Particle Physics and Animals

Felicia the ferret, who helped Fermilab in the early '70s, has been popping up in online stories and social media lately. How did she come to work in a particle physics facility, and what other animals made their homes there?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry, I'm Tracy Wilson. And recently there's been
a mild trend going on on social media thanks to

(00:21):
post on boing boing um about Felicia the ferret who
worked at the National Accelerator Laboratory. And it's a really
fun story involving some very creative thinking um on the
part of some people that were trying to solve some problems.
But the more I read about it and that that facility,
the more that I realized that this is one of
those cool moments where science and animals meet and it's

(00:43):
not horrible and scary and there aren't icky experiments, uh,
which is hooray. Uh. So Felicia was a kickoff, but
it's really sort of particle physics and animals meeting and
how that happens. Yes, and very unique scenario. And then
inteen seventies, the Fermy National Accelerator Laboratory, which is referred

(01:05):
to as firm A Lab for short, is a US
Department of Energy lab that's operated by the university's Research Association,
and it's located in Batavia, Illinois. It's not far from Chicago,
and it's on a site that's uh six thousand, eight
hundred acres, which if you go by hectares, that's about
two thousand, eight hundred uh. And the lab opened up

(01:25):
in the late nineteen sixties to address a nineteen sixty
three Atomic Energy Commission recommendation for the US to develop
a facility for nuclear physics research. And since that time,
Ferma Lab has built several particle accelerators to conduct that research,
and they've really become a place where people from all
over the world come and study and work. Uh. And

(01:46):
it you know, continues today. Yes, as of early Fermal
Lab produces the world's most intense meme of neutrinos. The
facility employs about two thousand people and the scientists who
work their research dark matter, dark entered and the as
yet unexplained phenomena of the universe. But in those early
days they were focusing on getting the lab up and running,

(02:07):
and of course, building a particle accelerator is fairly serious business.
Is is is that's something you just kind of throw together. Uh.
There are many challenges and very exacting specifications that have
to be meant for everything to work perfectly. It is
no good for sub atomic particles traveling through vacuum pipes
to encounter a whole bunch of dust and debris along
the way. But cleaning out the pipes used to construct

(02:30):
the network that would eventually carry these particles into adam
smashing collisions was a challenge. They were assembling a four
mile course designed to carry a beam of energy around
its seven seventy thousand times in one point six seconds,
and this challenge of cleanliness was one that was met
with a unique solution thanks to Robert Sheldon, who was

(02:52):
a British scientist that was working at firm A Lab
at the time. Originally a chemist, Robert Sheldon born November
at three was a man who could innovate and think
out of the box. He was known for all kinds
of off the wall ideas at firm A Lab, including
one which involved the construction of panels for a doodesic
dome that was being built for it in v as

(03:15):
part of the National Etcetera Accelerator Laboratories Bubble Chamber building
and along with Hank Hinterberger, also from the National Accelerator
lab Um, he worked in the Technical Services Group. Sheldon
pitched this idea of using recycled garbage, specifically aluminum soda
and beer cans to assemble these panels for the bubble
chamber building. And once the cans were collected, the tops

(03:38):
and bottoms would be cut off and then they would
be stood together honeycomb style and then sandwich between layers
of glass reinforced fiber plastic sheets. So this is really
groundbreaking in terms of like building a scientific structure. Firm
a Lab collected cans from employees and the community for
the project, and by late July of nineteen seventy one
the panels were complete, more than a decade after they

(04:01):
went into place. In nineteen two, they were covered with
copper to address leaking issues that had developed over the years.
So what does all this have to do with the ferrets. Uh? Well,
Robert Sheldon thought out of the box when it came
to cleaning out those pipes for the construction of the
particle accelerator as well. So in the second half of
nineteen seventy one, when they had lots of pipes to

(04:23):
clean and no easy way to do so, he had
a bolt of inspiration. Sheldon recalled poachers in Britain running
ferrets into rabbit burrows on English estates to retrieve bunnies.
Because ferrets were silent, especially when compared to firearms, estate
owners wouldn't even know that their game was being stolen. First,
he made contact with the Brookfield Zoo to search for

(04:45):
a ferret for this project, and then Felicia, as she
came to be known, was acquired from a wild game
and fur farm in gay Lord, Minnesota, for the sum
of thirty five dollars. Because the spaces that needed cleaning
were sometimes very small, they asked for the smallest ferret possible.
Felicia was only about fifteen inches long and about four

(05:05):
inches tall when standing on all fours, as opposed to
raising up on her back legs as sometimes ferrets new.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun Times in September
of nine, Walter Pelzarski, a firm Alab mechanical designer and
Felicia's boss, said, quote, Felicia is ideal for the work.
The ferret is an animal filled with curiosity and seeks

(05:26):
out holes and burrows. Its instinct is to find out
what's at the other end of a burrow, or for
that matter, a tube or a pipe. Felicia's diet was
similar to what mink would be fed on far farms.
We won't even get into animals raised for fur. That's
a whole other loaded discussion, but it was mainly made
up of chicken liver, raw meat, and fish heads. She

(05:48):
also left hamburger and would get some sometimes as a
special treat. And the scientists trained Felicia to travel through
these pipes while wearing a small leather collar and a harness,
and this collar and harness assembly was attached to a long,
lightweight string that would unferral as Felicia made her way
along the lengths of pipe, and she was trained for
progressively longer and longer runs, eventually taking on assignments as

(06:11):
long as three hundred feet because that was the length
of the sections that were needed for assembly of the
Mason lab. So a brief science aside, a mazon is
any member of a family of subatomic particles composed of
a quirk and an antiquark. That is, thanks to Mariam Webster,
they are unstable that many of them can last for

(06:33):
a few billions of a second, and that's long enough
for particle accelerators, or that's long enough for particle detectors
to find them. You can produce them by colliding high
energy subatomic particles together. So that's what this machine that
they were building was going to do. Uh. So they
had trained Felicia to goo these distances, and once she

(06:56):
was through a pipe, workers would attach a swab that
was soaked with cleaning fluid to one end of the string,
So she was at this point out of picture she
was done with her part, and then they would pull
that through the other side and it would remove stray
steel particles and dust, and only after they were clean
in this way could they be welded together. I think
as this got kicked around social media, people thought that

(07:17):
it was a ferret with like a cleaning duster cut
type thing attached to her behind and she was running
through and cleaning as she went. But that really wouldn't
be a very feasible for an animal to do because
of the weight of it, and she was so tiny
and be uh, it's kind of high enough priority that
you want human hands involved in it, right, So she

(07:38):
was basically she was carrying the string that they would
use to pull the cleaner through. She became very famous
for a brief period in nineteen seventy one. She was
even featured in a Time magazine article in October of
that year, but her time in the spotlight wasn't all
that long. By December of nineteen seventy one, firm A
Lab was ready to retire Felicia, and there's actually some

(08:02):
slightly nebulous information regarding this retirement. Some sources say that
Felicia had always been intended as attempts so that they
could keep construction going on the lab while they worked
on a long term solution for the need for pristine
pipe works, but others hint that Felicia didn't work out
as intended and that she stopped being really cooperative and
they were going to need her to go longer distances

(08:24):
than she was actually able to be trained for. In
an article in the Aurora Beacon News in September of
nineteen one, she is said to have made three successful
three hundred foot runs, with nine more scheduled, and that
certainly sounds like a finite number, like a plan that
they had that was definitely temporary. However, in the very
same article, lab technician Don Richieid is quoted as saying, quote,

(08:46):
Felicia has saved me much time and effort will use
her over and over again, and perhaps in other sections
in the lab as time goes by. So it's a
little contradictory in terms of what was actually uh the
the catalyst of her retirement. In any case, the engineers
at firm A Lab developed the robotic rig to do
the same thing Felicia had been doing, and it ran

(09:07):
on compressed air and control wires instead of liver and
hamburger meat, and also didn't shed, and so Felicia no
longer had to fret about staying tiny and she could
lead a life of leisure. Uh. Sadly, however, Felicia's golden
years of retirement were really not to be on ninety two,
so late late in the following spring, the National Accelerator

(09:31):
Lab announced in the Village Crier, which was sort of
their internal newsletter, that Felicia had passed away that Sunday,
May seven. Felicia was at the home of Charles Crows,
who worked in the accelerator section of the Lab, and
he would often care for Felicia in his home from
time to time, as would Walter Pozarsky that we mentioned earlier.
UH and Crows noticed that Felicia did not seem well

(09:52):
on Sunday evening, and he took her to a vet
Monday morning. Under the care of veterinary staff. Felicia really
rallied and she seemed much improved by the following Tuesday morning.
But that Tuesday afternoon, she was found dead when the
vet staff came back from lunch, and a neck cropsy
that they performed revealed that she had a ruptured abscess
in her intestinal tract, which is not super common for ferrets.

(10:14):
Although I could not find anything that suggested that her
science work contributed to her death. I mean, as anyone
who has animals nose, sometimes bizarre things just pop up.
So that was felicious passing. But she left a really
really huge mark on science, and she was at that time,
like v one. She really was in tons of papers
because it was so novel to have this high grade

(10:37):
scientific facility being aided by a cute little animal. Yeah.
I think people just really glommed onto that story well,
and especially since ferrets don't have the reputation for being
like the cleanest and nicest animals. I mean they are,
they can be a little bidy and a little dirty.
That would make all the ferret people. Man, all the

(10:58):
faret people who are going to write us nasty letters.
It like, that's one of the things that you hear
is cautionary tales before people adapt ferrets, is that they
do tend to take some care and maintenance to have
them be kind and delightfully non melodious in your home. Yeah.
I mean, like any animal, I have met great ones
and less than great ones, and a lot of that

(11:19):
just has to do with the experience and knowledge of
the person that raises them. Yes, so I think they're
awfully cute. They are very cute. I wanted one very
badly when I was a small child. So this is
one of the reasons why I know that that they're
things to keep in mind everything. Keep getting a ferret.
Are you sure that wasn't people warding you off? It
will just bite you. No, it was actual research and

(11:42):
ferrets when I was old enough to do such a thing.
Um Anyway, So, while Felicia is the most famous animal
that they ever had on staff at firm A Lad,
she's not the only animal they ever worked with. No.
It turned out particle physicists really love animals, apparently, so,
and when you have all of that acreage to work with. Yeah,

(12:02):
and most of these types of facilities, like those those
pipe works and stuff, a lot of them are underground,
so they still have all the above ground space to
work with. UH. So six buffalo were moved into a
fence theory like a pasture near Laboratory village in nineteen
sixty nine, and their pr would say that, oh, they
cut the grass for us uh and that herd was

(12:23):
expanded in nineteen one and then continued to expand as
new calves were born each year thanks to the ponds
around the site. And many birds would stop by during migration,
and we're welcomed and often observed by birdwatching enthusiasts on
the staff. Canada geese and numerous duck species were frequent visitors.
Herron's have been seen during summers, as well as sandpipers

(12:45):
and other water birds. In an article in the Village
Crier from October nineteen seventy or reported fifty seven species
had been identified, No doubt many more have since then.
In nineteen seventy one, they established a Canada East flock,
beginning with five males and five females. At the time,
the species was considered relatively rare yeah, and that's um

(13:08):
Canada Insis maxima, which is the giant Canada goose, which
is a little bit different. It has since rattied in
its numbers going by my quick research, so they probably
helped with that. UH. In v seven, the firm and
lab group hosted their first national Audubon Bird count and
they did several more after that, where if you don't
know what that is, birdwatchers and bird experts will come

(13:31):
and they will listen and visually get identification on birds
and they'll count them all. And it's a way that
they monitor UH species migration patterns and sort of the
health and robustness of a species. In late nineteen seventy three,
Mr and Mrs James Banister of St. Charles, Illinois gave
the National Accelerator Lab the gift of a small herd
of Scottish Highland cattle. The cattle had been hand raised

(13:55):
by the Banisters and allegedly even responded to basic commands
and we're very gentle and loving. The herd was given
a twenty acre pasture to graze on and was retained
by the Lab as a registered stock herd until ninety seven,
when it moved to the Brookfield Zoo. Yeah, that's an
interesting story because kind of like what happened with the banisters.
They started with a few, and they were so careful

(14:16):
with them and really race them almost like pets. Uh.
They really flourished, and then so they moved to the
spot at the Accelerator Lab, and then they realized they
really did not have the ability to care for them
much away. The banisters had kind of hit their limit
of what they could do. Uh, they did, so they
moved to the Brookfield Zoo for more specialized care. Uh.

(14:39):
And swans, barn owls, deer, butterflies, and even coyotes have
found haven on Firmal labs lands throughout the years. They
actually have an entire page on their site that's just
about like the wildlife that visits them and the various
animals that they've kept through the years. As for Felicia's legacy,
not only was she very adorable and extreme helpful in

(15:00):
her brief time at the facility, it's estimated that she
saved them thousands of dollars with her runs through the tubes. Yeah,
they could keep construction going and they didn't have that
expense hemorrhage that happens with big construction product projects of
a specialized nature where waiting actually costs you money while
you solve problems. So she was really doing even though
it seems like she didn't do that much. She did

(15:22):
you know, a finite number of these runs cleaning out
tubes prior to their welding assembly. That was time that
they would have just sat there on their hands, paying
people to like to do nothing, keep those welters ready
just in case. So yeah, she really did do a
great deal for science and again a great deal for

(15:43):
Farret ambassadorship. Yes, obviously it didn't make it all the
way to me. I do like ferrets. I like many animals.
H me too, I love them all crazy animal lady.
But I thought it was really cool. Initially I was like, oh,
it would be cool to do an episode on Felicia,
And then as I read more and more about the facility,
I realized, like, they really have a whole animal connection

(16:05):
and they do have a mindset of like giving back
to the environment and you know, furthering species that need assistance,
and it's kind of awesome. So that's uh, firm a
lab and their love of animals. Yes, I do like that.
It's a science story with animals that does not involve like,
no unsettling experiments or torture at any kind. No dogs

(16:27):
in space to make everyone cry. No, it's good, no crying.
Do you also have some listener mail? I do, uh.
This comes to us from our listener page, and she says, Hi,
Tracy and Holly. I was just listening to the podcast
on the Phoenician alphabet and was surprised to hear towards
the end that it was sometimes written left to right
and then right to left on alternating lines. I'm, by

(16:50):
no means an expert in this field, but like one
of you said, I'd often wondered as a kid why
we didn't write that way in English, and that was
you did said? That was me. That just made more
sense to you know, save your eyestraam uh. And years later,
page says, when I went to rob Anui, which is
of course Easter Island, I read a bit of trivia
that said that their native language used to be written
back and forth and was one of the few languages

(17:11):
in the world that could be written like that. I'm
much more intelligent to hear of another. Thank you, yes,
Wrongo Wrongo, which is how I think it's pronounced. Is
indeed a boost feedin UH language, as far as I understand,
not really commonly spoken anymore. I think now the people
that live on Easter Island speak Spanish is their primary language,
and some learn good native language UM later on in life.

(17:33):
But I don't know if even the native language still
does that when they learn it. I know the old
version did the back and forth lines. UH and Page
also sent us a picture of her cat who had
just had some facial surgery done. And she's got this
awesome partial shaved mohawk situation, and she looks like a
total punk rock cat and she's very, very cute. We've

(17:54):
gotten so many great cat pictures. I love it. It's
like crazy Cat Lady Heaven in my inbox. I love it.
I love it so even if I don't call out
and mention your cat by name, like I'm enjoying all
of them. I promise you it makes a day so
fun to start. Yes, looking at everybody's animals. You can
send us other animals too, are like a mama got faret,
send me pictures. They are so photogenic. Yes, I would

(18:14):
much rather get to work and have lots of animal pictures.
Than eighteen contradictory pronunciations. For some word that we've pronounced
in an episode, it happens. We do our best, but
it happens. If you would like to write to us
and share your animal pictures or your thoughts, you can
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(18:35):
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about the topic we talked about today, you can go
to our website and type in the words particle accelerators
in the search bar, and you will get the article
how Adam Smashers Work, which does indeed mention firm lab

(18:57):
uh in the article. If you would like to learn
about that, or really just about anything else your mind
can conjure, you can visit our website, and that is
how stuff Works dot com. For more on this and
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