a plastic bag sealed up,
and you know, we're unlikely tobe able to get DNA from that.
We may eventually want to try ifit's unusual enough, but we're probably

(01:03:20):
going to be looking at first foryou know, samples that we think are
more likely to yield interesting results.I'll be following this up in those cases
with an interview with folks. Soreaching out and and you know, either
online like this or you know,through a you know, teleconferencing or by

(01:03:45):
phone to learn a little bit moreSo if you you know so again,
if you're not you know, ifyou're not sure how to answer some of
these questions, you'll have plenty ofopportunity later to explain you know what you
know, uh, explain, explainthings, um. And then from there

(01:04:05):
at that point, if if ifwe are prioritizing um, if we are
prioritizing your sample, then we're goingto reach out and that's when we'll tell
you how to how to package thatup. We are to send it.
We're not putting the address out therebecause we don't want un solicited samples.

(01:04:27):
UM. I know, I knowthat. Uh, you know, Jeff
Meldrum's told me a story of receivinga box of poop and the return address
that's just it was just in thecardboard. Ye, no idea who sent
it anything. I don't want that, you know, we want to know

(01:04:49):
quite a few days with him,I could just imagine his place can happen.
It's just you know, with straightin the trash. You know,
we gotta send a but you knowso yeah, so, well you'll get
the instructions on that, you know. I mean I think that honestly,

(01:05:11):
Uh, Mike, I think you'reyou're eminently qualified to, you know,
to explain to folks how if theyyou know, if they're fine, if
they find samples in the future,you know, whether it's next week or
next month or whatever. You're eminentlyqualified to be able to tell folks you

(01:05:32):
know, what are good practices foryou know, how to collect those samples,
how to store them. I thinkthe most important thing. The most
important thing is people do tend tolike to stick things in plastic baggies and
seal them up, and that isabout the worst thing you can do for
potential DNA sample because any moisture that'sin there, any anything, well,

(01:05:59):
it does breathe and it will justdegrade that DNA very very quickly. So
if you have samples, you're bestoff putting them in in paper, paper
envelope ideally acid free. But again, I mean, uh, you know
there are there's certainly gold standard techniquesthat Mike, I know you can you

(01:06:23):
can tell your listeners anytime you knowwhat they are, because we'll do we'll
do a tactical Tuesday. We'll doanother tactical Tuesday on that and uh,
you know, kind of go throughthe cats. Yeah, but I don't
at the same Yeah. But atthe same time, I don't want anybody
to, you know, I meanif somebody, if somebody plucked the hair

(01:06:44):
off a sasquatch last month and putit in a plastic bag, I don't
want to say, you know,don't submit it. I mean, that's
the thing. I mean, ifyou got the got the sandwich bag from
lunch. I mean I remember thefirst samples we got. That's all I
had. I had a plastic bagand we got back. We put them
in a platform and right to apaper envelope, you know, and it

(01:07:08):
was making sure we had some somegloves and stuff like that. You know,
if you've got a first aid kitin your in your bag, you
know, you probably got a pairof tweezers to pull some you know,
uh, you know, a sliverout and you got a pair of gloves.
You know, don't waste everything inyour first aid kit. But I
always put an extra things in aset up, so you know, always

(01:07:28):
works. So I'm just so happyabout this, you know, knowing that
there's going to be a whole othergeneration of scientists that are you know,
these kids are going to be inthere working in the labs, learning something
that your inspiration and doing this,like you said, doing your class and
and all the other scientists and stuffthat's there. You know, it's not

(01:07:49):
just you know, sitting behind andyou know where AI is is taking over
everything. You know, well,you're you're approaching it from so many different
perspectives and angles. It's not justyou're not sure excited about it at all.
You know you're open to any possibilityand you're willing to explore that.
You know that's not very common unfortunately. You know. So you find a

(01:08:16):
new species, not doesn't have tobe in you know, our line,
maybe a new bear or a newI don't know, muskrat or something like
that. Do you have a nicenaming team ready to go, or you're
going to wait and see what happensthere. Well, you know, that's

(01:08:36):
something I'm just I am just startingto think about. As it would be.
Whatever you think the possibilities are offinding a new species through this study,
whether whether you think they're very highor whether you think they're extremely low,

(01:08:57):
it would be irresponsible for me notto be at least somewhat prepared for
that possibility. Um. So yeah, but you know, I haven't you
know, naming you know, whoknows? I mean, you know,
I mean, obviously it would dependon what it is, if you know,
you know, and and it's it'sfunny. I mean, as I

(01:09:18):
told my colleagues when we first startedthe project, I said, well,
I said, here's here's the goodnews. If there is a sasquatch species
out there, an unknown species,and we find it, we're guaranteed publication
in Nature, which is the toplife sciences journal, absolutely guaranteed. So

(01:09:46):
um yeah, but I mean asfar as as far as all that,
you know, I mean I thinkthat that you know, it's it's it's
it's too speculative for me now tothink about naming. So we've got some
comments in there. Micah, who'scoming in from I'm gonna screw it up,

(01:10:06):
amsterdamn rightes yeff. She said shewould have loved to have a teacher
like this when she was in heryounger days. Um, she can type
faster I think. Yeah, Andyou know, it's like four o'clock in
the morning. She's translating in twolanguages and still gets things out faster than

(01:10:28):
I get out. I was gonnasay, I'm honored that someone's up in
the middle. She's she's a diehard. It only took me. It
took me almost a year to gether name down, right, It take
you longer than a year to gether name down. He's still screwed up.

(01:10:49):
She even spoid it phonetically for himone time. He's still screwed It's
just like she's like, it's justlike your name, Mike. Uh,
that's a good either of that.It's your name. Oh yeah, great,

(01:11:11):
Um, very interesting. It's threefifteen in the morning over there.
So yeah, thank you dear forbeing with us. Ste Love is listening
to all of our guests and learningall about these things, and is all
of you know, all of ourguests are all of our our listeners and
our viewers too, so we reallyappreciate that. It's just so important to
go through. So have you startedreceiving examples to start? Um, not

(01:11:36):
yet. We just we actually justlaunched the just launched the survey online a
week and a half ago is whenit opened. So I'm dropping a survey
one more time in here. Shoot. So, um, we've had We've
had a h a handful, barehandful of responses thus far. Um,

(01:12:00):
although I've heard from a number offolks that, you know, they they
intend to fill it out. SoI hope that those folks will go ahead
and do that sooner rather than later. I but um, yeah, So
we're gonna, you know, we'llwe'll see from there because we're you know,
part of again, part of ourprocess of prioritizing things sort of requires

(01:12:24):
us seeing at least a little bitof what maybe you know, what may
be coming to us. Um.So, and I think that you know,
certainly at this point there there aresome of those some of those folks
I'm going to start reaching out toprobably in the next week or so,
a week or two and scheduling atime to to really hear the fuller story

(01:12:51):
behind it and and collect some information. And then as a team, we're
gonna we're gonna make those judgments asto which for the samples. We're ready
to go ahead and and receive andstart with the first and folks, when
you when you look at that,that's I mean, that's a huge endeavor
being able to interview and getting allthat information and getting the data I mean

(01:13:15):
before getting a sample. I mean, you have a lot of work looking
at how intense the questionnaire is.I mean we have a mutual you know,
acquaintance for Ryan. I know thathe called me the other day because
he wanted to come up with somenew hair collection traps and those were be
coming pretty soon. Christy got togo out on our first investigation with him

(01:13:38):
in Western York. That's a guy. If you get up here to New
York, Derby because we're going toget you up here to do a little
research. And got old Western NewYork and he's really been working on building
some serious traps. And the lastthree mornings I woke up to trail camp
folds, you know, some awesomeanimals, nothing nothing there, but the

(01:14:01):
rise got me there. You know. Um, it's just it's awesome to
know that you guys are doing this. What else would you like folks to
know about? You know, inthis research in the plans and direction,
and Matt was inquiring, you know, how long will the study be open?

(01:14:26):
Um? I mean the thing isyou and I've had lots of conversations
probably once every the week, youknow, for a couple hours. Um.
And we have some friends that wedo a lot of other talks with.
Where can we get that? Youknow? Where where are we going
with it? Yeah? Well,you know it's funny because I've had a
number of folks ask you know,what are you going to stop? Uh

(01:14:47):
Like, well, you know,we just started, We've just launched,
so we haven't you know, wehaven't put a parameter n Now, I
understand that, you know, Imean it's not uncommon. I mean some
studies to do are very limited inscope. This is an exploratory study.
We're not putting strict limits on itat this time. I know, for

(01:15:09):
example, like you know, Iwas just being asked today by somebody about
the Brian Sykes study, which wasa little over a decade ago now.
And you know, when Brian Sykeswent into his study, he had a
very strict limit on the numbers thathe was going to look at. And
he looked at I don't know,I think it was only like six or

(01:15:30):
eight samples from North America. Soout of everything that was offered, he
chose I think he chose about fifteenand then narrowed that down to about six
or eight that he actually really investigated. We're not doing that. We are
really truly interested in looking at asmany samples as are interesting and that we

(01:15:57):
can at least for as long asit makes sense to do so. So
we're open ended right now in termsof this. I say that not to
say, hey, if you havea sample, wait a year and submit
it. Then we may not betaking samples in a year. I don't
know. Um, if you havea sample now that you think is an

(01:16:20):
interesting sample, you need to goahead and offer it right away. But
uh, you know, but againwe're not We don't have a particular cutoff
date. Now. I do thinkthat there will UM, you know,
some of that will depend on theresults that we're getting. UM. And

(01:16:44):
we're not at this point setting outto test the null hypothesis per se.
But you know, certainly there's thepossibility that you know, if we look
at how many samples that we lookat, that they you know, if
they're all coming back as known knownspecies, no matter how unusual in appearance,

(01:17:06):
no matter how unusual the reported contextof finding them, or or what
was going along with that. Butif they're all coming back as known species,
at some point, my colleagues aregoing to say, m should we
really be continuing to invest our timein this um? And you've got a

(01:17:29):
cost, you know, yeah,oh, absolutely, there's a cost to
this um. And I think youknow it's it's funny you actually you mentioned
uh uh, your your your friendRyan up there that I had a conversation
with a while back, and youknow, I kind of half joked to
him, but I was, Iwas, I was very serious that uh

(01:17:50):
you know, I mean there havebeen uh uh, there have been folks
who have in the past, youknow, donated to research in this area
and in some cases, you know, half a million dollars or something like
that at a time. And Ijoked, but I was very serious.

(01:18:12):
If if if if I through theuniversity, were given half a million dollars
or you know, approximating that Icould have this as a set up as
a permanent research program, or wecould always look at strange samples. I've
talked about that with my colleagues thereis that value again in training PhD students

(01:18:39):
and looking at unknowns if they werethat you know, if there were that,
If you know, again, ifsomebody came along and said, here's
a half million dollars, I wouldwhat I would plan at this point to
do. It would be to putthat in an endowment, to take the
interest that comes off each year anduse that to support a PhD student in

(01:19:01):
genetics and to have that ongoing programso that this type of testing would be
available to the public on a permanent, a perpetual basis. And I think
that would be really that would bereally remarkable because the things that could potentially
be learned by looking at unusual unusualthings. You know, again, that's

(01:19:29):
not something that that's not something thata university or any any research, any
any research or any researchency is goingto do on pure spec But you know,
if there were that sort of fundingwould do that. So I know
some people have been asking, youknow, because I think some people have
been asking me, you know,how do I how can I contribute to

(01:19:49):
this because they're excited about they're excitedabout this project going on. I'm not
requiring you know, there's no requirementto donate at all. But you know,
if people are interested, I dohave a link I've worked in.
That's another way that the university hasactually supported me very strongly, because not

(01:20:14):
everybody and can talk to my colleagues, not everybody gets a gift account.
There's a certain administrative cost to theuniversity to set that up. And yet
I have been established for this researcharea of science, society and the strange,
and so people can give tax deductibledonations to North Carolina State University earmarked

(01:20:42):
for this this type of work.Please please email that link again. I
mean to hear that rather, you'rea true educator because you are trying to
set up for that next generation.It's not that EXUS study that we don't
talk about, or psych study thoseor one other one that we know of

(01:21:04):
that this is blinders on. You'retrying to help groom that next generation.
And to hear that, yes,that that graduate student is working on that
or possibly to have something for anotherstudent to continue, who knows what they
might find outside of you know,just from the genetics ent. That's just

(01:21:30):
that's amazing. I mean, youknow, when we start the show,
you know it's a taste universe isa journey, the journey that you're you're
helping provide when you say, youknow you got through my cross book that
I did it yet, Okay,it's getting late, um and all up.
A couple of comments because I reallyhere, you've got somebody that can

(01:21:53):
look at something at the atom level, and you have that hair, so
if it is degraded, you stillhave somebody else that could look at the
hair and say, hey, there'ssomething different in this. But you know,
eventually things degrade nothing, so Ican't promise Well, yeah, so

(01:22:15):
you know, and that's and that'sthe question. You're finding the track way,
Who I got some you know itmonsters? You know, you know
how fast this hair degrade? Andis it absorbed in the soil naturally?
Again, that's that's something if yougo look at the body farm stuff,
they can kind of explain some ofthat information. Unless you've got a short

(01:22:36):
answer on that derby, I know, we're kind of getting short on time
for tonight. Yeah, well,I mean, it depends. It depends
on the hair, it depends onthe soil, it depends on the conditions,
It depends on something. Finding thetrack, go look at the go
look at the uh, the littlebit of the body farm stuff. They

(01:22:58):
kind of go through the whole coolstuff in there. I've got the address
there. No, so here's theaddress to donate. So somebody that wins
the lotto please go help college studentand the study. Matt's got a good
point here. This is interesting.So I wonder if all the so called
people claiming they had big foot hairsamples actually take advantage of this free offer.

(01:23:21):
Kind of put up her shut upmoment, and really, you are
given a chance to all those peoplethat have been pushing those things for years.
And I'm gonna reach out to Tomand just got something. And then,
you know, it wouldn't be ourshow if we were in a little
goofy. But I gotta give itto him finding the Trackway hair collection trapp

(01:23:41):
Our drains a good place in thewoods. Just kidding. I think he's
got a point there. I thinkwhen we talked to Amy Brooder, next
time, you know, ask herabout the print that we found out in
Pennsylvania and where it was located.It was directly looking at the outhouse where
the woman's tent was, and downtowards the showers. You know what a

(01:24:05):
dream in there. Maybe we'll getlucky. Um oh my god, did
he's happy birthday? Yes? Youknow again, Derby, we appreciate you
being up. I mean, isthere anything in closing that you really wanna
that we missed? I mean,it's just so amazing that that your university

(01:24:31):
is allowing this to go on.Yeah, and put this for you to
coordinate all these discarate disciplines. God, I was I was going back to
school again. I mean, Iwant to go back and a museum studies
degree. But Matt, I thinkyou and I need to go take this
class. There is three credits onecredit how many credit hours? I know,
I got to take a couple ofthings and finish this archaeology degree out.

(01:24:55):
It's really that important to you.Won't matter how many credits are out,
You'll just do it because it's important, right. Yeah, Well,
the course is it's a three credithour of course. I have to say
I am exploring options. In fact, I'm meeting later this month with our
continuing education folks to see about,you know, the possibility of offering you

(01:25:19):
know, more of an adult educationyou know, shorter version of the course
or something like that that, folks, because I have a lot of folks
who are you know, are veryinterested. I don't want to, um,
you know, it is you know. I mean I think one of
the things that does surprise my studentswith the course is that I think there

(01:25:39):
are a number of them who think, oh, this looks like a lot
of fun, and they always tellme at the end semester, Yeah,
this was a lot of fun,but this is a lot of work.
Well, the rigorous course. No, I mean it has to. I
mean I think that that's the thingthat um, I think that's the thing

(01:26:00):
is that, uh, these youknow, uh, these areas of inquiry
are a lot of fun. They'renaturally enough fun. People find them really
fascinating and interesting. Um. Butif we're really going to uh, if
we're really going to understand them,if we're really gonna do true research in
these areas, that that requires somerigor and that requires some work. UM.

(01:26:27):
I find it enjoyable work, butit's it's work. Don't get me
wrong. Oh. You know myresearch partners, as you know, he's
out there teaching. You know howmany nights we've been out in the woods
and he's over there, like,oh, I got to write a lesson
plan for you know next week andit's like, okay, it's the perfect
It was a cigar with you know, recorders and thermal cameras and you know

(01:26:48):
these type and away coming up andyou know, and is you know,
uneducated biology meet. You know,I was going, hey, what about
this? Okay, maybe a firstyou student might look at that, you
know differently. Oh that's awesome.But an hour and a half, I
have so much stuff. Thank you. I see that you shared the donation

(01:27:12):
link donation chat. One thing I'llmentioned is that that donation link just a
weird way at the universe. Doesit actually resolves there? There are two
options there, so make sure youchoose the one that's Science Society and the
Strange. All right, let mehang out one second. We're gonna I'm
gonna show everybody quick the wrong one. Go to the screen. Okay,

(01:27:35):
stream Yard keeps giving me way toomany options lately. Yeah, you don't
need that many bottoms to play with, all right, So sharing the screen
so you're gonna get when you goto the website there to donate, go
down here and you want to pickthe bottom. Let's kind of make that

(01:27:57):
one bigger. So Science Strange,Science Society and is strange. Click on
that, folks, and we canhelp Derby out with this study and help
out, you know, getting somethings out there. So and if you
happen to work you know, theother thing that's interesting is that because we
are we are a nonprofit and thisis a tax deductible contribution. Uh,

(01:28:24):
many many employers will actually match contributionsto the university. So if you happen
to work for one of those companies, many of them are are right,
there's a there's a place you canclick that off right on this page and
you can check and many have thatset up automatically with the university. A
lot of major corporations. Some someyou may have to go to your corporation

(01:28:46):
and say, hey, I'm givingto this you know, uh nonprofit and
they and they will match. Butuh that's you know, yeah, yeah,
I don't, I don't, Idon't. I don't know anywhere else
that that that that you can giveto support the investigation to these areas that

(01:29:11):
your employer will match it. Yeah, i'd you know, down on the
bottoms like that and says, youknow, go great to your good find
out if your company will match.That's awesome. It's simple it's easy.
I know what I'm doing because ifI can get more kids involved in education,
I'm happy, you know. Yeah, So, well, this is

(01:29:34):
what and this is one of thethings that I'm very much committed to,
is is bridging this gap between betweenscience and the public. And I think
it, you know, part ofthat is is that we need to have
we need to have science that's engagedin answering questions that are of interest and

(01:29:54):
concern to the public. We don'tneed to be we don't need to be
ignoring anything really, um and soyou know, I think it's important that
we have these these kinds of connections. And so, uh, that's that.
That's another you know, while Iwhile I focus, you know,

(01:30:15):
and in a lot of my professionalwork, I'm focused on making connections between
scientists. I am my heart isvery much with making that connection between science
and the public too. Love that. Thank you. Yeah. Well,

(01:30:36):
so if you can hang out fora second in the back, why I
just shut things down and we appreciateit if you got a minute. If
not, I'll talk with you laterin the week. So thank you,
Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you christ Yeah, really nice

(01:30:57):
to me. You too. Youtoo a pleasure. Thanks Hine, come
here so completely educational show tonight.I love those. Thank you to the
audience for being here. Please goover and take a look at what he's
got going. The links are there. I will be putting him in the
show notes for those folks listening onSpreaker and Spotify. If you're just listening

(01:31:18):
on the audio and all those otherdifferent locations or Twitter, you can stick
over to YouTube. So I'm goingto get us out anything else and closing
tomorrow night, I'll be on NightclersRadio six thirty Central, seven thirty Eastern,
on YouTube and Facebook. So christdo anything else. Yeah, I'm

(01:31:41):
good, all right, right,yeah, everybody for being here with us
and for participating. We love allof you. So until next time,
stay safe and sample on Land theLand