No Such Thing As A Fish - 527: No Such Thing As A Rum and Woke

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

James, Anna, Andy and Erica McAlister discuss flies, flies, flies and flies. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes. Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Thing As A Fish where we were joined by the incredible Dr. Erika McAllister. Now Erika has been on the podcast before so you might remember her but if you don't, the one thing you need to know is that she is an expert in flies, insects, I won't say creepy carlies, I won't say mini beastsies because I know Erica doesn't like that but she is essentially a senior curator at the Natural History Museum and an absolute legend in this office. She is so enthusiastic about her subject but also so funny, so interesting. We really really enjoyed making this show and the main thing I do need to tell you is that Erica has a book out. Her book is called Metamorphosis how insects are changing

our world. It's a lovely thing I've got a copy of it right here. It's got loads of amazing pictures, incredible stories, it's just a really really great object to own and obviously you'll learn a great deal about insects if you buy that book Another thing to say is that the radio for show which spawned the book get it spawned It's called metamorphosis how insects transformed our world that is currently available on BBC radio for if you google radio for Erica McCallister you will find it. It's a great show and it is full of amazing facts anyway You will find it. It's a great show and it is full of amazing facts anyway Not much more to add join club fish if you haven't buy our books if you haven't blah blah blah blah blah Let's get on with the show with dr. Erica McAllister and on with the podcast Hello and welcome to another episode of NoSuppsThingsOfFish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoban. My name is Andrew Hunter Murray and I'm here with Anna Tajinsky, James Harkin

and Erica McAllister. And once again we have gathered around the microphones with our four favourite facts from the last seven days so in no particular order here we go. Starting with fact number one and that is Erika. Some flies have tits on the inside. Tits on the inside. Yeah. Do they have to wear bras on the… Yeah how do you tie it? Because a bra's tough enough to wear bras on the... Yeah, how do you tie it?

Because a bra's tough enough to do off on the outside, actually. I just think it's an evolutionary advantage of them avoiding males, groping them in public. Do you think male flies are gropers? Oh, look at how many hands they have. So it's... Okay, take your head away from imagining loads of little mammary grounds on the inside. But they have this kind of flat surface and they've got no nipples, so it's like a big area. But they do give birth to live young.

So they will, instead of like shooting off hundreds of thousands of eggs, they've decided to actually, do you know what, let's concentrate on raising one larvae. And this, yeah, I know. That's unusual in flies, right? It's unusual in insects. Ah. So we generally think of the mammals doing that. You know, let's actually look after just one and go for it.

Now, this is in the Fupa family Hippobosodia. And they include the things that people would have heard of like Tetsi. Tetsi flies is no, because Tetsi means fly. It's another little fact. Oh, very nice. And what is amazing, like the Tetsi. Tetsi flies is no because Tetsi means fly. It's another little fact. And what is amazing like the Tetsi when she gets pregnant, because she probably does get pregnant, the larvae when it's born can have a mass bigger than her. Oh wow. Oh yeah. Exactly.

I've seen a video of them giving birth and it is remarkable because imagine having a baby and it's bigger than you first of all it seems impossible so they how do they what do they then shrink as they get older otherwise they just get bigger and bigger and bigger metamorphosis remember it's not a video they show at fly NCT because I like that idea just you ready. Now, if you light a lot of candles and play some nice music, it won't be as bad as you think. I mean, you look at her, her stomach,

before she gives birth, her abdomen just looks like the radicchio cabbage. Oh really, does it properly as well? It is absolutely engorged. It's red, it's got these white veins all over it. Wow. Just, I mean, she only gives birth about three or four times. I mean, only is quite something. I know.

I think I would have given up after one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're actually just going to say one and done. We've made a decision. It's easy with the schools. Also, what a great way of putting me off radicchio cabbage for the lake. Sorry. So one thing I read about the specifically the tetsy flies is that the females get a

lifetime's worth of sperm from mating once and then they just use it bit by bit as they go. They kind of hoard it. I suppose if you only have one child, a lifetime supply of sperm is just one sperm isn't it? So many insects do this and a lot of flies, it's called a spermotheca and it's where they store sperm. They can get rid of sperm. They can replace sperm now This might be a question that you can't answer but I was really wondering this when reading about it A really sad because presumably every shag is a one-night stand. So bit of a shame there

Yeah, but it's like in some of them only live for hours. So it's not even like a night. Okay, fair enough a one-minute stand But then when you've got all this sperm inside you, you want to pick the best one. Do you know how, like, what's the mechanism where you've got sperm within you? No idea. No one's going to know, are they? Well, you're beginning to look at this because you've got this is cryptic female selection going on. So this is all quite exciting. So the Victorians had this whole thing about, oh, it's always about the males, the males this, the males choose, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, okay, back off. We know this is not the case, we can see it in our own sex so we're looking at the biochemistry now, we're looking at the hormones, we're looking at that. So her body is trying to kill sperm, his sperm is trying to drug her, it's all sorts of things going on. Why is her body trying to kill? Because her body wants the best, so she kills off all the weaklings, only the best gets through. How does she do it? How?

We don't know. What was the other thing about them poisoning? Oh yeah, the males drug the females. Yeah, so his sperm is going to have a load of pheromones in loads of different chemicals. And so with Drosophila, we know that immediately they've had sex, the sperm makes the female less likely to have sex again. So they are trying, there's lots of sneaky behavior going on. Some of these flies, the bat flies, which I really love, so I spend a lot of time running after bats in the Caribbean,

which is nice. The female, when she gets pregnant, some of them undertake some extreme morphological adaptations at this point. So there's one that when she gets pregnant she rips her legs off and she rips her wings off and then she sticks her head into the back and basically most of her body she undergoes this complete metamorphosis. What does she rip off her last two legs with? Well she's still I guess she's like she's got to have ripped her wings off first she's learned that the legs they can them. So I presume she's breaking them off. But Mother Nature's sort of a lovely solution. So she can stick her head in, but she invaginates herself. Like she kind of- I beg your pardon.

She kind of wraps her abdomen. Invaginates. She kind of goes like- Does invaginate mean sheath? So she kind of like draws herself into her own body. Like pulling herself into a sleeping bag. Yeah. Well, what a chat up line I've never got. Fancy a spot of invagination. I think that writes yourself out of the picture

in that chat up line. You mentioned you were running around chasing bats in Barbados and I've tried to catch two bats in my life inside rooms to get them out and it's extremely difficult. How do you, what are you doing just leaping along beach, luxury beaches after bats in the dark? No, no. It was in Dominica and we have mist nets. So have you ever seen mist nets catching birds? No.

Obviously you lot have never done holidays like I do. So you put them in this net and a bat comes flying into it. And male bats, they're really obviously male bats. These two giant testicles are straight in your face and you're holding them open because you're trying to weigh them, sex them, speciate them and then I'm the little entomologist next door trying to find these little bat flies so they look like little drunk spiders running all over the bats. So they're visible enough and then you

can see them without a microscope. Oh yeah and they're like running around the bat. Do they annoy the bats because they've got parasites? I don't know because the bat's so angry at this stage. I don't know what's annoying the bats. Someone's measuring his testicles. So there's a lot going on. Imagine having sort of parasites the size of your own thumb just running around your body.

I'm guessing on what the scale of these things is. Well they're not, they're bigger than a thumb. Oh great, okay, fab. And there's a whole lot of interesting things. There's a group of flies that are slightly different. These are called bee riders and they hang around honeybees. They will go down and feed around the mouth of say the queen, which they are more often on and these have mimicked her smell.

So the queen knows that something, there's this bit running around on her, this other creature, but it smells like her. So she thinks it's herself. She's like, is that me? I don't know, but that literally is imagine your head running around your body Like going, pardon the minute, what is that? Gosh, Anna did that answer your question of how to catch a bat? Thank you, yes.

You've written that down. Sorry. Perfect. It would be cool if you had a beard which you get crumbs in. Are there beard mites that can eat the food? No, there's eyelash mites. Oh yeah. You rarely get crumbs in. Are there beard mites that... No. The food that gets in your beard? There's eyelash mites. Oh yeah.

You rarely get crumbs in your eyelashes, do you? And there's obviously other things. Mm-hmm. Again, you don't get crumbs there either. I think some people get crumbs there. Yeah. I do. Well, well.

There's a lot of feasting in bed. Okay, let's not ask too many questions. Ericka, there's a custard cream down here. Oh. Oh. Has this hob not been invaginated? There's a custard cream down here. Has this hobnob been invaginated? Sorry. Sorry.

Let's talk about flies. A negative about flies, because I know you're a fan, but tetsy flies are quite big disease spreaders and it's well, you're making a you're making a face like maybe they're not well. I mean, it's not a tetsy's fault. Again, it's the same. Well, no, it's not you're making a you're making a face like maybe they're not well I mean it's it's not a Texas for again is the same well no it's not because they are vectors they're being manipulated by this trypanosome okay and they are their behavior is altered if they have this within them if they have the trypanosome is the parasite yeah so it causes them to go into environments and we know and feed for longer feed earlier and do all of this. So there is manipulation going on with the parasite.

Of course it's not the parasite's fault either. You're always advocating for the poor flies. Poor sexy flies killing millions and millions of people everywhere. I know and I'm not taking away from that. But also there has been a case that Etsy has helped massively with conservation because we couldn't go into certain areas, we couldn't take livestock into certain areas, we left all of it. So some of the original national parks in southern Africa were set up because it was like there's nothing we could do with

the land. The indigenous animals were fine because they've got skin so thick the tetsys were not doing that. So yes, there is a case the tetsis are very nice. Here's an attempt to deal with tetsi flies this is quite a clever one it's what Zimbabwe did in the 1980s I didn't know this there are 60 000 fake cows across Zimbabwe which you can't tell. You can't tell really. I bet I can. Depends on how distant you are. Is it like where they take one of those mobile phone masts and try and make it look like a tree? It actually just looks like a green mobile phone last It's exactly that except you're trying to lure people into the mobile phone mast to give them a shock to blast basically They have these

Chiramones, I'm pronouncing. All right These are chemicals that tetsuflies love and they lure them in and then they kill them with insecticide because the cow these fake cows also Use insecticide in some way that I don't fully understand But they brought cases down to almost zero in Zimbabwe because these fake cows also ooze insecticide in some way that I don't fully understand. But they brought cases down to almost zero in Zimbabwe. So we tether cows often and put nets over them because they are really good lures. And so there's various different sampling methods using that. They've done this with rabbits, chickens, all sorts, put them in boxes, chickens head

poking out. Oh wow! That's awful! It's better than human bait, which is another way we do it. Have you stood in the middle of a net with arms out? People I know have. Really? So yeah, so it's human bait. So every hour they will stick their hand out and let all the mosquitoes feed on them.

Oh yeah. They would do this. Can I ask Erica? I'm one of the people who, when I go on holiday, I get bitten really, really badly and my wife doesn't. So these people who are the human baits, do you look for people like me to do it? As in, are you looking for people who are just- Oh yeah, people who are tasty.

No, I think we just ask and hope that someone does it because- Right. Beggars want me to choose them in that situation. Will it be someone to lure in the incredibly rare North African penis-biting fly. Are you willing? Funny you should say that. So there's New World Screwworm. It was awful, this guy went to Venezuela to visit his family there and he got back to

the UK. This is a horrible story. Do you want me to carry on? Yes please. It's our favourite kind. Okay, he got back to the UK and it's obviously moaning. And New World Screwworm, you can have multiple infestation of the maggots. Okay.

And is it a screwworm because it screws its way into your body? Um, yeah. His screwworm infestation, of which he had multiple, was in his scrotum. Oh no. No, that's one of the worst places. Now he's let this fester, as it were, for a couple of weeks. Now at this point these maggots... Yeah but you're busy, you can't get a GP's appointment, they're saying can you do three in the afternoon? It might sort itself out. Exactly.

Well they eventually will because they will pop out by themselves but you have to put up with a arriving maggot man. Discomfort. In your scrotum. If I googled that and it was like it will eventually cure itself, I can imagine being the kind of person so lazy I'd be like, you know what, I'll deal with it. I just don't think you would. Now I'm not a male so I do not have them but I think if my scrotum was moving by itself I would be tempted to do something about it. Can I ask a question? Did his scrotum still smell like him? I don't think that was written in the side of the paper. They do. They don't move exactly by themselves, but they certainly move more than the rest

of you. If I'm running and then I stop. It keeps running. That's when Andy runs the 100 meters. He actually only runs 99.98 metres. Stopped at. Wow. And I get over the line that way. Actually on genitals, can I ask a question about fly genitals generally? Because I have struggled to find the definite answer to this.

I was reading an article from New Scientist in 1990 about how all flies when they have sex, their penises, the male flies, their penises rotate either 180 or 360. Not all of them. Okay, but some of them do. Yes. Because it sounded very interesting and cool. So when I re-arrange mosquitoes, when the adult males hatch, we leave them for 24 hours because their genitalia has to rotate 360 degrees to be in the correct position.

Yes. Wait a minute, because if it rotates 360 degrees. No, no, it doesn't just do that. It moves down around. So it's not like the hand of a clock. No. But it does wrap itself internally around the other organs. I think. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of rapid going on, but not all of them rotate. And you can see this because some of them will copulate in a missionary, you know, or doggy style, as it were, fly style. And others, a female would

drag them out along behind her. Okay. So that depends on how much genital rotation has gone on. But also, that's fixed rotation. There is temporary rotation so they can move their penis into position. Like during sex. Yes, I think you're saying this. And what I really liked is an explanation of maybe why it allows you to be a bit more

flexible in the same way that a balloon animal, if you've got a long balloon and then you rotate it 360 like a magician would when he's making it into an animal, suddenly that you've got strength there in that twist in the middle and you've got flexibility. I quite like that. But this is a runaway evolution. So there's some flies that have a penis that is just extraordinary. It's like a massive curly whirly and you're like, whoa. So she's evolving internally. He's trying to do all these crazy stuff. So her body parts running away from his body parts. I mean, basically, yes. I'm now thinking all the things that I'm off radicchio cabbages. Off-Kermit-Wall-E's. Two of my major food groups. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast.

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posting that for free terms and conditions apply on with the podcast on with the show okay it's time for fact number two and that is Anna my fact this week is that the oldest rum brand in the world was founded by a man named Cumberbatch Sober. Ironic. I've never heard Cumberbatch as a first name. Sorry to completely distract from the sober element of it. No, Cumberbatch was a crucial part of the fact as well. Me neither. I'll be honest, I'd never heard of it as a surname until Benedict Cumberbatch came along. It is a relatively uncommon name. Yeah. Yeah, it's a funny word cummerbatch

Anyway, this is um, this is Mount Gay rum and it's probably been producing rums in 1663 it was I've sort of cheated on this fact because it was originally called Mount Gilboa and then it was taken over by the sober family and They put someone in charge called Sir John Gay Allain to manage it and to manage the distillery. A gay rum became the biggest rum in the world, an amazing business and so when Sir John died John Sober's son Cumberbatch renamed Mount Gilbo a Mount Gay and that's what we get, Mount Gay Rum. So he named it. I have seen that Mount Gay Rum on for sale and never realized it was the oldest. That's quite cool. They have weird names, a lot of them. There's Puss Mount Gay rum for sale and never realised it was the oldest. That's quite cool.

They have all these weird names, a lot of them. There's Pusser's Rum, which I like, and Mount Gay. They're all sorts of eccentric names. You can get an extraordinary variety of strength in rum. I didn't realise. The strongest rum in the world, I think, is one called Rude to Your Parents rum. It's not really an official rum. You can't really get it unless you go deep into Jamaica and ask the right people. But a journalist tracked it down and it's 160 proof, so 80% rum. Journalist said he sniffed it and almost passed out.

Can you even, I mean, that's what we're preserving insects. Yeah, I mean this is a, is that really? I don't think we know where rum comes from for sure. The word rum, because there was a drink called Rumbullion, which was made from boiling sugar cane stalks, which is the leading theory. And that sounds pretty convincing, to be honest. But there was also a pirate drink called Bambo, which I really like. Nice. Yeah, yeah.

But definitely came from the Caribbean, right? Yeah. And it was from sugar plantation owners who had this kind of molasses, which was leftover black sticky stuff, and they would add water to it and then leave it to ferment and it became rum. But I read in Greg Jenner's book, which is A Million Years in a Day, that they would add dead animals or human urine to their wash. So you're going to preserve them, as Erica says, was it entomologists?

To what? To preserve your urine? I think you're preserving the dead animals, but yeah, sure. What's that? Apparently, the idea is that it would stop the enslaved people who are working on your plantation from drinking all of your rum. But you then have to drink dead rat rum? Well presumably when you're selling it you don't advertise the fact that there's been dead animals and urine in it.

Or perhaps it was a story that you told the people so that they didn't drink it and in actual fact you didn't do that. Well if your rum is strong enough, I mean I'll drink it. Yeah me too. As if that's going to put off your plantation. We drink a lot of like tequila, you know, although the worm is only a recent thing, isn't it? Yeah. All the bottles have a little worm in them.

Well, they don't all. Oh, don't they? No, and I think that could actually be a recent thing. Oh, really? So yeah, and we're not even sure why they did it in the first place. Just one guy had a lot of spare ones in his scrotum. Well.

Oh, gosh. Do you know what, I've been handed? My friend went walking and found a load of ticks all over him. So he had a tiny little whiskey bottle. So he it's now in whiskey and I can't, I haven't had the heart to put it in the collection because it looks so cute. And his only label he had on him was a plaster. So it's handwritten on the plaster where on his body it was, where he collected it in this little miniature of whiskey. So he's handwritten on the plaster where on his body it was, where he collected it in this little miniature of whiskey. So he's preserved it in that. How late and desperate into the night would it be before you decided that this was the

last drink in the house? That you could drink. Yeah. I've got a lot of those bottles. Can I tell you a bit about Navy rum? So this was the big thing in the Royal Navy. It was all sailors got a tot of rum every day. And in wasn't a tot it was about half a pint a day of rum And this was you know, this is great and then until in the 17 in 1740 It was watered down from that point on with like by one to five So you did get your own still half a pint, but it was watered down with two pints of water So it's a bit okay. So you were getting two and a half pints worth of stuff where you yeah it was called grog and basically if you were a senior

officer you were allowed to drink your rum neat because you were probably a trustworthy chap and if you were on the rest of the ship and able seaman exactly untrustworthy you'd go on a bender maybe you'd save it all up and that you'd you know and you'd steer the ship wrong anyway Anyway, so they had it watered down. Basically this is the amazing ritual they had. The officer of the day, the master of tarms, the supply petty officer and the butcher, no idea what he's doing here, they meet at the ship's spirit room, they unlock it, the butcher inserts his pump into the bunghole and...

I'm sorry, what? Come on, steady on. He embattinates the barrel. He draws off the ration, which is then transferred to a small breaker, which is spelt barico, pronounced breaker. So that's then padlocked and then carried to the rum tub. At which point you've got the rum tub is now full of the day's rum. Then the rum call is sounded on bugle.

Everyone gathers and you know, then each mess, let's say the four of us would be a mess, we would nominate a mess man, let's say James is the mess man, James goes up, gets the rum for all of us, carries it back in his rum fanny, which... That is the infatuation. It's a large egg-shaped container for our mess' rum. And then while we're drinking it, we sing a special song called Nancy Dawson. Oh, yeah. I know the Nancy Dawson song. I think we've mentioned it before, actually.

Maybe we have. But I think it is the same tune as Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. Oh, okay. And it was about a famous sex worker called Nancy Dawson. Oh, really? And every sort of, every verse is ruder and ruder than the last one. I thought I'd learned that version of the Marble Bush. I'm very proud of seeing the

other one. Do you know why it's called grog? I didn't know this. But it's because for international listeners, grog is sort of what we call general alcohol now quite often. A glass of grog. Yeah Deep countryside you don't get many orders in the sort of London cocktail bars. I frequent a glass of grog Here's my rum Fanny And then around of here we get around the Nazi bush or whatever it's called. No it's because as Andy said in 1740 the run was watered down because people were a bit worried that sailors were getting out of control of being irresponsible and it was watered down diluted by a chap called Admiral Vernon who was an Admiral and he wore this big cloak

which was made of a special fabric that happened to be called groggrum, so people used to call him old grog and that's one of those nice etymologies where we just know it comes from there. Yeah, because it sounds fake but it's not fake. Yeah, I mean he just wore this cloak, they called him old grog, so they called drinks grog and we do to this day in some parts of the country. Do you know what grog blossom is? No.

Is it, have a punt. I think you already know it. I do know it, yeah. Is it also to do with Admiral Vernon? Did he have a case of genital warts or something? No, it's higher up. Okay, your nipples. It is a bodily condition.

It's even higher. Even higher than your nipples? Yeah, strike north. Is it your nose? It's your nose and your cheeks, basically. Your consulums. Oh, does that make sense? It's the ruddy, red, it's all where the blood vessels have sort of given up the ghost if

you've been drinking a lot for a long time. So the port nose. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's that. It's in Gross, that isn't it? Gross's dictionary. I read Gross's dictionary for some other rum words because we were talking before, the

mics came on about whether we say the word rum to mean, you know, like he's a rum bugger, we would say in Bolton, for instance. Dodgy rum. I'd say that's a bit rum. Yeah, I would. I would use it. But you would say rum in that sense to mean bad, right? Kind of a bit dodgy. Yeah, yeah.

But it did used to mean more like good, like rum. Oh, that's, you know, so your rum peepers would be very expensive glasses. You mean you mean spectacles? Spectacles, yeah. Rum drawers, do you know what they were? E-R-A-W-E-R-S. They're where you smuggled your rum out of the rum shop in your drawers. Another word we use in the countryside.

Yeah, well you're using the right kind of drawers. It's silk or other fine stockings, known as rum drawers. And rum gaggers. Do know a rum gaga was Someone who can't hold their drink No, it was someone who would tell wonderful stories of their sufferings at sea or when taken by the Algerians If I had a nickel, I'd really... They would tell these stories and they'd get your confidence and then they would swindle you. Oh.

The rum gaggers. Right. Okay. I found a thing which is in your wheelhouse, Erica, which is related to rum. Can you have a guess? So related to insects, we're thinking. Yeah. Oh, and are these things insects? Oh god, I hope they are. Okay, related to insects we're thinking. Yeah, ooh and are these things insects?

Okay, related to insects slash arachnids. Related to animals. Certainly creepy crawly. Mini beasts they call them don't they? Oh don't use either of those terms. I don't like either of them. I like mini beasts, it's a little bit cutesy. It's beasts, it's still beasts.

I just think the negative word should be mini great guys. I like beasts. Beast beasts are exciting. We don't say big beasts. We don't say like I do. Well, OK, we can claim beasts for a good thing. Handsome beast. Another one that we use alongside rum and grog frequently in the wilds of hunting. OK, I'll tell you, it's the Isle of Rub.

Yes. This is off Scotland and it is home to the biggest something in the UK. Oh, this is it's got a huge population of red deer. Might it be something that lives on a red deer? Well, I'm very surprised because these are the largest worms in the UK found on rum, the Isle of Rum. They're three times bigger than your standard worm. It's basically like Dune, the Isle of Rum. It's like, they're huge. These worms, they're just worms are they?

It's no such thing as just. Just take that away. The Earthworm Specialist Museum right now will be having kittens thinking about you saying just worms. Just kittens? Are they common or garden worms? They are. They're standard earthworms Specialist Museum right now will be having kittens thinking about you saying just worms. Just kittens? Are they common or garden worms? They are. They're standard earthworms. They're earthworms. But the reason they've grown massive is that they, I know, hold your horses, Erica, there are no predators.

It's island gigantism. It's island gigantism. The soil is very fertile. Scientists from the Uni of Central Lancashire have apparently discovered very large worm burrows. I don't know how large, but they're big. Like Banshee said. Pretty much. And apparently they might be living for up to 10 years. And a normal worm lives two years on the mainland. The natural predator of a worm, I would say, is the early bird.

That's right. Right. Do they not have birds on rum then? Well, because it's further north, you know, it gets light later. So the early bird. Do they not have birds on rum then? Well because it's further north, you know, it gets light later so the early bird can't see what it's doing. Do you know what's splicing the main braces? Is it where you have a rope and you cut it so that it... that's why I always start like... It's very close to it. Is it what I thought splice? Yeah, you divide it too. Basically, these days it means give everyone on board some rum, a tot of rum. But back in the day, it meant something incredibly fiddly,

which then was so fiddly that everyone who'd done it deserved the extra tot of rum. The main brace is a piece of rope, and it's the longest line in what they call the running rigging. And the running rigging is what keeps the ship mobile. It's what means you can navigate basically, as opposed to the standing rigging,

which is what keeps the masts in place, right? And the main brace is the longest and most complicated bit. It's the most fiddly changing job to do because it goes through all sorts of bits of wood and it's just, you know, you have to, oh, it's just so, so fiddly. And so that's what, that's what means it. So that's what means it is it? That's what means it. Sorry for using my nautical terms. And that's what spliced the main brace. Now it's just a ceremonial thing, but originally it had a meaning of... But they both resulted in rum basically.

So we should say that rum is no longer in the Navy rations, but it lasted so... Due to woke. Well, indeed. It lasted a bloody long time until 1970. And I was reading the Hansard debate, the parliamentary debate, for when it was abolished and the outrage was palpable. I can imagine. MPs just standing up one after the other, Dr Reginald Bennett,

MP for Gosport and Ferrum, saying, I represent a constituency which has been plunged into gloom and horror by this iniquitous decision. So the reason it was abolished was because it was said that maybe their judgment in quite fiddly tasks at war could be impaired. Splicing them, very splicing them. For instance, could be impaired by having a rum ration. I can see that.

No, no, well, there's... We've used it, and like, my friend got a butt flying his head, so we needed it. We needed the rum. For him? For morale or for... For his, yeah, to slightly anaesthetise him. So when you split open his... How deep?

So it embeds itself in your... No, well it doesn't because of your skull. It just goes along so you can see it growing. If you just leave it, will it get better? Yeah. There's this beautiful guy, Gil, he did a study of his own botfly and so he's got all the photos and then he's got the adult when it hatched out. That's like an entomological dream. Because it's been part of you, your...

Yeah, he really became a foster parent so he's quite pleased. I mean it's a bit upsetting apparently if you get a botfly at night because you can hear it. Oh wow! Maybe around your skull? Well they don't move around... But what do you hear it doing? Eating and defecating. So it's just like you're asleep and it's going,

gomp, gomp, gomp. Yeah. Mm. And give it a minute. And then it's gone. OK. And then it's gone. And then it's gone.

And then it's gone. And then it's gone. And then it's gone. And then it's gone. OK, it's time for fact number three, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that the Amazon rainforest is man-made. No, not having it. What's it?

Is it sort of a plastic? It's all plastic. Yeah, it's all mobile phone masts. So I bring this up because Eric has just come back from the Amazon. But the basic argument is that the Amazon's home to 16,000 trees, a species of tree, but 227 of them cover more than half of the forest ecosystem, which is suggestive of people deliberately planting them in certain places.

There seems to be two distinct layers of soil in the forest. The bottom layer is kind of the normal stuff you find around there, which has got quite poor fertility. But then there's a top layer called terra preta, which is like some kind of super soil that's made with burnt charcoal and stuff. So it's as if humans have made that. And the more kind of deforestation we do, thank God we're doing this deforestation because we find evidence of farming societies, of human structures, of artifacts. And even recently they've been doing laser technology from the air and they're finding earthen mounds hidden and lots of what they think are ancient roads that go

in between all these places where people lived. And there is historical evidence that when Europeans first arrived there, they said that lots of people were living there. And now, of course, very, very few people live there. So that's the argument. I buy it. Yeah. I absolutely buy it. Erica, you've been there. When I read this, I was like, oh, so I went back to all the primary sources and I was like, the thing is, they do make a valid point. To say that the Amazon is manmade, however, I mean, no, there probably would have been something there. There probably would have been lots of trees in this area, even if people had a, but yeah, you're shaping some of the is a nice way of saying it because these species, we didn't make these species.

So we are manipulating the environment. To that extent, nothing is man-made, even this building we're in now, because it's all made up. No, well, okay, I think about these as secondary and tertiary, but when it comes to the actual species, we're just manipulating them along the way like that. So the Amazon is man-manipulated? Yeah, I mean, maybe. So the Amazon is man-manipulated? Yeah, maybe. So it was quite extensive as well, so they did over a thousand plots and

quite far apart, so what to test? It's so cool. The area of this soil, the terra preta, is twice the size of Great Britain. It's got lots of fish bones and seeds in it. They basically burned it to produce charcoal. So it is really fertile stuff. It's really good soil. And it dates from the last 2000 years. I mean, the argument against it is maybe there was a fire and maybe then it was washed down by the Amazon. No way. Just to say that's the argument.

I can't believe it. We're all now thinking and arguing that Amazon being partially manmade is the more plausible explanation. But this layer, it can be 12 feet thick. It's really thick. And basically, I love the idea that basically the primary building material in the Amazon was the soil. So it's not built. I still think you've got to be careful by saying, I mean, there is, yes, areas of it have been manipulated by humans, but I don't think we can...

Not the whole thing. I know not the whole thing. I just want to take a time bit. But the reason it doesn't look like what we think of as a built environment is that so much... If you're moving large amounts of soil around, it doesn't look like that to us. So Percy Fawcett, the explorer who went looking for the lost cities of the Amazon... Great name. There is... It's such a good name.

I know. There was a theory that when he came through on you know, on his travels, he may have walked through some of these sites, which actually were the city he was looking for and not recognised them as that, because he didn't know about the soil, because they're not like Western cities. Also, wasn't he hoping to find an existing living city with lots of bustling people trading, hanging out? I don't think he was hoping to find a series of slightly raised bits of black soil.

He was hoping they would be made of gold rather than black soil. Yeah. It seems almost inevitable because I really hadn't realised how many people were there in the Amazon itself, in the Amazon rainforest when Columbus arrived in 1492. So there were probably between eight and ten million indigenous people living there, which is at least five times more than there are today living in the Amazon. So when you've got millions and millions of people, it makes sense. Of course, they're going to be sculpting things. It is very big. It's large. Yes. So if you have eight million people there, I worked

out that would give you a population density still less dense than Mongolia, which is the least dense big country in the world and about three times emptier than modern Australia. Yeah, it's wildly big. Oh, wow. Okay, okay. But I mean, it's still a lot of people. This is what scares me about going to it, the idea of getting lost. It's 28 times bigger than the UK.

I mean, humans aren't very good at conceptualizing space and it is huge. We were on a boat going across the Amazon and this is like, you know, this is not at the mouth. So this is really quite narrow. Well, that's where you want to go in Peru. So you're up, you know, the other end, you're not down in Manaus. You haven't got the Amazon that is fat is but even still, I'm like, oh, my God, the idea of a river being this wide, you know, it's still, I'm not used to it from the UK. Is it wider than the Thames then?

A little bit, a little bit. Because the Thames gets pretty wide if you go down, you know, Docklands Way. It's wide. You can still see the other side. Yeah, that's true. You can't see the other side. There are bits you can't, you're just like, this is amazing. Holy moly. How do you even know then? How do you even know? Are you sure?

It sounds like you're on the coast. It was just like, but then it was weird because we were a bit where there's all these different tributaries coming in. And so there's one bit you're just like, this is amazing. Do you know what we did for a tarantula ring. But it's all right. You threw a tarantula ring? It wasn't on purpose and I didn't do it. I'll have you notice. But it was one of the students panicked. There was a tarantula on him. Fair. So she just threw it into the Amazon.

And it died. But it swam off. So luckily. Swam off. Yeah. I'm amazed Tarantula's gonna swim. And do they swim like an underwater breaststroke? No they don't.

Crawl, surely crawl. It's gonna be more like the butterfly I presume. Yeah okay. That's good. That's good. I like that. We should say about the Amazon being partially mermaid thing. Oh yeah.

It sounds like, oh you might take the implication that, oh well it's fine what we're doing now then. And what this was is this is people producing food in quite small batches. They did have things like fish farms but it was relatively sustainable. Whereas what we have now is chopping down ancient forests to grow soy or raise cattle, which is really, really, really, really unsustainable. Although in good news, which we don't get a lot in the world of climate change, it is getting better. I mean, I don't think we make enough of a big deal about the fact that Bolsonaro left power and Lula came in. Given the awful damage that he was doing, you're looking skeptical, but there's no question that he's better. So deforestation in Brazil has halved in 2023.

But it's about halved. This is again, see the figures. It's still very bad. It's better than doubled. I mean, you're right, you're absolutely positive, but I still think we all need to, we've got to stop it. I think it's something like in the 80s, the amount deforested globally per year was roughly the size of India, and now it's the size of Switzerland. It just shows how big it is that it's still, some of it's still left, right?

It's amazing. So I'm going out there and we're looking for new species and we're doing all of this and it's still, you know, I could just walk down this tiny little transect next to where I was staying and knowing that I'm looking at new things to science and it's just so sad. We're kind of, this, you know, the probability of life is so random and it's so odd. The fact that I'm here and you're here is also random and all these different species and this is the only proven bit of life, this planet, and yet we're hell bent on destroying it and it's like come on, it's an amazing thing. I caught, okay this is my favorite discovery of the Amazon, we caught this stick insect and my friend was like, well the woman who got it and she like, Erica, what's that? Has it got an egg on it? And

I'm like, it's this midge. And this midge feeds on the veins of the wings of this stick insect and it's engorged. It's engorged. Now imagine growing your abdomen to the size of this table. You know, like Mr Creosote is the only thing I can think of that's, but Mr. Creosote would have to be four or five times bigger to be this midge. Anyone else not know? No, I'm afraid I don't know. That's a Monty Python sketch with the guy who's just had a huge great meal. One more Wafferthin meat. Oh, Wafferthin!

I'm with you, I reckon. But yeah, but it was amazing. And this midge does it all around the planet. And I'm working with this guy at the moment. He's looking at all these migrating insects and some of them will latch on to a dragonfly. So the dragonflies can migrate in their masses up there, migrating across continents. And this little female midge clinging on, like feeding, go, woo, what's going on here? And so it's like all of these little discoveries everywhere. Yeah it does sound incredible and some quite scary stuff some quite painful insects that I

think they've got the most painful insect in the world the bullet ant yeah um which is as painful as being shot hence the name 30 times more painful than a bee sting but the Satere Maui people have this ritual though that we've mentioned before where boys from 12 onwards You have to gather them up You make gloves special bullet-amp gloves and you stuff your gloves full of them Don't you and it's to sort of prove well I read a quite nice quote from a tribe chief Who said it's meant to show that a life without suffering or without any kind of effort isn't worth anything at all to teach

Suffering is a crucial part of being alive. Well, I suppose so. Yeah. It does feel like extra sort of bonus suffering though. Yeah. I mean, I think... Sounds like I'm a celebrity, get me out. Yeah. Well, actually, Steve, I did a podcast with Steve Batchel when he was saying he did that. So he does Nature's Deadlies.

Okay. And it was reduced to tears. It was the most, he said it was extruded. He did the bullet hunts? Yeah, he did the bullet hunts. And you know, it's 13, 14 year old boys generally. And then there's this grown man who's completely tough. Of course there were these! But yeah, I feel like teenage boys can cope with a lot of pain. Weird stuff.

Do you? Okay. I just remember in my school days. It's just good night. Stop the podcast. I read the podcast. Merhaba Andy. That's hello in Turkish.

Lovely. Yep. I just got back from Turkey where I failed to learn word, and thus was unable to say hello to anyone. But had I been using Babbel, I absolutely would have nailed it, because that is who we're sponsored today by. It is Babbel! That's right. Babbel is an absolutely fantastic language learning app. I'm using it at the moment to brush up on my French. I don't even have a trip plan to France. It's really fun.

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NoSuchThing and you will get an extra six months for free. That's right. So head to Babbel dot com, that's B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash play, use the promo code NoSuchThing, all is one word and you are gonna get six months free with a purchase of a six month Subscription. Okay. Merhaba really should have learned how to say goodbye, but there we go on with the podcast Merhaba bye on with the show Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show. That is my fact. My fact is the man who invented the karaoke machine also invented a device you could throw at robbers as they ran away so they would be indelibly died. Oh, that's that. No, you cover them in die.

So this is guy who's called Shigeichi Negishi and he has just died. And again, I'm using the word to mean he's passed away. This year, aged 100, he was born in 1923. Amazing. And he invented the karaoke machine. So Japan had all these kind of early versions that were kind of approaching karaoke and he was in the right place at the right time. He ran his own electronics firm basically.

And there was a radio show called Pop Songs Without Lyrics, which is quite karaoke-ish. They just play the songs and then you can sing along. And he was teased about his singing voice brutally by his boss. And he was sad about that. And he thought maybe it would sound better if he had a professional proper backing track behind him so he wasn't just singing along to the radio. So he asked a colleague to hook up a microphone and he could hear himself singing then over the recording. So rather than just him singing, he's hearing himself through the speakers.

And that's what he set up and he called that the Sparko Box. And that is basically the first karaoke machine. Yeah. That's amazing. But he's invented this other thing as well. So ironically, the thing that's famous for revealing people's inability to sing was made by someone who wanted to improve his singing

That is tragic, yeah And there was actually loads of people like you say who kind of claimed Invention of the karaoke machine right because it was of its time It was just like like you say there was this program on and lots of people doing it There was another guy called Inui Daisuke and he had been, he was a keyboard player and people used to invite him around to play keyboard so they could sing because it would improve their performance. And then so many people were asking him that he thought, well, maybe I'll come up with a way of recording my keyboard playing and then people can use that as a backing track.

But he also invented a cockroach repellent. So he was also a double inventor. It's so interesting. People. How did you repel cockroaches? Uh oh. That's a great question. He's in trouble now. No, it doesn't. I don't know is the answer. But the problem was that his karaoke machines were getting infested by cockroaches. I know it's not the cockroach's fault. I know that they just like karaoke machines, but they would get inside, build nests and chew on the wires.

Have you not seen Joe's apartment? Whose apartment? Joe's apartment. It's the film with the singing cockroaches. No? No, it's this tenement building in New York and the guy moves in and the whole place is falling down. So the cockroaches all start helping each other, but they're always singing. So maybe that's why they were in the karaokeiocin machines because they really liked it. It's pretty ratatouille. Yeah.

It's like a much, I'm sorry, less cute version of ratatouille. I'm sorry. It's not singing cockroaches. Can I ask Erica, we were discussing before the mites came on about how if you read a book or watch a movie where it's not entomologically correct, you don't enjoy it quite as much. Okay, right. Jurassic Park when it came out. Okay.

Those insects were massive. Okay, there was, no, we ignored the dinosaur bit. We just let that go. But when they had old Dickie with his little stave and it had the mosquito in it, the first scene of that is not a mosquito, it's a crane fly. And I'm like, oh god. And then they do show a mosquito and it's a male and we're like, no, because males don't collect blood. And it's so big. We think actually it was a Toxyline chites, which obviously you all know that even the females don't blood feed. So we were like in entomological rage. Almost every film that you ever watch would have a fly or some sort of insect in the background even just flying around, right?

So really every film should employ an entomologist just to make sure. Yeah, yeah. You could come up with a website, flyMDB, and that would fly some movies, yeah. Back to karaoke, quickly. Are you guys karaoke fans? I do, I love karaoke. Do you? What? Well, no, I mean these days now that I have a child and no life, I don't do it so much, but I certainly used to do it all the time. I used to do it every week.

You never invited us and to be honest, I'm okay with that. Me and Jenny Ryan from The Chase, we used to do that. Really? Yeah, yeah. We got asked in Australia to leave a bar because we weren't respecting the karaoke. Oh really? Yeah. What do you mean?

Well we were laughing too much. And it was very much, will you go? You were breaking into the machines getting the cockroaches out. We were just not respecting. Because it is really serious. They do take it very seriously in a lot of Asian countries. And what I found really interesting is that it's particularly huge in Japan. Of course, it was invented and, you know, everyone still does it.

And it's also very big in Europe, certainly. And I think outside of Asia, it's biggest in Finland. And I was reading an article about this and lots of people said the same thing, which is that both of them have populations that are quite reserved. Or the Finland one was saying that Finnish people tend to be quite reserved and a lot of the Finns who love karaoke were saying it's kind of way of going out without having to spontaneously communicate with each other as you can go out and you just have to do this other thing.

So you like doing a pub quiz. That's a very good... Exactly! I do like that kind of activity. There you go, like a game. One which replaces proper communication. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly!

What does karaoke mean? It means empty orchestra. And the term existed before Mr Negishi came up with his Sparco box. It was an industry term and it was when singers went around the country to rural areas, they would sometimes not have an orchestra with them. So they would play with just a tape, like a tape backing them. They'd do the gig, but the orchestra bit was empty. It can be bad for you.

Can it? Yeah. 2019, there was a man whose lung collapsed due to the high lung pressure caused by singing high notes, according to the paper. There was a study in 2003 saying that people who sing regularly, this was in Korea, they have sounds higher than 95 decibels and it can cause hearing damage. Do you know what? There's a, this is slightly off track, you're just talking about hearing damage. There's a micro nectar, it's a tiny little water bug and it stridulates with its penis

and thankfully it's in water because otherwise it's 99 decibels. Oh, so how loud is that going to sound? Like an orchestra, front row of an orchestra. And as nice as Mozart or more like Liszt? Well I presume he's trying to be as nice as possible because he's trying to attract the ladies. Okay. So yes. Wouldn't it be amazing if humans did that and that's what your orchestra was? Yeah.

Just the string section. It's the horn. if humans did that and that's what your orchestra was. Just the string section. It's the horn. But this is the thing about, so Mr Negashi invented this thing but he invented lots of other stuff too. And inventors frequently do, they're inventing things. It's kind of the way business people, it doesn't actually matter what the business is, what they're good at is doing business. You know what I mean? And inventors invent. And that's the thing. Can I drop the plug with the book?

Please do. So this recent book is all about people looking at nature going, do you know what? That's amazing. And let's think about how we can copy it. My favourite ones are like a maggot. And they're making tiny little nano robots that look like maggots that can actually now go through your body. Some of the maggots, they're looking at encapsulating medicine.

They're being inspired by these things already there. And I love the fact that people are looking at nature in a different way. So it's all different people. Some of them might be artists, some of them might be engineers, some of them are medics. So lots and lots of different disciplines. And I think that's what's really great. Evolution has taken millions of years to get the insects to where they are. And we're just nicking it.

And we're just in the last minute coming in and taking the glory. Have you got a favourite invention based on that? I quite like our debridement therapy. So this is maggots eating necrotic flesh. Oh yeah. Yeah, love that one. And the fact that we can get it on the NHS. Can you? Can anyone get it? Yeah. Great. I'll go, I love that one. And the fact that we can get it on the NHS. Can you? Can anyone get it? Yeah. Great. I'll ask. Well, you have to bring your own necrotic flesh, I think. You can't just tell them,

say, I'd like some maggots, please. No. And they come now in little tea bags. So because people get offended by maggots crawling around their flesh. I prefer loose leaf. I know. I'm so weightless. I read the other day that Venus fly traps, which you probably hate Erica because they eat flies, but they will also eat human athlete's foot skin if you feed it to them. Someone tried it and it worked.

But they won't, you can't put your foot in and then pull it out an hour later and it's eating the athlete's foot off. You mean like those fish that nibble yarn? Exactly, yeah. Your shopping center experience went really badly, didn't it? But no, that is, I think you'd need to wiggle it about because the trap won't close unless it thinks it's an insect, right? So you need to get a piece of athlete's foot skin off your foot, wiggle it around so that it closes on it, but it will digest it and it will eat it. Cool.

Oh, useful. Can I say to you my favorite inventor? Yeah. Arthur Fisher. So he died in 2016. He had 1,100 patents to his name. Wow. And his main thing is the Fisher wall plug.

So you will know what this is. It's that little plastic wall plug. Yeah. You drill a hole, you stick the plug in the hole, and then you can put a screw in. Yeah. And it means you can hang things off a wall, which you couldn't if you just shoved a screw in because screws don't work like that. This man is a hero. He, I just think he's great. And I didn't really realize that had been invented by someone, but it was. Is that his only one? Have you read

the full 1100? I've read a few more. I've read a couple of obituaries. So he also, he also invented, I like these two, edible building blocks for very young children. So just in case they try to eat. It's like Fraggle Rock. Yeah. They just, you can. The diggers, they build all these buildings and the Fraggles would just eat them. Exactly.

It's exactly like that. I love Fraggle Rock. Don't worry. I'm on the same page. Thank God you've got Andy here to understand all your references. Thanks. You've had several of them today. Thank you for that. I love Fraggle Rock. Don't worry, I'll run the same thing. Thank god you've got Andy here to understand all your references. Thanks. He's had several of them today. Thank you for that. And the other one of his, which is one of my favourites, is a plastic egg holder, which could be stretched to fit any standard size egg.

Not Waitrose Extra Large. So you can go from a goose to like an ostrich? A quail. Again, I think standard size probably means hens. Yeah, but I mean, what a thing. Was the world crying out for that? I wonder. I've never found my egg cup is not sufficient.

It's probably lower down the list of his 1100. Yeah, that's really cool. Erica, have you ever used a pooter? Oh, yes, I have. I use a pooter a lot. We have to be careful where we use the term pooter because if any of you speak Spanish, there's a very different meaning in Spanish. Does it? It's quite an insulting term for a lady. It's a lady of the night. Oh of course. And so when I was in Honduras and they're like, what do you get in your

suitcase? And I'm like, 13 putas. And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah. And I give everyone their puta. What is a puta? It's an aspirator. So I... And a follow up question there. It enables us to suck up insects. You suck a straw thing. And then the insect goes through another straw and into a box. Is that right? Kind of. Yeah.

So nowadays, when I when I was little, we didn't put gauze over the end. So if you were, if you miss sucked, you would end up with spiders in your mouth. I only bring it up because it was invented by a guy called Frederick Pooze. Brilliant. Named after him. Yeah. Frederick William Pooze. He's another one, just for your information, Erica, Andy collects names of people that are verbs and Frederick Poole short sentences, sentence people. Yeah. Frederick Poole. That's absolute slam dunk. My favorite author who wrote the book on cow dumb community of invertebrates, his name is Peter Skidmore. Which always makes me giggle. Okay, that's it. That's all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd

like to get in contact with us about any of the things that we said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm at Andrew Hunter M. James. At James Harkin. Erica. Fly Girl NHM. Anna. You can get in touch with us on Instagram at NoSuchThingAsAFish or on Twitter on at NoSuchThing or you can email podcast at qi.com.

That's right and if you go to NoSuchThingAsAFish.com you can find lots of episodes there. You can also find the sacred portal to Club Fish which is where we keep our exclusive private members lounge complete with ad free shows, private exclusive content, free peanuts, free peanuts, so many peanuts. It's really fun. Clubfish is great. If you haven't joined Clubfish, what are you waiting for? Go and join. Right. What is more important than that, Andy? Oh, buying Erica's book. Yes. And Erica, what's it called? Metamorphosis. How insects are changing our world. Make sure you put the last bit in. Otherwise you might get a Kafka novella. Oh yeah, awesome Ovid.

Yes. Metamorphosis. I think that's metamorphosis, technically, of course. And with that last incredibly productive correction, it's time to end the show. Thank you very much Erica, thank you everybody, thank you for listening. Goodbye! Thanks for watching!