Stuff You Should Know - Three Gross Parasites

Episode Date: July 23, 2009

There are some pretty disgusting parasites out there, but Josh and Chuck have settled on three particularly gross ones. Tune in to learn more about flesh-eating parasites, guinea worms and tapeworms i...n this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:01:24 Here is Charles W. Dracunkelyasis Bryant. Take it. I love that. How you doing, drunk? That sounds like my playa name. It is, sort of. Playaappreciate.com. I wish I could remember what that name was.
Starting point is 00:01:36 It was so good. Oh, it was Wheat-Tastic Bryant-Trump. Is that it? Sugar-Tastic Bryant-Trump. Sugar-Tastic. That's it. Bryant-Trump. Yep.
Starting point is 00:01:47 That was Chuck's pimp name as it appears on Playaappreciate.com. I love that. You can generate a playa name. Yeah. It is pretty cool. God bless the internet. Chuck, speaking of the internet, our parent company Discovery's channel Animal Planet has a cool website.
Starting point is 00:02:09 Indeed. That they launched for their show Monsters Inside of Me. Very cool. Which has inspired us to do a couple of parasite podcasts. This is Two of Two. Yeah. We just did Toxoplasmosis. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:20 And I got to say, we were excited about this stuff. Sure. It's cool show. We'll get requests to do things, and we're like, oh, I don't know, should we do that? We'll turn them down, and they'll threaten to fire us, and then we'll march into the office with a gas can and a lighter. Yeah. It goes down like that.
Starting point is 00:02:38 But this one is cool. Yes. Monsters Inside of Me. Cool show. Yeah. No, everybody on staff pretty much threw in for this thing. Big time. And happily, actually.
Starting point is 00:02:46 Because, yeah, it is a cool show. That's a cool graphics. It's gross. Yeah, it is. And if you're eating lunch or dinner right now, we might advise you to wait until later to listen to this. Yeah. I actually was eating a sub while I was researching leachmeniasis.
Starting point is 00:03:01 Tapeworm sub? No, that's the flesh eating. I know. Oh, was it a tapeworm sub? Yeah. It was undercooked meat, so yeah, probably. Whew. Anyway, we're talking about parasites and apparently pimp names, and let's get into it.
Starting point is 00:03:15 We're talking about three really gross ones, and technically we should say four because I want to give a shout out to my favorite. And Chuck also, I should probably say, anytime we do a segmented podcast, Chuck likes to time me because he's a big fat jerk. I don't like to time you, but if we want to get to all three, we only have a certain amount of time. And so I'm going to go ahead and hit start on my new iPhone. Okay.
Starting point is 00:03:37 Well, draconculiasis. Ah, you jerk. We're supposed to do leachmeniasis. Oh, yeah, leachmeniasis. Sorry, man. That's what we're starting with. This is the flesh-eating parasite. It is.
Starting point is 00:03:47 It's affectionately known. Tropics, subtropics, and southern Europe. Yeah. So we're safe for now. Well, unless we travel to one of these countries. True. Which you were prone to do. Oh, I guess.
Starting point is 00:03:59 I am wont to go to certain places sometimes. Yes, you are. But yeah, there's a lot of people who actually suffer from leachmeniasis, estimates are about 12 million infected worldwide. Uh-huh. And 350 million at risk. Yeah. And about 2 million new cases each year.
Starting point is 00:04:16 Right. And they're expecting this to go up, Chuck, thanks to our friend Climate Change. Thank you, Al Gore. Right. Um, because as the temperatures increase, the area where the sand fly can live increases as well. Mm-hmm. And yeah, it's the sand fly, which I wasn't familiar.
Starting point is 00:04:35 I think I had sand fly and black fly confused. But luckily, black flies don't spread leachmeniasis sand flies do, and these are actually about a third of the size of mosquitoes. Yes. You know, their bites are relatively painless if they're not pain-free. Right. Um, so yeah, you don't know that you're being bitten, and you certainly don't know that the saliva from this fly has actually just transferred some larva of this parasite into
Starting point is 00:05:02 your bloodstream. Yeah. And you know, I should point out too, you said that global warming is one reason this is on the rise. Well, another reason is because of our shenanigans in the Middle East. Yeah. Because it is, that place is lousy with sand flies in Afghanistan and Iraq and the like. So we think a lot of our personnel over there may be getting infected and bringing it back.
Starting point is 00:05:22 So leachmeniasis. Watch out. Mission accomplished. Yeah. Yeah. So Chuck, actually the concentration of where these cases are popping up is concentrated in just a handful of countries, old world and new world, but places like Syria and Brazil have the vast majority of these cases because this is where the sand fly lives.
Starting point is 00:05:43 But like you said, traveling, conquering, these things can, can, can transfer. Tourism and conquering. Yeah. Leachmeniasis, right? Uh-huh. So there's actually two kinds and a sub kind. The sub kind's my favorite. The cutanus is my favorite.
Starting point is 00:06:00 Is it? Let's describe the sore. If you have the cutanus, leachmeniasis, this is what's going to happen. You're getting a sore in your skin. What happens is as follows. And this is so gross. They describe the sore as ending up looking like a volcano. So it's got a raised edge and then a central crater, a little meaty central crater right
Starting point is 00:06:23 in the middle. Do you have leachmeniasis on your breast? Uh-huh. That's gross. Uh, some, uh, some of the sores are indeed covered by a scab and they can be painless or painful. Painful. Your breast is?
Starting point is 00:06:35 Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So my favorite chalk, if you'll allow me to take over for a moment, is mucosal or mucocutaneus. This is the stuff that like you see photos of when you type in flesh eating parasite, right? Yeah. What happens is is you get a cutaneus parasitic infection and it can spread to your mucous
Starting point is 00:06:56 membranes, e.g. your lips, your nostrils, that kind of thing. Basically the prominent features on your face get eaten away. Mm-hmm. Did you Google image any of these? Yeah. Yeah. So were you eating at the time? No, I was not.
Starting point is 00:07:09 I have not since. It's amazing. Like the people missing their noses. I saw one where it was a close up of this guy's nose and somebody had tweezers and was just kind of pulling it. And it was a still photo, but you could tell by the way it was being pulled, it was basically like jelly. Wow.
Starting point is 00:07:24 It's gross stuff, but they actually clear up on their own eventually. That's the good news. We read an article from the CDC describing leishmaniasis and I was just concerned to find under the how do I treat leishmaniasis, they're basically like, well, it goes away on its own eventually. Basically like there is no treatment. But it said it could take months or years. Right.
Starting point is 00:07:46 So do you want a volcano scab on your forearm for years or that thing? Yeah. On your breast? Yeah. It's gross. There's a really dangerous one though called visceral. Yeah. Leishmaniasis.
Starting point is 00:07:59 Yeah. So tell us about that, Chuckers. Yes, Josh. This is the nasty one. This is the one that attacks your liver and spleen and I think it enlarges them. Yeah. Your spleen actually can become larger than your liver, which ain't supposed to happen. That ain't supposed to happen.
Starting point is 00:08:12 And even your liver and it is. No, my liver is shrinking and hardening. Oh, is that what happens? Sure. Okay. So your liver is like a California raisin. Pretty much. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:22 And then not the dancing kind either. Yeah. Yeah. It'll kill you. It will. And like you said, it is nasty in that it is dangerous. It's not as nasty as mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, but it's still pretty dangerous stuff. Right.
Starting point is 00:08:37 So you want to know how this parasite, this parasite's life cycle occurs? It's pretty interesting actually. Yeah. Let's hear it. So you get bit by a sand fly, right? And the parasite actually is taken up, it enters the bloodstream, and it's taken up by macrophages, which are a type of white blood cell. So they're living happily and protected within the macrophages where they're reproducing
Starting point is 00:09:04 and eventually they cause the cell to lyse, it erupts. And all of a sudden, all these new parasites are released into your bloodstream and then they're taken up by more white blood cells and so on and so on. And so the process keeps continuing and they start multiplying exponentially. Wow. Yeah. Which is also how it's flesh eating. When it's attacking these cells, it's lysing the cells in your mucous membrane or around
Starting point is 00:09:31 your, like on your forearm or something like that, or in the case of visceral leishmaniasis, your internal organs. Right. But like we said, don't worry about it. It'll just go away on its own. Yeah. According to the CDC. All right.
Starting point is 00:09:44 Change your, press the timer, man. We're done with this one. All right. So that's leishmaniasis. Yes. On two. Number two. Dracunculiasis.
Starting point is 00:09:52 That's a good one. Yeah. This one's pretty awful too. This is really sad. It's commonly known as the guinea worm. Yeah. This is really sad because it affects the poorest of the poor in the world. That's the bad news because it comes from drinking unclean water.
Starting point is 00:10:05 The good news is they have largely eradicated it. Well, there's five countries that are stubbornly hanging on a guinea worm infection. Yeah, dude, we're talking, let's go back in time to 1986. I'm in the 10th grade. You're in elementary school. Yeah. You're drinking behind the elementary school. 86.
Starting point is 00:10:25 I was 10. I was in the baseball cards. Yeah. I was into that. I was drinking behind the elementary school. I was into Defender and Van Halen. Awesome. So 3.5 million people were infected every year back then.
Starting point is 00:10:37 And now, let's go back a couple of years to 2007 when I was into Defender and Van Halen. And I was drinking behind the elementary school. Yeah. That's scary. Only 9,585 cases were reported. So that's awesome. And most of those were in the Sudan and Ghana. So clearly some work to be done there.
Starting point is 00:10:57 Sure. So now we should talk about how gross this is. This is a very, very gross, gross parasite. This is the worst one, I think. What happens is it's generally taken up through a tainted water supply. Right. A year later. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:13 That's what was so frightening. As you drink bad water on vacation in Ghana, a year later, all of a sudden you say, hmm, what's that blister on my foot? Yeah. Well, the Tour Ghana Tourism Board is going to be really mad at you. I'm sure they are. The Greater Ghani's Chamber of Commerce is going to be after you, Chuck. Right.
Starting point is 00:11:30 So go ahead. There's no place on earth like Mississippi where sweet, spicy, and smoky flavors satisfy your spirits. Wherever you wander, plan today to visit Mississippi.org slash dining. Mississippi. Wanderers, welcome. Has your household been hit with COVID-19? Learn about a research study from the Comfort of Home.
Starting point is 00:11:50 We are looking at ways to help people with COVID-19 feel better, faster. Learn more at ActiveSixStudy.org slash radio. That's ACTIV6Study.org slash radio. All right. So basically, what is it, water fleas are easily infected with these parasites. And they show up in unsanitary water. You drink this water, you get a couple of water fleas in, or you can considerably just drink the larva, right?
Starting point is 00:12:17 Yes. The larva travel down to your intestine where they lodge. They can pass through the intestine, which most parasites can. And then they grow. Right. Well, the stomach acid, what I thought was interesting is it does not kill it. It kills the water fleas. Yes.
Starting point is 00:12:31 It leaves the parasite. Yes. Thank you. Stomach acid. Right. So yeah, the parasite sticks around and it grows and grows and grows to about two to three feet long. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:41 Or 60 to 100 centimeters long over the course of 10 to 14 months. And it's just the females that grow to this adult stage, right? Yeah. And they said it's as wide as a cooked spaghetti noodle. Yes. Three feet long. Yeah. In your intestine.
Starting point is 00:12:55 Yeah. And it's gross. That's not the worst part, though. Our guest producer, Lizzie, is about to hurl. I think we should make that our mission today. We should. Okay. So you've got this three-foot-long live spaghetti noodle that you can clearly identify as a female
Starting point is 00:13:10 detached from your intestine, and then it migrates to the skin. And here's where the beauty part begins. Yeah. A blister of oil forms on the site where the worm's about to emerge. And pop goes the weasel, the worm starts to poke its head out. Yep. Basically, you look down and you have a worm coming out of your body, and here's the tricky part.
Starting point is 00:13:33 What? Getting it out? No. Okay. So if you haven't picked up by now, parasites are arguably the most intelligent things on the planet, or at the very least, the most tenacious. The boil or the blister that occurs at the site where the worm's about to emerge, actually the pain associated with it is alleviated simply by dropping it in water.
Starting point is 00:13:54 Yeah. So contact with water triggers the guinea worm to release this milky white substance, which is actually millions of larvae into the water supply. So the water supply is now tainted and the life cycle begins again. Right. So you're in Ghana, you're feeling bad, you get in the river because it makes it feel better, and then all of a sudden everyone downstream is getting this milky secretion of eggs.
Starting point is 00:14:19 Yeah. They get infected. Yeah. Just so gnarly. It is. Yeah, really the best way to do this is to have a clean sanitary water supply. So the treatment for this is actually just preventative. You just make sure that a population has a clean water supply, right?
Starting point is 00:14:37 Right. Which is what the Carter Center has been working so hard for all these years. That's odd to mention that Carter Center out of nowhere. Well, no, the Carter Center. They've been doing all this work. Oh, they have? Yeah. Since when?
Starting point is 00:14:49 Trying to eradicate GWD. How did they help with that drop from 3.5 million to less than 10,000 cases in about 10 years? You got it, buddy. Huh. Well, way to go, Jimmy Carter. Did I not mention that? No.
Starting point is 00:15:01 All apologies. Oh, okay. So the Carter Center is working on eradicating the Guinea worm. Sure. Among other groups. Gotcha. World Health Organization. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:09 Right. Okay. So yes. So we've got it down, but let's say that you do have a polluted water source, and all of a sudden you have a 3-foot-long cooked spaghetti noodle coming out of your leg in a boil. Yes. What do you do, Chuck?
Starting point is 00:15:24 What do you do? Well, one thing you can do, Josh, is you can pull it out, and you can only do this a few centimeters at a time. On a daily basis. I'm glad I read this, because if I ever had this, I would yank that thing and pull it out from my intestine in one long piece of spaghetti. Woof. But apparently you can't do that.
Starting point is 00:15:41 I imagine it would break off or something and cause an infection. And you just make it mad, and you don't want to make a guinea worm. No, you don't. They're tough. So what you do is you wrap it around a piece of gauze or a small stick, a little bit at a time. Every day. Every day.
Starting point is 00:15:53 And for several weeks. For several weeks until it's out. That's one thing you can do. Or it can be surgically removed clearly by a trained professional, but we're talking about the poorest of the poor in the world, and they can't, they don't have access to this. Or you can just blow your head off. Well, that's another option.
Starting point is 00:16:07 Sure. But the big problem with guinea worm disease, or when it was a real problem, is that it's a disease of poverty. But it's also a cause of poverty. It is. Because if you have a three foot long cooked spaghetti noodle coming out of your leg, you're pretty much temporarily disabled until that thing comes out. You can't farm.
Starting point is 00:16:29 No. You can't take care of your children. Right. It's very sad. So it does have an economic impact. It's a cycle, man. It makes everything even worse. It does.
Starting point is 00:16:37 But luckily, again, we've largely eradicated it, except for Ghana and Mali. Right. Asia is completely clear of it now, and they used to have a problem with it. All right, Chuck. Well, then turn off your timer again, buddy. That was a good one. I thought so as well. Are we leaving this part in where you're actually manipulating the timer?
Starting point is 00:16:54 Yes. We'll find out, huh? On to tapeworms. Tapeworms. This one is pretty common. The big finish, huh? Everybody knows tapeworms. There's that tapeworm diet, which actually is real.
Starting point is 00:17:04 Is it really? Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're not endorsing that, by the way. No. I'm just big on calorie-restricted diets. Sure. And knowledge.
Starting point is 00:17:13 Even Chuck won't let me endorse that one, but still. This is, we chose this one because it's actually really interesting. The study of tapeworms has revealed a change in understanding of human evolution. Big deal. Or at least a parapsytology. Potentially. Yeah, we always thought, humans always thought that we get tapeworms from animals. It's a lot, Cal and Pig, for giving us tapeworms.
Starting point is 00:17:37 Stupid pigs. There's some research that's been done that actually turns the tables, Josh, and in a switcheroo, it looks like we may have started the whole thing and given it to the animals. So sorry, Pig. Sorry, Cal. Not only did we domesticate you for slaughter, we also gave you the tapeworm. So tapeworms, known affectionately in the medical community, is tania. There's tania-solium, which we'll talk about that's distinct from tania-saganata and tania-asiatica.
Starting point is 00:18:09 Nice job. Thank you. I worked on pronunciations like all day. You did great. Saganata andasiatica, both actually for their life cycle, require an herbivore in there as an intermediate host to get to their definitive host, us. The carnivore. Carnivores.
Starting point is 00:18:27 Does this mean a vegetarian or a vegan wouldn't be infected? We would think so, but look out for tania-solium, which will get anybody. Very broad range, including dogs, it said. That's very sad. Right. Yeah. Once we domesticated dogs, cows, pigs, again, we thought that that's when we started getting tapeworms.
Starting point is 00:18:46 Actually, tapeworms go back as far as about 2.7 million years, humans or hominids have had some sort of trouble with all of the retching and the pooping and stuff like that. If you believe that kind of thing, we've been around for 2.7 million years, if you believe that hogwash, sorry. For people who love food, there's no place on earth quite like Mississippi, where a melting pot of culinary talent blends the flavors of yesterday and today. Sweet, savory, spicy, and smoky flavors that'll satisfy your spirits wherever you choose to wander.
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Starting point is 00:19:52 We'll send medications to your door and you'll take surveys completely online. Learn more at ActiveSixStudy.org slash radio, that's A-C-T-I-V-6-Study.org slash radio. So Chuck, let's talk about tapeworms, what they do, how they do it, what they look like. All right, we're talking about intestinal tapeworm infections. A lot of times they're not detected because it's pretty mild, symptom-wise. I assume that one or both of us has a tapeworm right now. Exactly. Can I tell you something?
Starting point is 00:20:26 Oh boy. Yes. So, I'm actually a big proponent of high colonics. Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. God, I learned so much. They are mood-changing.
Starting point is 00:20:35 Really? And you have to get to. And also, anyone who goes out and gets a high colonic, make sure the place you go is ultra-sanitized and insist on watching them sanitize the machine. So Jerry's house with colonics is probably not where you want to go. Especially not a producer's Jerry's house with colonics. I mean, she's tidy, but I wouldn't accept a high colonic from her, right? I got a high colonic, two of them.
Starting point is 00:21:00 The second one, it was like I was a brand new person. I literally felt reborn. Really? But the guy who was running the place was telling me about a customer. It's so perverse. They have this table set up, and it's like a doctor's exam table. And you have certain things sticking certain places. And then a tube.
Starting point is 00:21:18 Dr. Frankenstein? Going out, sure. You have a tube going out, right? And then there's mirrors showing the whole thing. So you're seeing all the stuff. One guy had to call the owner in who was telling me the story. And he had stopped up the tube, and they went in, removed the tube, got it out. You know what it was?
Starting point is 00:21:38 It was a fist-sized ball of worms. You're kidding. The guy had no symptoms, had no clue they were in there. And all of a sudden, a fist-sized ball of worms come out. Well, it's pretty clear why the Discovery show is called Monsters Inside Me. Yeah. A fistful of monsters inside of you. So high colonics equal getting rid of worms sometimes.
Starting point is 00:22:01 That's my little aside there, Chuck. Yeah. I'm going to Jerry's house of colonics right after this. You should. So Chuck, how do we get these tapeworms that come out in fist-sized balls? Well there's different ways, Josh. It's usually you can get it through eating food, but there's a little disturbing asset to all this.
Starting point is 00:22:22 Is fecal matter has to be involved? Yeah. I saw in this article that you could get it through intimate contact. But if fecal matter has to be present, what is that? I don't know. And you out there in podcasting can make your own call there. But if, let's say, you were preparing some food and you have poop on your hands. You have some poop or something involved.
Starting point is 00:22:41 There was poop involved. Yeah. Then you could get it. It's an undercooked pork, I think is one way that you can get the, which one was it, the T-solium? No. Is it? I thought so.
Starting point is 00:22:54 No. Yeah. It's often found. I think sodium is the only one that doesn't require an herbivore. It's the other two that does. Well, it said its T-solium is often found in raw or undercooked pork and is therefore called the pork tapeworm. Gotcha.
Starting point is 00:23:05 Well, that's pretty definitive. It sounds like it. Yeah. At least that's what Dr. Hoberg says. So one of the things I found disturbing was this. So you know how tapeworms are segmented? Yeah. First of all, they can grow up to 65 feet or 20 meters long.
Starting point is 00:23:20 That's disturbing. And they're heavily segmented. Each segment can contain up to 40,000 eggs, larvae eggs. Unbelievable. All right. These eggs can actually live 25 years out in the open. So if you poop somewhere like in the desert at age 25, if you go back and visit your poop in the desert at age 50, if there were tapeworm eggs in there, you could conceivably eat them
Starting point is 00:23:48 and start it over again. That's crazy. Isn't that gross? That is. And if you swallow these eggs, Josh, the larvae can actually penetrate your intestinal wall and lodge in an organ or form a cyst. Well, yeah. They can form brain cysts.
Starting point is 00:24:04 They can also attach to any organ, including your eye and brain. Which can cause, they've said they've linked it to blindness and epilepsy. And insanity. And insanity. Out of magic. Seizures, yeah. What else is there? Paralysis.
Starting point is 00:24:21 A lack of equilibrium, like vertigo dizziness, that kind of thing. Right. It's bad stuff. It is. So stay away from dirty pigs. And don't cook if you have poop on your hands. Just get somebody else to cook. That's a good rule anyway.
Starting point is 00:24:36 It's not that important. Maybe go out to eat. Maybe call. Yeah. Does that it? On tapeworms? Yeah. We already covered the part about how it turns out we infected livestock, right?
Starting point is 00:24:45 Yeah. Sorry, pigs. So that's three, uh, three gross parasites. Again, I want to say, I want to give a shout out to my favorite, which we didn't cover because there's actually a dearth of information out there on it. It's called the human bot fly. Bot fly. Oh yeah, the bot fly.
Starting point is 00:25:01 Did you read my blog post on it? I did. Did you watch the video? I did. Isn't that awesome? It is. The bot fly actually doesn't sting or lay its eggs or spread its larva directly into humans.
Starting point is 00:25:14 It uses, um, mosquitoes to do it for them. So it, these flies actually capture a mosquito mid-flight, lay some eggs on it, and then the mosquito flies around with the eggs until they hatch into larvae. Once the larva hatch, the mosquito, um, plunges its, uh, proboscis into a human or any, any mammal, I believe. Into me. They're. Okay.
Starting point is 00:25:37 So the larva are actually transferred. They go under the, under the skin, so they're an eat your fatty tissue for, uh, several weeks. Uh, and then finally, uh, a maggot emerges from your skin and falls off and goes into the soil where it burrows in, until the pupa, then that's the pupa stage and then it emerges as an adult bot fly. That's the wrath of con. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:00 And there is no treatment for it. Also people who have these things, they, they, as they grow, they stay close to the surface. So if you cut, there, it breathes through your skin, right through a hole in your skin. Um, and if you cover it up, you can feel the maggot moving underneath your skin. People have reported. Why was this not in the top three? Because there's not that much information on it, but we're still talking about it anyway, buddy.
Starting point is 00:26:23 True. Um, and then the only way to get rid of it is to actually pop it out. So if you go to the blogs at howstuffworks.com, you can, uh, I think you go through older posts and you find one on the bot fly. It's probably a couple of weeks old by the time this, this podcast comes out. And if you're into parasites or that kind of thing, we will definitely, that's one thing. But while you're getting help, while you're filling out the requisite insurance forms, you should probably check out, um, monsters inside me on animal planet on Wednesdays at
Starting point is 00:26:57 nine and Chuck and I don't hawk this anything like this is a cool show. Yeah. Cool and gross. That kind of thing. And no, you are. And again, that website, you're abusing our listeners. Oh, they love it. Um, that website for monsters inside me has, uh, one of the great writers on staff here
Starting point is 00:27:16 at howstuffworks.com, Robert Lamb, but to work by him, Robert's one of my favorite guys. He rocked it out. So yeah, so there you go. Three gross parasites plus the bot fly. And that means it's time for a listener mail. So Josh, I'm just going to call this listener mail from two dudes, uh, someone took you to task on Superman. Did you read those?
Starting point is 00:27:38 Did we only get two? Well, we had a few people right in, but I'm going, I'm going to read Thomas. Like really ultimately Chuck, I don't, it's gotten to the point where I'm not sure why I opened my mouth unless I'm definitively sure I know what I'm talking about because I tend to say the exact opposite of what's true. I know, but you know, that's, uh, that's part of the show, you know, people like finding little tidbits that we get wrong. It's becoming the crux of the show.
Starting point is 00:27:58 No, no, no, no. These are, these are little tidbits. This isn't, this is not high science here. It's about Superman for God's sakes. Um, hi guys have been listening to your great podcast for a while and I love them. I've never sent an email, but I felt I needed to correct something in the earthquake podcast. You said Superman lied to Lex Luthor's girlfriend, I believe was his test marker, uh, not true. Superman did not lie.
Starting point is 00:28:20 She made him a promise. She made him promise to save her mother before stopping the missile headed for California. He reluctantly agreed and she removed his kryptonite necklace and flew to Hackensack, New Jersey to save Ms. Testmarker's mom. After he pushed the missile to space, he turned around to see the second missile hit the San Andreas Fault. So sorry, Superman did not lie. And he even says, uh, in his own words, Lois, I never lie.
Starting point is 00:28:46 It comes from Thomas from Harvard, Illinois. He's a dogmatic and inflexible. He may have toxoplasma. I think he does. Uh, and this is from Anthony. Hey, Chuckers. Listen to the new podcast on Twinkies. He didn't address you.
Starting point is 00:28:59 I thought that was rude. No one does. Well, cause they think that you don't read the listener mirror when in fact you do. Yeah. I get the listener emails too. You just don't respond and read them on the air. Right. You should clear that up.
Starting point is 00:29:10 Josh reads everything. Yeah. Thanks. So, hey, Chuckers and Josh. Oh, he did say that. I just missed it. Uh, that was a whole lot of unnecessary. Twinkies reminded me of a time in the early nineties when I worked at the state news, Michigan
Starting point is 00:29:20 States University's, uh, independent student newspaper. We had. We had. We had a weekly junk food cookie day when we would all chip in a buck or two, uh, multiplied by a staff of fixed 50 or 60 and get heaps of sugary and salty snacks while gorging ourselves. Uh, on Twinkies, we had a debate about their shelf life. We took some gaffer tape. One of your favorite things.
Starting point is 00:29:41 I love gaffer tape. And, uh, stuck a two pack up on the inside of a locker, intending to leave it for as long as possible for over three years. We watched the Twinkies disintegrate into heaps of powder, but never during our experiment during, uh, did we see any mold visible? Uh, we eventually threw away the package and it comes from Anthony, well, Anthony, Michigan State alum. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:05 What year did he say? Uh, he didn't. Well, he said early nineties. So he was, he was my age. Yeah. We were grunging it out. Old. You cried when Kurt Cobain died, didn't you?
Starting point is 00:30:15 No. Well, if like Chuck, you cried when Kurt Cobain died, you can send us an email about that to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?
Starting point is 00:30:48 For people who love food, there's no place on earth quite like Mississippi, where a melting pot of culinary talent blends the flavors of yesterday and today, sweet, savory, spicy and smoky flavors that'll satisfy your spirits wherever you choose to wander. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami, setting an aspiring private investigator on a collision course with corruption and multiple murders. The detective agency would turn out to be a front for a drug pilot would claim he did it all for this CIA. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, join me for murder in Miami.
Starting point is 00:31:38 Talk about walking into the devil's den. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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