June 28, 2012 • 33 mins
" Humans have mapped the microbiome and changed our understanding of the bacterial worlds thriving inside us. How will this affect our war on bacteria and the state of modern medicine? Julie and Robert discuss all of these questions in this episode."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas, and
we're gonna kick right in on a topic we've talked
about before, about the microbial legions that live inside us,
about our growing revelation that it's not just us versus bacteria.
(00:30):
It's us and bacteria it's not and and then you
even get into this weird area where it's really hard
to define what us really is. Yeah. Actually, there have
been a bunch of articles that have come out to
talk about this idea, and we've we've discussed this as well.
We've talked about more specifics. Yeah, we discussed this in
the the kids, Uh, Stuff to blow your kid's mind. Boy,
(00:53):
it's early. I can't remembering the things that we did.
We we talked about bacteria all the time, is what
you're saying, but more specific to um, you know, perhaps
diseases or the gut and how it affects our moods. Um.
But yeah, there's been a bunch of data that has
come out, UM. And this is out of something called
the Human Microbiome Project, which is very similar to the
(01:15):
Human Genome project, and we're gonna talk a little bit
more about that. But there's this idea that bacteria just
isn't getting the respect that it deserves, that that it
is more like a micro um biome organ like we
should look at this as an organ in our body,
This this team um of bacteria that lives within us,
(01:37):
as opposed to like, oh yeah, we've got some bacteria
on us. It's it's witching a ride. And then and
so far studies have have more or less fallen in
line with that line of thinking because like previously, we
just we didn't give it bacteria much thought, and then
we thought, oh, bacterious the enemy. And then we started
looking a little closer at saying, well, let's look at
at fecal bacteria and uh, and in with the hope
(02:01):
of understand better understanding various intestinal situations, let's look at
um that the mouth bacteria of a normal person. But there,
but there hasn't been until now this, uh, this real
effort to understand our micro geom as as a whole.
It's to really understand the the micro's inside us. Like
you say, as this this entity right that that is
(02:25):
doing so much more than we ever could have imagined.
But let's talk about it first as as the enemy,
because this has really been our history with bacteria, at
least in the modern world. Yeah. This, Um, we we
get into this this area where all right, we recognize
that bacteria can and does do destructive things to the
human body, So we need a weapon to fight it, right,
(02:48):
So we end up using this thing called trickle sand,
which is pretty crazy, created more than forty years ago
surgical scrub for hospitals, so heavy duty stuff, right, But
then it shows up in a range of consumer products,
everything from liquid soap to bars up to toothpaste to
acne ointments, deodorant, mouthwatch, you name it pretty much any
socksy what's doing in fox? Uh, it's it's everywhere, to
(03:12):
the point to the point that the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention found that the chemical is present in
the urine of seventy of Americans over the age of five.
So we're such as our obsession with cleanliness. Yeah, it's
like we're fighting the war so enthusiastically that we do.
We've just saturated our bodies with this, uh, with this substance. Yeah,
(03:33):
and there have been a couple of studies that show
that trick lesson may alter hormone regulation in lab animals
at least or cause antibiotic resistance. And that's the big
problem we have right because we've got superbugs emerging like
uh Clostium cliffs Clostridium deficially, which is a superbug that
(03:53):
is in hospitals and unfortunately a lot of people who
go in for procedures sometimes to be confused with Chuck
Australian which is UM. But that that's actually something that's
extremely debilitating and um, people really suffer for years and
years afterward. I mean, if if you happen to be
(04:14):
very elderly or very young, there's possibility that you could
die from it. And but just to bring in bacteria
back into the fold here, um, I think if everybody
remembers we talked about something called fecal transplants which actually
are helping people we see diff um that they contracted
in the hospital and replenishing their their bad or their
(04:35):
worn out gut floora with really good bacteria. UM. So
we've had clues along the way that bacteria isn't you know,
And just a rehash on that every everyone has probably
wanted at one point another. What is poop? Right? What
is it? What is poop? And as it turns out
that a lot of poop is is actually bacteria. It's
not food or food waste particularly as much as it
(04:56):
is bacteria. Yeah. So the idea here as you you
end up with an imbalance in the bacterial uh population
inside your intestines, and to to set things right, you
get some get a nice healthy stool sample. Inject that
into your system, uh, specifically into your intestines, not just anywhere,
(05:19):
but don't try to at home on your own by
the way, I have it professionally done. Um and only
if if needed. Uh. But the ideas you get some
healthy fecal matter in there to restore equilibrium with that
bacterial population, right, because it turns out the gut is
really stuffed with a ton of bacteria and adults actually
carry two to five pounds of bacteria. Did you know that,
(05:42):
Like your weight is made up of two to five
pounds of bacteria. Like you can think of it in
terms of like I think of in terms of, say
the population in a in a wooded area. All right, um, oh, well,
we don't like, we don't like coyotes. Coyotes are bad,
so we wipe out a whole bunch of coyotes. Now
there's nothing to eat the animal that the kind of
these are a good example. Let's say wolves. Wolves are bad,
(06:04):
They're gonna eat our livestock. Let's to wipe out the wolves,
all right. Now what's gonna eat? Say the deer. Now
they're deer everywhere, deer showing up in our yards and
running into our cars. What are gonna do about the deer?
That things get out of balance with these Uh, these
carefully maintained and evolved environments. Uh, that contain multiple players,
that's right, And and things began to behave differently. And uh,
(06:25):
you can look at that sort of analogy within your
own microbiome, right, because each of us, it turns out,
and we'll talk a little bit more about these revelations
that have come from this biome microbiome project, but each
of us has our very own particular sort of set
of bacteria. Yes, this this really blew my mind a
bit because we've discussed in the past, how if you
(06:45):
look at the the the micro environment of say a
Japanese individual versus like especially a typical American individual, like
a typical Japanese um individuals is eating a lot of seafood.
They're having a lot of a lot of seaweed, and
so they have this this environment inside of them that
(07:06):
is the result of that, that is that is patterned
to to roll with that. And then the average American
of course is eating um, cheeseburgers, and it's a cheeseburger
gut bacteria, right, and and so meant to break that
down specifically. Yes, So we knew already that that if
you put these two environments side by side, you were
going to see some significant differences. But it turns out
(07:28):
it's even more widespread than that. Everyone's um bacterial environment
is like a snowflake or like a fingerprint. Each one
is different. So yours is different from mine, and mine
from from you listening, Which makes sense because everyone's everyone's
personal history is a little bit different. Everyone's diet is
a little bit different, Like even within households where two
individuals share the same diet, they're gonna be other factors
(07:50):
that askew things. Yeah, and just to let's do a
quick review two of what beneficial bacteria is and how
we really are outnumbered U. We're talking about one hundred
trillion good bacteria that is dwelling within dwelling inside of us.
And we are really just the rappers for the contents. Yeah, rappers. Yeah,
(08:13):
and sometimes we are rappers, but uh, but really mean
we're just the rappers for this content, bacterial content. Uh,
you know, we are outnumbered our own cells that you know,
we're born with ten to one when it comes to
bacterial cells. Yeah, this, it was, it was crazy. I
think it was the New York Times article we were
looking at where they quoted a scientists where they were
they said, we'll go from the bacterious point of view,
(08:35):
were just the rappers for their Yeah, and so we're
kind of these from that that point of view, we're
we're kind of the parasite in a sense. Well yeah,
I mean the table has been turned when you look
at it that way. And and there was another researcher
that said, you know, when you look in the mirror,
what you're seeing is a bacterial composition. Really because kind
(08:57):
of pretty as what you said, Yeah, like it's a
bacterial composition, should not just stay. But I guess in
reality is a little a little more pollock, uh Jackson
Pollock than anything I don't know, I've seen point till
is um there yeah, um, but yeah, I mean that's
this idea that what you're looking at in the mirror
is largely bacterial and not what you think of as
your own. So again this makes this sort of step
back and say, well, what is let's let's redefine this
(09:19):
relationship we have to bacteria. We know that it helps
to keep us healthy. Um, yeah, we know that it
helps to break down food, helps to inspire our immune system.
But there's plenty of food we just would not be
able to eat if we did not have this bacterial environment, right,
But the finding and findings of this microbiome project seem
(09:40):
to point to a much more important function for our body.
In fact, the evidence is mounting that we've just truly
could not exist without all of the s bacteria teaming
within us. It is a symbiotic relationship then yeah. Yeah,
And we we discussed some of this in our our
Stuffable your Kid's Mind video about the microbes that live
inside is um because you you get into looking at
(10:02):
like the symbiotic relationships, all right, So they are all
these tiny little players that, when working together in harmony,
allow for this greater picture of of uh to to
rise to the surface. And you compare that to the
human body itself, in which you have all these tiny
players working in in even greater unity two produce the
(10:24):
life form that we experience every day. Yeah, and I
mean we talked about it to use just other examples
like that, You've got shrimp that have you know, this
bacteria that basically helps to like a car wash for
the shrimp, which is great because it keeps, you know,
the shrimp from getting any sort of other diseases. Bacteria
keeps the shrimp nice and clean, and you know, then
(10:45):
the bacteria gets something scrumptious to eat off the shrimps back.
Presumably they really are they they should have their own podcast.
Radio added a recent episode on Colors that I recommend
everyone listen to, and there's a section on the mantis
shrimp and it's amazing eyes. Okay, I was I was
thinking that it was more about how it affects coloration
(11:08):
of birds when they eat shrimp, or even there there
people matter, There's there's that they're they're all sorts of weird,
like we think of shrimp is other. It's they're the
thing that shows up on the barbecue. You know, you
think this passive little creature the bottom dwellers, but they're
a ferocious shrimp out there with like like built in
sonic boxing gloves there anyway. That don't get me started
on shrimp. Yeah, back back to the bacteria. Let's talk
(11:30):
about this project as microbiome project. We're talking about a
five year study basically UM with two hundred scientists at
eighty different institutions. This is a tremendous effort um. They're
all pulling together to try to map bacterial genes and
individuals using some of the same technology that the Human
Genome Project used. And what they're trying to do here,
(11:53):
or what they've begun to do, is to find a
baseline of healthy bacteria and individuals because in the past
we have looked at veterian individuals a bit more related
to as you had pointed out, like Chron's disease or
other UM diseases, in which they were trying to figure
out how this bacteria was working. Right. Yeah, we've we've
(12:14):
initiated these studies with it with a certain particular UM
topic in mind. But their idea was, well, what is
it supposed to look like in a healthy individual. Yeah,
let's not just instead of feeling one portion of the elephant,
let's try and trying to guess what it is. Let's
let's look at the elephant. Yeah. And so initially they
had six hundred subjects that they were going to try
(12:35):
to run through this process, ages eighteen to forty, and
they had everyone from densist to gynecologists checking out six
people probing you name it, yeah, because I mean, it
turns out it's actually kind of hard to find someone
who has quote unquote perfectly healthy. I mean not to
you know, to get all Gothic on everybody. If you know,
the second you're born, you start to fall apart. So
(12:56):
how do you find somebody who has who is you
still has it to some degree altogether? Robert bummer, lamb um.
So yeah, it got the the sample um of of
people actually got whittled down to two two And this
is what I thought was amazing. Of these two forty
two people of them still had to be treated for
either gum disease or cavities. So as you say not,
(13:18):
you know, you just kind of you know, start to
follow up and to quote Tina fe the mouth dies first.
So yes, yes, uh uh So in addition to stool
samples and saliva, of these two forty two people, women
were swapped in eighteen different places on their bodies, while
men were swapped in fifteen. And we're talking the crook
of the arm, folds in the ear, uh, for vagina,
(13:41):
for vaginas for women, their vaginas like three different places.
And this is really important because it turns out that
the bacteria in um and the vagina is probably some
of the most powerful in terms of the immune system
and immune functions. And we'll talk about that later, but yeah,
head to toe, these people were wobbed so that they
could get this complete picture of what bacteria looks like
(14:04):
in a person. And so they end up with about
three point five terra bases of data to examine, lots
and lots of data. Yeah, and a terror base is
one trillion subunits of DNA, so we're talking about a
mountain here. Uh. They had something like eleven thousand or
more than eleven thousand samples and they ended up, i believe,
running about five thousand samples through which took about two
(14:26):
million computer hours to to run these data sets. Um.
And just to give everybody a scope of what a
huge project. This This is a hundred and seventy three
million dollar project. And what they're trying to do is
they they teased apart bacterial genes from human genes and
then they could really get into the specifics of what
they were seeing. So they really set out to justify
(14:47):
the ways of bacteria Toman really to get all miltony
on it. Yes, yes, I believe that was actually in
their abstract. Yeah, um, all right, we're gonna take a
quick break and when we get back, we're going to
tell you some amazing things about the bacteria that is
dwelling inside you. Right now, all right, we're back. So, yeah,
(15:11):
there's a lot of bacteria living inside each of us,
to the point where it's it even gets a little
tricky to say it's living inside us. It is living
with us, part of us, it's part of us, it's
a it's in a a symbiotic state, it is enmeshed
part to say where we end and it begins exactly exactly,
it's ten thousand species of microbes and each of us.
(15:31):
That is what they discovered. One of the discoveries from
this project, which again is lending credence to this idea
that it's a microbial organ within us, and we should
start to look at it as that, as opposed to, oh,
there's much there's bacteria jump on us and it's just
hitching a ride. Um. It is. It is acting on
us and within us. Um. And as you say, it
(15:54):
is a very symbiotic process. Yeah, you have twenty two
thousand human genes, eight million back real genes, and it's
and its specialized in the area resides in. So you
have like the Queen's bacteria is gonna gonna really roll
with its the particular neighborhood, whereas the Bronx bacteria is
a lightly different thing. You can't take one for the
from the other switch places and expect h them to
(16:16):
just fit right in well. And the other analogies have
been like, you know, one part of you could be
more like a Amazon rainforest, while the other is like,
you know, an ocean or even another Yeah, you know
the Sahara desert. Um and I had talked about the
bacteria swamps that were taken from the vagina, and it
turns out that that bacteria in there is is very
(16:38):
very active. And in fact, it turns um the vagina
is the jungle in this scenario then, yeah, or the
rainforest perhaps UM it turns conditions a bit acidic um
and its environment, and the idea is that that kind
of keeps other foreign bacteria out. And that would make
sense because this is you know, this is an area
of the body that UM that could cultivate bad bacteria.
(17:02):
I'm putting that uh really easily right. It's damp, moist, yeah,
easy to fuester in. And it's also the first bacterial
environment that a newborn, at least a newborn and experiences.
Vaginal birth is exposed to. It's like a and it
is we discuss this little in the video for kids,
of course, but when the vagina talk. Yeah, but when
(17:26):
a child is born, the vaginal birth, it is it's
basically a baptism of bacteria. They are they they're going
from this clean, pristine environment where they're this single creature,
and then they are just bombarded with this bacterial invasion. Okay,
and check this out. When a woman becomes pregnant, the
bacteria in her vagina changes, presumably um in anticipation of
(17:49):
this child that will be going through the canal and
getting this beneficial bacteria to begin life with. So it
is That's when I start to say, this is far
more ingrained than our thoughts said. WHOA, it just helps
is to break down food. It's like, no, that's actually
it's playing a vital role. Yeah, this is a part
of the blueprint. And so when a child is not
a woman born, when when a child is born via
(18:11):
since arian section, you have a slightly different scenario going on, Right,
you end up with a rather different bacterial baptism. Right,
And that's one of the things that scientists want to
try to answer. If if you are born via caesarean
and you have a different microbiome, how does that affect
you or does it affect you in your adult years?
(18:31):
Do you have a different way of fighting, um, disease
or illness? Are you more likely to flaming bath that
kind of thing? Yes, yeah, that is also in the abstract. Yeah. Um,
so this is really I think, very amazing information to
know that that that bacteria is acting on this level. Um.
(18:53):
Here's another thing that that came out of this is
that researchers found genetic signatures of disease causing bacterial straints
in everyone's micro biome. So what I say, what I'm
saying here is and we've all known, um to some
degree that but that we all carry staff for instance,
or as some of us carry staff. UM, but we're
(19:14):
we're perfectly fine. We're hanging out with it. And then
some other people can come into contact with us, and
then they get a staff infection. So um that that
is no secret. But the extent of some of these
disease causing bacteria that dwells within us that was not
really known. So you have this idea of all this good,
beneficial bacteria within us hanging out with a bad bacteria,
(19:38):
presumably camping it down. It's a difference between saying, oh,
occasionally a a murderer appears in society, UH towards the
difference between that and saying, oh, well they're in they're
a numeral potential murders. They just don't pop up that
are that are somehow kept in check by other UH
forces in society and culture. And UH I draw comparison
(20:00):
here because it's UH the idea that we have a
lot of these harmful bacteria in us, but if things
are in the right balance, then they're not going to
be an issue. It's when things get out of balance
or or systems are are disrupted, that things can get
a little hairy. And that's why, UH, researcher, scientists, doctors
(20:20):
from every discipline are really kind of backing up and
looking at this data and reconstructing their ideas based on it.
And of course, as we go more and more through
the data and find more things to substantiate some of
perhaps theories or hunches will probably find out how bacteria
is actually affecting us. But as you say, um, me,
(20:43):
on this one level, it's it begins to look like, uh,
that it's not actually pathogens that are creating illness and disease,
but with perhaps something like diabetes, it could be a
miscommunication with the bacteria. So normally our bacteria, we begin
to think of this is really um, you know, communicating
with our cells and keeping us healthy. It could be
(21:05):
that there is this miscommunication with bacteria that, instead of
defending it against the pathogen, allows the cells that make
insulin in the body to be killed. Um. And that
really kind of makes you back up and go, Okay, well,
let's think about antibiotics. We know that it can wipe
out your gut flora at least presumably the rest of
your body too. Um And there's some reports you can
(21:29):
take a while for you to recover years four years
to build up your good flora. So then you have
this idea of like, what are these other agents that
are acting honest that are disturbing this balance, as you say,
of good bacteria, and this idea that that balance or
the imbalance that could be creating disease within us. So
we're going forward, we could reach the point where we
(21:52):
look back on our use of of antibiotics and it'll
it'll basically be the equivalent of say, carpet bombing a
city that may have uh insurgents in it or or
some sort of terrorist activity, and it versus the idea
of using a much more targeted method of removing a
a hostile bacteria. Yeah, carpet bomb versus drone right, Um,
(22:14):
not the drone is completely horked out exactly, but still
the the the the comparison holds true. Yeah. Uh So
this this gets this idea that perhaps this sort of knowledge,
this and again we're at the tip of iceberg here
under this huge data mountain. Um this knowledge could help
(22:35):
us to perhaps curb debilitating diseases before they happen. But
that's one of the hopes, um, and then it will
answer some of these questions of why some of us
are more susceptible to disease while others, um just seemed
to be able to really ride things out, or you know,
are much more healthier when it comes to being bombarded
by pathogens. Yeah. Again, I think I brought this up
(22:59):
the last time we discuss stuff micro I mean, I
think it was actually with parasites. But I'm reminded of
the episode of the American version of the Office where
Dwight is fired or Dwight quits, and then all the
plants in the die because no one realized that Dwight
was the one watering them all. And uh. And so
you look at these examples where people are realizing, oh, well,
(23:19):
this thing that we thought was the parasite was really
more of a had more of a symbiotic relationship with us.
This bacteria that we thought was bad. Turns out it's
part of a careful balance that that that is built
up over millions of years. Um. So yeah, yeah, so
we should respect that the Dwights within us. Yeah. UM.
What I think is really interesting about this is the
(23:40):
potential to for for further study because what we're talking about.
Here are two hundred forty two individuals who largely Caucasian,
coming from two cities St. Louis and Houston, I believe.
So you know that's some cheeseburger eaters, right, there's some
cheeseburger eaters. Um, what if you could get a sample
across all cultures across the world. Of course, we're talking
about an insane amount of data that probably wouldn't we
(24:04):
couldn't go through in our lifetime. But what if you
could start to really map this out in earnest across
the world and begin to really see a picture, a
better picture of what it is to be human, what
it is to be someone who is battling disease. I
don't know, it's exciting speaking of microbes and cheeseburgers and
(24:27):
the gut Uh. There's a there's a restaurant in Atlanta
called Gutbusters. Are you familiar with this? And they have
they have this grotesque sign. Um, it's like hand painted
or hand airbrush or something like this guy eating this
big grotesque sandwich. But that would be interesting to study
individuals who eat gut Busters, which I think is some
sort of Philly cheese steak. Thing with cheese whizz on it. Um.
(24:50):
I did a little research. I'm not a Philly cheese
steak guy, but have I ever ran it about this before?
I feel like I have some sort of memory for
a fully cheese steaks. Well. Hating this, you tune into
these various food shows, and a lot of them are
like that. You know, they asked these food uh, these
foodies and chefs like what's your favorite meal in this city,
in the city, in the city, And a lot of
(25:10):
the times they end up narrowing in on a particular
Philly cheese steak or Philly cheese steakes style sandwich and
a given city some sort of kind of gross looking
meat and cheese sandwich. And it's not the kind of
thing that appeals to me. But a lot of people
are really militant about their their Philly cheese steak sandwiches,
and some people are really militant about the necessity of
having cheese with on there. Um. Anyway, I'm just what
(25:33):
does that do to the the interview and it's the
gut buster? Um moniker? Is that? Does that? Is that real?
Is it actually bust your gut? Does it? Does it
somehow invade your gut with even more microbes than before.
I don't know, or maybe well, okay, well, the pessimists
in me too thinks like, once we get the information
about how the food is truly affecting us and this
bacterial colony within us, that we're not really going to
(25:56):
change our ways. What's going to happen is that you're
gonna get some sort of crazy probiotic milkshake to go
with it, to break it down better. You know, it's like, hey,
five thousand strains of microbes. Nine, you get your gap
buster and your biotic shake. There you go. The future. Well,
speaking of the future, let's call the robot over and
(26:18):
get a little listener mail here. Um. So we heard
from our listener Jeffrey, and he was writing in about
the the Aquatic Sounds episode that we did, and he
wanted to share his own experiences with listening to things
in the swimming pool. UM, particularly on to what degree
sound is muffled and what degree it's clear. Um. Because
(26:39):
we were discussed in that podcast that there there are
underwater hearings for humans is different, it's a it's a
slightly different thing there. So some sounds are going to
be aren't going to sound muffled, and they're not getting
you're not gonna be able to hear things underwater quite
like you hear above water. But other sounds are gonna
be very sharp. So Jeffrey writes in and says, the
mid range is muffled. That is far is what's going
(27:00):
on in the water. You can hear some things more crisply.
When I'm resting on my back in the pool at
the gym, I can hear every pop of every knee
and joint here and far. The longer I lay there
after a swim watching the clouds go by. I hope
he means the clouds in the sky, because when I
swim laugh, I see clouds and strings of things that
(27:21):
I don't like to think about floating through the water. Um.
So hopefully yeah, atmospheric clouds, nuts snot cloud um. Watching
the clouds go by, the more I hear the pops
of joints, until it sounds like twenty people constantly breaking
match sticks with the with the with the sound turned up.
In fact, not only can I clearly hear the clicks,
(27:41):
I can clearly hear the echo. I know that out
of the water I wouldn't hear this even in the
most quiet room. If that Olympic sized pool were empty
and I were laying there, there is no way I
could hear a woman's leg or arm or spine pop
from thirty ft away, unlike seven hours ago. Um, so
there you go. Well even hours ago was he said
this on Facebook? So in fact, maybe I cut that off. Anyway,
(28:05):
we got to the need of what Jeffrey had to say.
It's like an aquatic mesophonia. Yeah. Yeah, So for anybody
who does have mesophonia, don't swim in a gym pool
that is uh at the rush hour. Yeah. And the
other interesting thing about about that is if you were
to were to swim and you did not like the
sounds you were hearing, good luck shutting it off because
(28:26):
it's not You can't just stick some your plugs in
because you're hearing with your skull. It's a bone connectivity hearing.
So it's a it's an entirely different scenario. Although they
are underwater empty three players there are, but that would
be your best bet is to somehow block it out.
It's still the sound. We are just going to hit
your skull and rebate, reverbate no matter what HiT's look
(28:48):
at this other email. This one is from Lizzie, and
this was pretty exciting because we just did this episode
The Horror where we talked. We talked about the science
of of being afraid, of being frightened, and then why
we like it when we get addicted to it in
many cases, and we talked a little bit about things
that we find scary um chlorophobia or fear of plants,
(29:09):
fear of clowns. Yes, yes, you you we brought it.
You brought up the fear of clowns. And I kind
of defended clowns to a certain point. Uh and and
cold and uh and they at least offended some of them.
And you brought up hobo's yeah, like clowns people. Yeah.
And so we actually heard from a listener who is
a clown um literally, and Lizzie writes and says, I'm
(29:32):
writing to defend clowns in your horror podcast. I am
a clown and I'm not scary at all. Actually, I
think of myself as adorable. And indeed, she sent a
photo and you have to admit, she's a pretty adorable
clown with makeup. Um, she says. And it's funny to
me that all these kids say that clowns are scary,
because I've had quite the opposite experience. I have been
in nanny for the last two years, and the girls
(29:54):
I watch absolutely love that I'm a clown. The oldest
one would brag to her friends. So when I went
to drop her off and picked and pick her up,
kids were asking me to do tricks or do some
clowney and I would do a small impromptu performance on
the playground and it was fun and I've never made
a kid cry to this day. I even did a
performance at one of the girl's birthdays parties. Uh, in
(30:15):
costume and with a clown nose on. However, some kids
cried when the dad dressed up his illow and came
out to terrify the children. Uh. Well, that wasn't his intent,
but that's what happened. Also, here's a video of one
of the best clowns in the country, Avner the Eccentric,
and he doesn't have any clown makeup on it all
and he's fantastic. Um And indeed, I watched the did
(30:36):
you watch this clip? I didn't have time to this morning,
but you described it to me. Yeah. He it's really
interesting because he has kind of Uh, he's like an
older dude and he has as a big bushy beard
and uh a little bit he looks like the who
was it? Was it? Red Green? The Red Green Show?
The Canadian Show? I thought the that was on PBS.
Kind of that kind of mentality, you know, kind of
(30:58):
a prospect you're looking. Beard does not have clown makeup on,
like she says, and his act reminds me like a
little bit of like an EMT Kelly kind of hobo
clown kind of thing. A lot of his materials seemed
to revolve around eating, but then there's also a miming
kind of Charlie Chaplin vibe to what he's doing. So
(31:18):
I found it really interesting because it seemed like maybe
it's avice into a certain extent. It's like clowns reclaiming
their territory. Okay, but there's no grease paint, is when
I'm caring. There's no grease paint, but that he doesn't need.
It's in a way it's kind of big shoes. Um,
I didn't know. I don't know if I could see
his feet, but a lot of napkin eating. Okay, alright,
(31:41):
So so Julia is still not convent but I'm gonna
check it out. We can we can talk about in
the next podcast. But I do I like this idea that, um,
maybe there's this return to this original sense of what
it is to clown and take it out of this
other darker realm that I seem to think of, take
it back to we were talking earlier about Comedia dell arte.
You know, Yeah, there's some rich roots to client. Maybe
(32:04):
we should actually do an episode on clowning. I don't
know how we get into the science all that much,
but uh, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, all right, Well,
thanks Lizzy for letting us know about that. If any
of you would like to pow wow with us and
share some inside on underwater sounds on clowning on the
back curia that live inside your gut, uh, let us
(32:25):
know about it. You can connect with us on Facebook
by just typing and stuff to blow your mind. You'll
find us there, um if you if you haven't looked
us up there, look us up, give us a like.
The more fans we have, the more people we can reach,
and we try and update that with you know, not
just shills for stuff that we've done and stuff we're doing,
but like just cool links that we come across, videos
(32:46):
that are you know, doing it for us, that kind
of thing. And you can also find us on Twitter
where our handle is blow the Mind. And we'll actually
try to post that video to bet Lizzie sign yes
so everybody can weigh in on fasically. I'll try and
put that on the Facebook for sure, yeah. Um, And
you can always drop us a line at blow the
Mind at discovery dot com.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas, and
we're gonna kick right in on a topic we've talked
about before, about the microbial legions that live inside us,
about our growing revelation that it's not just us versus bacteria.
(00:30):
It's us and bacteria it's not and and then you
even get into this weird area where it's really hard
to define what us really is. Yeah. Actually, there have
been a bunch of articles that have come out to
talk about this idea, and we've we've discussed this as well.
We've talked about more specifics. Yeah, we discussed this in
the the kids, Uh, Stuff to blow your kid's mind. Boy,
(00:53):
it's early. I can't remembering the things that we did.
We we talked about bacteria all the time, is what
you're saying, but more specific to um, you know, perhaps
diseases or the gut and how it affects our moods. Um.
But yeah, there's been a bunch of data that has
come out, UM. And this is out of something called
the Human Microbiome Project, which is very similar to the
(01:15):
Human Genome project, and we're gonna talk a little bit
more about that. But there's this idea that bacteria just
isn't getting the respect that it deserves, that that it
is more like a micro um biome organ like we
should look at this as an organ in our body,
This this team um of bacteria that lives within us,
(01:37):
as opposed to like, oh yeah, we've got some bacteria
on us. It's it's witching a ride. And then and
so far studies have have more or less fallen in
line with that line of thinking because like previously, we
just we didn't give it bacteria much thought, and then
we thought, oh, bacterious the enemy. And then we started
looking a little closer at saying, well, let's look at
at fecal bacteria and uh, and in with the hope
(02:01):
of understand better understanding various intestinal situations, let's look at
um that the mouth bacteria of a normal person. But there,
but there hasn't been until now this, uh, this real
effort to understand our micro geom as as a whole.
It's to really understand the the micro's inside us. Like
you say, as this this entity right that that is
(02:25):
doing so much more than we ever could have imagined.
But let's talk about it first as as the enemy,
because this has really been our history with bacteria, at
least in the modern world. Yeah. This, Um, we we
get into this this area where all right, we recognize
that bacteria can and does do destructive things to the
human body, So we need a weapon to fight it, right,
(02:48):
So we end up using this thing called trickle sand,
which is pretty crazy, created more than forty years ago
surgical scrub for hospitals, so heavy duty stuff, right, But
then it shows up in a range of consumer products,
everything from liquid soap to bars up to toothpaste to
acne ointments, deodorant, mouthwatch, you name it pretty much any
socksy what's doing in fox? Uh, it's it's everywhere, to
(03:12):
the point to the point that the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention found that the chemical is present in
the urine of seventy of Americans over the age of five.
So we're such as our obsession with cleanliness. Yeah, it's
like we're fighting the war so enthusiastically that we do.
We've just saturated our bodies with this, uh, with this substance. Yeah,
(03:33):
and there have been a couple of studies that show
that trick lesson may alter hormone regulation in lab animals
at least or cause antibiotic resistance. And that's the big
problem we have right because we've got superbugs emerging like
uh Clostium cliffs Clostridium deficially, which is a superbug that
(03:53):
is in hospitals and unfortunately a lot of people who
go in for procedures sometimes to be confused with Chuck
Australian which is UM. But that that's actually something that's
extremely debilitating and um, people really suffer for years and
years afterward. I mean, if if you happen to be
(04:14):
very elderly or very young, there's possibility that you could
die from it. And but just to bring in bacteria
back into the fold here, um, I think if everybody
remembers we talked about something called fecal transplants which actually
are helping people we see diff um that they contracted
in the hospital and replenishing their their bad or their
(04:35):
worn out gut floora with really good bacteria. UM. So
we've had clues along the way that bacteria isn't you know,
And just a rehash on that every everyone has probably
wanted at one point another. What is poop? Right? What
is it? What is poop? And as it turns out
that a lot of poop is is actually bacteria. It's
not food or food waste particularly as much as it
(04:56):
is bacteria. Yeah. So the idea here as you you
end up with an imbalance in the bacterial uh population
inside your intestines, and to to set things right, you
get some get a nice healthy stool sample. Inject that
into your system, uh, specifically into your intestines, not just anywhere,
(05:19):
but don't try to at home on your own by
the way, I have it professionally done. Um and only
if if needed. Uh. But the ideas you get some
healthy fecal matter in there to restore equilibrium with that
bacterial population, right, because it turns out the gut is
really stuffed with a ton of bacteria and adults actually
carry two to five pounds of bacteria. Did you know that,
(05:42):
Like your weight is made up of two to five
pounds of bacteria. Like you can think of it in
terms of like I think of in terms of, say
the population in a in a wooded area. All right, um, oh, well,
we don't like, we don't like coyotes. Coyotes are bad,
so we wipe out a whole bunch of coyotes. Now
there's nothing to eat the animal that the kind of
these are a good example. Let's say wolves. Wolves are bad,
(06:04):
They're gonna eat our livestock. Let's to wipe out the wolves,
all right. Now what's gonna eat? Say the deer. Now
they're deer everywhere, deer showing up in our yards and
running into our cars. What are gonna do about the deer?
That things get out of balance with these Uh, these
carefully maintained and evolved environments. Uh, that contain multiple players,
that's right, And and things began to behave differently. And uh,
(06:25):
you can look at that sort of analogy within your
own microbiome, right, because each of us, it turns out,
and we'll talk a little bit more about these revelations
that have come from this biome microbiome project, but each
of us has our very own particular sort of set
of bacteria. Yes, this this really blew my mind a
bit because we've discussed in the past, how if you
(06:45):
look at the the the micro environment of say a
Japanese individual versus like especially a typical American individual, like
a typical Japanese um individuals is eating a lot of seafood.
They're having a lot of a lot of seaweed, and
so they have this this environment inside of them that
(07:06):
is the result of that, that is that is patterned
to to roll with that. And then the average American
of course is eating um, cheeseburgers, and it's a cheeseburger
gut bacteria, right, and and so meant to break that
down specifically. Yes, So we knew already that that if
you put these two environments side by side, you were
going to see some significant differences. But it turns out
(07:28):
it's even more widespread than that. Everyone's um bacterial environment
is like a snowflake or like a fingerprint. Each one
is different. So yours is different from mine, and mine
from from you listening, Which makes sense because everyone's everyone's
personal history is a little bit different. Everyone's diet is
a little bit different, Like even within households where two
individuals share the same diet, they're gonna be other factors
(07:50):
that askew things. Yeah, and just to let's do a
quick review two of what beneficial bacteria is and how
we really are outnumbered U. We're talking about one hundred
trillion good bacteria that is dwelling within dwelling inside of us.
And we are really just the rappers for the contents. Yeah, rappers. Yeah,
(08:13):
and sometimes we are rappers, but uh, but really mean
we're just the rappers for this content, bacterial content. Uh,
you know, we are outnumbered our own cells that you know,
we're born with ten to one when it comes to
bacterial cells. Yeah, this, it was, it was crazy. I
think it was the New York Times article we were
looking at where they quoted a scientists where they were
they said, we'll go from the bacterious point of view,
(08:35):
were just the rappers for their Yeah, and so we're
kind of these from that that point of view, we're
we're kind of the parasite in a sense. Well yeah,
I mean the table has been turned when you look
at it that way. And and there was another researcher
that said, you know, when you look in the mirror,
what you're seeing is a bacterial composition. Really because kind
(08:57):
of pretty as what you said, Yeah, like it's a
bacterial composition, should not just stay. But I guess in
reality is a little a little more pollock, uh Jackson
Pollock than anything I don't know, I've seen point till
is um there yeah, um, but yeah, I mean that's
this idea that what you're looking at in the mirror
is largely bacterial and not what you think of as
your own. So again this makes this sort of step
back and say, well, what is let's let's redefine this
(09:19):
relationship we have to bacteria. We know that it helps
to keep us healthy. Um, yeah, we know that it
helps to break down food, helps to inspire our immune system.
But there's plenty of food we just would not be
able to eat if we did not have this bacterial environment, right,
But the finding and findings of this microbiome project seem
(09:40):
to point to a much more important function for our body.
In fact, the evidence is mounting that we've just truly
could not exist without all of the s bacteria teaming
within us. It is a symbiotic relationship then yeah. Yeah,
And we we discussed some of this in our our
Stuffable your Kid's Mind video about the microbes that live
inside is um because you you get into looking at
(10:02):
like the symbiotic relationships, all right, So they are all
these tiny little players that, when working together in harmony,
allow for this greater picture of of uh to to
rise to the surface. And you compare that to the
human body itself, in which you have all these tiny
players working in in even greater unity two produce the
(10:24):
life form that we experience every day. Yeah, and I
mean we talked about it to use just other examples
like that, You've got shrimp that have you know, this
bacteria that basically helps to like a car wash for
the shrimp, which is great because it keeps, you know,
the shrimp from getting any sort of other diseases. Bacteria
keeps the shrimp nice and clean, and you know, then
(10:45):
the bacteria gets something scrumptious to eat off the shrimps back.
Presumably they really are they they should have their own podcast.
Radio added a recent episode on Colors that I recommend
everyone listen to, and there's a section on the mantis
shrimp and it's amazing eyes. Okay, I was I was
thinking that it was more about how it affects coloration
(11:08):
of birds when they eat shrimp, or even there there
people matter, There's there's that they're they're all sorts of weird,
like we think of shrimp is other. It's they're the
thing that shows up on the barbecue. You know, you
think this passive little creature the bottom dwellers, but they're
a ferocious shrimp out there with like like built in
sonic boxing gloves there anyway. That don't get me started
on shrimp. Yeah, back back to the bacteria. Let's talk
(11:30):
about this project as microbiome project. We're talking about a
five year study basically UM with two hundred scientists at
eighty different institutions. This is a tremendous effort um. They're
all pulling together to try to map bacterial genes and
individuals using some of the same technology that the Human
Genome Project used. And what they're trying to do here,
(11:53):
or what they've begun to do, is to find a
baseline of healthy bacteria and individuals because in the past
we have looked at veterian individuals a bit more related
to as you had pointed out, like Chron's disease or
other UM diseases, in which they were trying to figure
out how this bacteria was working. Right. Yeah, we've we've
(12:14):
initiated these studies with it with a certain particular UM
topic in mind. But their idea was, well, what is
it supposed to look like in a healthy individual. Yeah,
let's not just instead of feeling one portion of the elephant,
let's try and trying to guess what it is. Let's
let's look at the elephant. Yeah. And so initially they
had six hundred subjects that they were going to try
(12:35):
to run through this process, ages eighteen to forty, and
they had everyone from densist to gynecologists checking out six
people probing you name it, yeah, because I mean, it
turns out it's actually kind of hard to find someone
who has quote unquote perfectly healthy. I mean not to
you know, to get all Gothic on everybody. If you know,
the second you're born, you start to fall apart. So
(12:56):
how do you find somebody who has who is you
still has it to some degree altogether? Robert bummer, lamb um.
So yeah, it got the the sample um of of
people actually got whittled down to two two And this
is what I thought was amazing. Of these two forty
two people of them still had to be treated for
either gum disease or cavities. So as you say not,
(13:18):
you know, you just kind of you know, start to
follow up and to quote Tina fe the mouth dies first.
So yes, yes, uh uh So in addition to stool
samples and saliva, of these two forty two people, women
were swapped in eighteen different places on their bodies, while
men were swapped in fifteen. And we're talking the crook
of the arm, folds in the ear, uh, for vagina,
(13:41):
for vaginas for women, their vaginas like three different places.
And this is really important because it turns out that
the bacteria in um and the vagina is probably some
of the most powerful in terms of the immune system
and immune functions. And we'll talk about that later, but yeah,
head to toe, these people were wobbed so that they
could get this complete picture of what bacteria looks like
(14:04):
in a person. And so they end up with about
three point five terra bases of data to examine, lots
and lots of data. Yeah, and a terror base is
one trillion subunits of DNA, so we're talking about a
mountain here. Uh. They had something like eleven thousand or
more than eleven thousand samples and they ended up, i believe,
running about five thousand samples through which took about two
(14:26):
million computer hours to to run these data sets. Um.
And just to give everybody a scope of what a
huge project. This This is a hundred and seventy three
million dollar project. And what they're trying to do is
they they teased apart bacterial genes from human genes and
then they could really get into the specifics of what
they were seeing. So they really set out to justify
(14:47):
the ways of bacteria Toman really to get all miltony
on it. Yes, yes, I believe that was actually in
their abstract. Yeah, um, all right, we're gonna take a
quick break and when we get back, we're going to
tell you some amazing things about the bacteria that is
dwelling inside you. Right now, all right, we're back. So, yeah,
(15:11):
there's a lot of bacteria living inside each of us,
to the point where it's it even gets a little
tricky to say it's living inside us. It is living
with us, part of us, it's part of us, it's
a it's in a a symbiotic state, it is enmeshed
part to say where we end and it begins exactly exactly,
it's ten thousand species of microbes and each of us.
(15:31):
That is what they discovered. One of the discoveries from
this project, which again is lending credence to this idea
that it's a microbial organ within us, and we should
start to look at it as that, as opposed to, oh,
there's much there's bacteria jump on us and it's just
hitching a ride. Um. It is. It is acting on
us and within us. Um. And as you say, it
(15:54):
is a very symbiotic process. Yeah, you have twenty two
thousand human genes, eight million back real genes, and it's
and its specialized in the area resides in. So you
have like the Queen's bacteria is gonna gonna really roll
with its the particular neighborhood, whereas the Bronx bacteria is
a lightly different thing. You can't take one for the
from the other switch places and expect h them to
(16:16):
just fit right in well. And the other analogies have
been like, you know, one part of you could be
more like a Amazon rainforest, while the other is like,
you know, an ocean or even another Yeah, you know
the Sahara desert. Um and I had talked about the
bacteria swamps that were taken from the vagina, and it
turns out that that bacteria in there is is very
(16:38):
very active. And in fact, it turns um the vagina
is the jungle in this scenario then, yeah, or the
rainforest perhaps UM it turns conditions a bit acidic um
and its environment, and the idea is that that kind
of keeps other foreign bacteria out. And that would make
sense because this is you know, this is an area
of the body that UM that could cultivate bad bacteria.
(17:02):
I'm putting that uh really easily right. It's damp, moist, yeah,
easy to fuester in. And it's also the first bacterial
environment that a newborn, at least a newborn and experiences.
Vaginal birth is exposed to. It's like a and it
is we discuss this little in the video for kids,
of course, but when the vagina talk. Yeah, but when
(17:26):
a child is born, the vaginal birth, it is it's
basically a baptism of bacteria. They are they they're going
from this clean, pristine environment where they're this single creature,
and then they are just bombarded with this bacterial invasion. Okay,
and check this out. When a woman becomes pregnant, the
bacteria in her vagina changes, presumably um in anticipation of
(17:49):
this child that will be going through the canal and
getting this beneficial bacteria to begin life with. So it
is That's when I start to say, this is far
more ingrained than our thoughts said. WHOA, it just helps
is to break down food. It's like, no, that's actually
it's playing a vital role. Yeah, this is a part
of the blueprint. And so when a child is not
a woman born, when when a child is born via
(18:11):
since arian section, you have a slightly different scenario going on, Right,
you end up with a rather different bacterial baptism. Right,
And that's one of the things that scientists want to
try to answer. If if you are born via caesarean
and you have a different microbiome, how does that affect
you or does it affect you in your adult years?
(18:31):
Do you have a different way of fighting, um, disease
or illness? Are you more likely to flaming bath that
kind of thing? Yes, yeah, that is also in the abstract. Yeah. Um,
so this is really I think, very amazing information to
know that that that bacteria is acting on this level. Um.
(18:53):
Here's another thing that that came out of this is
that researchers found genetic signatures of disease causing bacterial straints
in everyone's micro biome. So what I say, what I'm
saying here is and we've all known, um to some
degree that but that we all carry staff for instance,
or as some of us carry staff. UM, but we're
(19:14):
we're perfectly fine. We're hanging out with it. And then
some other people can come into contact with us, and
then they get a staff infection. So um that that
is no secret. But the extent of some of these
disease causing bacteria that dwells within us that was not
really known. So you have this idea of all this good,
beneficial bacteria within us hanging out with a bad bacteria,
(19:38):
presumably camping it down. It's a difference between saying, oh,
occasionally a a murderer appears in society, UH towards the
difference between that and saying, oh, well they're in they're
a numeral potential murders. They just don't pop up that
are that are somehow kept in check by other UH
forces in society and culture. And UH I draw comparison
(20:00):
here because it's UH the idea that we have a
lot of these harmful bacteria in us, but if things
are in the right balance, then they're not going to
be an issue. It's when things get out of balance
or or systems are are disrupted, that things can get
a little hairy. And that's why, UH, researcher, scientists, doctors
(20:20):
from every discipline are really kind of backing up and
looking at this data and reconstructing their ideas based on it.
And of course, as we go more and more through
the data and find more things to substantiate some of
perhaps theories or hunches will probably find out how bacteria
is actually affecting us. But as you say, um, me,
(20:43):
on this one level, it's it begins to look like, uh,
that it's not actually pathogens that are creating illness and disease,
but with perhaps something like diabetes, it could be a
miscommunication with the bacteria. So normally our bacteria, we begin
to think of this is really um, you know, communicating
with our cells and keeping us healthy. It could be
(21:05):
that there is this miscommunication with bacteria that, instead of
defending it against the pathogen, allows the cells that make
insulin in the body to be killed. Um. And that
really kind of makes you back up and go, Okay, well,
let's think about antibiotics. We know that it can wipe
out your gut flora at least presumably the rest of
your body too. Um And there's some reports you can
(21:29):
take a while for you to recover years four years
to build up your good flora. So then you have
this idea of like, what are these other agents that
are acting honest that are disturbing this balance, as you say,
of good bacteria, and this idea that that balance or
the imbalance that could be creating disease within us. So
we're going forward, we could reach the point where we
(21:52):
look back on our use of of antibiotics and it'll
it'll basically be the equivalent of say, carpet bombing a
city that may have uh insurgents in it or or
some sort of terrorist activity, and it versus the idea
of using a much more targeted method of removing a
a hostile bacteria. Yeah, carpet bomb versus drone right, Um,
(22:14):
not the drone is completely horked out exactly, but still
the the the the comparison holds true. Yeah. Uh So
this this gets this idea that perhaps this sort of knowledge,
this and again we're at the tip of iceberg here
under this huge data mountain. Um this knowledge could help
(22:35):
us to perhaps curb debilitating diseases before they happen. But
that's one of the hopes, um, and then it will
answer some of these questions of why some of us
are more susceptible to disease while others, um just seemed
to be able to really ride things out, or you know,
are much more healthier when it comes to being bombarded
by pathogens. Yeah. Again, I think I brought this up
(22:59):
the last time we discuss stuff micro I mean, I
think it was actually with parasites. But I'm reminded of
the episode of the American version of the Office where
Dwight is fired or Dwight quits, and then all the
plants in the die because no one realized that Dwight
was the one watering them all. And uh. And so
you look at these examples where people are realizing, oh, well,
(23:19):
this thing that we thought was the parasite was really
more of a had more of a symbiotic relationship with us.
This bacteria that we thought was bad. Turns out it's
part of a careful balance that that that is built
up over millions of years. Um. So yeah, yeah, so
we should respect that the Dwights within us. Yeah. UM.
What I think is really interesting about this is the
(23:40):
potential to for for further study because what we're talking about.
Here are two hundred forty two individuals who largely Caucasian,
coming from two cities St. Louis and Houston, I believe.
So you know that's some cheeseburger eaters, right, there's some
cheeseburger eaters. Um, what if you could get a sample
across all cultures across the world. Of course, we're talking
about an insane amount of data that probably wouldn't we
(24:04):
couldn't go through in our lifetime. But what if you
could start to really map this out in earnest across
the world and begin to really see a picture, a
better picture of what it is to be human, what
it is to be someone who is battling disease. I
don't know, it's exciting speaking of microbes and cheeseburgers and
(24:27):
the gut Uh. There's a there's a restaurant in Atlanta
called Gutbusters. Are you familiar with this? And they have
they have this grotesque sign. Um, it's like hand painted
or hand airbrush or something like this guy eating this
big grotesque sandwich. But that would be interesting to study
individuals who eat gut Busters, which I think is some
sort of Philly cheese steak. Thing with cheese whizz on it. Um.
(24:50):
I did a little research. I'm not a Philly cheese
steak guy, but have I ever ran it about this before?
I feel like I have some sort of memory for
a fully cheese steaks. Well. Hating this, you tune into
these various food shows, and a lot of them are
like that. You know, they asked these food uh, these
foodies and chefs like what's your favorite meal in this city,
in the city, in the city, And a lot of
(25:10):
the times they end up narrowing in on a particular
Philly cheese steak or Philly cheese steakes style sandwich and
a given city some sort of kind of gross looking
meat and cheese sandwich. And it's not the kind of
thing that appeals to me. But a lot of people
are really militant about their their Philly cheese steak sandwiches,
and some people are really militant about the necessity of
having cheese with on there. Um. Anyway, I'm just what
(25:33):
does that do to the the interview and it's the
gut buster? Um moniker? Is that? Does that? Is that real?
Is it actually bust your gut? Does it? Does it
somehow invade your gut with even more microbes than before.
I don't know, or maybe well, okay, well, the pessimists
in me too thinks like, once we get the information
about how the food is truly affecting us and this
bacterial colony within us, that we're not really going to
(25:56):
change our ways. What's going to happen is that you're
gonna get some sort of crazy probiotic milkshake to go
with it, to break it down better. You know, it's like, hey,
five thousand strains of microbes. Nine, you get your gap
buster and your biotic shake. There you go. The future. Well,
speaking of the future, let's call the robot over and
(26:18):
get a little listener mail here. Um. So we heard
from our listener Jeffrey, and he was writing in about
the the Aquatic Sounds episode that we did, and he
wanted to share his own experiences with listening to things
in the swimming pool. UM, particularly on to what degree
sound is muffled and what degree it's clear. Um. Because
(26:39):
we were discussed in that podcast that there there are
underwater hearings for humans is different, it's a it's a
slightly different thing there. So some sounds are going to
be aren't going to sound muffled, and they're not getting
you're not gonna be able to hear things underwater quite
like you hear above water. But other sounds are gonna
be very sharp. So Jeffrey writes in and says, the
mid range is muffled. That is far is what's going
(27:00):
on in the water. You can hear some things more crisply.
When I'm resting on my back in the pool at
the gym, I can hear every pop of every knee
and joint here and far. The longer I lay there
after a swim watching the clouds go by. I hope
he means the clouds in the sky, because when I
swim laugh, I see clouds and strings of things that
(27:21):
I don't like to think about floating through the water. Um.
So hopefully yeah, atmospheric clouds, nuts snot cloud um. Watching
the clouds go by, the more I hear the pops
of joints, until it sounds like twenty people constantly breaking
match sticks with the with the with the sound turned up.
In fact, not only can I clearly hear the clicks,
(27:41):
I can clearly hear the echo. I know that out
of the water I wouldn't hear this even in the
most quiet room. If that Olympic sized pool were empty
and I were laying there, there is no way I
could hear a woman's leg or arm or spine pop
from thirty ft away, unlike seven hours ago. Um, so
there you go. Well even hours ago was he said
this on Facebook? So in fact, maybe I cut that off. Anyway,
(28:05):
we got to the need of what Jeffrey had to say.
It's like an aquatic mesophonia. Yeah. Yeah, So for anybody
who does have mesophonia, don't swim in a gym pool
that is uh at the rush hour. Yeah. And the
other interesting thing about about that is if you were
to were to swim and you did not like the
sounds you were hearing, good luck shutting it off because
(28:26):
it's not You can't just stick some your plugs in
because you're hearing with your skull. It's a bone connectivity hearing.
So it's a it's an entirely different scenario. Although they
are underwater empty three players there are, but that would
be your best bet is to somehow block it out.
It's still the sound. We are just going to hit
your skull and rebate, reverbate no matter what HiT's look
(28:48):
at this other email. This one is from Lizzie, and
this was pretty exciting because we just did this episode
The Horror where we talked. We talked about the science
of of being afraid, of being frightened, and then why
we like it when we get addicted to it in
many cases, and we talked a little bit about things
that we find scary um chlorophobia or fear of plants,
(29:09):
fear of clowns. Yes, yes, you you we brought it.
You brought up the fear of clowns. And I kind
of defended clowns to a certain point. Uh and and
cold and uh and they at least offended some of them.
And you brought up hobo's yeah, like clowns people. Yeah.
And so we actually heard from a listener who is
a clown um literally, and Lizzie writes and says, I'm
(29:32):
writing to defend clowns in your horror podcast. I am
a clown and I'm not scary at all. Actually, I
think of myself as adorable. And indeed, she sent a
photo and you have to admit, she's a pretty adorable
clown with makeup. Um, she says. And it's funny to
me that all these kids say that clowns are scary,
because I've had quite the opposite experience. I have been
in nanny for the last two years, and the girls
(29:54):
I watch absolutely love that I'm a clown. The oldest
one would brag to her friends. So when I went
to drop her off and picked and pick her up,
kids were asking me to do tricks or do some
clowney and I would do a small impromptu performance on
the playground and it was fun and I've never made
a kid cry to this day. I even did a
performance at one of the girl's birthdays parties. Uh, in
(30:15):
costume and with a clown nose on. However, some kids
cried when the dad dressed up his illow and came
out to terrify the children. Uh. Well, that wasn't his intent,
but that's what happened. Also, here's a video of one
of the best clowns in the country, Avner the Eccentric,
and he doesn't have any clown makeup on it all
and he's fantastic. Um And indeed, I watched the did
(30:36):
you watch this clip? I didn't have time to this morning,
but you described it to me. Yeah. He it's really
interesting because he has kind of Uh, he's like an
older dude and he has as a big bushy beard
and uh a little bit he looks like the who
was it? Was it? Red Green? The Red Green Show?
The Canadian Show? I thought the that was on PBS.
Kind of that kind of mentality, you know, kind of
(30:58):
a prospect you're looking. Beard does not have clown makeup on,
like she says, and his act reminds me like a
little bit of like an EMT Kelly kind of hobo
clown kind of thing. A lot of his materials seemed
to revolve around eating, but then there's also a miming
kind of Charlie Chaplin vibe to what he's doing. So
(31:18):
I found it really interesting because it seemed like maybe
it's avice into a certain extent. It's like clowns reclaiming
their territory. Okay, but there's no grease paint, is when
I'm caring. There's no grease paint, but that he doesn't need.
It's in a way it's kind of big shoes. Um,
I didn't know. I don't know if I could see
his feet, but a lot of napkin eating. Okay, alright,
(31:41):
So so Julia is still not convent but I'm gonna
check it out. We can we can talk about in
the next podcast. But I do I like this idea that, um,
maybe there's this return to this original sense of what
it is to clown and take it out of this
other darker realm that I seem to think of, take
it back to we were talking earlier about Comedia dell arte.
You know, Yeah, there's some rich roots to client. Maybe
(32:04):
we should actually do an episode on clowning. I don't
know how we get into the science all that much,
but uh, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, all right, Well,
thanks Lizzy for letting us know about that. If any
of you would like to pow wow with us and
share some inside on underwater sounds on clowning on the
back curia that live inside your gut, uh, let us
(32:25):
know about it. You can connect with us on Facebook
by just typing and stuff to blow your mind. You'll
find us there, um if you if you haven't looked
us up there, look us up, give us a like.
The more fans we have, the more people we can reach,
and we try and update that with you know, not
just shills for stuff that we've done and stuff we're doing,
but like just cool links that we come across, videos
(32:46):
that are you know, doing it for us, that kind
of thing. And you can also find us on Twitter
where our handle is blow the Mind. And we'll actually
try to post that video to bet Lizzie sign yes
so everybody can weigh in on fasically. I'll try and
put that on the Facebook for sure, yeah. Um, And
you can always drop us a line at blow the
Mind at discovery dot com.
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