November 25, 2010 • 21 mins
Each week, Robert and Julie bring you fascinating, mind-blowing stories about the strangest things in the natural world -- but how could your mind literally be blown? Tune in and learn more in this podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Robert Lamb.
I'm Julie Douglas. Tell me, Julie, you've encountered people using
the word literally incorrectly before? Right? Oh yeah, I'm definitely
I'm someone who's used it incorrectly before. Yeah, like uh,
(00:26):
like like us it incorrectly in a sense I am
literally starving to death, all right, or or the famous
sports line he literally took his head off. And but
the thing is generally you're not You're generally not starving
or and uh and and then uh, sports people generally
are not decapitated on the field hopefully. Yeah. So it's
(00:47):
it's interesting to actually dive into the scientific world and
look for examples where people's heads can literally explode, because
people will use this like like, oh man, I've read
that are iCal and nature and made my head explode,
or you know, or I went to math class and
you know, my head totally exploded. So we'd we're seeking
(01:08):
to answer the question can your brain your skull literally explode? Yeah?
And if so, how But I think I think we
may need to go back in the time machine a
bit too, Yeah, to look at a good instance of
splattering of the brains, so to speak, because we felt
we have evidence from around d a little place called
(01:32):
Herculaneum near Mount Vesuvius, where where archaeologists have found these
skulls from the victims of people who died when this
is volcano erupted and the skulls like completely cracked open
like an egg that's been shattered brutal. Yeah. So they're
thinking that now that they've got more evidence that it
(01:53):
had to do with a pyroclastic flow, right, Yeah, And
the pyroclastic flow is is pretty uh mind blowing. Uh.
When a volcano erupts, all the stuff coming out the
top is uh, of course, it's not just not merely smoke.
It's it's ash, it's um, rock and mud. Yeah, it's
all just pulverized by this rapid release of gas from
(02:13):
the inner earth. Okay, So all that stuff comes back
down again, and it can it can end up forming
to this thing called a pyroclastic flow, which is essentially
a just mass of ash, gas, rock fragments all traveling
at It speeds up to like a hundred and twenty
five per hour, So just speeding along, and the temperatures
(02:35):
in this thing are pretty amazing, like degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I've seen it. Seen it ranged from like seven fifty
two to yeah, thousand, four seventy two degrees fahrenheit, which
is pretty hot. Yeah. Okay, so let's set the stage.
Ves erupts. Right, there's this column of gas, this roiling mixture,
(02:55):
and if you're unlucky enough to live in Pompeii, you're
probably gonna get buried in a bunch of ash, right,
which is I think what we normally think about when
we think about vesuvious. We think about the inhabitants of Pompeii.
But if you're in the little fishing village of Herculaneum,
it's gonna be far worse. You're you may even be
(03:17):
Let's stay down wind of that pyroclastic flow. Yeah, and
again it's just like this wall of of what looks
like smoke, and you know, this wall of just rolling ash,
just just coming down the side of the of the hills,
you know. Yeah, And so that you see that, you
see them the volcano erupt Ten minutes later, you're you're
trying to evacuate something, You're running down the street and
(03:39):
like you said, you've got this cloud mushrooming out. You
add nikes degrees fahrenheit. I mean that what is that
going to do to you? Well? Uh, the scientists believe
that what happens is when it when it first hit you, Um,
it's going to basically vaporize your soft tissues on the
like on the extuse exterior of your body. But then
(04:02):
the heat is it's also so intense that it like
cracks the enamel of your teeth and uh. And actually
that they've discovered also the insides of the skull were
kind of blackened, so the brains are essentially boiling in
there just like in a split second. It's like it's
like being it's like some of the from a sci
fi novel or something where someone's like hit with a
(04:24):
ray gun. It's like suddenly brains boiling and uh and
what happens if something is suddenly boiling inside an enclosed
space like the cranium? Yeah, that so thinking and it's
it seems so sci fi. Something that's just incinerating before
your eyes and in the poor brain is boiling and
just pops. And I think you had written a article
about volcanic ash, and you actually had a good explanation
(04:46):
for that. I think you likened it to an egg
and water. Yeah. Yeah, it's boiling. And if you think
about it as like a molten goo that your brain
is in, yeah, it's uh. Another way to think of
it is if you've ever been been camping and you
had like a hand of beans or something can't of
soup and you're kind of like heating it up hobo style,
you know, like, you know, like the stupidest thing you
(05:07):
could possibly do would be to throw an entire can
of soup into a fire, because what's gonna happen. It's
gonna blow up, right, it's gonna blow up. You gotta
poke holes and that can of course. Right. So it's
the it's like a similar thing occurring in a split
second with these uh, these poor you know, fisherman's skulls.
It's just suddenly heat hits them and whammo, top of
(05:27):
the skull cracks, instant literal blowing of the mind. Correct,
right there. And I think what's so cool about that
is that they actually tried to replicate these results. Well
I shouldn't say that's what's so cool about I think
it's cool that they went to the trouble of trying
to find out exactly how this is because again, before
the before they got this sort of recent information, everybody
(05:52):
was under the assumption that people had died from suffocation
from the gases and volcanic ash and everything else raining
down upon them. So now they know it was really
the heat that was the element that wiped out the
village and Pompeii. And you have a bunch of scientists
basically in a lab taking animal and human bones and
(06:12):
exposing them to certain degrees of heat and finally being
able to replicate this degree of charred nous um, and
and also looking at the schools as you had mentioned,
and seeing that there are parts of the school missing,
and hey, here's our conclusion. That got up to uh
to degrees so hot that it could just make your
brain pop. Yeah, I believe the They believe it got
(06:35):
up in her in herculaneum got up to around n
degrees fahrenheg. Yeah, And it was a big I mean,
this wasn't just a paraclastic flow. I mean it was
that as well, but the paroclastic clouds so it hung around.
So even if you were ensconced away in some building
and you thought you were hiding from it, the heat
was eventually going to get to you anyway. No insulation
(06:56):
of the time was going to save you from that. Yeah, yeah,
I mean it's really horrific when you think about it. Yeah,
But luckily, like I said, I think, I think it
would have been over pretty quick, you know. Yeah, this
is true. Like you said, I mean, it's I mean
sort of instant vaporization. So I as far as ways
to go, that's I think not too bad. Not having
experienced it myself, I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't seek
(07:17):
it out. Now, what is the Another interesting aspect of
the of the whole situation with Vesuvius was the posture
of the bodies. Yeah. Yeah, they called the garden and
Fugitives because they found a bunch of different people who, uh,
they assumed were, um, we're suffocating to death because a
(07:38):
lot of them had their hands up to their noses
and an apostures if like they were choking or whatnot.
And they found it to actually be something called a
cadaveric spasm. And this only happens with nuclear explosions and
volcanic eruptions. So this is something that is instantaneous muscular stiffening.
So it's an instantaneous death mask, if you will. And
(08:03):
I mean it's it's pretty shocking if you think about it.
They actually this is kind of interesting too, that a
lot of the researchers had looked at the different postures
and they categorize them and some were called lifelike and
somewhere called sleep like, and somewhere called hugilistic attitude, which
I really like. Oh and this is the one where
it kind of looks like they're boxing. Yeah. Yeah, it
looks like like as if they were. And the conclusion
(08:23):
was is that they were sort of boxing at the elements,
trying to get away from you know, the volcanic ash
or something. Um, you know, man versus nature. Uh. But
I just love that it's called pugilistic attitude. I'm gonna
start saying that you have a really pugilistic attitude it um.
I mean, it sounds kind of like almost kind of
snobby on the part of the archeologist if they kind
(08:44):
of like they're thinking, hey, look these you know, primitive
people from the past. They thought they could box away
the you know, the the volcanic eruption or fight it
off with their hands, and I don't know. Yeah, I mean,
think about how long we've had access to Pompeii and
what our thoughts when we were first discovering that. Um.
Was it in the eighteen hundreds? Correct me if I'm wrong,
But it seems like that's when UM when people became
(09:08):
aware of it and really started to look at explanations.
So yeah, they're boxing off elements. I remember becoming aware
of it through my father's National Geographic subscription because I
just like they had all these like really gnarly um
you know, illustrations of all the bodies and the skulls,
you know, and all those weird poses and it's really fascinating.
(09:29):
In fact, the PBS special I think it's called Secrets
of the Dead is fascinating because it looks at all
the different things they can find out now through science,
and particularly with herculaneum. That's that's somewhat new in the
discoveries that they've found there. So it's cool stuff, you know.
In in researching the possibility of one skull literally exploding,
(09:53):
I ran across another interesting tidbit um, and this had
to do with giraffes. I don't know if you happen
to come across this one as well. But draft giraffe's
hearts that the heart of a giraffe produces a very
um high pressure to force the blood yeah, up to
the head. So um. I found the an instance where
online where some people were asking, well, how come the
(10:15):
when the giraffe like leans down to get you know,
moves and leans its head down. Um, then you know,
cranes its neck forward. How come the pressure doesn't make
the giraffe's head explode. Come, Well, it's because the giraffe
has this thing called a and I'm probably going to
mispronounce this, but rete mirable, which is Latin for wonderful net.
(10:38):
And it's a cluster of arteries and veins that diverts
blood flow and uh, and changes actually equalizes blood pressure
so that when the animal lowers its head, it kind
of serves as like a natural pressure relief system. Yeah,
do you think they get dizzy? Nonetheless, I don't know.
Like apparently it's the same thing that like it keeps
(10:59):
dogs when dogs get really hot, keeps their their brains
from overheating. Uh. It helps regulate like where the blood
is going into penguin to keep the penguin from getting
to its extremities, you know, cooling cooling down blood too
much and also helps like whales and other diving mammals
when they're going down to different pressures, you know, higher
(11:20):
pressure portions of the water. So very cool. Yeah, that way.
I found that on the Happy Scientist Robert Krapp's website.
So yeah, everybody needs some happy science. That's good stuff.
So let me ask you. Has your head ever exploded?
Not literally, not literally, but there is something called exploding
(11:42):
head syndrome. Okay, it sounds pretty severe. It does sound severe. Uh,
and I actually have experienced that, okay, So that is
something that you you're feeling side of your brain or
you perceive inside of your brain. So, I mean, I've
been a couple of nights that I've woken up in
the middle of night and thought, oh my god, I've
(12:03):
just heard this gigantic, really loud, slamming sound in my
in what I thought was my environment, and freaked out
and got up and made sure that you know, the
mafia wasn't coming from and I don't know why I
thought it was the mafia, but um, you know, and
then checked everything out and said, okay, that's fine, and
it's happened enough so that when I actually read about
(12:24):
explaining exploding brain syndrome, I thought to myself, Oh, yeah,
of course I've had that, No big deal. Um, So
it sounds really dramatic, but at the end of the day,
it's it's really just um, the person experiencing this sound,
and there's no pain. It's just a sense of alarm
and of course a surgeon adrenaline. Right. Yeah, I've seen
(12:45):
like in different uh like different people experience that is
is more like a gunshot. Yeah, it's noise. Others it's
like an explosion. Sometimes people apparently experience kind of a
flash of light with it. Yes, yeah, and um it's
best that can tell. It's thought to be uh about
it's thought to be caused by delay in the reduction
of activity and selected areas of the brainstem. Um, what
(13:09):
do you think about my brainstem that it's it's not working, right,
I guess it's making you wake up in the night
to imagine it sounds. But but when when I first
found out about this one, I was like, oh my,
like actually, like even when I first started reading about it, um,
you know, because initially, like exploding head syndrome that sounds insane,
and then you read a little about it, like an
(13:30):
initial um explanations of it online are kind of like
people are waking up in the night holding you know,
you could just picture people waking up clutching their head
like screaming and thinking that their heads about to explode.
Like that was the vision. You know, It's like totally
like scanners. That was what I was thinking. So when you,
like when I asked you, you mentioned it this morning,
you're just very nonchalant, like, yeah, I think I've had
(13:50):
exploding head syndrome. I was like, whoa, how could you
you just think you have it? Or or how could
you have not realized you had it before? But it's
uh um, Exploding head syndrome more e h S as
they call it, apparently is not really that severe. Like
they're right right, like if you experience it, don't go
to your doctor and ask for you know, tell me
you need medication because he's just gonna laugh at you.
(14:12):
Well he's probably not gonna laugh at you, but yeah, yeah,
or you might get some medication that you don't necessarily need.
It depends. We have a non judgment zone if you
if you need to do that, it's fine, but but yeah,
generally you don't need to and that that's kind of
I think why my reaction was so boss a about
it because I was like, well, yeah, so I heard
this slaming sound in my in my head and sometimes
(14:32):
that happens every once in a while. But yeah, no
mafia people in my living room. So allways, well, yeah,
and I believe it. It It tends to occur like in
the early phases of sleep, right when you're sort of
you're not really completely awake, can you not really sleep yet? Yeah.
I think it's before you take the deep dive into sleep,
and then sometimes it occurs after the deep dive. So
(14:53):
it's and that's the twilight stage, I think they call it.
So note to myself, I need to need to get
my brain stem worked on. Well, I think there's a
there's a kid you can get online where it's just
just like self repair. Yeah. Yeah. This presentation is brought
(15:13):
to you by Intel sponsors of Tomorrow so um. In
researching this, we also ran across some some stories that
are completely not true about exploding heads. Um, but kind
of wonderful because I think we both got excited. Yeah,
Like there was one, um about the chess player whose
(15:34):
head exploded. Yeah, and we but I think we both
had the same experience where we ran across the article
and then we're like, oh my goodness, gold this is
we're totally going to talk about this one. And then
we we saw the source Weekly World. Yeah. Yeah, but
it started out kind of strong, right, I mean, it's
still sort of impossible, but still it starts out kind
of strong. And then as it goes on, um, you
(15:56):
start thinking, I don't know about that. It just seems
like it's just not possible. And then at the very
end of the story it says, you know, this is
this is more common than you think it is. And
here are some signs that you may be in dangerer
of your head exploding, which is like my favorite thing
about this article. Um, and I won't read all of them,
(16:18):
but there's here's one which was does your head sometimes
ache when you think too hard? Yeah? Okay, well you
could your your brain might explode. Yeah. Oh and here's
another one. Do you tend to analyze yourself too much? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean that there there are many more, like if
you spend a lot of time balancing your checkbook. Yeah,
(16:40):
it's good stuff. But I think the I think the
theory behind that that they tried to posit in the
story was that there was too much electrical activity happening
in the brain. It was like an overload of the circuitry.
All right, Now, how about the trumpet guy, because that
was another story. Oh yeah, there's a trumpet player. Okay,
this was in the National Enquiry, so obviously, like you
see that, you okay, this is right next to that
(17:02):
boy um Hugo Slari was playing the Impossible Dream on
trumpet when his head swelled and burst quote like a balloon.
Ok Yeah. And what I love about this story is
that they've just got um, they've got all these people
talking about the event, all these onlookers, and they have
these descriptions about how there was a blonde in the
front row and she got brains in her blonde hair,
(17:24):
and it's it's it's pretty good stuff. Yeah, though I
can't imagine, like even like how would the brain explode
from playing Like it's just I don't buy it as
as as easily as I buy the chess player. I
don't know it was the Impossible Dream. I've never played
on trumpet, like and and when, why am the impossible dream?
Like I'm thinking like fly to the Bumblebees would probably
do it. I don't know. I think it's just something
(17:45):
from the Man of La Mancha. It is, you know,
it's I'm gonna have to listen to it again. But
that was a good one, I thought. And then there's
this this idea too that if you were somehow flung
out into space you would explode. Yeah, this one is
one you can. I believe we mentioned the the Sean
Connery sci fi movie Outland in like the last podcast
(18:07):
or the one before it, But that was the movie
where the guys are suddenly outside the spaceship and oh
their head swells up and burst like a big bloody balloon. Yeah. Yeah,
And that's not necessarily going to happen. In fact, it's
even not necessary. It's literally not going to spend Yeah,
and and and you can like like NASA is pretty
open about this, like they really want everybody to know
that you're not gonna explode. Um like like basically you're
(18:30):
not even necessarily going to be injured. Um, I mean
you might get kind of flight like for like a
brief exposure to the void kind of like what happens
And I think two thousand one yea and yeah, yeah,
and I think they ripped it off in various other
films um later on, like I think they do the
same thing and like Firefly and of then Horizon. But um,
(18:50):
but yeah, like if you exhale all the all the air,
you know, and you don't have like you're not holding
your breath like an idiot, then you're you know, you're
not going to be injured in that regard. Um, you
might get some sort of like mild like you know,
sort of like the Bin's kind of situation. You might
have some like mild even like non painful and reversible
swelling of the skin. But but the one thing they
(19:12):
really stress is that like your your skin is like
a really good system, Like it's it's really great at
containing you know, it's a barrier. It's a it's a barrier,
and it's not you know, it's not ideal for space walking.
You shouldn't you know, depend on it entirely. No, you
could get some burned pretty badly, right, But when push
comes to shove, and especially when the shove is out
of a space airlock, you know you're probably gonna be
(19:34):
okay for you know, a very brief period of time
before any other you know causes can can jump in
there and kill you. Yeah. I think a minute or
two and then the loss of oxygen and you're out.
It's a very uh unhistoryonic sort of death that you
would experience. There would be no explosions. Yeah, yeah, So
just in case that was something you were worried about,
(19:54):
you know, don't worry. You would not explode in space. Yeah.
If anybody out there was on the fence about getting
that Virgin Galactic ticket, yeah, feel feel free to go ahead,
go and buy it. Push yeah, push purchase you could,
or well, I guess you or you can also just
you can reserve it. What is it I think to
reserve two hundred thousand for the ticket? Oh yeah, I don't.
I didn't even look at my paperwork. I just signed it,
(20:17):
take it on my bank account. So I guess that's
about it. For exploding heads, that's not literally it isn't
it might be. It might literally be it unless anybody
out there has uh something we've overlooked or you know, indeed,
have any stories about their own head seeming to explode
in the night due to large and loud noises. And
(20:37):
you can also check out more on the how stuff
works dot com website where we have I this is
where I actually wrote an article on how is a
volcanic ash made? Which goes into pyroclastic flow and uh
and and all that and the egg analogy, yeah, the
egg analogy in other ways, that volcanic ash can really
mess with human life and and just you know, getting
(21:00):
about town. And then we also have an article about
the whole going out into space without a space suit thing.
Marshall Brain, the site founder, wrote one called what if
an astronaut went on a space walk without a space suit?
What if? Yeah, no explosions in there, but a lot
of cool data about the about how it would affect
your body. All right, Well, thanks for listening. You can
(21:21):
find those articles and many more every day on how
stuff works dot com. The house stuff Works dot com
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(21:43):
soon to iTunes
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Robert Lamb.
I'm Julie Douglas. Tell me, Julie, you've encountered people using
the word literally incorrectly before? Right? Oh yeah, I'm definitely
I'm someone who's used it incorrectly before. Yeah, like uh,
(00:26):
like like us it incorrectly in a sense I am
literally starving to death, all right, or or the famous
sports line he literally took his head off. And but
the thing is generally you're not You're generally not starving
or and uh and and then uh, sports people generally
are not decapitated on the field hopefully. Yeah. So it's
(00:47):
it's interesting to actually dive into the scientific world and
look for examples where people's heads can literally explode, because
people will use this like like, oh man, I've read
that are iCal and nature and made my head explode,
or you know, or I went to math class and
you know, my head totally exploded. So we'd we're seeking
(01:08):
to answer the question can your brain your skull literally explode? Yeah?
And if so, how But I think I think we
may need to go back in the time machine a
bit too, Yeah, to look at a good instance of
splattering of the brains, so to speak, because we felt
we have evidence from around d a little place called
(01:32):
Herculaneum near Mount Vesuvius, where where archaeologists have found these
skulls from the victims of people who died when this
is volcano erupted and the skulls like completely cracked open
like an egg that's been shattered brutal. Yeah. So they're
thinking that now that they've got more evidence that it
(01:53):
had to do with a pyroclastic flow, right, Yeah, And
the pyroclastic flow is is pretty uh mind blowing. Uh.
When a volcano erupts, all the stuff coming out the
top is uh, of course, it's not just not merely smoke.
It's it's ash, it's um, rock and mud. Yeah, it's
all just pulverized by this rapid release of gas from
(02:13):
the inner earth. Okay, So all that stuff comes back
down again, and it can it can end up forming
to this thing called a pyroclastic flow, which is essentially
a just mass of ash, gas, rock fragments all traveling
at It speeds up to like a hundred and twenty
five per hour, So just speeding along, and the temperatures
(02:35):
in this thing are pretty amazing, like degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I've seen it. Seen it ranged from like seven fifty
two to yeah, thousand, four seventy two degrees fahrenheit, which
is pretty hot. Yeah. Okay, so let's set the stage.
Ves erupts. Right, there's this column of gas, this roiling mixture,
(02:55):
and if you're unlucky enough to live in Pompeii, you're
probably gonna get buried in a bunch of ash, right,
which is I think what we normally think about when
we think about vesuvious. We think about the inhabitants of Pompeii.
But if you're in the little fishing village of Herculaneum,
it's gonna be far worse. You're you may even be
(03:17):
Let's stay down wind of that pyroclastic flow. Yeah, and
again it's just like this wall of of what looks
like smoke, and you know, this wall of just rolling ash,
just just coming down the side of the of the hills,
you know. Yeah, And so that you see that, you
see them the volcano erupt Ten minutes later, you're you're
trying to evacuate something, You're running down the street and
(03:39):
like you said, you've got this cloud mushrooming out. You
add nikes degrees fahrenheit. I mean that what is that
going to do to you? Well? Uh, the scientists believe
that what happens is when it when it first hit you, Um,
it's going to basically vaporize your soft tissues on the
like on the extuse exterior of your body. But then
(04:02):
the heat is it's also so intense that it like
cracks the enamel of your teeth and uh. And actually
that they've discovered also the insides of the skull were
kind of blackened, so the brains are essentially boiling in
there just like in a split second. It's like it's
like being it's like some of the from a sci
fi novel or something where someone's like hit with a
(04:24):
ray gun. It's like suddenly brains boiling and uh and
what happens if something is suddenly boiling inside an enclosed
space like the cranium? Yeah, that so thinking and it's
it seems so sci fi. Something that's just incinerating before
your eyes and in the poor brain is boiling and
just pops. And I think you had written a article
about volcanic ash, and you actually had a good explanation
(04:46):
for that. I think you likened it to an egg
and water. Yeah. Yeah, it's boiling. And if you think
about it as like a molten goo that your brain
is in, yeah, it's uh. Another way to think of
it is if you've ever been been camping and you
had like a hand of beans or something can't of
soup and you're kind of like heating it up hobo style,
you know, like, you know, like the stupidest thing you
(05:07):
could possibly do would be to throw an entire can
of soup into a fire, because what's gonna happen. It's
gonna blow up, right, it's gonna blow up. You gotta
poke holes and that can of course. Right. So it's
the it's like a similar thing occurring in a split
second with these uh, these poor you know, fisherman's skulls.
It's just suddenly heat hits them and whammo, top of
(05:27):
the skull cracks, instant literal blowing of the mind. Correct,
right there. And I think what's so cool about that
is that they actually tried to replicate these results. Well
I shouldn't say that's what's so cool about I think
it's cool that they went to the trouble of trying
to find out exactly how this is because again, before
the before they got this sort of recent information, everybody
(05:52):
was under the assumption that people had died from suffocation
from the gases and volcanic ash and everything else raining
down upon them. So now they know it was really
the heat that was the element that wiped out the
village and Pompeii. And you have a bunch of scientists
basically in a lab taking animal and human bones and
(06:12):
exposing them to certain degrees of heat and finally being
able to replicate this degree of charred nous um, and
and also looking at the schools as you had mentioned,
and seeing that there are parts of the school missing,
and hey, here's our conclusion. That got up to uh
to degrees so hot that it could just make your
brain pop. Yeah, I believe the They believe it got
(06:35):
up in her in herculaneum got up to around n
degrees fahrenheg. Yeah, And it was a big I mean,
this wasn't just a paraclastic flow. I mean it was
that as well, but the paroclastic clouds so it hung around.
So even if you were ensconced away in some building
and you thought you were hiding from it, the heat
was eventually going to get to you anyway. No insulation
(06:56):
of the time was going to save you from that. Yeah, yeah,
I mean it's really horrific when you think about it. Yeah,
But luckily, like I said, I think, I think it
would have been over pretty quick, you know. Yeah, this
is true. Like you said, I mean, it's I mean
sort of instant vaporization. So I as far as ways
to go, that's I think not too bad. Not having
experienced it myself, I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't seek
(07:17):
it out. Now, what is the Another interesting aspect of
the of the whole situation with Vesuvius was the posture
of the bodies. Yeah. Yeah, they called the garden and
Fugitives because they found a bunch of different people who, uh,
they assumed were, um, we're suffocating to death because a
(07:38):
lot of them had their hands up to their noses
and an apostures if like they were choking or whatnot.
And they found it to actually be something called a
cadaveric spasm. And this only happens with nuclear explosions and
volcanic eruptions. So this is something that is instantaneous muscular stiffening.
So it's an instantaneous death mask, if you will. And
(08:03):
I mean it's it's pretty shocking if you think about it.
They actually this is kind of interesting too, that a
lot of the researchers had looked at the different postures
and they categorize them and some were called lifelike and
somewhere called sleep like, and somewhere called hugilistic attitude, which
I really like. Oh and this is the one where
it kind of looks like they're boxing. Yeah. Yeah, it
looks like like as if they were. And the conclusion
(08:23):
was is that they were sort of boxing at the elements,
trying to get away from you know, the volcanic ash
or something. Um, you know, man versus nature. Uh. But
I just love that it's called pugilistic attitude. I'm gonna
start saying that you have a really pugilistic attitude it um.
I mean, it sounds kind of like almost kind of
snobby on the part of the archeologist if they kind
(08:44):
of like they're thinking, hey, look these you know, primitive
people from the past. They thought they could box away
the you know, the the volcanic eruption or fight it
off with their hands, and I don't know. Yeah, I mean,
think about how long we've had access to Pompeii and
what our thoughts when we were first discovering that. Um.
Was it in the eighteen hundreds? Correct me if I'm wrong,
But it seems like that's when UM when people became
(09:08):
aware of it and really started to look at explanations.
So yeah, they're boxing off elements. I remember becoming aware
of it through my father's National Geographic subscription because I
just like they had all these like really gnarly um
you know, illustrations of all the bodies and the skulls,
you know, and all those weird poses and it's really fascinating.
(09:29):
In fact, the PBS special I think it's called Secrets
of the Dead is fascinating because it looks at all
the different things they can find out now through science,
and particularly with herculaneum. That's that's somewhat new in the
discoveries that they've found there. So it's cool stuff, you know.
In in researching the possibility of one skull literally exploding,
(09:53):
I ran across another interesting tidbit um, and this had
to do with giraffes. I don't know if you happen
to come across this one as well. But draft giraffe's
hearts that the heart of a giraffe produces a very
um high pressure to force the blood yeah, up to
the head. So um. I found the an instance where
online where some people were asking, well, how come the
(10:15):
when the giraffe like leans down to get you know,
moves and leans its head down. Um, then you know,
cranes its neck forward. How come the pressure doesn't make
the giraffe's head explode. Come, Well, it's because the giraffe
has this thing called a and I'm probably going to
mispronounce this, but rete mirable, which is Latin for wonderful net.
(10:38):
And it's a cluster of arteries and veins that diverts
blood flow and uh, and changes actually equalizes blood pressure
so that when the animal lowers its head, it kind
of serves as like a natural pressure relief system. Yeah,
do you think they get dizzy? Nonetheless, I don't know.
Like apparently it's the same thing that like it keeps
(10:59):
dogs when dogs get really hot, keeps their their brains
from overheating. Uh. It helps regulate like where the blood
is going into penguin to keep the penguin from getting
to its extremities, you know, cooling cooling down blood too
much and also helps like whales and other diving mammals
when they're going down to different pressures, you know, higher
(11:20):
pressure portions of the water. So very cool. Yeah, that way.
I found that on the Happy Scientist Robert Krapp's website.
So yeah, everybody needs some happy science. That's good stuff.
So let me ask you. Has your head ever exploded?
Not literally, not literally, but there is something called exploding
(11:42):
head syndrome. Okay, it sounds pretty severe. It does sound severe. Uh,
and I actually have experienced that, okay, So that is
something that you you're feeling side of your brain or
you perceive inside of your brain. So, I mean, I've
been a couple of nights that I've woken up in
the middle of night and thought, oh my god, I've
(12:03):
just heard this gigantic, really loud, slamming sound in my
in what I thought was my environment, and freaked out
and got up and made sure that you know, the
mafia wasn't coming from and I don't know why I
thought it was the mafia, but um, you know, and
then checked everything out and said, okay, that's fine, and
it's happened enough so that when I actually read about
(12:24):
explaining exploding brain syndrome, I thought to myself, Oh, yeah,
of course I've had that, No big deal. Um, So
it sounds really dramatic, but at the end of the day,
it's it's really just um, the person experiencing this sound,
and there's no pain. It's just a sense of alarm
and of course a surgeon adrenaline. Right. Yeah, I've seen
(12:45):
like in different uh like different people experience that is
is more like a gunshot. Yeah, it's noise. Others it's
like an explosion. Sometimes people apparently experience kind of a
flash of light with it. Yes, yeah, and um it's
best that can tell. It's thought to be uh about
it's thought to be caused by delay in the reduction
of activity and selected areas of the brainstem. Um, what
(13:09):
do you think about my brainstem that it's it's not working, right,
I guess it's making you wake up in the night
to imagine it sounds. But but when when I first
found out about this one, I was like, oh my,
like actually, like even when I first started reading about it, um,
you know, because initially, like exploding head syndrome that sounds insane,
and then you read a little about it, like an
(13:30):
initial um explanations of it online are kind of like
people are waking up in the night holding you know,
you could just picture people waking up clutching their head
like screaming and thinking that their heads about to explode.
Like that was the vision. You know, It's like totally
like scanners. That was what I was thinking. So when you,
like when I asked you, you mentioned it this morning,
you're just very nonchalant, like, yeah, I think I've had
(13:50):
exploding head syndrome. I was like, whoa, how could you
you just think you have it? Or or how could
you have not realized you had it before? But it's
uh um, Exploding head syndrome more e h S as
they call it, apparently is not really that severe. Like
they're right right, like if you experience it, don't go
to your doctor and ask for you know, tell me
you need medication because he's just gonna laugh at you.
(14:12):
Well he's probably not gonna laugh at you, but yeah, yeah,
or you might get some medication that you don't necessarily need.
It depends. We have a non judgment zone if you
if you need to do that, it's fine, but but yeah,
generally you don't need to and that that's kind of
I think why my reaction was so boss a about
it because I was like, well, yeah, so I heard
this slaming sound in my in my head and sometimes
(14:32):
that happens every once in a while. But yeah, no
mafia people in my living room. So allways, well, yeah,
and I believe it. It It tends to occur like in
the early phases of sleep, right when you're sort of
you're not really completely awake, can you not really sleep yet? Yeah.
I think it's before you take the deep dive into sleep,
and then sometimes it occurs after the deep dive. So
(14:53):
it's and that's the twilight stage, I think they call it.
So note to myself, I need to need to get
my brain stem worked on. Well, I think there's a
there's a kid you can get online where it's just
just like self repair. Yeah. Yeah. This presentation is brought
(15:13):
to you by Intel sponsors of Tomorrow so um. In
researching this, we also ran across some some stories that
are completely not true about exploding heads. Um, but kind
of wonderful because I think we both got excited. Yeah,
Like there was one, um about the chess player whose
(15:34):
head exploded. Yeah, and we but I think we both
had the same experience where we ran across the article
and then we're like, oh my goodness, gold this is
we're totally going to talk about this one. And then
we we saw the source Weekly World. Yeah. Yeah, but
it started out kind of strong, right, I mean, it's
still sort of impossible, but still it starts out kind
of strong. And then as it goes on, um, you
(15:56):
start thinking, I don't know about that. It just seems
like it's just not possible. And then at the very
end of the story it says, you know, this is
this is more common than you think it is. And
here are some signs that you may be in dangerer
of your head exploding, which is like my favorite thing
about this article. Um, and I won't read all of them,
(16:18):
but there's here's one which was does your head sometimes
ache when you think too hard? Yeah? Okay, well you
could your your brain might explode. Yeah. Oh and here's
another one. Do you tend to analyze yourself too much? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean that there there are many more, like if
you spend a lot of time balancing your checkbook. Yeah,
(16:40):
it's good stuff. But I think the I think the
theory behind that that they tried to posit in the
story was that there was too much electrical activity happening
in the brain. It was like an overload of the circuitry.
All right, Now, how about the trumpet guy, because that
was another story. Oh yeah, there's a trumpet player. Okay,
this was in the National Enquiry, so obviously, like you
see that, you okay, this is right next to that
(17:02):
boy um Hugo Slari was playing the Impossible Dream on
trumpet when his head swelled and burst quote like a balloon.
Ok Yeah. And what I love about this story is
that they've just got um, they've got all these people
talking about the event, all these onlookers, and they have
these descriptions about how there was a blonde in the
front row and she got brains in her blonde hair,
(17:24):
and it's it's it's pretty good stuff. Yeah, though I
can't imagine, like even like how would the brain explode
from playing Like it's just I don't buy it as
as as easily as I buy the chess player. I
don't know it was the Impossible Dream. I've never played
on trumpet, like and and when, why am the impossible dream?
Like I'm thinking like fly to the Bumblebees would probably
do it. I don't know. I think it's just something
(17:45):
from the Man of La Mancha. It is, you know,
it's I'm gonna have to listen to it again. But
that was a good one, I thought. And then there's
this this idea too that if you were somehow flung
out into space you would explode. Yeah, this one is
one you can. I believe we mentioned the the Sean
Connery sci fi movie Outland in like the last podcast
(18:07):
or the one before it, But that was the movie
where the guys are suddenly outside the spaceship and oh
their head swells up and burst like a big bloody balloon. Yeah. Yeah,
And that's not necessarily going to happen. In fact, it's
even not necessary. It's literally not going to spend Yeah,
and and and you can like like NASA is pretty
open about this, like they really want everybody to know
that you're not gonna explode. Um like like basically you're
(18:30):
not even necessarily going to be injured. Um, I mean
you might get kind of flight like for like a
brief exposure to the void kind of like what happens
And I think two thousand one yea and yeah, yeah,
and I think they ripped it off in various other
films um later on, like I think they do the
same thing and like Firefly and of then Horizon. But um,
(18:50):
but yeah, like if you exhale all the all the air,
you know, and you don't have like you're not holding
your breath like an idiot, then you're you know, you're
not going to be injured in that regard. Um, you
might get some sort of like mild like you know,
sort of like the Bin's kind of situation. You might
have some like mild even like non painful and reversible
swelling of the skin. But but the one thing they
(19:12):
really stress is that like your your skin is like
a really good system, Like it's it's really great at
containing you know, it's a barrier. It's a it's a barrier,
and it's not you know, it's not ideal for space walking.
You shouldn't you know, depend on it entirely. No, you
could get some burned pretty badly, right, But when push
comes to shove, and especially when the shove is out
of a space airlock, you know you're probably gonna be
(19:34):
okay for you know, a very brief period of time
before any other you know causes can can jump in
there and kill you. Yeah. I think a minute or
two and then the loss of oxygen and you're out.
It's a very uh unhistoryonic sort of death that you
would experience. There would be no explosions. Yeah, yeah, So
just in case that was something you were worried about,
(19:54):
you know, don't worry. You would not explode in space. Yeah.
If anybody out there was on the fence about getting
that Virgin Galactic ticket, yeah, feel feel free to go ahead,
go and buy it. Push yeah, push purchase you could,
or well, I guess you or you can also just
you can reserve it. What is it I think to
reserve two hundred thousand for the ticket? Oh yeah, I don't.
I didn't even look at my paperwork. I just signed it,
(20:17):
take it on my bank account. So I guess that's
about it. For exploding heads, that's not literally it isn't
it might be. It might literally be it unless anybody
out there has uh something we've overlooked or you know, indeed,
have any stories about their own head seeming to explode
in the night due to large and loud noises. And
(20:37):
you can also check out more on the how stuff
works dot com website where we have I this is
where I actually wrote an article on how is a
volcanic ash made? Which goes into pyroclastic flow and uh
and and all that and the egg analogy, yeah, the
egg analogy in other ways, that volcanic ash can really
mess with human life and and just you know, getting
(21:00):
about town. And then we also have an article about
the whole going out into space without a space suit thing.
Marshall Brain, the site founder, wrote one called what if
an astronaut went on a space walk without a space suit?
What if? Yeah, no explosions in there, but a lot
of cool data about the about how it would affect
your body. All right, Well, thanks for listening. You can
(21:21):
find those articles and many more every day on how
stuff works dot com. The house stuff Works dot com
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