Endless Thread - Don't Do That

Episode Date: August 19, 2022

You shouldn't do it. But then you do, and it turns out great. Two stories of rule-breaking's good side: A college senior prank emails to his entire school, and wild monkeys take residence in a Florida parking lot. ****** Credits: This episode was written and produced by Ben Brock Johnson, Dean Russell, and Kristin Torres. Mixing and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell are the co-hosts.

Support for endless thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. It is the guy that I'm talking to right now. That is my official ringtone now, forever and always. Hey, Dean Russell. Hey, Ben, Rock, Johnson. Happy Frode. And by that, I mean a day that you would get frozen yogurt, maybe. Or a day that you would read about Frodo. Or a day. No, I'm going to stop there. That's fine.

That's good enough. Yeah. Dean, thanks for jumping in to make an endless threat episode today. My pleasure. Happy to be here. And do you know the theme of our stories today? So as I remember it, the theme was like, you know, a thing that you're not supposed to do, but you do. And then things work out in the end and end up actually kind of better.

That's right. So I have a story for you. This came from a listener. His name is Daniel Updahl. Daniel Updahl? Yeah. All right? That's how he kind of said it.

And immediately I had a question for him. Did people say What's Updahl to you? It's funny that you say that because that's actually my older brothers. If you go to what's updall.com, that's his personal website page. Dean, you should know that Daniel is participating in Teach for America, which good for him. He's also a Dungeons and Dragons player. Amazing. So, Dean, in Dungeons and Dragons, you have a character alignment, which is sort of like how your character acts.

So. Like a personality? Yeah, kind of personality. Or it's like, are you lawful good? Are you lawful evil? So like you sort of like follow the rules but you're bad or if you follow the rules but you're good. Wow. And also there's there's chaotic as an alignment.

And Daniel Uppdall was definitely coming from a chaotic alignment. You play Dungeons and Dragons. This is chaotic evil energy. This is like to me full on chaotic or maybe it's chaotic neutral but it's definitely chaotic. Oh yeah. And I love chaos. I adore chaos. Clearly. Wow. Daniel and I, we might not get along. I'm not a chaos person, but I respect it. This story really starts, Dean, when Daniel is a senior at a small liberal art school called Luther College, and he's graduating kind of in the midst of the pandemic in 2021. Right. So, you.

you know, he really feels this kind of lack of connection in this crucial moment, right? Like you remember graduating from college when you, the like senior spring is like when you resolve all those issues and like, you know, like profess your love for the, um, yeah, for that girl and or guy or whomever. And, you know, all these like intense emotional things I feel like happen your senior year of high school, your senior year of college. So he's having this moment of really feeling a lack of connection to his fellow students. And so he was trying to figure out how to create that connection during his senior year of college. There was just this weird kind of energy about the student's senior year where it was like,

this is our senior year. Like we all really want to solidify and build these friendships that we have. but we, you know, for safety, it's like weird and we can't really, and everybody has different opinions on when we should all be wearing masks. And it, I don't know, just makes you want to kind of scream in frustration. And, Dean, how does one scream in frustration most effectively over the internet? Ah. I don't want to answer that question. Well, in Daniel's mind, you know, he went to.

these kind of like all student messages that would be sent out over email by the college president. And he had this thought of like, well, wait, what if you could actually just reply all to one of those emails and put, you know, put the college president and everybody else on blast. Like, what if you could just email everyone in the school at once? No, no. And then that eventually grew into the idea with my friend's input, like, what if you got everyone's email and email address and put it into one email and made it like really pure and simple and sent it out and see what people did? I bet there would be a really long chain of reply alls. Oh, my God.

Daniel is the harbinger of chaos. This is definitely something that you are not supposed to do. But it's tricky to do this. So like a lot of schools now, as you probably know, Dean, they have university emails or college emails. But those emails are really Google emails. And Daniel had to kind of set up, set about figuring out how to email every single student in the entire school, of which I think he said there were about 2000. I majored in computer science. So I know how to do this.

So I just went on the college directory site where you can log in and look up who, email that you want to. So I wrote a little computer script to go and scrape all of the email addresses of all the students and then collect them all. And then I think it was like a week and a half, or maybe it was a week before finals. I chose a Friday and I put everyone's address into the two space in an email so everyone could reply all. And then I said, said, hi, everyone. Thanks for a great four years. All the best, Daniel Updahl.

And that was the entire email. It was just really innocent and really sweet. Innocent and sweet, Dean? Do you feel like it's innocent and sweet? I don't know. To me, this is like, this is like Daniel signed my yearbook hags, like have a great summer. But really, really he's saying, like, have the worst.

summer you ever can, Dean. Well, it's also like, I feel like you, like, I check my email like five times if I'm sending it to like over three people. Yep, for sure. It's interesting too because it was all publicly available information, right? Like, he wasn't actually doxing anyone. So. Yeah.

Pretty much the first thing that happens is the friends that I told about the email. Like I was like, I'm going to send it out 10 a.m. on a Friday. The friends that I had told about the email responded first right away. And they were like, thank you as well for a great four years. I love you. This is hilarious. I can't believe you did this. And then, like, after the first two replies to that, replies all to that email, my Google account gets locked.

So his Google account got locked because of how much. many people he emailed, right? And Daniel immediately got flagged, I think, for being spam. And one of the things that happens when your Google account gets locked at least at Luther College is, like, you can't, you then can't access the replies. So, like, he had, like, dropped this digital grenade, right? And then, like, he didn't really know what happened after that. But he started to ask some of his friends who were sort of like seeing the replies. Yeah. There were a lot of like, yo, who the hell are you?

What is this? I've never heard of you before. What are you doing? And then it kind of developed into a meme. Like people made memes about it and then sent them in the reply all chat. I love this, though. This is like a local. I don't know, Luther College meme.

That's great. They have their own meme. Daniel has his own meme in his own community. And I think that that's lovely, even though it's pure chaos. Do you want to take a look at it? Yes. So I sent it to you. And one of the complexities of this is that it got so big that he had to like turn it into a PDF document.

And it's hosted on like a Google Drive link. You know, some people responded in anger. Some people responded just like with joy. Some people responded with confusion, frustration. Daniel says that even though his account was locked, there was this kind of like moment where everyone started to realize that they had all received the same email all at the same time. when everyone started getting the email, like the chatter around like the dining hall and the cafes like quieted down. And then everybody simultaneously was like, did you just get an email from a dude named Daniel?

Yeah, I got that. What? You got the email too? That's weird. And so it was like a very like all college thing. Like everybody was talking about it all day. And people like. had said, this was the most connected I felt with the Luther community that I've ever felt in the past four years,

let alone in COVID times, you know. I think that's really sweet. This is like Daniel's chaotic way of pulling everyone in together. And there really are. There's like a lot in here that are saying like congratulations or like so happy to be here. a joy. There's happiness in here. And of course, there were the people who were extremely annoyed.

The funniest response in the email chain was somebody who was like, everybody shut up, I'm trying to do my work, I swear this is the most annoying, you can catch these hands, Daniel. Okay, Dean, I did not know this phrase, which apparently the youths know.

I'm not a youth, I guess. I didn't know it. Yeah, I guess it means I'm going to come and beat your beat you're behind. I'm going to come and smack you around, right? You can catch these hands. So, you know, they weren't all full of love these email responses.

I think Daniel still feels like ultimately is worth it. There was a lot of joy and a lot of connection. I should say eventually his email did get unlocked also, but not without him getting marched down to the IT department. Uh-oh. The director of IT was just very, very confused was the vibe. It wasn't like he was really upset. He was just like, why would you do this?

Like, he couldn't see a possible reason for doing it. And I just kind of played a little dumb here and there and then weaseled my way out of any consequence for it. This is the guy teaching young minds. right now, Dean. For sure. It's great. That is, that is, that is who I want teaching my kids. That's for sure. I don't have any kids.

A prankster? A chaotic, chaotic, neutral prankster? You got to break some rules to make things happen. Good on you, Daniel. Thanks for listening to the show and being ridiculous. Yeah, bravo. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science,

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Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. All right, you got one for me, Dean? How much time do you spend on the subreddit R slash Fort Lauderdale? About as much time as I spend in Fort Lauderdale, which is to say, almost none. Okay, I don't spend a lot of time on R slash Fort Lauderdale, but often when I'm traveling, I like to look for like an area's subreddit.

And a few weeks ago, Michelle, my wife and I, we headed to Fort Lauderdale to visit my in-laws. And so I got perusing Fort Lauderdale's charming subreddit, and I found a post about a group of somebody's doing something they shouldn't do and being somewhere they shouldn't be. So is this like teenagers making out behind the 7-Eleven? Or what are we talking about? This is a little more PG. Okay. But I also like a tad familiar for anyone who listened to our last episode.

So, you know, apologies, but not really. Anyway. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Is this going to be monkey related? This is, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Okay. Well, okay. The title of this post is I've heard people talk about monkeys in Florida. Oh, boy. I just assumed they meant the drivers. And there's this video attached with these, like, it's like a couple of like string bean like monkeys and they're strolling around on all fours by some like Florida crabgrass and there's like a dumpster in the background. And like it's very clear that they are not at a zoo. These are wild Florida monkeys.

Did you know about this? Like, did you know that North America has wild monkeys? What I can say I know is that Florida seems to be the entry point for lots of illegal animals. So I guess I would assume that if there were monkeys anywhere, they would be in Florida. But I have not spent very much time thinking about monkeys in Florida. So, no, I'm surprised. Any guesses on where in Fort Lauderdale they live? Making out behind the 7-Eleven.

That's my guess. But no, I don't. You're not far off. They live by the Fort Lauderdale Airport at the parking go. They are parking lot monkeys. Hello. Now we're just here to see the monkeys. Oh, okay.

So we showed up, like, out of the blue. The monkeys, I have to say, were not immediately visible. but the parking lot attendance. I was going to say, do the monkeys have a manager? What's happening right now? I mean, they were like unfazed when we showed up, as you could probably hear. This is an everyday occurrence, people coming to see the monkeys at their park and go parking lot. I like that the statement, like, we're just here to see the monkeys feels like a password that you use to get directions to the rave.

You know what I mean? Absolutely. This, just to describe it, like this is not. a place for monkeys. There's planes going non-stop, there's traffic and trucks, and there's also like this fence and behind that fence is like several acres of mangroves. So in my effort to see the monkeys I walked the perimeter of this fence and I played some tape of other monkeys hoping that they would you know be interested and come out and see and I got nothing. Hi. You don't know. What do you don't know?

The question usually is what time they come out like they're wearing a wristwatch, you know? Okay. And the answer is you don't know? No, got a banana? Waving it around. How long have a... We went to the parking lot a couple of times and failed. I obviously was disappointed, but I went back to the web, and I wanted to see what I could find. And I actually discovered quite a story about these monkeys because I came across this one biologist, she's now an adjunct professor at Lynn University. Her name is Missy Williams. They literally threw, you know, I don't want to sound corny, but like a monkey wrench, I guess,

into my plans. I wasn't anticipating where I'm at today at all. It was definitely not in plans. So it's 2014 and Missy was a PhD student at Florida Atlantic University. She was living in Fort Lauderdale. She was, you know, learning about primates. And she was all set to go to like the Gombe National Forest in Tanzania to do her field work, like, you know, where Jane Goodall did all for work and stuff like that. But then like one day a colleague said something. to her about the local airport parking lot monkeys. So I called that lot and the woman answered, and I said, you know, this is Missy Williams, PhD student.

I heard you have monkeys on your line. And she giggled. She's like, yes, we do. And I thought, okay, all right, is this a joke? What's going on? I said, well, can I come look at them? She's like, of course, come on down. I'm like, this is crazy to me, right?

She had better luck than me. I've only seen monkeys in the U.S. at a zoo or a sanctuary, But here they are just walking through the parking lot, very nonchalantly, didn't really seem bothered by me or anybody else in the lot. And I thought, this is crazy. Wow. So Missy was so taken by these monkeys that she abandoned her work in Africa and decided to write her dissertation on the Fort Lauderdale monkeys. I already got enough anxiety while I'm driving around a parking lot. Like, do I really need monkeys to contend with also?

Do I need to be, like, looking out for monkeys? But more importantly, I think monkeys in parking lots, these things, I want them to be in the forest, you know? I think that's fair. That's fair. And that's something that, like, Missy thinks a lot about. But I should tell you a little bit about these monkeys. They're called vervet monkeys or green vervet monkeys. And, you know, as you could probably assume, they're not native to Florida.

But no one really knew how they got there. Like, why are they at the mangroves by the parking lot? They're pretty small and they're very cute, and they weigh like as much as a cat. They got these very long golden tails and these night black faces and white bellies and this greenish-brown hair everywhere else. Plus, I've also seen that they have very distinctive coloring on their genitals. Oh, yes, I wasn't going to bring that up, but excellent. Yes, you are correct.

So all the males, yes, have blue testicles. And the species that we have in Dania, out of all the species of vervets, they have the palest blue. What? These monkeys sound insane. Like they sound crazy to look at. They really are. And combined with like the white belly and Missy left. out the fact that they have very bright red

penises. Oh my God. They've got a very America theme going on. Oh my God. I really appreciate. But, okay, so what intrigued Missy so much was the fact that nothing was really known about these Dania Beach monkeys. No one had seriously studied them and no one seemed to know how they got there. Like, how did they get here?

So Missy started talking to locals. She was like reading through newspaper archives for any little shred of mention about monkeys. And then in 2016, she stumbled upon this, like, amazing sounding website. It was backroads Florida or something like that. So I don't even know how I found it, but I was scrolling down. And then I found this gentleman mentioned the monkeys in Florida or something. It caught my attention. But there was a way that you could comment underneath. It was like a thread. So I said, hey, my name's Missy. I'm I'm studying these monkeys, do you recognize them?

And I uploaded a photo. And I got a reply back, oh, yes, those monkeys escaped from the Dania chimpanzee farm. And I thought, bingo, this is great. Wow. When World War II ended in the 1940s, all of the sudden, you know, the seas opened up for various types of trade, including legal animal trade. And I found this old newspaper clipping that said, you know, chimps at the time would go for like $500, quote, off the dock, which is about like $8,000 today. And this couple, Armand Dennis and Leila Roosevelt, who is the second cousin to FDR, they started the Dania Chimp Farm in Florida, which sold chimps and green vervet monkeys. This was back during the era they were looking for a polio vaccine.

So from what I understand, the chimps were used for that, and also the vervets were sold to John Hopkins. And I also believed some of the armed forces had picked them up as well. So yes, they were brought in and sadly used for biomedical research. Whoa. Dania Farm Primates specifically went to, among others, went to Jonas Salk and Albert Sabo. like the inventors of the polio vaccine. Yeah. Wow.

You can thank these unwitting monkeys for their contribution to Homo sapiens. But the monkeys, they were kept in this aviary type enclosure that was secured only, only with a screen door hooklock. My five-year-olds can get out of that pretty easily. So I in hook locks not to be trusted for animals with opposable thumbs. Yeah, I mean, Missy found this old worker there who basically described to her that like one day in 1947, the lock became unlocked. And all 50 of the monkeys did something they weren't supposed to do. they escaped. Ferfut monkeys are very smart.

So I almost feel like the individual watching the animals probably locked it. And they just waited and found the perfect moment, opened it, and they're like, we're out of here. And it was all mangroves in agricultural space. It was perfect for them. Wow. The monkeys, I should say, they kept coming back, though, because they did like the food at the farm. So they were, like, stealing the food. And so eventually most of them actually got recaptured.

But 12, but not all. Yeah, most but not all. 12 to 15 of them remained forever on the lamb, which I think is amazing. 12 monkeys. How appropriate. Yep. Wow. They colonized the mangroves near the airport.

And to a certain extent, for decades and decades, they have actually thrived. Like today there is about 30 to 40 of them, and according to Missy, they are pretty healthy. I would say living under the airport all day would stress me out with the noise level, but they seem to have adapted to it. And so they've learned how to maneuver their way through the main groves and how to use the industrial setting to their advantage, i.e. meaning they know that there's people on the lot so I can go get food. and once I get my food, I can retreat back into the safety of the mangroves.

Wow. Yeah, they've figured it out. And along with the health of the monkeys, the ecosystem seems to be doing pretty well. The residents, they really like them. They bring them fruits and veggies. And they also really, they don't have any predators, like the only real predator. I mean, can you guess? Humans.

Yeah, of course. humans and this is like through traffic and electric fencing and people like this one exotic pet trader that Missy told me about so he would float in behind the motel six there in the maingrove space and he would blow dart them that just sounds like it's from like a cartoon right I thought that was wild yep and he traded them for some finnic fox I'll take it one shade darker before I lighten it up. And I'm like, God, you got more dark? Geez.

I got more dark. I always have more dark in my back pocket, Ben. Okay, fair. So on top of, on top of this, Florida Fish and Wildlife, they refuse to actually help the monkeys that much because they are not native to the state. And so there's no one but Missy's team watching out for the monkeys and keeping track of them. My God, that's like so weirdly xenophobic. Like, they're not native to the state, so we won't help them. Yeah, like, according to Missy, if fish in wildlife knows that a monkey is injured in the wild,

it will either ignore it and let nature run its course, or it will euthanize the animal. You know, to be clear, I reached out to fish in wildlife, and while they did not directly answer, answer my questions. They did tell me that the monkeys could hurt the ecosystem and carry disease. Two things that Missy refuted. Officially, the monkeys are only very thinly protected by anti-crualty laws. And Missy is not cool with that. So she started a nonprofit called the Dania Beach Vervet Project. Florida's policy is any non-native we want them gone, kill them all. And so I'm like, okay, this is not what I want for the monkeys, you know. So the next best thing I thought, well, this open a facility. So if an animal is injured and it does need to be trapped, we can trap it and we can't release it because it's illegal to release it non-native, but we will have a safe space for the

animal to go. So far, the Dandy Beach Verve project has one sanctuary space. and they plan to open more as like more donations come in and things like that. And this month actually they are getting their first rescued monkey resident at the sanctuary. And for these monkeys, they have found their place in America. And, you know, there are some good reasons. People like Missy to have some hope. So that's my story.

And because I couldn't see them, Missy sent me plenty of videos to watch. Well, thanks, Dean. This is a good set of stories. We'll hang next week. Yep. See you later. Bye. This episode was produced by this monkey and that monkey, Ben and Dean, and also co-hosted

by us. And it was produced by Kristen Torres. Our web producer is Megan Cattel. Our team also includes our good buddy, Amory Severson, who's been away, Grace Tatter, Paul Vicus, Emily Jankowski, Matt Reed, Quincy Walters, and Norrisax. Also, shout out to Pete and Ellie Van Sisson and the great Michelle Martin, my fellow monkey trackers. For all you other listeners, we will have another episode for you next week.