Man Vs. Flu

Influenza is a virus that causes the flu, and it shares a long, lethal history with the human race. In this episode, Robert and Allison explore what's made the flu such a successful disease, and what you can do to avoid an infection.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how
stuff works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast.
This is Alexon Madermer Science Center at how stuff works
dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, signed writer at

(00:21):
how stuff works dot com. Yeah. Have you ever had
the flu? Boy? Have I ever had the flu? Um?
Tell me about it? Tell us about it? Okay, Well,
last year, Uh, my wife and I came back from Thailand, Yes,
and it was. It was an amazing trip and it's
amazing country. And got back, you know, ready to get

(00:41):
back to work, you know, hot back in the seat
and start writing some articles. I'm sure you were. I was, yeah,
I mean, but as it turns out, missed how stuff Works.
Didn't you know? We thought about us constantly. Well some
of the time, I mean I definitely. You know, it's
like you can't go anywhere working here and not sort
of piece together, you know, something, you know, science related
when you get back. But but when I got back,

(01:02):
I was growing steadily, um sicker, and so like the
monday that I was supposed to go back to work,
I was instead. And this was like in October in Atlanta,
So it's it's still pretty warm out um, but I
was just burning up, just like just completely yeah, burn yeah.
And then suddenly I was freezing and I would like,
you know, like had to drive myself to the to
the doctor and um, you know, wrapping myself up. And

(01:26):
it was in in like blankets in the car with
the heater on even though it was you know, hot out.
And at one point I was like laying on the
couch and I was like just freezing with this flu
going on, just kind of delirious, and I like wrapped
up in the blanket and then the cat got on
top of me, and I was like, oh, that's great,
you know because the cat is warm and I needed
warmth like crazy to stay alive. And then the cat

(01:47):
starts acting like she's gonna vomit on me, and like
that was that was the low point of my my
illness there. But then they don't know, injected a lot
of liquids into me and gave me some medicine. I
got better and it wasn't bird flu, but it was hard.
Was it swine flu? No, it wasn't swine flu either.
It was just some unknown Asian flu. Well I'm glad you,
uh you stayed home with that for several days because

(02:11):
there are a lot of people going around the office
as I'm sure they're going around yours or your schools
or what have you, sneezing and coughing up a storm
like crazy. The man in the corner office, I sent
him an email because in times fifty, because I swear
he must have sneezed like in innumerable times. Yeah, it's uh.
I have so many um um in interviews that I've

(02:34):
recorded with people over the phone that have like different
people coughing and changing in the background. The other funny
thing is that Discovery sponsors a wellness fair in which
you can get a flu shot. Here, so a bunch
of us had our flu shots. I did get one. Okay,
here's the thing. She missed my arm when she put
the band aid on. Oh okay, but not the needle. No, no, no,
she the needle hit the band aid missed, so I

(02:56):
bled on my shirt. I mean she does this all day,
but she us is the spot where she put the
needle in. Huh. I feel like that's a job requirement.
Little accuracy when it comes to the band aid and
they needle, Well, don't keep it in suspense. What color
was the shirt? That was turqoise. It was like a nice,
you know, pretty spring turquoise. Yeah. I think it'll come
out that blood spattery. Yeah, bloods battery. Really, so thinking

(03:22):
about all this flu led me no wonder. You know,
we have taken measures, public health has taken measures against
various diseases, stamping out disease. Why haven't they ever tried
to eradicate influenza? Or have they tried to eradicate influenza?
And so before we get to that, let's talk a
little bit about flu. I'm sure you guys know a
lot of this, so chime in along with us. But

(03:43):
flu is really just an infectious illness, right, and it's
caused by a particular virus, an influenza virus, and it's
going to affect your respiratory system. Yeah, you posted a
photo of the virus on or not a photo image
of the virus on the Facebook. Yeah, and the guy
got it within the one guy that I got it within,

(04:04):
you know, ten minutes or so. It looked kind of
like an orange with a bunch of golf teeth stuck
in it. Yeah, that was not my impression at all.
Golf balls do not golf golf teeese. Yeah, yeah, they
do look like golf teeth, a little blue golf teeth,
I mean blue and red. Wait, the blue ones I
think were the neuraminidase. That such a tricky word to say,
and the red were the the other. Well, we'll talk

(04:27):
about these in a little bit. So symptoms. One of
the symptoms, what are the symptoms of faint, Well, you
kind of get a cough, you get a sore throat,
running nose, you get the aky brakies. What are they breakies?
It's like muscle. But you know, the only time I've
ever heard a key breaking before this moment. You don't
call him a breaking No, No, that's the only time

(04:47):
I've ever heard that was in its song Akey Breaky Heart.
I did not know that anyone else. You use that
terminology for anything other than countries. Yeah, I don't think
he has a patent on that term, the breakies. So like,
so if you have the achy breakies, that just means
you have sore limbs and do you know anything kind
of feel like hurts and you're really sensitive and it

(05:10):
doesn't feel good. It's muscle like more catchy way of
saying muscle like. I think, Okay, you're tired, you're extremely fatigued,
and sometimes, like Robert was you, you get a fever,
maybe a little vomiting to throw in there, mix it
up and me and maybe some some diarrhea too, But

(05:30):
just these latter two are mostly in kids. His kids
are messy, so why not giving them a messy stuff? Anyway,
So tip the bucket on all up. Did I ever
tell you about my Christmas last year? No, but now
I'm a little frightened to hear with that kind of leading.
It's like kids are always vomiting and having diarrhea. Let
me tell you about Christmas last year. Yeah, well it

(05:52):
was kind of crazy because that was what happened. You
need to make big plans. Maybe you're going to go
to your family, going to have a big meal post presence,
if you happen to sell at Christmas or whatever other
holiday perhaps you celebrated around in that time of year. Yeah,
we had all sorts of big plans, and you know,
all of a sudden boom we had We had some
vomiting multiple times. I mean, so the washer and the dryer,

(06:14):
we're going all day, and then we had no backup plan.
We obviously can't go to the house we're supposed to
go to, because who wants a vomiting kid at their
Christmas dinner? And then they have kids and they get sick.
So we wound up staying home and we had no food.
So we drive around to one of the local farmer
members from targets that's supposed to be open three six
five days a year. No, it is not open three

(06:35):
So yeah, so the vomiting, Yeah, definitely happens in kids.
This is very vomit heavy podcast. Actually, do you have
a week's stomach? I think that maybe you do a
little bit. I hope, well a little bit, but the
vomit doesn't bother me as much. But let's just I
hope my friend Becky is not listening because she gets
freaked out by this. Sorry Becky. So how long? How

(06:55):
long are you out? Down for the count? I was
out for it was I felt tough for about a week. Yeah,
so a few days, and it might be as long
as two weeks. But if you get some complications going on,
and you know you're gonna get these in high risk groups,
and who are the high risk group? People? Um, people
like my parents, you people over sixty five pregnant ladies kids.

(07:17):
Of course, people with medical histories that have you know,
full stuff like heart disease, asthma, diabetes, they're gonna get
some complications going on that may eventually leave them to
the hospital. You know, they may wind up with pneumonia,
to may get signed us and ear infections, all sorts
of stuff. You know. I just want to go ahead
and mentioned real quick. Um, this is something My mom's
a kindergarten teacher, so she's always driving home. To cover

(07:40):
your mouth when you cough and sneeze. So many adults
do not do that. What like, can you name some
people in our own I don't know about people in
our office, but like every other person on the MARTA
train in the morning, it's like, come on, enclosed space.
Didn't your kindergarten teacher ever tell you cover your mouth
and knows when you when you sneeze and cough, because

(08:01):
that's how you spread this stuff, you know. Lately, I'm
kind of a fan of sneezing in the crook of
my elbow. Yeah. Yeah, that's like when you get your
hands fill filled up with well, you know, if I
don't have a tissue or something at the ready, the
crook of the elbow, it kind of contains it. What
do you really use the crook of your elbow for,
you know, because otherwise you can't use it in food?
Not so much, not unless I'm preparing that special cast role,

(08:23):
you know, just kidding. No, I think the crook of
the elbow is probably a good place for that to
take place. Makes more sense in the hands, right indeed,
So how does it get around town? All those droplets
that's spring free, just floating in the air of the marta? Yeah,
and you know the droplets spring free when someone's coughing, sneezing,

(08:45):
or even talking. Yeah, so again, if you don't cover
your head in your mouth and knows when you sneeze,
think about that, Like every time somebody lets one go
on the marta just sprays, Like I think we've all
seen the videos before where they slow it down and
they show just like how much of volume like leaves
the human face during a sneeze. I think I saw
something to the count of about forty droplets. Don't quote

(09:08):
me on this, but it was just insane. Yeah, it's
not just like a little drop, it's it's a lot
of material being laid out there for the rest of
the population, and even if you're not in the blast zone.
I mean that stuff ends up landing on different surfaces
like the Marta pole for example, on the Marta pole
or just you know, on both Like apparently like libraries

(09:29):
are pretty rough. Yeah, they always come out with studies.
I feel like every week, you know, oh, we found
this in the um in the sample cosmetics at X
department store. Yeah, there are germs all over the place. Yeah,
but I'm not really a germaphobe, are you. Um? I mean,
I'm not not in the sense that I actually have

(09:49):
a hardcore phobia about it. It doesn't like keep me
from you know, you know, carrying on my life. But
I'm I'm pretty uh, I feel like I'm pretty aware
of it, especially when I'm on Marta. You know, I'll
look at the surface that a million hands have touched.
I'm like, I don't know if I want to touch that.
I think I'll. In fact, what I'll try and do
is wrap my my arm around it some of the
crook of my elbow. YEA an amazingly handy place, the

(10:11):
dirtiest place on the human body, apparently, just because we're
constantly sneezing into it and sticking it to the public martoples.
I remember once bringing back a friend of mine when
I lived in New York. She I think he'd come
in on the train and we're taking the subway somewhere,
and she had a bag of pretzels and she was
really hungry. So I watched her opened the bag of pretzels,

(10:33):
and you know, you're sort of just frozen. I just
watched her in this morbid fascination, and she's grabbing the
pole and then she's sticking her hands. Oh my god,
and I couldn't say anything except just kind of my
mouth had dropped open. It was like, what are you doing?
Don't do though, well, that reminds that's exactly. Not exactly,

(10:54):
but I saw a very similar case on Marta one.
Are you going to talk about the chicken? Yes, it was.
I may have already apologies listener if you've heard this before,
but I saw a lady eating an entire rotisserie chicken
on the on the Marta one day. It was like
she'd eaten it down to just like the grays, you know,
a little slivers, but she would like eat out of
it with her fingers, and then she would touch the
pole and then she would go back to eating them

(11:15):
the chicken. It was oh yeah, good times. Well the
other thing, okay, let's get back to the sick people,
the people with the influenza virus. Yes, we've kind of
gone off topic here, we have, indeed, but that's okay.
Feel free to write us with your crazy stories about
traveling on public transportation and the things you've witnessed. But
here's the thing. I mean, a sick person we think

(11:35):
of somebody coughing or sneezing or whatever. But you can
be passing along. You can be shedding virus before you're
showing symptoms, so, and you can be shedding virus for
as many as like five to seven days after. Okay.
So so even if if somebody is like follows all
the rules and they start feeling sick, they stay home
and then they come back to work after they're feeling better,

(11:56):
they're still like they store likely infecting people along the way. Yeah,
it could be could be incubating, hanging out. Yeah, so
why does it occur in the winter. This is one
that I feel like I have to just get out there.
Virus digs a cole there, It's pretty much all there
is to it. And I didn't think I had anything
in common with the flip, but we both like the
cooler weather and the cold, dry air specifically. So the

(12:20):
one big one that you guys know is swine flu
H one and one indeed, and that was responsible for
the first pandemic. And that just means, you know, an
epidemic that covers a big old area like the world,
say that we've had more than forty years. And that's
interesting too, is when I was researching this, pandemics occur
about every forty years, so we just had one. Although

(12:43):
it wasn't so bad. It wasn't like say, the pandemic
of in which half of the world's population was infected,
like whaty million people died and that thing. Yeah, that
flows my mind. Half of the world's population was infected.
I mean that's just crazy easy. That is a pandemic
of pandemics. That is a highly successful organism. Yeah, no doubt.

(13:07):
So what are we talking when it comes to deaths?
Um You know, in a normal year last year with
swine flu, there are about twelve thousand ufs deaths attributed
to H one N one. But in a severe flu season,
you're going to see as many as like forty people
dying in the United States and then take it to
the global level and how many What are the numbers there,
Robert between two and five hundred thousand deaths per year. Yeah,

(13:29):
so that's those are some pretty high numbers. So like
even yea, even the normal numbers are pretty pretty big,
Like we just kind of you know, they don't then
make the headlines necessarily unless the slow news weaker or
it really starts piling up. Yeah, a lot of us
tend to dismiss the flu. You know, you're so what.
I'm of a sicktic can watch a little daytime TV.

(13:50):
My partner doats on me. What's the big deal? But
it is a darned big deal, So let's talk it.
I mean, so, why don't we eradicate the flu? Why
don't we get rid of this? I mean, if so
many people are dying, and how would we do it? Yeah? Like, what,
why don't we just come up with a vaccine? Right? Well,
so we have a vaccine, right, They've been around since
not what I mean, they're not as refined as they

(14:12):
are now, but we've had them and in vaccine, in fact,
we are would probably be our best bet when it
comes to stamping out influenza, and it's they've certainly proven
to be our best bets and stamping out other diseases
like smallpox. You guys all know that smallpox has been eradicated. Yeah,
The last naturally occurring case of small pox was in
Somalia in nineteen seventy seven, or according to the CDC. Yeah,

(14:34):
in the States, our last case of naturally occurring smallpox
was in ninety nine. It's been decades. I find it
nowadays you pretty much have to go to a laboratory
and find like a stored sample of it. Yeah, So
that's what eradication means. There's a pretty particular definition of
it in the public health world, and that is no
new cases in the world and no control measures are necessary.
You don't have to vaccinate for it anymore. The other

(14:57):
after the nine eleven scare, they did do some vaccinations, right,
I believe so, Yeah, because there was there were some
concerns they're about about the use as a bioweapon, right, right, right,
So eradication is kind of the ultimate level and what
you're aiming for as a public health professional. But you
also hear them talk about a disease being eliminated. And
what does that mean. Um, elimination just means that you've

(15:19):
decreased the number of cases to a very low level,
or a controlled level, right, And that's how the World
Health organization is kind of that's what the World Health
organizations is gonna tell you what's going on. And then
you also hear people talk about disease being controlled, and
that means, hey, folks were working on it. We got
ongoing operations going here, We've got interventions plan, we're trying

(15:40):
to reduce the number of new cases and the existing
cases in a population. So the battle is underway and
going well. Basically when it's when it's controlled and there's
there's there's also this kind of holy grail status and
that's extinction. And no infectious organisms have been declared extinct,
and so this would be UM when an infectious agent

(16:01):
is no longer in the wild or in the lab. Yeah,
you'd have to really for that to take place. I
think a lot of times you'd have to be talking
about coextinction like you'd have to, you would. It would
not just be a matter of eliminating like this particular flu,
but everything the flu lives in. You know, it's just

(16:21):
get to that. That is a very good point, have it,
Hatten Food. It's just it's just too much, It's right, right,
And that is that's definitely factors into the picture of
ultimately why we can't eradicate the influence of IRUs. So
another more broadly applicable one is that populations can be
really tricky to reach, right. You get a war torn
region thrown in there, you get poverty, you get location,

(16:42):
you know, somewhere who's living in a someone who's living
in a particular remote place. Yeah, there's like poor infrastructure,
poor communication, like in many places, just outright chaos, you know,
and it's just not going to be very high on
the um you know, on the list of things to
do right. And then in industrialized countries you definitely have
these concerns about the side effects of vaccines surfacing. So

(17:02):
aside from that, you really can't make people be vaccinated,
so people are going to opt out. And it's I mean,
to have a disease eradicated, it is this major public
health victory, and it just can't happen without you know,
a crazy organizational fee. Yeah, like even if you did
like a huge you know, expansive you know, vaccine effort,
you know for something it's like you're like the one

(17:25):
they did for small box, right, you're still you know,
run the risk of getting you know, people at the
top and the bottom who disagree with it and and
you know some resulting chaos. There was actually, back when
I was researching the bioweapons article for how Stuff Works
dot com that I wrote, I ran across this. I
don't know that it was ever actually implemented, but there
was a scheme to cre to create a like a

(17:45):
bioweapon a and you know taylored jameara virus that would
be pretty like you'd you would get ill with it,
but it wouldn't really become dangerous until it was treated
with a vaccine. Oh. Interesting. So you'd have people that
would say, oh, I feel sick, and then they'd go
to their like the easter egg inside the right. Yeah.

(18:06):
But see the thing is they would go to their doctors,
they go to their and their their government whatever, and
they would and they would get to get shot with
something and then they would get worse, which would just
totally like screw up you know, trust and h and
just lead to more like civil unrest is a pretty
evil ingenious scheme. Only a human could come up with it. Yeah,
but no case, no known cases of that occurring on

(18:28):
their No, no no, no, no, no, that's I think it
was just purely in the in the ledgers of of
these guys who were scheming all these biochemical weapons up.
So even if you had the perfect influence of vaccine,
it's gonna be really hard to vaccinate everyone who needs
to be vaccinated. Yeah, you can vaccinate some of the
people all the time, or all the people some of
the time, right, I mean, consider this. I was reading

(18:48):
a statistic that said, in two thousand seven, twenty percent
of children don't receive the vaccines are scheduled for. And
I was according to a massive report, massive awesome report,
I should say that was jointly published by the World
Health Organization, World Bank and un stuff that gave an
update on the state of vaccinations and stuff going on.
It was. It was a really good publication if you

(19:09):
guys are at all interested in public health. Of course,
the other thing about trying to eradicated diseases, it's pretty expensive. Yeah,
so just to give you some statistics to illuminate that picture,
that expensive picture. It came across some numbers that said
eradicating smallpox costs the US hundred million spread over ten years.
The flip side, however, is pretty good. Yeah, so you're

(19:33):
gonna say you're gonna have some savings. Uh, you know,
entreating and preventing costs after you know, you get rid
of a disease. So some estimates put this at one
point three billion a year. We are saving one point
three billion a year. So we've more than made our
money back on that one. Pretty good return on investment
for eradication of smallpox. And then the trickier territory again,

(19:55):
you know, we gotta do some easy ones the numbers,
and then it just comes down to politicking, right yeah,
and priority, like if you're going to wipe out one disease,
like which one, which one has the most momentum, you know,
which one has the most press which one is actually killing.
If I'm a minister of health in a developing country,

(20:15):
you know, I'm probably more liable to focus on something
like AIDS or malaria, tuberculosis, the big three. You know,
you have millions of people dying from these diseases every year.
So I read one figure that factored in about four millions.
That's per year attributable to either malaria, AIDS, or tuberculosis,
and sometimes it co occur. Right. Yeah, so it's like flu,

(20:36):
you know, flu. Yeah, I don't know if it's going
to make the the number one flu rough los a killer.
You know, we've we've said it already, but you know,
compared to those three, it's not necessarily going to get
the traction it needs. So really, we've talked about reasons
so far that applied to a lot of widespread infectious disease,
but let's talk about some more that are specific reasons

(20:56):
for why we can't eradicate influenza and also for why
it's a very successful organism too. Yeah. Yeah, so mutation, Yeah,
that's a big one. It's huge. It is so huge.
You think that you've you've figured out it's it's a
strategy and you have a counter strategy. It changes its strategy.
It how maneuvers you, It flanks you. Yeah. So humans

(21:17):
are infected by two types of influence of virus, the
a's and the bees. And it sounds simple, but it's
not really, especially when they're constantly undergoing change, and those
means of change, for one, are antigenic drift. Right, So
this is virus is evolved. They change, but it's happening
all the time. Basically, they just start collecting genetic mutations

(21:39):
and they collect them at the critical site, the site
where the antibody is that your immune system is sending
out to fight the battle they like to find and
the mutation, of course causes your immune system not to
recognize the antigen. Yeah, and this is this is why
we get that flu shot at work every year, right, Yeah,
and why that's why they talk about the flu shot
being a little bit of a guessing game. They're trying

(22:00):
to figure out what strands are prevalent and what strands
they need to prepare for in the flu shot. Yeah,
it's like a It's like again, it's like a it's
like a battle. It's like like like in a battlefield,
you know, between two armies where we make a move
thinking the enemy is going to be here, but they're
maybe they're over here. We don't know exactly how it's
gonna work out. We just know we're not going to
defeat them completely. So in both of those types of

(22:21):
viruses that infect humans, the A and the B influence
of viruses, antigenic drift happens in both kinds, right, So
that's bad news for us. Much worse, or it can
be much worse, is antigenic shift. And this is like
jaw dropping change. This is an abrupt process. You know,
you think drift is bad, you haven't seen shift. And

(22:42):
this is what led to uh H one N one
virus in two thousand and nine, the spine flu that
we were talking about before. It's like drift. It's like
I might drift from like listening to like, say a
person's listening to jazz, they might drift over into smooth jazz.
But a shift would be if they like, if they
they're listening to jazz and then suddenly they're listening to
like drum and bass. You know, it's like the Slayer, Yes,

(23:05):
that pantera. I don't know why I just thought of pantera.
So this is a situation where like like like bird flute,
where the big you know, the big fear is, Oh
my goodness, it's it's the fluids and birds, but it's
gonna it could easily like crossover to humans who are
in close proximity to these birds. The bottom line is
that it leads to such a crazy new virus that

(23:25):
we have no defenses against it. We have no immunity,
and this is bad news for us. And this this
one ties into when you start looking at the history
of of epidemics. You know, it's like a lot of
it ties back to when humans started living together in
large settlements because a all these people can spread diseases
back and forth, but they're also generally living there with
their animals, with their cows, with their sheets, with their dogs,

(23:48):
with their cats. Um, they're they're having all the circles
of food that's being fed up on by by rats,
by squirrels, by birds, et cetera, and uh and and
and any and you have in in the midst of this,
you have all these different viruses and they can jump
from from rat to score all to human. You know,
it's there there. They keep taking that shift, right, they

(24:08):
can and they do jump absolutely. And so that's really
the last point about why we're not going to win
the battle against flu or. At least, we're not going
to win the eradication battle against influenza because influenza has
a vast reservoir and animals. And one of the most
critical criteria when it comes to successful eradication is that
humans are the only reservoir of disease, and it's not

(24:31):
the case with influenza, so bear that in mind. Wash
your hands a lot, sneeze into the crook of your elbow.
Any other tips for our listeners. Oh and of course
if you're sick, don't go to work. Yeah, don't go
to work, and don't let your boss tell you to
go to work if you're sick. Yeah, see home in
your pajamas. Maybe watch a little daytime TV sprinkled in there.
Yeah that. So do we have any listener mail? We do,

(25:00):
And we had a listener mail from a Phoebe from Australia,
so she's already dealt with this whole influence of thing.
And by the way, listeners from Australia, thank you for
dealing with this, uh this flu podcast, because you guys
have already h your past. Her season's passed and the
Northern hemisphere is all in the mix with influence of it.
So anyway, here's Phoebe, hi alisand Robert. I was so
happy to listen to your podcast, letting everyone know that

(25:21):
bacteria are so much more than the often touted sack
of enzymes. I spent my PhD studying bacterial cell division,
and let me tell you that they are complicated little books.
Did you know that we still don't understand exactly how
they undergo the fundamental process of dividing for rawn shape
bugs like E. Coli leva for a protein and she

(25:42):
names the protein that forms it kind of built at
exactly the middle which constricts and splits them into That
sounds like it's a tough way to replicate. Well, they
can handle it. Indeed they can, but how do they
know where the middle is? Good point? And that's followed
by three question marks a lot of outstanding questions in
the world of bacterial research. I made movies fluorescently tagged

(26:05):
into protein and watching them divide to find that it
forms a helix first and then a ring. So now
the question is how does the helix find the middle?
As always in science, the answer raises more questions. And
she gave us a link to some movies if we
wanted to see the division action, which will post on Facebook.
I love the show. Phoebe from Australia. Thanks Phoebe. We
like bacteria too. And one final note for today, this

(26:28):
is going to be my last podcast for Stuff from
the Science Lab. Yeah, it's it's kind of a sad event.
I mean I've had a lot of fun talking science
with you across the table from me for all these episodes.
I think we're almost something like a hundred and eleven.
It like came out kind of spooky like that. Yeah,
but maybe you guys haven't heard all of them because

(26:48):
you know, we had some early learning curves here in
the studio and probably thanks like all of them. But
so I was looking at some of my favorite topics.
There are a lot of them. We've we've covered a
lot of We have covered a lot to a week
for a while. Let me do the math eleven, right, Yeah,
I mean we've talked about snipers, we've talked about sci fi.
I think that ranks as one of my all time

(27:10):
favorites just because it was kind of a new topic area. Yeah. Yeah,
it was forcing me to get into a lot of
the literature and I really liked it and I've delved
into it ever since. Yeah, that was that was a
really fun one. You ended up reading too that at
the Three Books? Yeah, another one, Um, you're an answer
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, we still got to work on
you with din that I don't know, may not be

(27:33):
the one for you regardless. I thank you guys for
sitting down each week with us and you know, talking
science and listening science and writing in and telling your stories. Um,
it's bitter sweet. I will be sad to say goodbye,
but I will be continuing on here talking science on
the blogs and on Facebook and Twitter. So if you
want to check me down and ask me about the

(27:53):
laws of entropy, you know where to find me. Yeah,
she was not sailing off of the sunset. And if
you're not, the just as We're going to continue to
discuss science on the UM blogs and on Facebook and
on Twitter. Uh. The podcast is not going anywhere. It
will be back next week and I'm going to find
some mystery podcaster to come in here with me. So

(28:15):
keep tuning in and thanks guys for listening truly. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
how stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page.