SciShow Tangents - Butts

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

It's all led up to this! We usually relegate our butt facts to the end of episodes, but this week we're giving butts the respect they deserve. It's butts all the way down, baby!Head to https://www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen

Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents. It's the lightly competitive science knowledge showcase. I'm your host, Hank Green. And joining me this week, as always, is science expert, Sari Reilly. Hello. And our resident everyman, Sam Schultz. Hello. I'm thinking that we may need to pivot here at SciShow Tangents. I'm thinking that the thing that gets attention is talking about whatever not is the most interesting science thing, but the internet is currently arguing about. Because last time we did that intro about NFTs and I think it did fantastically.

And I have to tell everyone that there is an illustrator named Rachel who has made a bunch of bored Pelican Yacht Club NFTs. I should just start out by saying that. They're beautiful. I want one. Well, it may be too late because she had a signup sheet

that I think got a little overwhelmed. Well, I should be on there by default. a sign-up sheet that I think got a little overwhelmed. Well, I should be on there by default. Now you're talking with a podcaster privilege, Sam. Look, maybe I will splurge

and I will commission a pelican for each of you, and for Tuna, if you want one. Do you want one, Sari? Sure. I would do it for the bit. I'll change back for sure at some point, because I don't want anyone glancing at my profile and really thinking that I'm a NFT person. Well, as long as it's not a hexagon, you're good. Yeah.

They look too good. They look too good to be real NFTs, unfortunately. That's true. They're very stylish. Anyway, did I introduce you both already? I think I did. Yeah, you did. Okay. And you want to talk about something the internet's fighting about. Yeah, so these days the internet's,

I don't know if you've caught this, but it was mad about Wordle for a little while. Mad about Wordle? Cause Wordle's gonna be, it's gonna become part of the New York Times now. Oh yes, I hate that. Because we all thought that of course, Wordle was just a sort of community co-op communist experience.

It's a natural resource. It's just a forest. And the New York Times, of course, purchased it, which I think means really what they have purchased is the right to do a Wordle without people being as mad at them because they, of course, could have just done one. You can't copyright the idea of a Wordle. I think it's great that they did that but sam disagrees with me because i'm what if it costs money eventually i don't want to pay money for my wordle i want to pay money for my wordle i would watch a little ad before it for for a fine sponsor either you uh pay money for wordle or the wordle answer is always a brand. That would be fine with me too. However many

five-letter word brands. It's just Pepsi over and over again. So I'm saying the New York Times can do whatever it wants and so can the Wordle guy and I,

that's my, and... No, stupid. You're stupid. Yeah, and then Sarah, you're the voice of reason. Go. I stopped playing Wordle anyway. I got Wordle there. This And then Sarah, you're the voice of reason. Go. I stopped playing Wordle anyway.

I got Wordle in there. This is what the internet does to the voice of reason. It's going to exit people's public consciousness. Very soon. That's it. The end. Yeah. But, you know, we can all be happy for the Wordle guy.

I'm happy Wordle exists. It's made my life better. I love co-Wordling. I Wordle with Catherine. No way. I saw my dad and my mom doing a Wordle together. That sounds nasty, doesn't it? And I was like, no, you had to do your own Wordle.

Wordles are sacred. You can't have somebody looking over your shoulder being like, try an A, try a B. Catherine and I are really good together at Wordle. Our score goes up if we're working together. Interesting. Rachel won't show me the Wordle. She like makes me go in a different room

when she's doing it and I can't look at it. Wow. Yeah. Sylvia also hides the Wordle from me, but we crossword together because that gives us a significant advantage. Crossword is all, like I hate doing a crossword by myself.

A social crossword is the only way I crossword. Every week here on SciShow Tangents, we get together to try to one-up, amaze, and delight each other with science facts while also trying to stay on topic. Our panelists are playing for glory, but they're also playing for Hank Bucks, which will be awarded as we play.

And at the end of the episode, one of them will be crowned the winner. We have finally arrived at the end of season three. It's the season three finale. And I mean end fairly literally as the exploration of our body parts concludes with this episode. And so we're going to introduce this week's topic with the traditional science poem this week from, I think it's from me, right? It is from you. Thank goodness.

Because I did write a poem. Okay. There's a topic we're always talking about. Even if the whole episode's about trout, we can't keep ourselves away from it, the thing on which you are likely to sit. Not a chair or a couch or a bench at the park. This thing, no, I fear we keep it in the dark. You see, you don't see it that much. It's quite hard to see, if only because it's where your eyes can't reach. But you know that it's there and you really do care. You wouldn't ignore it. No, you wouldn't dare. It has to stay healthy for you to keep up your strut. That thing, you know, you're, you know what? Your cushion for sitting, the end of your gut, your wonderful, marvelous,

for sitting the end of your gut your wonderful marvelous beautiful butt i love that that's a kid's book for sure i can't do any kind of poem anymore i read a lot of kids books uh the topic for the day is but sherry what is a butt because i have some strong opinions as you know um so a butt i guess a butt as we just so a butt turns out sari hasn't known this whole time when a butt is oh no i've just been making it up i google butt and then whatever fact pops up yeah um but that's why i want to start with we end each episode, as Hank said, with a butt fact. And for that, we usually lump it into anything that involves an anus, which is like a hole at the end of a digestive system, or cloaca, which is a different hole, also at the end of the digestive system and reproductive system, or poop, which is the stuff that comes out of that hole,

or any sort of like opposite of head end of an animal. Like I think we've done butt facts that are just about tails or like anal glands that are next to the anus or like anything in the rear rump booty area. But the word butt specifically is mostly used for human anatomy. Like technically, a lot of animals have butts because it's where the gluteal muscles are. So like the gluteus maximus, the gluteus medius, and the gluteus minimus muscles. And in humans, the gluteus maximus muscle, so like the big butt one, is extra developed because of us walking on two legs. So like a cat has a gluteus maximus, but it's just a tiny little pathetic one. They don't have big cheeks. I think at least apes, like great apes, have bigger proportionally gluteus mediuses and gluteus minimus.

gluteus mediuses and gluteus minimus is but the size and strength of those muscles is relative to like pelvic position and how they intertwine with the leg movement so yes all animals i think or all mammals i would say have all three muscles but just in different arrangements and humans are the one where the gluteus maximus is as the name suggests amped up to be we still do we call it the gluteus maximus and the other animals because it's the analogous muscle but it isn't the max uh-huh we still call it that uh in other animals because i think it's useful so what i'm hearing here is something that i have maintained for a long time which is that regardless of whether butt is legs butthole is definitely not butt i feel that way i is legs, butthole is definitely not butt. I feel that way. I guess so, yes.

Butthole is a subset of butt. No, butthole is not butt. Not even related. Butt is the fleshy flesh. Butthole is just an area. It's just incidentally where it is. It's just a thing that exists around the butt. Sarah's not going to allow this.

Yeah. You seem to be saying that butt is like a person thing and then when we look at other animals we say like a fish doesn't really have a butt because it doesn't it has a butthole got a butthole for sure though has to but it doesn't have like the fleshy lumps and a horse has a big butt they have big butts you see it's like that's a butt but it's because it's the big fleshy round things they have a butthole too but they also have a butthole i'm just saying that like you can't have a butt and you can't have a butthole you have to have a butthole everything has a butthole but not everything has a butt yeah not everything has a butthole there are some animals with no

excretion well okay okay yeah you're right you don't have to have a butthole. Yeah, you don't have to have a butthole. But that's it. I think it's like butt cheeks and butthole. Yes. So all of them share the word butt, whether or not they're connected. So you're saying there's butt cheeks and there's butthole, and then there's butt, and butt includes butthole and butt cheeks? Yes. But we don't have butt cheeks because we have a-

Yeah, it's like a Venn diagram. Cheeks, hole, then in the middle but it's even butt shaped what's butt shaped oh the venn diagram is and in the middle there's a butthole no and the side there's a butthole that's too bad yeah not a perfect analogy in fact where did that great word come from what but yeah well everywhere i think but meaning like our physical butt came after the word the root word for butt so the root word for butt in english is the proto indo-european root b-h-a-u bow or something which means to strike. And so like head-butting, it's like that meaning of butt. Or like two things butting up against each other.

Or you're re-butting an argument. So like all those words are related. But then at some point, attested by 1860 in U.S. slang at least. So like pretty recent, it became used. So, like, pretty recent. That's so late. It became used. It's like the most recent word. It's like, this is the last one we came up with.

Buttocks came slightly earlier. I think that's just they like the fancy version. No one thought to make it shorter because it's like, you got two buttocks there. Same thing. But cheeks, you're referring to both of them uh plural was used around 1300 maybe um in old english why is the word for strike a butt word why were they like oh that word is for like supporting or hitting something and that was what we will call the big round flesh globes. Is it because you got two cheeks right next to each other? They hit each other?

So they strike? Yeah. My first thought was because you spank them. You know, like that. You give a little pat. That's what those are for. That was also my first thought. But I think, unfortunately, I think it has to do with the support factor.

In that, like, you push two things up against each other and so your butt's kind of like what you push against things. It's like a butting itself. It's keeping us standing up. So what the medieval people want me to do is to hit things with my butt. Yeah, I won't say no to that. You can do a head butt, you can do a butt butt, you can

do like whatever you want. I guess with consent. Consensual noted that you can do a headbutt you can do a butt but you can do like whatever you want i guess i guess with consent consensual headbutts they happen all the time it's very common in human society pro-social behavior all right i feel as if i am now an even more of an expert on butts than i already was we're gonna move on to the quiz portion of our show. This week, we're going to be playing a game related to all the other games that we've been playing for the last few weeks.

It's called Whose Butt Is It Anyway? Butts have a lot of amazing purposes in our lives, whether it's something as simple as sitting on or something as essential as creating an exit for all of the stuff

that went into your mouth. And yet there are so many possibilities for what butts can do, possibilities that other animals have uncovered. And unfortunately, we have not yet. Let's work on it, everybody. We got to unlock the power of our butts. For today's edition of Whose Butt Is It Anyway?, we will be drawing on some of the creative posterior choices that have arisen in the animal kingdom. I will describe to you a feat of ingenuity that involves an animal's butt, and it will describe to you a feat of ingenuity that involves an animal's butt, and it's up to you to guess what animal I am describing.

Whoever gets closest to guessing whose butt it is will win the point. Are you ready? Yeah. Yep. All right. Our phones come with face ID now, but these animals, if they had a smartphone, maybe it would come with butt ID because that is how good they are at recognizing butts, including the red butt of an ovulating female. This ability might help this animal because it often walks closely together in groups and on four limbs, putting each other's rear ends close to each other's faces. So they got really good at identifying each other by butt. What animal is it?

Whose butt is that? What's that? Some kind of ape, right? A monkey. A baboon. Is that the one that has the red butts? Yes. There are a lot of apes that have like weird bulbous butts, calloused butts to sit on and whatnot. Not as fleshy as humans, but colorful, etc. It's like a little toe pads of a dog, but it's on the butt.

Yeah. Yeah. Very. Do they smell like corn chips? Scaling strong. Do they smell like corn chips? I don't know. You'll have to ask an ape scientist.

I must know. Well, baboon seems too easy, but I'm going with it. He's going with baboon. I feel like a different direction. I'm going to go with a goat. Still in the mammal family, but I feel like I'm not going to play the monkey game.

Well, that makes it easier for me because the answer is chimpanzee. Very close to a baboon. Very close. Certainly closer than a goat. Research has shown that chimpanzees recognize each other through both their faces and their butts, though the specifics of how that recognition happens isn't really well understood. Maybe it's just because they look at the butt and they say, that looks like Steve.

In 2016, a team of researchers in Japan and the Netherlands investigated one specific property of this recognition by drawing on a very human behavior called configurable recognition. In humans, this refers to the way that we process the entire structure of the face to recognize other people. That's why it's harder for us to recognize faces when they're upside down than when we're looking at other objects when they're upside down. The face has to fit into our idea of what a face looks like. The researchers wanted to see if chimps experienced something similar when looking at butts, so they showed them pictures of primate butts to get them to match identical butts together.

And when one of the butts was flipped upside down in the picture, the chimps took longer to match them, suggesting that they processed butts in a similar configurable fashion to how we process faces. That's very cute. They've got a little butt computer in their brain going, that's the cheek length. Yeah. computer in their brain going that's the cheek length yeah so round number two the butt as a tool of seduction is not unique to any particular species but this animal takes it one step further through a very uh thorough inspection when mating the males of this species will gather together in

groups to display themselves when a female approaches he will boldly display his rear allowing the female to poke around in what researchers hypothesize may be a diagnostic tool to check out the male's health. So whose butt is it anyway? Huh, poking, eh? You can poke with many different parts of the body. This could be literally any animal. I would believe it about so many things. They just look at butts. Sure. Okay. I feel like I have something fun to poke, though, you know? Like, a bird doesn't have anything fun to poke back there, do they?

Oh, you can poke around. I guess they got big feathery butts. Okay. I'll go first. I'm still going to stay in the mammal zone, I think. Because I feel like they more defined butthole and butt cheeks i'm gonna guess goat again you're still gonna say goat every time okay i'm making this a thing now stand around poke the butts um hyenas i'm trying to think of something

that the males would be comfortable standing around with each other i think hyenas are more female dominated so we had goats we had hyenas which of those is more similar to the great bustard a bird in the bustard family nothing you have to go back to the primordial ooze i believe uh so we've got goats neither of these live in the same. Well, I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to go with the goat. Because I feel like busters live sort of in places that they don't live where hyenas live, for one thing. I think they sort of have like a more similar kind of like stuff that they eat, like habitat and such to a goat than to a hyena. Congratulations, Sarah. You got lucky. You didn't deserve it, but okay.

I'm a sad person. Let me have this win. Okay. Sarah gets all the points from now on because we don't want to be a sad person. Yeah, that's okay with me. So the great bustard is the heaviest flying bird. And when it comes to mating,

the male puts on what researchers have called a reiterative and almost obstinate exhibition of the cloaca. Oh, that's cute. This means to suit the demands of the picky female Great Bustard who will look for a white, clean cloaca with no signs of diarrhea that may indicate infection. Isn't that what, that's the least you could ask for, really. To try to present the least infected cloaca possible, the male great bustard might even be self-medicating. Researchers from the Spanish National Museum of Natural Sciences studying the bird found that around mating time, the great male bustard ate a surprisingly large amount of blister beetles,

surprising because the blister beetle produces a poisonous compound called cantharidin. And when the researchers tested the compound, they found that it was able to kill bacteria, leading them to hypothesize that the male great bustards might be eating the beetle to kill off diseases and increase their odds of mating. Wow. That's wild. It's like, I know my butthole is really stinky and bad. I'm going to eat these horrible beetles so that I can find a girl. Yeah, I need a better butthole. I desperately, desperately need a better butthole.

Bro, your butthole is whack. Number three. These animals have a thing in common with Sir Mix-a-Lot, which is their inability to lie about their big butts. In fact, during a period of their life cycle, these animals will line up from biggest butt to smallest butt for an important part of the next step in their life, which I think is adorable. Whose butt is it anyway? So this is like the, instead of showing them their anus, they're just like, kind of like you line up kindergartners. It's like line up in alphabetical order, line up in butt size and let's get ready to rumble and there's a reason but i'm not telling you the reason because

it's gonna give it away and they gotta be friends i'd imagine yeah yeah yeah there's they're not but fighting they're just arranging themselves by butt size yeah that takes a lot of coordination that you're not gonna not gonna cheat you're not gonna lie you don't want to lie but i just arranging themselves by butt size. That takes a lot of coordination, that you're not going to cheat, you're not going to lie. You don't want to. You're not going to lie, I guess. I think I know. You think you figured it out?

I think I know, too. I think I know a little guy who's very butt-centric and likes to have a lot of friends. And is, yeah, deep inside of the SciShow tangents lore for some reason. That's associated with me very deeply, even though I don't really care about them all that much. Our friends. The hermit crab is my guess.

The hermit crab is Sam's guess. This is also my guess. Sam's best friend and favorite animal of all time, carved into stone, the hermit crab. You got it. They arrange themselves by butt size so that they can switch their shells more efficiently when they grow out of them. Oh, well, we should maybe start arranging ourselves by butt size. Maybe we'd find something in common with our fellow people. If when we went to a new place, we were just like, ah, similar butt.

So shells are precious real estate for hermit crabs. So when a large shell appears, they will gather around to see if it fits. But if the shell is too big, that's not a big deal to the hermit crab because it knows another larger hermit crab might come along and need it. So the small hermit crab will sit and wait as more hermit crabs gather around the new shell. And as they wait for the right-sized hermit crab to appear, the crabs will form a line arranged from smallest to largest so that when the right-sized one

does appear and take its new shell, the next crab in line can discard that crab's shell and then pass it down to the next and the next and the next and the next and the next. What the hell? How are they so aware of their bodies? You tell me! You are the one who loves and knows everything about hermit crabs.

Okay, I'll hit the books. It's wild to me that they wait too. It's like, I know this is a good shell. Yeah, they're like, somebody's gonna come by and take that and they're gonna leave a great shell for me. That's adorable. Well, that was fun.

And that means that we have a tie going into the next round because you got one and one and then you both got hermit crab because you're a bunch of smarty pants. We're just a pair of butt cheeks. Next we're going to take a short break. You're the butthole, Hank. Everybody knew that. And then it'll be time for the fact off.

Our panelists have brought science facts to present to me in an attempt to blow my mind. And after they have presented their facts, I will judge them and award Hank Bucks to the one I think will make a better TikTok. To decide who goes first, I have a trivia question. A meta-analysis published in the Journal of Pain Medicine found that music has charms to soothe the savage butt. The average person across 14 countries had lower heart rate, less pain, and greater satisfaction if music was playing during their colonoscopies. But not during their bronchoscopies. So that's interesting. during their colonoscopies, but not during their bronchoscopies. So that's interesting.

It's so relaxing that in one study, fewer people asked for extra colonoscopy sedation when they had music. So what percent fewer people needed extra sedation when getting a musical colonoscopy? Hmm. That seems like it would just be human nature. So 75%. That's so many. I guess that makes sense sense a lot of people listen to music while they exercise too and i feel like that's just to keep yeah you were one of the 25 sorry um i'll say 40 nice safe answer it was 12.5 percent fewer people after sedation when having musical colonoscopies. This is very interesting to me because in the US, we always 100% sedate colonoscopies. We put people 100% to sleep. Whereas in other countries, you just stay awake for it.

And then if you have a hard time, they'll put you to sleep if you want. I didn't know that. It's wild. Because in other countries, they're like, why would we spend a bunch of extra money on that but in america we love to spend money on healthcare as expensive as you can make it so anyway that means that sarah gets to choose who goes first i'll go first because it's related so we'll have the hermit crab transition okay so many corals are colonial organisms that stay put and let biodiversity come to them. They construct sprawling calcium carbonate structures for aquatic creatures to live in, on, and around the coral reefs we know and love.

But not all corals are social beings. Some of them don't want to live in a huge community. They're loners, wanderers, such as the genuses Heteropsamia and Heterosianthus. They don't look like much, kind of like an egg, which is the calcium skeleton, with some gooey tentacles sticking out on top, which is the invertebrate organism that can sting and eat and whatnot. Their common name is walking corals, but they don't have luxurious gams to do the walking. Instead, they find just one friend and hitch a ride on their butt. In most cases, we found walking corals attached to the butt of a small marine worm

called a sepunculid or a peanut worm, apparently because they look kind of like a gooshy peanut, but I don't see it. And the coral skeleton provides shelter from predators. And as the worm crawls to new places, up to a couple meters per day, the coral attached to its butt gets dragged along. And as an added bonus for its tentacled protector, the worm brushes off extra sand and whatnot from the coral's body so it doesn't get all dirty and buried. It's a pretty good mutualism, two friends that grow up together over time. However, some other creatures are budding into this relationship and trying to offer the corals a better or just as good deal.

The hermit crab Diogenes heteropsamicola is kind of an oddball. It's super long and scrawny and unlike most hermit crabs, has a butt that is not an asymmetrical spiral designed to squish into a snail shell. In fact, their butts are symmetrical, perfect for nestling right into a walking coral skeleton and whatever twists and turns lie within. So this is the first time researchers have seen a hermit crab that uses living coral as a house that it can grow alongside.

And on top of that surprise, it's the freaking exact same mutualism as the sepunculid worms. So the hermit crab gets protection and can squish itself up into the coral cavity for protection like any other shell. And in exchange, the coral hitches a ride on the hermit crab's butt as it ambles around the ocean floor. Though I don't have distances to compare with the worms. I assume the hermit crab can go farther. I assume the hermit crab can go farther and the real kicker is that the hermit crab brushes off

extra sand from the coral to give it a little extra TLC, stealing the worm's signature friendship move so somehow this hermit crab has evolved to take over a really specific ecological relationship from a super unrelated species with a very different

butt, which is very biologically weird, and walking corals it seems, will take whatever butt super unrelated species with a very different butt, which is very biologically weird. And walking corals, it seems, will take whatever butt they can get. So who knows what other creatures might try to offer a better deal in exchange for the coral protecting their backside. Hermit crabs are very perceptive. That's what I'm learning today. I mean, the more I learn, the more I love them. It's just so much interesting stuff about hermit crabs. I have so many questions about,

I didn't even know that walking coral existed. Explain again what the heck a walking coral is. So it's an invertebrate organism and they scatter polyps, quite small. And then once the polyp lands somewhere, so like it can be on a rock or in this case, it's usually like a little piece of detritus, like a shell fragment or something. Then it just sits there, plants itself, feeds,

and then excretes the calcium carbonate skeleton. And so many corals live in colonial organisms where a lot of the polyps plant themselves in one spot. But walking corals are where it's only like one or two polyps that plant themselves on a small shell and then just grow big enough to get big yeah and then they stay kind of small and then the worm like crawls into that shell into their skeleton and just drags them along but they they're like way bigger than a normal colonial coral yeah but walking corals like you know like they look like a shell like it's like almost like a sea anemone but it's got a this like calcium carbonate thing surrounding i'm looking at pictures and i'm just like shocked that these exist and i had no idea that they existed they look like sea anemones but they are corals oh the hermit crab's so tiny as

well the hermit crab is real little and he's got a funny butt that fits into that walking coral. And did they develop the little hole for the worm specifically? That I can't quite tell. It seems like it's a combination. It's like as it's growing, as it's exuding the calcium skeleton, the worm is like, ah, protection. And so then it doesn't grow the skeleton for that like over that hole and then the worm does some maintenance to like keeping it carved out as more gets exuded as the coral grows okay um but if you see like the underside of a walking coral then like there's a

perfect little hole looks like someone drilled it in well Well, I'm delighted, Sari. Sam, what do you got? Well, continuing the theme, mine's about wool worms. Wow. Plants branch, fungus branch, but you know what's not generally known to branch? Animals. We generally make do with one mouth, one butt. Why fix what ain't broken? Well, a handful of marine worms are brave enough to challenge that prevailing viewpoint. They're known as branching marine worms due to the fact that they branch.

And they're marine worms. And they're also worms and they live in the ocean. Everything seems pretty normal when you look at their heads. Got normal, just worm heads. Move up the body, still pretty normal worm body.

But then when you get to where you might assume its ass would be, what you find instead is an expansive branching structure of tubey worm hind parts. And not just a couple, but hundreds or potentially even thousands of butt branches, each connected to the same main digestive system and each with its own anus. Why? Well, hey, that's what I wrote next. Why so branchy? These little guys live inside of sea sponges

and they grow to fill as many of the holes in the sponge as they can, which sounds disgusting. They want to poop around the whole sponge. Feels like the wrong end to fill the holes in the sponge. I want to poop everywhere. You guys don't even know

and I'm about to tell you why you don't even know what you're talking about. Most likely they're doing this to gather food. But there's another weird thing about them. No food has been found inside of these worms. But their guts seem to be fully functional. So what it eats and how it gets energy, if it doesn't eat, is still a mystery.

There's some speculation that the outside of the branching worm's bodies could be capable of digesting food just as well as the insides of their bodies, based on the fact that their exterior is covered with the kind of cilia that you find in intestines. So basically, their entire body might be dedicated to branching out as wide as possible and touching and digesting as much free-floating ocean crud as it can. and touching and digesting as much like free-floating ocean crud as it can. But when you get right down to it, the unfortunate thing is that they've got all these anuses, but they don't need them for pooping. So it's a total waste of an anus, it seems like. Wait, they don't need to... Because there's nothing ever inside of their digestive system?

Well, they must poop, but we haven't seen them poop. I think they'd be pooping all over the place. I feel like we would have seen them poop. With that many buttholes? You're looking at that many butts. One of them's got to be pooping. So since place. I feel like we would have seen them poop. With that many buttholes? You're looking at that many butts. One of them's got to be pooping. So since we can't figure out what they're eating exactly, it's not also clear what relationship the worms in the sponge have,

like if it's parasitic or symbiotic. Seems like it'll be parasitic. It doesn't seem fun to have a worm and you're poking all the little butts out. Every single place, yeah. Yeah, but that's not even all the weird butt stuff because sometimes their butts come to life. So branching marine worms can't leave their sponges because they got a sweet deal going on so instead they grow a special butt and this butt has eyes and it has rudimentary guts and genitals and then their butts break off and they swim off to have sex with other worms butts this is my

favorite thing about marine worms well is that their genitals become free-living organisms. Just little guys. It's beautiful. It doesn't mesh with our idea of what an organism is. So what's that, though? It's like, that's just its genitals. That's my penis. See you later.

It's got its own mind. It's doing its own thing. It has its own life. Don't ask the genitals. Don't ask too many questions stop asking questions it's the genitals it sounds like no longer but it sounds like floating genitals with eyes well it's a bud adjacent if you ask me okay you got to tell me if it poops and what i'm hearing is it doesn't well oh gosh if it doesn't poop, is it a butt? Anyway, I have one more. There's three species

of these worms that we know of. One, Cilius ramosa, was found by the HMS Challenger in the 1870s when they dredged up some CBCC sponges and they were like,

ugh, these are filled with worms. Gross. And then another one, Ramicillus something, Multicudata, was found in 2006, so a pretty long time later. And then a third was found in 2006 so pretty long time later and then a third

was found in January of 2022 and it's named Ramacilis King Ghidorah after Godzilla's three-headed Hydra-like

archenemy King Ghidorah and I had to mention that only so I could talk about King Ghidorah on SciShow Tangents I don't know the episode of the day

is butts and Sam did bring a worm that has like a dozen thousand butts has a thousand butts you know it's not cool one but you know it's really cool a thousand butts he just did a little dance everybody my story had at least two butts worm butt crab butt and crab butt it's true uh worm butt a worm butt crab butt and you had a butt hole on a walking coral a special butt hole that for an animal that doesn't even have a butthole it's not a butthole it's a butthole hole for butts um this is difficult so you guys tied coming into. So it really is about whose fact is better, which you've made it very difficult.

Sam, I would 100% be on board, except we don't, like, I want to know, I want to be able to say how these butts work. Okay, if I can find you video evidence of this worm pooping, you'll overturn this decision at a later time. It's the fact that we've never seen them with anything inside of their guts, which makes me think that that's not how they work. They just absorb nutrients. And so they're like trying to branch out as much as they can inside the sponge to absorb nutrients through their cilia. And they

just absorb nutrients. They don't have to do digestion. But you also say that they have a functioning digestive system, but it's never full of food. There's too many questions for me. absorb nutrients they don't have to do digestion but you also say that they have a functioning digestive system but it's never full of food there's too many questions for me oh no that's fair but they have so many butts and also one of their butts breaks off and and goes and makes babies sarah says that's not even a butt though now you're being sad and now I feel bad. Which is, I know what you're trying to do. I'm very easily manipulated. Sari, Sari's the winner.

We're not going to let it happen. Congratulations. I love that I now know what walking corals are and also that they walk only aided by their little friends. Man, I feel like I've been through the ringer. That was very difficult. Congratulations, Sari, on your win of this episode of SciShow Tangents.

And now it's time to ask the science couch where we've got listener questions for our virtual couch of finely honed scientific minds. It's from Connor on Discord who asks, is there a scientifically best way to wipe? Like material, stance, pressure, also posture, also posture etc the only science thing i know is front to back particularly for people with vulvas you don't want to get that close to the urethra you want to get that away uh and and then as far as anything else beside that i'm just like

bidet you got like that's gonnaifically, it's got to be best. I recently heard that there's 64,000 times more bacteria on the hands of people who don't have bidets, which is something that I just made up. Well, why would you do that? You didn't make up. I didn't. It was something like that. It was the butt fact from last week's episode. And it was exactly 64,000.

But it wasn't what I said. It was like directly after wiping or something. Yeah. Not like generally just walking around town. Non-bidet people are covered in butt germs.

Nasty. Yeah. Yes, it was after wiping. It was like four sheets of toilet paper compared to bidet. Yeah. And then the bacteria on the gloves of wiping. Right. There it was. Is there of toilet paper compared to bidet yeah and then the bacteria on

the gloves of wiping right there it was is there a best way to wipe well i think you hit hit on some of the big ones so one of the big tenets of wiping is preventing infection and like actually trying to clean it so wiping away from your urethra. Great idea. Prevents the bacteria from going. We learned last week on the butt fact about poopy butts versus bidets. And so in general, what I could find is it all comes back to bidets or a little bit of water or moisture can help get into various crevices and clean up the poop residue better than a dry thing. But you also want to make sure that you're not leaving your butt extra moist because that creates just an environment for fungal stuff or other irritation in the skin. Also, it might lead to you ever saying the sentence or the words extra moist butt,

which you never want to do again to use the common tongue so that's like one one bit of it uh i guess that sort of answers material question of like you want something sturdy a little bit damp a caution i'm not a doctor so i'm gonna preface this i'm not a doctor ask your doctor about your butt decisions wet wipes which you might think be helpful with both cleanliness and washing vigor and they can be in certain situations like babies have so much poop an unfathomable amount of poop you gotta wipe it up with whatever you can yep but wet wipes may introduce chemical irritants instead and create contact dermatitis in both adults and babies or any aged humans um specifically ones that contain methyl isothiazolinone

and methyl chloroisothiazolinone oh my gosh are two two compounds why don't the wet wipes just have water on them yeah i, I don't know. There's plenty of them that include like antibacterial or antiviral agents. These are, I think, often preservatives that keep the wipes moist

and I don't know exactly like the ins and outs of preservatives, but keep them fresh on the shelves. So you want to walk away from the toilet with a slightly wet butt?

Is that what you're telling me? No, you should not have your butt be a little wet. You should wipe a little wet and then make sure to dry it. Good. Yeah. The other part of this question is like stance and pressure. Stance doesn't really matter. It seems like experts say whatever is accessible for you,

however you can get your arm or limb or whatever down there. Wiping is better than not wiping. Yeah, I can feel that. Yeah. Yeah. So wiping too little can lead to skin irritation, but also wiping too intensely also leads to too much irritation. It can mess with. Just got to find that Goldilocks zone of the wipe.

Yeah. Just got to find that Goldilocks zone of the wipe. Yeah. And I thought the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons has given a name to people, to the condition when you wipe too much and too hard. Can't wait. The technical term is called pruritus ani, I think. But also the casual term is polished anus syndrome. Oh, no. Those birds have that. The busters. Okay. But also, the casual term is polished anus syndrome. Oh, no. Those birds have that.

The busters. Yeah. We just really overzealously clean, whether it's through blister beetle or through rubbing toilet paper. Don't do that. Apparently, dermatologists deal with this or like colorectal surgeons are like, you just wiped the heck out of your butt trying to clean it. And so just use a little bidet or a little water and that could solve your troubles more than wiping so vigorously. I just have a question to ask to Hank Green. When you Google polished anus syndrome, why would you click on images?

When you Google polished anus syndrome, why would you click on images? I'm just going to leave that one for myself to be pondering forever. Is that just what I do now? If I'm recording tangents, I'm like, show me a picture of that cute little worm. And then it's like, nope, that's a bunch of irritated buttholes. Well, Sariari thank you for doing the hard work here today of helping us get to

the bottom of the bottom and we had an absolutely delightful time if you want to ask the science couch

your question you can follow us on twitter at SciShow Tangents where we'll be tweeting out topics for upcoming episodes every week

or you can join the SciShow Tangents Patreon and ask us on our discord thank you to at Boots and Guitars on Twitter, Emily17 on Discord, and everybody else who asked us your questions for this episode.

If you like this show and you want to help us out, it's super easy to do that. You can go to patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents, and you can become a patron of the show. You can get access to things like our newsletter, and our bonus episodes, and our Cars 2 commentary. Very silly and very fun. And also, if it weren't for patrons, we literally couldn't make the show.

Second, you can leave us a review wherever you listen. That's helpful and helps us know what you like about the show. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, just tell people about us. Thank you for joining us. I've been Hank Green. I've been Sari Reilly.

And I've been Sam Schultz. SciShow Tangents is created by all of us and produced by Sam Schultz, who edits a lot of these episodes along with Hiroko Matsushima. Our story editor is Alex Billow. Our social media organizer is Paola Garcia Prieto. Our editorial assistants are Debuki Chakravarti and Emma Douster. Our sound design is by Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our executive producers are Caitlin Hoffmeister and Hank Green, who is me. And we couldn't make any

of this, of course, without our patrons on Patreon. Thank you, and remember, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lit. But one more thing. The hoopoe bird is a beautiful striped bird who lives a very butt-centric lifestyle from cradle to grave the female hoopoe has a big sack under her tail feathers that swells up with liquid during breeding season oh no it's not just any old liquid it contains chemicals that make it smell like a rotten meat and eggs oh so what could she possibly want to do with a butt sack full of stinky liquid well she rubs it all over her eggs of course the butt goo acts as a protective layer against bacteria and also as a way to signify to its mate that it's a good mother and that's not even the only way that these birds

use their butts hoopoe chicks are able to shoot a stream of liquid shit right into the faces of predators super soaker style and there's videos of it and it's great. It's H-O-O-P-E-O-E. If you want to watch a baby bird, just laser shoot some crap. A snake right in the face. It's great. Oh, boy. I think if you just like coated your eggs in this in like foul smelling goop, it would be good for a lot of things. Like I would not, for example, try to make an omelet out of that yeah i don't want this egg no great congratulations i

don't know why we all haven't evolved that we need to do more with our butts we haven't figured it all out yet there's something going on down there of the powers that we heard about today which one would you want to have well our power is having a big butt which is not a very fun power it's fine it's fine we can walk if you gotta trade walking trade your big butt i would like to have a corkscrew but that fits into a shell i actually like my butt just the way it is i wouldn't choose to switch it for the world even if you could shoot a big laser beam of shit out of it i don't want to do that. Sorry. I think I would want a wombat butt.

Oh, really hard. Because they're just really sturdy and strong. And I could smash people with them if they got too close.