Stuff You Should Know - How Vestigial Organs Work

Episode Date: October 13, 2015

Darwin asserted that seemingly useless organs and behaviors are left over from our evolutionary history. But as more are found to have a function, the idea has become a flashpoint for the battle between science and religion. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Noel over there, so this is Stuff You Should Know. After everyone is wondering if Jerry's been kidnapped.

She has been, and we are refusing to pay the ransom. It's only like 20 bucks, but I don't know. They sent her a finger, and we said, we need more proof. You know why we don't send the 20 bucks? Because we don't negotiate with kidnappers. Nope, it's just good policy. Jerry probably understands. What did you think?

I don't know, that finger they sent was pointed in our direction, I know that. And we'll, Jerry, from all of us here at HowStuffWorks, we miss you, and we wish you the best of luck. I hope that breathing tube holds up. So, Chuck. Yes. You were correcting me, I think we should get this out

on the air. As well. Vestigial organs. Nope. You have to say it like you're eating a meatball. Vestigial. Yeah, sure. So you're saying it's vestigial?

Yeah. It's not vestigial? No. Vestigial. Vestigial. I'm a vestigial fan. Alrighty. Yeah.

And you're the correct fan? I'm not a fan of either. I just, for once, looked up the pronunciation of something. So, how are you feeling about vestigial organs? Are you liking it? Yeah, I mean, I thought it was good. Organs is a little misleading. It should be like body parts, I think.

Yeah, vestigial parts. It can also be traits, behaviors. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like what about, what's like the go-to vestigial trait? Oh, the palmar grass reflex. Yeah.

It's a great one. Yeah. That's one of the first things they test on a baby. Yeah. It says a lot about the baby. It's like, can you hold onto my fingers and lift? Your little body. Yeah, so we should just go ahead and say,

human babies are born with the ability where if the palm of their hand is stimulated, you know, you tell it a joke or give it some candy or something like that, the baby will grasp onto the finger. Just reflexively. And the baby grasps so hard. And we're talking like newborns. The baby grasps with enough strength

that you could pick the baby up with your finger and it'll dangle from your hand and look very cute. Yeah, 37% of babies, I think they said. So that doesn't make any sense. Why would a baby be able to do that? So they can hang on to your furry coat as you run through the jungle. That's the, that is the predominant answer among science.

Yeah. And Ruby grabs my beard like it's rope. Yeah, I remember you saying that. And pulls herself up my chest. Yeah. So it's like, it's like a little animal. Yeah, but apparently have you ever tickled her feet? Cause they grasp with those too.

Yeah. I've had leg hair pinched by little feet. Man. Already. Boy, you're having a kid sounds like a lot of fun. That's rough. Your beard, your leg hair can climbed on. It's all worth it though, isn't it?

I don't know, we'll see. Good for you, Chuckers. I'll let you know in 18 years. So, what is that called again? The Palmer grasp reflex. And the one that's also from the feet that's a vestigial trait. It's something that used to serve a purpose

further back on our ancestral line. It still serves a purpose in things like primates, higher apes, but it doesn't in humans anymore. The thing about it though, is that the whole idea of vestigial organs, vestigial body parts, vestigial traits gives a tremendous amount of credence. In fact, it's one of like the main points of the theory of evolution.

That we have these traits left over because if you trace our ancestry back far enough, chimps and we had a common ancestor. And if you trace it back even further, snakes and we had a common ancestor. And so on and so on. These are just remnants from that distant past when we needed things like a tailbone to support a tail.

Sure, or to be able to grasp your mom's fur the moment you're born basically. So you can hang on and be carried around. There's a couple of different definitions too. If you ask Darwin, he will say that it doesn't necessarily mean that it has no function now. It just means that it doesn't serve the original purpose that it once did.

And that's a huge point because vestigial organs is a flash point between creationists and scientists. Huge man, I had no idea. But it's like a battlefield in that battle between creationism and science. Yeah, I looked that up about the conflict of religion in the vestigial organs. And at least some of the sites I went to said

that we're fine with vestigial organs. And we think that after God created Adam and Eve that they may have changed over the years. Oh, I didn't run into that at all. Yeah, I saw a bunch of sites that said that. I ran into one. Said that they can coexist basically and said that we agree there could be a loss

of genetic information over the years or that Adam and Eve were created and changed as well. But it was just all God's work at hand. Yeah, which I mean, the scientists would be like, nope, still disagree. But I like the way you're thinking generally. The sites I ran into were just like, nope, evolution is flat out wrong.

I think one of them said that. And there is no such thing as a vestigial organ. The very fact that you're saying that there are vestigial organs because of evolution begs the question. And the whole idea is that we don't understand what these organs are for, not that they're useless. God wouldn't put anything useless in the human body.

God don't make no junk, this is the old saying. Right, and science does the face palm. Yeah, mate, well, sure. So I mean, it goes on and on. It's not, they're not, neither side's winning this, but I was very, I was surprised to find that this was a, like, you know when you just kind of stumble onto a social war?

Yeah. Or a battle of a social war. That you didn't realize was being waged. Right, yeah, sure. Or I knew that that war was being waged, but I didn't realize that this was one of the battlefields. It was just really interesting to me. But you mentioned Darwin, man.

Yeah. He was not the first person to point out vestigial organs. No, and we should point people to our Charles Darwin episode, that and the, Evolution or natural selection. I think natural selection is what we did. And I'm very proud of those two. Oh, you're great.

Because he was a fascinating guy, whether or not you agree with this, all that science, science junk. You may also want to go listen to our Enlightenment episode. It kind of ties in. Yeah, agreed. Well, like you said, he was not the first dude. There was another guy in 1893 named Robert Vitasheim,

who said he had a big list, running list going. Yeah. That had up to 90 parts that he claimed were vestigial. And a lot of those were proved not to be. And even some of the ones, we might as well go ahead and talk about the appendix a little bit. Sure. Because everyone for a long time said,

we don't need the appendix. It does nothing in our bodies. We can just take it out and suffer no ill consequences. Yeah, so the idea is, well, if you can take it out and not die. Then what's the point? Yeah, then it's vestigial. And I read an article and I'm like, you kind of have to be careful saying stuff like that,

because I can cut my leg off and not die, but I still could have used it. Sure. You know? Yeah. And with the appendix for many years, like you said, after successful appendectomy, after successful appendectomy,

there was this predominant idea that it was just this useless organ. One of the reasons why it was officially labeled vestigial right out of the gate is because you can find it elsewhere in the animal kingdom, which is another big part of the definition of a vestigial organ. It's a functioning organ in the animal kingdom, correct?

Yeah, so you can find the same thing elsewhere in the animal kingdom. And it performs a more robust function. So with the appendix in particular, for animals that have a diet high in fiber, this serves as an extra digestive tract or an extra part of the digestive tract. Yeah.

In humans, it has no role in digestion whatsoever. So scientifically speaking, it's lost its original purpose. Yeah, which people long thought when we used to be plant eating for the most part, plant eating peoples, that that's what the appendix aided in digestion and cellulose when you ate a lot of plants.

Right. But now we don't eat plants, so we don't need it. So it's just a little sad sack. It is pretty sad looking. It is a sad sack. Compared to a chimp's mighty appendix. Yeah. This is a sad.

But Chuck, they have found, and this is pretty much the story for almost all vestigial organs. There's really only two that remain where we're just like, we have no idea what these do. Yeah. But with the appendix,

we've come to find that either it performed this role simultaneously to chewing cud for us or it evolved to perform this role so it's not totally useless. It's like, don't cut me out. I'm doing something. But it's a store for beneficial bacteria. Yeah, it's basically a reserve

in case you get really sick with diarrhea or some other gut infection and it vacates all that good bacteria. Then you have this appendix waiting in the wings to say, hey, I've got this. I'll reboot your system. Right, and it goes, hold on, stand by. I'm gonna spit some up.

Right. And it spits bacteria into your gut. But they say because we have medicines that take care of all that stuff that we never need the appendix. Right. Because we have medicine now to perform that same function essentially.

Yeah, and that's a pretty pro-Western medicine concept, though, like if you take a bunch of antibiotics, you're probably gonna be able to use your appendix to repopulate the flora in your gut. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because antibiotics go through and they just like laid a waste all bacteria,

beneficial or otherwise in your gut, you know? So after a round of antibiotics, if your appendix is functioning, then you should probably be able, theoretically, to recover better than if you had your appendix removed. So we may not even know that our appendix is functioning. No, but Molly Edmonds comes up with an evil genius idea and she doesn't overtly say that we should try it,

but she suggests it at the end. The only way to really tell if we need our appendix is to start taking them out of people in the undeveloped world who have less access to the same healthcare that we have. I think what she meant was study people who have had appendectomies. Yeah, I mean.

Not necessarily like just bring people in. Like what happens if they have an appendicitis? Hopefully that's a pretty routine procedure and that it can be removed. But that's another thing that people argue like, no, this thing is useless. Not only does it not chew cud for us any longer, it can become really infected and kill you.

So we should just take appendixes out. That was the predominant thought and I think that it was kind of slowing it down lately. Yeah, yeah, like, well, we should talk about wisdom teeth. I was just about to bring those up. Well, you want to take a break first or you want to keep going with wisdom teeth? No, let's take a break.

["Stop You Should Know"] On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast,

Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so I teased everyone with wisdom teeth.

There was, I've heard Dennis say, you know, you should just always take out your wisdom teeth. And others say, well, no, if your mouth has enough room, like not everyone needs their wisdom teeth out. Right. But this goes back to the evolution as well, like we needed back when we ate roots and tubers and plants and we had bigger jaws.

We had room for those teeth and we needed them. See, that to me, wisdom teeth are the definitive evidence of vestigial organs as support for the theory of evolution. Yeah. Because our jaws don't, they're not shaped like they were before. Right. Because our diet has changed. Our skulls have changed shape.

And so there's not room for that third molar that there used to be room for, which is why it grows in all messed up, a.k.a. impacted. Yeah, we needed, once we started cooking food and vegetables and making them soft, unless you're on the paleo diet and you eat raw veggies. Yes, but if you're rich and you're on the paleo diet, you probably pay for somebody to chew them up first

and spit them in your mouth. That's what rich people on paleo do. So yeah, so now we don't need those teeth. And so clearly that's an example of a vestigial body part, correct? But yes, but not only do we not need them, there is no room for them in most people's jaws. I just think like, there you go.

That's it. Drop the mic right there. Yeah, we talked about this before, but I had mine when I was 16, I think, or 17. How old were you? Like 18, 19 something like that. Yeah, I feel like it's usually in that range. Whenever I hear about someone that's older that has their wisdom

teeth in, it just seems like an outlier. Yeah, yeah, I think it's about the normal age, like in your teens, late teens, mid to late teens. Yeah, kind of like tonsils. I don't know how many adults who have their tonsils removed. Although I'm sure it happens. But then, I mean, now that you've brought up tonsils. This is a rabbit hole.

So that's another thing that a lot of people say, just go ahead and get removed. The thing is, if history has taught us anything, just getting vestigial organs removed electively is not a good move, just in case. If they are getting infected a lot and they threaten your health, yeah, you probably should get your tonsils removed.

But just as wisdom teeth, to me, are definitive evidence that we've evolved and have vestigial organs. So too are tonsils, because no one has any real idea why we have tonsils. And as a matter of fact, they can harm our health. Yeah, this one article you sent says they are supposedly the first line of defense against inhaled pathogens.

That's the best thing to come up with. Hey, I like it. I guess, but that's a pretty weak system. I mean, there's this kind of, it rings the edges. I mean, yeah, it's not even like a net. No, we should evolve a net. You know? A throat net.

A throat net that falls to the side when we need food to go through, but when we're just breathing, like, yeah. Or if you're dieting, you can have the throat net shut and everything will just bounce back up, and that'd be great. That's a great idea. They're chewing up food and spitting it out as a weight loss method is dangerous.

But some people think that, hey, it makes sense, man. I just want to taste it. What else? Oh, I like the goose bumps. That's a good one. Yeah, that's one of my favorites, too. Because when you get scared or chilly, you'll see the goose bumps.

What are they called? The erector pili. Goose bumps is so much more fun. Well, the erector pili are the muscles that give you goose bumps. It's kind of like the marines at Iwo Jima raising the flag. These muscles do that to your hair follicles. And you get goose bumps.

Yeah, and that is leftover from when we wanted to, we're animals, and we wanted to appear larger. We could puff up our fur in defense. Or to hold in, to keep yourself warm, the air gets trapped in between the hair when it stands up. And if you think about it, when you have adrenaline running through your veins and you're scared or you've got the fight or flight thing going on, you can get goose bumps.

Same thing with when you're cold. You get goose bumps. Left over from when we have fur. I never get goose bumps. Oh, really? Well, I'm never cold. The only time I get them is when I get the creepy shiver. And that doesn't happen much either.

That's because the horror movie industry just really stinks, man. No more goose bumps. I'm working my way through that list that the Grabster prepared for us. Oh, yeah? So nice of them. You've been on a horror kick?

Yeah, have you seen a pre-October horror kick, even? Yeah, right when it started to get a little, even slightly cool. You got a blankie out? Yeah. And you and Yumi snuggle up and watch horror movies? Yeah. That's great. Emily won't watch them at all, which is very disappointing.

Well, I mean, Yumi will be in the room, but she's not paying that much attention. It's going to be fun. And I'm like, why are you watching this? But I saw a Pawnee pool on the Grabster's recommendation. It was a very good creative movie. Have you seen it? No, I still haven't seen that one.

It's on Netflix. Yeah. I don't think it's ever been off Netflix. In the history of Netflix, I think it's always been there. See, the problem is, because Emily doesn't watch them. Then I'm saying, well, I'd like to spend a couple of hours alone tonight. With Pawnee pool.

Which happens enough with sports. So I had horror movies in there. And all of a sudden, what's the point in being married? I'm with you. You know? Yeah. I think that's good of you, Chuck. That's upstanding.

Sure. Choosing your wife over horror movies. Yeah. I'll watch Nashville. Actually, that's not true. You won't watch Nashville? No. I'll be in the room when it's on.

But again, I'm not watching. I've never seen it. Am I missing it? Not missing much. No. Even she is like, it's so terrible, but still watches it. It's one of those. Why do people do the things they do?

You know, speaking of tangents like the one we're on now, I listened to our Pez episode. Yeah. It is tangent city. Yeah. I mean, even as far as our normal stuff goes, it is tangential. We could call our tangents vestigial material.

Yeah. Serves a purpose, kind of. To some, some people like it. Some people hate it. Yeah. Hate it. So we brought up the tailbone earlier. Is it coccyx?

I thought it was coccyx. Coccyx? I'll go with that. OK. That is not the same thing as when you were born with a tiny little tail bump. That can happen, but that's an adivism. Yeah.

Not the same thing as the coccyx. Well, it's attached to the coccyx. So the coccyx is itself a vestigial thing, right? Yeah. Like, we don't need that bone. And those bones are found in other animals that have tails. And it's where the muscles connect to to control the tail and everything, right?

Yeah. So we don't need that. No. But then some people are even born with an actual tail. Yeah. And then, like you said, that's an adivism, which is a relic that appears once in a while rather than in most people.

Right. But that's the only difference, isn't it? I think so. And I was going to say we should do an episode on that. But I looked at our article and I don't know. There's not a lot to it. So there you go. We just did adivism.

I guess so. But with the coccyx, some folks think that there is, in fact, a reason that it kind of, the best I could see is that it acts like as the holder of things in that area. It kind of cinches everything up, like the anus and other organs in that area. Is that right?

Yeah. Yeah. That's the best they could come up with. OK. But they've removed coccyx from people before. And the anus didn't prolapse or anything like that from what I understand yet. They're just taking time off.

That's a horror movie waiting to happen. I have never seen, or at least I've never noticed, Darwin's point on someone's ear. It's right here. No, I know what they are. But I've never noticed that anyone had one. Right now. Yeah, but that's not.

The ones I've seen online is a literal extra bump that looks like an elf. Mine's going downward. Yeah, the ones I've seen on the outside online, I've never seen in real life, is what I'm saying. So it's called the Darwin's point, right? Yeah. And they're just saying it's left over

from when our ears used to be bigger and. Weird. Yeah, like when we had to listen out for stuff. Yeah, ears are weird, period, if you really look at them. Yeah. I think. Supposedly, people who can wiggle their ears, that's a sign of less evolution.

That's your forehead. No, my ears. My ears are wiggling, too. No, just your forehead. Well, your forehead's wiggling, too. Oh. I really can't wiggle my ears really well. I must be tired, because I can do them one at a time,

and do the star-spangled banner to it. Can you raise both eyebrows individually? Oh, that's pretty good. I can also roll my tongue. Can you do this? Yeah, I can do the clover, too, but I can't. Oh, I can't do the clover. I can't raise my left eyebrow by itself, which is weird.

But you can do your right. Now you just look very suspicious of me. All right, I don't believe you about your eyebrow. I wish you guys could all see this. Oh, yeah, it's scintillating. Also, with the ear, there are muscles in the ear that we say we don't need anymore, because we don't need to move them to locate things,

like a satellite dish. That's why not everybody can wiggle their ears, and people who can have an atavistic trait. Which is that muscle group still left over? Yeah, and there's a lot of different muscle groups that pop up as far as vestigial organs go. There's one called the subclavius muscle, which is up here on your chest,

around your upper arms and chest. And that's supposedly left over from when we could walk on all fours, or mostly walked on all fours. Now some people have it and some don't. Yes. So you can see, or is it giving you the ability, like how muscle dudes bounce their pecs?

I'm sure the ones with subclavial muscles are aces at that. Yeah, that's so gross. There's a pulmaris and a plantaris muscle that we don't need anymore. So much so that if you are having some sort of muscle or tendon surgery, the doctor will go in and harvest those

for use elsewhere in your body. So you can move your forehead. Wow. Like Ruben Kincaid in the Partridge family. Remember him? He could like separate his forehead from his hair. What, was it just a tricky did? Yeah.

I don't remember that. It was his thing. Really? The guy couldn't act. He wasn't an actor. He could just basically move his hair from where it was normally to like halfway back his head, on his head.

With his own just muscle or with his hands? With his muscles. See, I worked a job, a commercial job with punch from Gyps once. Oh, yeah. And he... Eric Estrada, right? Yeah, he did a trick where he did it with his hands,

but it was so like, it looked like it was a toupee. Yeah. The way he could move it with his hands. It was really like... Imagine if he could do that without his hands. Yeah. That's what Ruben Kincaid could do. I got a great picture of him acting

like he was arresting me. He had like put me up against the police car and had a hand behind my back. Wow. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He sounds like it. He still loved being punched too, man. I gotta tell you.

Well, I mean like, that was it for him. Yeah, but like the other guy, John was in his trailer the whole time for the most part. What were you doing? It was Chip said that reboot TV movie. Like, I don't know, probably 15 or 16 years ago. I don't remember that. And they did a promo for the movie

that I worked on in the art department. Nice. And John stayed in his trailer and punch was all about like the ladies in the neighborhood. He was like hanging out. Let's go, let's do some pictures. I don't mean it's Eric Estrada. Yeah, he's got a lot out of it, you could tell.

Which is good for him, you know. All right, let's take a break. We'll talk about some more vestigial organs. This one. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster?

Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts

flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast,

Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place,

because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. All right, we're back.

What else you got? Oh, we can keep going. So I found a couple of articles. One was from io9. That was pretty helpful. Yeah, is that the 10? Yeah. Yeah, it's a great website.

I found another one on Discover Magazine. They had even more. Some people have neck ribs. Have you heard of this? What? Neck rib. Talk about a throat net. This is like a neck rib.

Basically, you've got your highest ribs up here, your clavicles. Not the mick rib. No. Which I think we can all agree is delicious. These are less delicious than the mick rib. OK. So feel right here.

That's your clavicle, right? Yeah, yeah. That's your top rib. People have higher ribs. They go into the neck? Yeah, they go from your neck bone and an angle above that. Wow. And those are called neck ribs, and they

think that that's left over from reptilian ancestors. Are those the people that have really long necks, or does that not matter? I didn't notice that. Sinuses. Yeah, that's another one. It's like there's no reason for those. Yeah, well, they think there are reasons.

They enhance our voices. They make our skull not so heavy. And they think that one theory is that they help, with the mucus, help humidify the air we breathe in so it's not so dry. Right. However, a lot of other people say, I don't know about that stuff.

We may not need sinuses at all. No, and they think that if you look around the animal kingdom, sinuses found in other animals are most useful in ones that have something called the meronazole organ, which is like a pheromone-senting organ. We have them, which is another vestigial thing. It's in our septums. It's on either side of our septum.

Right. But it's not connected to our brain. So we can sense pheromones, but we can't actually sense them. Right. Because the verovameronazole organ, that's a tough one to say. It is. It's just not connected anymore.

So how do we sense it? We don't. Remember that one thing? We talked about this before. There was that one TV show had people smell shirts of other people and ended up choosing mates based on it. And it turned out those people had the most varied immune systems.

Yeah, from our own. So we would make more robust children, right? Exactly. Yeah. The thing is, we don't have any way, as far as science knows, to actually sense pheromones. We have the means to do it, but we can't actually pull the trigger on it because that organ isn't

connected to our brains anymore. But it's located around the sinuses. And then in other animals, the sinuses contain muscles for moving whiskers and a lot of olfactory receptors for sensing smells. Interesting. But in humans, they just get infected and hurt when you go in there. They need to hook that thing back up.

I was thinking, if I were a mad scientist of the human centipede ilk, that's probably what I'd try to do. Oh, you wouldn't just put someone's head in the person's butt in front of them over and over again? No, I wouldn't. That seems like a waste of time. I would try to connect the vomero nasal organ to the brain. Yeah, or maybe bring back all of the original purposes

of our vestigial parts. That's pretty ambitious. So just one thing at a time? All right. I would also use anesthetic. Well, that's how the human centipede started, too. I would use anesthetic. And I would make sure the pudding cups were top notch

for recovery. What's a top notch pudding cup consist of? Just a good brand? Yeah, you just don't want an off brand. You know what I mean? Sure. Like, have you ever heard of it? Or there's a boy wearing overalls and no shoes on the label?

Yeah, like Uncle Dan's pudding cups. Right, you don't want that pudding cup. What else do we have in here? Oh, yeah. Here's one. What's it called, the third eyelid? Yeah, of course, there's another name for it. Chuck, it is the pleca semilunaris.

Yeah, I think that's perfect, actually. So you know the little almond? That's something else. It's the thing next to that. Right. And this, I think, was when... In your eye, we should say. It's your third eyelid.

Yeah, it's from reptiles and amphibians and birds. And I think I've seen this in lizards and things when they have like, you know, it's sort of, it's clear, like a membrane that washes over their eye and goes back. But it moves horizontally rather than vertically, like our eyelids. So this is a leftover trait from when we could do that

because that was probably pretty neat to do. Yes. Oh man, can you imagine how freaky if you could do that? So we've got the tissue, we just apparently don't have the muscles to move it any longer. Did you, were you one of those kids that would turn their upper eyelids inside out? I never knew how they did it.

I couldn't do it either. It was just freak show. Yeah. I always admired them deeply for it, but I couldn't do it. It was always just some creepy boy trying to get a girl's attention usually. Yeah. Like tap her on the shoulder.

I don't think I ever saw a girl do it. Of course not. It was always a boy. Yeah. Because girls are smarter. Yeah. But yeah, you tap her on the shoulder, she'd turn around and scream.

Yeah. And then everybody'd laugh. Yeah, pretty much. But then we'd go have Uncle Dan's putting cups because I went to public school. We got taken to task for me saying dumb guys and an email. I saw that.

I was like, I'm just kind of kidding around, even though I do think women are generally smarter. And guys do a lot of dumb stuff that women don't do. Mm-hmm. Just relax. Yeah. You know, did someone really need to take up the mantle for men?

I know. It's kind of like men have a pretty good here on earth. Yeah. Agreed. I think you can get away with saying dumb guy here or there. Agreed. All right. Well, there's a couple of more body hair in general.

I think we did a whole show on that, didn't we? Or did we? I don't remember. It seems like it, because didn't we talk about the water ape theory? I think so. Well, recap it. The water ape theory.

I think there's this idea that humans actually lost their body hair because we went in the water for a little while after we, as we were evolving from apes, lost our hair there because we didn't need it and then came out of the water. If I'm just totally going from memory. Gotcha. So we won't hold you to that.

Thanks. But essentially, aside from your eyebrows, which keeps sweat out of your eyes. Which is pretty good function. And I guess hair on your head, which will keep your head warm. And the hair on your nose you use too, it traps gnats and juju fruits and whatever's trying to get up there. I think generally they're referring to leg hair and back hair and arm hair.

There really is no use for that any longer. Yeah. But we still have it. Yeah. There's no use for back hair. I can assure you. I agree. Man.

Man. Yeah. Kind of stinks. But we still have it. So it's evolving out, it seems like. Yeah. Either that or a lot more dudes wax than I realized. Yeah.

I need, I haven't done that in a while. Have you done waxing before? Yeah. Emily, we get a little at home kit. She'll just clean up my neckline a little bit. Oh, nice. But I don't have a super hairy back. It's just sort of up top there. I've never tried waxing.

You usually just like uses matches. What, burns it? I mean, that would work, but it's stinky. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And that would stink so bad. You're like, yeah, we have to do it outside. Right. And then male nipples, I know we did a show on this.

Yes. And it's really pretty simple. We have nipples because women have nipples, not for the same function. Right. But because we're made of the same stew, essentially. Right. Exactly. Like there's this single plan or blueprint or whatever for humans.

Yeah. And nipples emerge before sex differentiation takes place. Yeah. So everybody has nipples. And I found from researching this, there's actually useless tiny ovaries attached to men's prostates. Oh, really?

Yes. And there's supposedly the beginnings of little vast deference nodules on women's ovaries. Totally useless. So yeah, sex differentiation. So we have ovaries? We have like ovary-like. Ovarets?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I had never knew that. That's crazy. It is true. Or ovarytas. Yeah, there you go.

That's more appropriate, I think. Well, there are other animals too. I mean, it's not just humans. Well, that's another thing. Yeah. Like an ostrich has wings, but they don't fly. Same with penguins. Yeah.

Still have the wings. That's true. It's vestigial. But this lends further credence to vestigial organs as evidence for evolution. Yeah, or we did our podcast on cave dwellers. Yeah. And some of those have non-functioning eyes. Yeah.

It was like, why are they still there at all? And seriously, go listen to that one. That was one of my favorites. It's tucked deep in the archives. Yeah. It's called biospeleology was the name for that one. Yeah, I think we did two. I think we did one on cave dwellers specifically, even.

And then we did one on caves, maybe? Maybe. I'll bet we did. Because you went caving after we did one on caves. So I think we did two. Boy, it's really getting tough now to remember all these episodes. Yeah. You know?

And then there's another one, too. Whales and snakes actually have pelvis bones. Don't eat them because they don't have legs. Too weird. But at some point, they may have before and creationists, thanks to a paper that came out that said, it was a scientific paper, but the guy in doing interviews with meaties, like, yeah, we're having to totally rethink this. Like, maybe it's not vestigial.

They found that it actually enhances in AIDS and sex. But that, I mean, that could be a secondary thing. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And get this. This is one extra thing. I heard, I think it was on Fresh Air. There was a woman who wrote a book about dolphins in dolphin research,

and specifically this researcher who used to take a lot of acid with dolphins that he would also give acid to. What? And try to teach English language to. He would give dolphins LSD? Uh-huh. Yeah, that's not nice. You have to hear this thing on Fresh Air.

Yeah. It's mind-blowing. But they believe that dolphins evolved from wolves. What? Yeah. It's kind of like that water rape theory for humans that, like, some wolves just started hanging out in the water and eventually evolved into dolphins. Wow.

I definitely need to hear that. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's right. You know, that I blacked out while I was listening to it and formed that false memory, but I'm pretty sure that was in that interview. Or you were on LSD.

Somebody was on LSD. Right. Yeah, maybe there is no Fresh Air. Well, if you want to learn more about vestigial organs, type those words into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. You don't have anything else, do you? No. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

No, sir. It is time for Facebook Questions. So occasionally, I will have gotten not a lot of great listener mails lately. And so we will throw out, ask us some questions on Facebook for the next couple of episodes. We're going to read some of these and answer. So pick at your own well, my friend. I'll go and start with Matt Thurman says, would you ever consider live shows in the UK? Matt, not only would we consider it, we actively want to and we are hoping to at some point.

So it's not the easiest thing in the world to pull off. You know, we have to book a ship to sail over there. Right. Not a nice ship either. I know. It'll take a while. But I mean, we have a pretty good idea that London might be a good town to hold a show in in the UK. But if you have a recommendation of other places to do too, let us know.

Because we're actively looking. I think we could get support in London and in Ireland and maybe even Scotland. So we would like to hear from people on that. Okay. I got another one. This one's from Avery W. Kraus. What is a controversial topic you haven't covered yet that you're a little hesitant to do? Sure.

Remember, it used to be Scientology for both of us. Now we're just like, it's done. Yeah. For me, it's breastfeeding. I really want to do it and we will eventually. But we have to like really know what we're talking about because it is a for instance. Yeah. Mine would be vaccines.

Oh man. I wouldn't want to touch that with a 10 foot pole. Sure. All right. I got one from Matthew Massuto. Keep meaning to write you guys and ask whatever happened to the young man who was helping come up with ideas for stuff you should know. I can't remember his name.

That was Sam and Sam is in college now. That is so nuts. And we haven't heard from Sam. So Sam, if you're listening or Sam's mom, if you're listening, we would love an update. But I even wrote letters of recommendation for Sam and he's in school. So maybe he's all grows up now and doesn't need us anymore. No, he's fine. We'll see.

He's on his own. Remember, he was in our TV show as well. Yeah. He played a softball player. He's the bat boy. That's right. That was great. So yeah, if you've ever wondered what Sam looked like and you can figure out how to get your hands on the.

What was that one? Make it rain, I believe. Make it rain episode. Check out the bat boy and you will see Sam from the famous Summer of Sam. That was the same day the unions shut us down and we had to leave work. That was crazy. Man, what a day. Yeah.

Here's one from Dave Mallon. Chuck, this is a question for you. When is Chuck's beard going to get its own podcast? No. Come on. People like your beard. Yeah. They want to hear, let's hear the beard's voice at least.

So, okay, is the beard regurgitating right now? No, that's the language of the beard. We'll get used to that, Dave Mallon. This is from Mike Macalduff. He says, how much do you guys personally remember from podcasts you've done? Well, I think we kind of demonstrated today, not a lot. No. It's really weird because they say the brain has basically an infinite capacity to remember stuff,

but old stuff's getting crammed out as new stuff gets pushed in these days. It hasn't always been that way. It's been that way for like a year and a half maybe, two years? Yeah. I always like to say that I think I remember about as much as the average listener might, like a few tidbits here and there from each topic. Yeah. But like any time a hardcore listener comes up to us and wants to talk to us about something,

or even an average listener comes up and just heard something from like 2013, I'm like, sorry, I'm going to have to go back and research again. Yeah. And then we'll hold this conversation. But that'd be like going up to Conan and being like, remember that joke you told him that monologue three years ago? That's just not fair, you know? Yeah.

He'd have something funny and charming to say instead of, go ahead, you're next. This is a great one. I don't have an answer for it, but we're going to get to the bottom of this. This is from Brian Geppert. Why do coupons have a cash value listed at the bottom? Smile a motocon. I do they?

Yeah. It's they're like worth one one hundredth of a cent. The actual coupon itself is. Oh, wow. So you can trade that in, I guess. Or stores can. You know what I mean? Interesting.

That's probably it, but we'll look into that. You know what I heard recently that, you know, when you go to the grocery store and they'll have a drive to like, hey, would you like to donate a dollar to whatever? Yeah, do not donate. Supposedly they just gather that up as a big massive tax write-off. Yeah. Is that true?

Yeah. And I mean, the the charity is going to ultimately get that, but the store is getting all the right off. Yeah. And your one dollar gets bundled in with not even necessarily that one drive. Right. They may bundle it in with other drives and who knows where that dollar is actually going.

You should not. That's pretty sneaky. You should not feel bad about saying not today when they ask you, but you should also take it as an impetus to go donate yourself or go do some volunteering or something like that as a reminder rather than actually being pressured to giving a dollar for that grocery store's tax write-off, which is disgusting. You had to get your name on a balloon piece of paper that they that shape

like a hot air balloon. Yeah. All right. Let's do like two more. This is from Shane Elliott. When you guys going to do a blooper reel, Shirley Jerry has stored some up in the archives. My friend Jerry about once a season.

I don't like telling people this. Why? Because they're going to hack in and find it. Yeah. Jerry does a blooper reel and only we can hear it. Yeah. And you will never ever hear it, although I think we could sell them for a dollar a piece and probably get rich.

Easy. I got the last one. This one's from Marco Repola. Which one of you is the Batman and which one is Robin? And Marco, you've been looking at it all wrong. Yeah. You should have asked which one's the Joker and which one's the penguin. Whoa.

Great answer. And we're not going to answer. I love that. I got nothing more. If you want to get in touch with us, you can post questions any day or night on our Facebook page at facebook.com. Slash stuff you should know. You can tweet to us at S.Y.S.K. podcasts.

You can email us directly at stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com. And, as always, join us at our super awesome home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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