The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Ancient Enemies to Lovers, Landscape of Fear, Hoax of the Century

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Ali Hazelwood joins the show to divulge the scientific hoax of the century, Rachel shows how wolves create a landscape of fear, and Sandra talks about Puebloans carrying logs with their heads—and maybe falling in love. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our Facebook group or tweet at us! Click here to learn more about all of our stories!  Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman  Link to Jess' Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman Produced by Jess Boddy: www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy Popular Science: www.twitter.com/PopSci Theme music by Billy Cadden: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: bit.ly/WeirdestThingILearnedThisWeek Check out Weirdest Thing on YouTube: bit.ly/WeirdestThingILearnedThisWeekYouTube If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: bit.ly/WeirdestThingILearnedThisWeek Thanks to our sponsors!  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/WEIRDEST and get on your way to being your best self.  Right now, get up to 55% off your subscription when you go to https://Babbel.com/WEIRDEST Babbel—Language for life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Get 20% off your first order now with code Weirdest. That's code Weirdest for 20% off. Whatever your thing. It could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing.

Generate images or videos of your thing. Make decks for presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and text stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you?

Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feltman. I am Sandra Gutierrez and I am Ali Hazelwood. Ali, welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you. Thank you so much for having me. This is so cool. Listeners, this is, Sandra are big fans of this writer.

Huge, huge. She is known for writing romance with a scientific flair, an academic flair. Would you tell our listeners a little bit more about your work, including a new book? Yes, yeah, of course. So yeah, like I said, my name is Ali Hazelwood and I write like rom-coms set in STEM academia so far. By training, I am a neuroscientist. And yeah, and my next book, which is called Love Theoretically, is actually coming out in about a week. And it's set in physics, which is not my field at all. But, you know, I tried. That's exciting. He thinks he's hard.

Yes, agreed. I can't wait to read it though. Awesome. Well, we thought it would be so much fun to have you on the show and maybe talk about, you know, some of the science history that maybe shows up in some of your books. So let's get into it. On the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about, some sort of story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, reading fan fiction, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first.

Then once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. Sandra, what's your tease? Okay, I have something more mysterious than weird this time, but I'm going to talk to you about how Pueblo peoples might have used their heads. physical heads to transport 200,000 timbers that were used to build the spectacular great houses that remain to this day in Czechos Canyon, New Mexico. It's really exciting. That is very cool. And also, I really appreciate you clarifying that you mean their literal heads because... Yes, not their brains.

Their physical muscles on their heads is really cool. Awesome. It would be such a cool twist if she had said the heads and then it was actually the brain, but like she had gotten us hooked to do with that. I mean, honestly, It might have been both. So it's like a dabble-wamy sort of thing. Amazing. So my tease is that I am going to talk about how wolves can help humans get into fewer car crashes. Oh, okay. I'm confused, but that's a good thing.

Yeah, yeah, that's what we go for. Ali, what's your tease? Okay, first of all, your teases are so good. I am feeling. very inferior right now, but I will power through. My tease is I will talk about what I think is the greatest academic hoax in this century. Okay. That's a pretty good tease.

Well, wait, the past century, because apparently the 90s were another century. Yeah, very true. Shocking. Ali, it is so rude of you to remind us that, honestly. But also, like, you're being like, oh, your teeth are so good. You're selling it, baby. Honestly. It's because I think I'm overselling mine.

But, you know, I got to. No such thing. No such thing. Well, I have a rule that we never make guests go first. So, Sondra, why don't you start us off with people using their heads? Literally and figuratively. Yes, absolutely. So, okay, I'm going to tell you about this quite sort of fresh out of the oven earlier this year study,

where four researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder strapped 136 pound logs to their head to try and solve a long-lasting Puebloan mystery. That's dedication. I know, I know. That's grad school, baby. It gets better. I've been the IRB loved that when they wrote it in the study. We lose trap now.

I mean, guys, you should see the illustrations and the photos in the study. They are chef's kiss. Amazing. Okay, but first, before I tell you all about that, I'm going to, you know, just in case you don't know who the Pueblo peoples are, I'm going to give you like a little primer, okay? So Pueblo peoples or Puebloans are an array of different cultures native to the southwestern of the United States, specifically the areas around the four corners region, which is where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet.

Three hours northwest of Albuquerque in New Mexico is Chaco Canyon, which from the 850 to 1,200 CE was the most important political and ceremonial center for the ancestral Puebloans. There, they built their famous stone and adobe dwellings along the cliff walls, as well as semicircular constructions known as great houses and ritual structures called kivas. The Czechoculture National Historical Park in New Mexico is a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site, and if you go there, you'll see the largest and most popular example of Puebloan architecture, the great house of Pueblo Bonito. This is a truly impressive structure that was the center of the Czechos world. It covers three acres. It was divided into two parts by a giant 97-fit-high wall,

and it included plazas or squares, living quarters, and great kivas. It is truly an archaeological icon, so think Machu Picchu, but New Mexico. Now, there has been a long-lasting mystery surrounding not Ali Pueblo Bonito, but all the amazing structures throughout Chacoa Canyon. Scientists just do not know how Chicoans built them. You see, they calculate that 200,000 timbers were used in the construction, but there are no trees anywhere near the site. If you Google pictures of Chaco Canyon, you'll see there is a lot of dirt, and some bushes, but nothing you can make a beam out of. So where do the trees come from?

In 2001, tree ring experts at the University of Arizona used chemical analysis and discovered that the wood in the Puebloan constructions was sourced from mountain ranges at least 46 miles away. The further roast Chuska Mountains are 62 miles away from Chacoa Canyon. Well, yeah. So from the creators of how did the Egyptians move those jubes? giant stone blocks and the producers of, I wonder how the Rapa Nui move the hefty moai comes, well, how did the Chaconians do it? So just a reminder, guys, they had no wheel, no draft animals,

so no horses, no oxen, nor any other type of modern carriage systems that we know of. Plus, archaeologists have not found scraped marks on the grounds around Chaka Canyon that would hint at the logs being dragged or pushed. So the logs had to be carried by hand by Puebloans. So definitely a very hefty task. Now, just so you can imagine the ginormous task that I'm talking about here, you need to know that the roof timbers in the great houses like Pueblo Bonito were 16 feet long and 190 pounds. To make the mystery even more mysterious, because of course, why you're not add to that the fact that oral tradition archaeological remains and other types of cultural evidence make absolutely no reference as to how chicoans might have moved the timbers now of course

scientists have had theories for a while so let's sure at least one history channel documentary has said it was aliens of course of course i mean i'm not going to touch on that but i bet some people think that. So, okay, the first one, one of the theories is based on a photograph from 1925 that shows young men from Suni Pueblo carrying logs at the Pueblo Bonito excavation. Now, unfortunately, I couldn't find the picture. I googled for it. I couldn't find it. So I can't describe it to you in my own words. All I have is the description from the University of Colorado Boulder study. Now, a little warning. I do not know if it's because English is only my second language, but honestly, I don't think this description says a lot, but I'm going to read it to you anyway in case you can paint a picture of your head.

I'm on the edge of my seat. It goes like this. The image shows eight people for each side, holding relatively thin cross poles at hip height with a timber laid at top of the cross poles. That's it. That's the tweet. Listen. Yeah, it's pretty bare bones. Yeah, I mean, I read this over and over again, and I was like, am I dumb? Like, I don't know, but I honestly hoped it helped because it sure as hell did nothing for me.

But anyway, the authors of the study say that even if this is the method employed by Sunni Pueblo descendants, you just can't assume this is how it was done at Czech Canyon as well. Also, a 1971 study found that carrying hefty loads with your hands is like the worst method in terms of ergonomics and energy costs. So, yeah, it's not the best theory. The most popular theory before this study was that 46 Chequans might have used cross poles to carry the logs in segments of 35 inches that weighted approximately 165 pounds. The problem, of course, is that no one bothered to actually try it and see if it was humanly possible. So, again, we don't know. But now, finally, to the fun part.

Okay. Anthropologists and physiologists at the University of Colorado Boulder proposed that they, timber in the Chakuan constructions were actually moved only by a few people at a time using tump lines and of course here's when you ask the obvious follow-up question which is come on guys what is a thump line okay thank you for asking i would love to tell you i was also having the english is my second language moment and i was like should i know should i have no idea no one knows It is really funny because that is very normal for us like non-native English speakers is like, am I dumb? And English speakers are like, no, that is not a normal word.

But anyway, thank you for asking. I would love to tell you. So a tump line is, quote, a simple strap supported by the head that attaches to the load, often in a basket, which rests on the lower back. The study says tump lines, quote, should be positioned approximately over the coronal suture line of the skull, because doing so aligns the straps with the cervical vertebrae such that neck muscles forces are minimized. Now, that sort of means not a lot.

So I come with images. Yeah. Yay. So just so you can imagine what we're talking about here, think of an IKEA bag. Okay? Sure. Using it as a tump line would basically require you

to use the straps off the bag as a headband, but instead of putting it on front to peasant. back, as you normally would, you would put it on back to front. So you sort of hang the straps of the IKEA bag on the very top of your head, if that makes any sense. Now, because the straps on the IKEA bag are not that long, the load would sit against your shoulders, your upper back, right? But in the case of a tump line, the straps would be wider and longer so that the bag would sit against your lower back. Finally, imagine the IKEA bag is not really a bag, but it is a basket. So there you go. That's a tump line. All right. I hope that helped. I mean, it's a good example, I think.

Anyway. Yeah, it's a very good mental image. I mean, everyone. I am still picturing the basket the same like neon yellow as the Ikeobanks, but yes. Amazing. Markitable term files. That's a free idea for you, IKEA. Anyway, there's a lot of evidence that shows that this is actually the method Chacoans used to carry a lot of stuff across the San Juan basin, which is where the Chaco Canyon is. They used it for things like water to maize, to ceramics, minerals. And this is from the study also, macaws. I mean, just imagine like a basket of macaws. It's just nice. I don't know. Like full of bird. Yeah. Like full of birds. It's like, you know, like, you know. Like alive? I guess. I don't know. It's like a desserts basket. Congratulations.

Congratulations for your new book. Here's a basket of macaws. Amazing. I would love them. A rude gift to give unprompted, a little presumptuous. But I would be delighted in the moment. Then I would be like, oh, crap. What do I do?

I think I got a whole basket full of macaws. My cats would love them so much and they would be so grateful. So I hope someone comes through and gets me a basket. Well, now you know, Ali Hayes. Baselwood fans, Senderos basket of macaws. Okay. Chequins would have used straps made from the fibers of an edible root called yucca, and two or more people would have worn these to howl a log.

So back to the IKEA bag example, what the authors of this paper suggests is that there might have been two people with the bags hanging from their heads, standing one beside the other, maybe four to five feet apart. And now imagine the IKEA bags are actually two ends of the same big heavy, timber hanging from the straps hooked to the top of the Chikawa's heads. And then they walk for 62 miles. You can't imagine the friendships that are born out of these trips. I mean, it's a Seinfeld episode, like a pre-Columbian Seinfeld episode in the making. Exactly. So my husband and I have a tandem and we got it from my uncle who is kind of like the tandem guy on the East Coast. There are only so many

people making bikes for two plus people. And he always says, wherever your relationship is going, it'll get there faster on a tandem. And I feel like the same is true of being tied up together carrying a giant log. That like buddies will will have bromances blossom. Frenemies will tear each other apart. It's definitely the IKEA of the past. You know how like IKEA is the ultimate, the ultimate task for a relationship. Make air break it.

Absolutely. There was only one log. There was only one log. And like it's literally, you know, when you have, I don't know, it's a very like popular trope in fan fiction when you have to people who are like handcuffs together. Right. Oh my God. And like the first proximity of it,

I can imagine so many Pueblo love stories. Oh my God, this is so, my imagination is rotten wild right now. I love it, I love it. I just love it so much. Okay, not to get your hopes up too much, but I am now going to tell you that this study does not actually tell us how Chicoas moved the 200,000 timbers over 62 miles, but it is the first empirical investigation of how the ancient people of,

Chaco Canyon might have accomplished such an incredible feat. And because this was empirical, the words I said, three of the four authors of this study trained for three months to test if they could and how long would it take them to transport a 132 pound pine timber over 15.5 miles using tump lines made out of nylon webbing and foam padding. Now, I will say, I seriously doubt that the Chicoans had some padding. So I don't know that if that is scientifically correct, but I don't know. No one wants to have like tump line burns on your forehead. That is not nice. Right. They made it easier for themselves. But again, probably it was the IRV that is like, probably the IRB was like, no, we cannot allow you. Yeah, we don't want to be legally liable for sure. Exactly. For sure. Well, considering small breaks every 20 minutes and longer breaks every two and a half month.

Miles, researchers completed the test in a total time of nine hours and 44 minutes, walking at an average speed of 2.8 miles per hour. So great news. Yes, tampalines are a perfectly feasible method of carrying heavy timbers over long distances. Researchers say that tampalines were surprisingly comfortable, and that is a quote. And communication, this is what we're talking about. Communication was key to coordinating the walk and avoiding the timber from source. swaying from side to side. So they had to actually like come together as a team and like do it. So

friends to enemies for the win. Honestly. Okay. I love it. They also used a tokma, which is a T-shaped wooden tool used by tumbline using porters in Nepal to avoid unloading and reloading the log before and after breaks. So basically instead of taking the tump lines off, they just kept them on while they were on break and gave the log its own seat to rest, which is so cute. That there is something really adorable about that. I don't know. I don't know why, but it is. Given the results, researchers calculate that bigger 190-pound primary beams, which were used in the construction of the great houses in Chaka Canyon,

would have required three carriers instead of two, and they would have needed around four days to cover the 62 miles between Chakakon and Chuska-Malongi, and Chuska Mountains, which again is the farther most identified source of timber. That includes time for meals, breaks, and sleeping eight hours a night, which I think it's safe to say it's more than any of us are getting right now, though to be fair, we're not carrying jam logs on our backs, so I guess it's fine. There are much larger, heavier timbers used in the construction in Chaco Canyon, so transporting those the authors calculate would require even more people.

So to finish, strapping huge timber to your heads for science is fun and all, but theorizing about the method Czechos used to move logs around could also tell us a lot about the kind of society they were. Previous studies by tree ring experts found that the 5,000 beams used in the construction of one of the great houses, for example, were harvested within a two-year span, which suggests that Czechosans might have had like large-scale construction events where a lot of the people in Chaco Canyon might have been involved. Now, we don't know exactly what motivated people to engage in these large halls.

Given that Chaco Canyon is widely understood as being a ceremonial center and that the mountains are sacred places for descendant Pueblo societies, the authors say that carrying heavy logs for long distances might have been an act of religious devotion and pilgrimage. Quote, an act of symbolically bringing spiritual power to the monumental center at Chaco and incorporating the blessings of the mountains into Chaco's great houses. They also speculate about the possibility of timber howling as a tool to perpetuate and, quote, an equal regional, ritual-based Chacoan society,

given that the wood was being used to build monumental structures only the Chacoan elite would have had access to. So capitalism. Oral traditions. I mean, it was obviously one of the theories. Oral traditions describe Chaco and Great Houses and as being built by enslaved people. So a vertical societal structure with a log howling lower class, for example, is definitely a possibility. And this is how you get your PhD by sticking a log on your head.

Just that. So easy. That is how you do it. That is how you do it. So go. Get a PhD. Do it. Yeah, this is great. It also definitely made me think of, Eddie Izard's sketch about Stonehenge. She has a great bit about how far away the rocks came from and how like people wouldn't have even known how to get back to their houses after dragging those stones. I think, yeah, it's such a trope at this point

that modern humans are like, why would they have put that much effort into it? It's like, yeah, why do people do anything? I mean, do you know how much time and effort it requires to do one TikTok? And how that doesn't get you anywhere? Too well. Like you have to do that constantly. Like people do this for a job.

Yeah, it's true. 10,000 years from now, they'll be like, they were insane. I do not know how they did it. Wait, they edited those TikToks from scratch by themselves. Oh my God. The skill. The artistry. The craftsmanship.

I can't wait for, you know, if humanity survives long enough for somebody to do a PhD on like, you know, the primitive methods of social media and video make. I just pray to God, I'll be alive at that point. I doubt it. But I honestly, I'm going to subscribe to that. from heaven. We are going to be part of the ethnographic interviews. We're going to be the other ship who share their reason. That is so nice to think about. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with some more facts. Did you know that there's an online cannabis

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Hilton, for this day. All right, we're back. And I'm going to talk about how wolves can help humans get into fewer car crashes. Indeed, it's true. So, okay. I mean, I'm still confused, but please, I'm dying to know. I'll tell you a lot more. I feel like, yeah, we're coming to this from like a deer perspective,

where deer are not the best thing for cars, but maybe we should open our minds to the wolf. Well, and you're absolutely right to bring up deer because deer are involved. Oh my God, wait, is it because they kill deer and that's why? Not quite. But it's more, it's weirder than that.

So anyone who's spent time driving in like an even vaguely rural or suburban area, knows that deer have a like, preternatural ability to get hit by human cars. They're so good at it. As someone who learned to drive in like the middle of nowhere,

where it was like a bunch of country highways through farms and wood, I always joke that like pretty much the only driving skill I still feel confident about after a decade of living in New York City is my ability to spot a deer about to dive into the street.

that and understanding traffic circles, which for some reason South Jersey can't get enough of in a way that the rest of the U.S. like really doesn't keep up with. So when I'm abroad and I'm the passenger, I absolutely can tell people what's going on. But anyway, listeners might also recall that when we had Mary Roach on to talk about her book, Fuzz, we learned about like all the research that goes into, you know, what kinds of animals are safer to just take. it versus swerve away from. Spoiler, don't hit a moose. It will hit you back. But don't swerve away from a deer. That is like hitting a wall, basically.

Just like an ampler-waring wall. Yeah, very dangerous. But with a deer, it's more dangerous to swerve generally the more you know. Go to know. So, yeah, deer crashes are a huge problem. There are an estimated 1 to 2 million crashes between. cars and large animals such as deer every year in the U.S. And like most of those are deer.

It, though, my college boyfriend did hit a cow once. Oh my God. Those are also very sturdy. Yeah, the cow is fine. What? I think we need to start. We need to start because I think that cows have not fast enough than they would just appear out of nowhere.

Yeah, that's the thing. I, he was, my, my lovely, uh, college boyfriend, sure deal was, uh, supposed to drive me somewhere. Um, and I got a text from him being like, I can't, I can't drive you. And I was like, uh, why? Very last minute, rude. And he was like, well, I hit a cow with my car. I was like, you're what?

This is fake. But it was because if you, if you want to break up with me, just break up with me. Okay. Yeah. Don't get a cow involved. Snowy and foggy. So the cow had the visibility had been low. And he had kind of seen the cow too late.

The cow was just like standing there in the road. He did manage to slow down enough that like the cow just walked away. But his car was totaled because cows are big. So anyway, yeah, it can happen. Keep an eye out. I love that the car just keeps. Charlie like probably gave him a disgusted look and then walked on her. How dare you? I'm just going to go about my day. Bye. So yeah, these crashes every year, one to two million of them. They lead to 26,000 injuries, eight billion dollars in property damage and other costs and around 200 human deaths. And in rural states where

these kinds of collisions are most common. Wyoming, for example, wildlife vehicle crashes represent like a fifth of all reported car crashes. So big issue, definitely worth solving. And actually, the problem might be even worse than that. There was a study out of Minnesota recently

that basically analyzed the number of like roadside deer, etc. And they were like, We're pretty sure only 10% of these collisions get reported because there are way more of them than the reported collisions could account for. So what can we do about it? Apparently, wolves. In 2021, a study in Wisconsin found an interesting connection between the all too common phenomenon

of deer collisions and the presence of wild wolves. So according to 22 years of data, having wolves around means people. hit deer less often. And before I explain why, I just want to talk a little bit about why we're able to compare wolfy areas versus non-wolfy areas in an empirical way. So gray wolves were delisted from the Endangered Species Act in the Great Lakes region where this study was done in 2012 because their population had really grown. But then there was so much hunting. that only around a year later they were relisted, which is just to say that their population,

their wild population has very much been in flux in the U.S. After, like, really taking a hit and then having some protections. And now it's become very controversial as to whether you should, like, protect local wolf populations so they thrive, or whether, like, actually they might attack, pets and livestock, which they totally will do. So there's always

kind of this push and pull over whether we're protecting wolves or actively trying to get rid of them or somewhere in between. And as a result, in a lot of parts of the U.S., you can kind of look at a lot of flux in the population from

like one county to another and one year to the next as they sort of like reacclimated and then maybe got hunting. down to almost nothing and then maybe came back. So they were able to take advantage of this and look at historical data. They looked at deer collision data in 63 counties, 29 of which had wolves from 1988 to 2016. And so they matched the collision data with maps from the Department of Natural Resources that showed times and places where wolves were making a comeback.

So, ergo, they were able to say, do more wolves mean less to your crashes? And it did. You know, the wolves meant fewer deers were getting hit by cars. Now, you might assume that's because the wolves are eating the deer. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. And listen, that's definitely part of it. After all, like, deer populations have a tendency to really run amok if there aren't

predators keeping them in check. That's why a lot of people argue and that there should be hunting of deer permitted, even if like nothing else is permitted, because deer will get like really sick and mess up habitats if they aren't regulated. So can I just interject? And I don't know if it's the same for you, Sandra, but like I'm from Italy and we don't really have deer. No. We don't like I guess we do have deer but um listen listen like the only deer in Chile is called apodoo which is basically the size of a cat and that is like they're so cute they're

very cute. Nobody's led to hunt those. I'll bite them. No no no no no no actually they're endangered species and everything. Yeah no the government will too but me personally yeah absolutely but yeah is the kind of deer that I've never seen a deer in my life and the only association I have with deer other than, yes, they will kill you if you crush into them on the road, is like ticks. And I hate ticks above all else in life. So I'm like when Rachel is like, yeah, we should hunt deer. And I'm like, yes, hunt them down. Oh my God.

For me, it's the opposite because we have no deer. And like they are, I actually recently moved to Austin and I am in the suburbs and here it's full of deer. And I'm like, they are the cutest thing I've ever seen. They have very cute. Yeah. Really cute, like white fluffy tails. And I'm like, how would you consider this like a pest?

They are beautiful, amazing. We should revere them. We should feed them. Like we give them, you know, if we have like fruit, we give them the peels of fruit. So I'm like, but they are so cute. They are. And the thing is that so like, and, you know, I grew up in an area with lots of tear. And the thing is that like if the population.

isn't balanced by a predator, they will get miserable. They will start to all be diseased and starving. And so it's really like to keep them, it's tough, to keep them cute, somebody's got to eat some of them. I don't want it to be me. Listen, someone just call the Collins

and they will take care of it. Yeah, it's true. Listen, that's what we should do. Just invite a vegetarian vampire clan into your town, and that's it. That's what you do. No crashes. Perfect.

Yes. This is the perfect plan. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, when this study came out, looking at wolves and deer collisions, researchers also reported that Wisconsin's white-tailed deer population was at an all-time high, and that was resulting in habitat destruction, crop damage, lots of vehicle collisions, and disease amongst.

the deer. They were not thriving. And generally, that was blamed on mismanaged habitats, milder winters, fewer predators, and hunting regulations that were based on like very outdated population numbers back when deer seemed to be disappearing. So wolves eating the deer was definitely part of what was happening here. But the researchers found that that could only explain a 6% reduction in car crashes. They saw a 24% drop. So where did that remaining three quarters of the impact come from? The answer is, quote, a landscape of fear. What?

That is direct from the researchers and one of my favorite things. So the thing is that wolves tend to follow like whatever the clearest path is in a wooded area so that they can move quickly. So generally that means like a stream or a river. But humans, when they come in and build up a landscape, will make all these artificial clearings for things like roads and pipelines and rail tracks. So wolves are known to sort of cruise along those spots so that they can run unimpeded. And deer are known, unlike many prey, they are known to change their behavior and location to avoid predators. So when wolves come into town, deer that usually spend time near the road tend to start staying away from it because they know that wolves are there. So part of why this is a prairie is that it shows that human hunting, while often like a necessary stop gap in keeping deer populations from getting super out of control, which again is important to keep the deer from getting sick, if nothing else, it doesn't actually solve the problem as completely or if,

as having a natural non-human predator because having another animal that the deer like wants to avoid out of principle will do all of this additional prevention in keeping them close to the roads. And actually, yeah, 2016 study found really similar results. Like I want to say it was 22% reduction with cougars and deer collisions out west. So it's clear that there is some really efficient protection that can be provided here. Honestly, the power of fear. Yeah, I mean, the power of fear, but like, okay, sorry, I have a one-track mind. But like all the parallels with Twilight in this, like, study are too much. Like, the walls come in and then suddenly the deer, like, go elsewhere.

Like, honey, that's new moon. Like, that's how it works. Anyway, I'm sorry for the non-scientific. Never be sorry. Never be sorry. I love this. I love this. I am.

The other thing it makes me think of is that I was visiting family friends in Hanover a while back. And they have this amazing park that's like an old, it's like, you know, in old, in old novels with the like go hunting on the estate. It's an old rich person. Very successiony. Yeah. Yeah. We're very, also definitely very like Jane Austen, too. Like the pond is fully stocked, Mr. Bennett.

But so, so yeah, they had this, this big, beautiful green space that was stocked up with, it was the king of Germany's like hunting. So he could show up and pretend he was good at hunting because it was full of animals that had nothing else to do. And so now it's a public park and it's one of the most like beautiful community. green spaces I've ever seen. And they have some of the descendants of the animals that were kept there. They definitely have boar, which are kept at a pen, because they will like absolutely mess you up. But they have a bunch of deer that just roam free. And they're like some of the most fearless deer anywhere because they have no predators to worry about and there's tons of food. And once a year, they do have a hunting day.

And it is like very tightly regulated. The burn charge. Oh my God, the bird. Well, and when I heard that, I was like, boo. And then I was like, wait, no, given what I know about deer and how like absolutely plush this environment is, it's true. If they didn't do this, they would stop. It would be cardage.

So the other thing, though, that's really cute is that Kim, there's a day where kids can collect acorns and bring them and they get something for collecting acorns and then the acorns like feed the the boar and the deer and it's all very sweet so yeah when it was like and also we have hunting permits here I was like how dare but no yeah it's just for the deer and because like yeah it'll you can't just tell deer to enjoy themselves they will they just can chill they will just enjoy themselves to to their own destruction um i i do think that doing it once a year makes it so they can enjoy themselves yeah yeah the majority of them life and they remain so fearless so clearly they are um clearly

the survivors see it as an unfortunate blip rather than like a rate of terror i mean the trauma the trauma can't be that bad bad if they are fairly not and if i think about it still have the easiest lives of any deer that I've ever come across. So as for this study in Wisconsin, it estimated that wolves can save Wisconsin almost $11 million in losses each year just by preventing car crashes, which actually more than covers what the state tends to pay out to people who lose pets or livestock to wolves, which tends to be kind of the biggest public objection to letting their populations bounce back. So, um, wait, is that a thing?

Like if a wolf eats your pet, you are entitled to a, like a settlement? It depends on the laws in your state. I think in, in Wisconsin in particular, because they have protected the wolves, it's like, part of getting people to agree to that was like, okay. So if the government is vouching for wolves, then what happens when the wolves eat like? If it's government policy, if it's like a program that's run by the government, I guess they have to have mitigation, you know, measures. Yeah. But yeah, the wolves save us enough money to more than cover it.

I am now trying to imagine how much my cats would be valued at because on the one end, they are my beloved. And I think they are worth millions on dollars. But they're also really dumb. And so I could see the government, like, arguing that, you know, it's fine. It's okay. Can you really blame us for a wolf eating this cat, really? Yeah, listen. If there are coyotes and wolves who you live, like, it's probably a good idea to make your cat stay inside.

Yeah. Yeah, we don't let them out. That's good. That's good. And so, yeah, the researchers also noted that, um, there were other potential economic benefits that they hadn't calculated, like the lowered risk in line disease transmission. Because Sandra, as you pointed out, more deer also means more ticks, which is a big problem these days. And yeah, I saw at least one researcher who wasn't involved in the study be like, yeah, if anything, they really underestimated how much money is saved by this kind of crash reduction.

Like, this is huge. So, you know, that's a point in favor of letting wild wolves thrive. And other researchers, meanwhile, are looking at changing our own behaviors to mitigate deer human crashes. In late 2022, a study from the University of Washington found that switching to permanent daylight saving time would save more than a billion dollars in deer-related collision costs a year. They looked at several decades of crash data similar to the wolf study, and they found that collisions seemed to spike when our switch from DST to standard time coincided with deer mating season, which is when they're most active. The world's worst bend diagram. Yeah.

Terrible. Deer are crepocular, so they do most of their bustling around at dawn and dusk, which, again, is why crashes are so common. because during like peak commuting hours, they're out doing their business. So yeah, keeping peak commuting hours out of the dark can make a huge difference, especially when the deer are like super horny and hopping all over the place. So quick, quick, easy fix. And I just have one more kind of related thing. It's only sort of related, but I wanted to share it because I loved this study and I've never,

it's not quite enough for me to do a whole weirdest thing about it. So a few years back, researchers were trying to dig deeper into data that indicated that mountain lions would change how they ate in areas with more of a human presence, like subdivisions. Basically, recent kills of deer or other small creatures were more likely to be abandoned, like, quicker, instead of them spending several hours actually consuming all of it, if they were in more populated areas.

And they wanted to see, like, they wanted to see what different aspects of kind of human interloping were problematic here. So they wanted to check if human voices alone were enough to make Pumas or Mountain Lions skittish. So they decided to set up motion-activated speakers that pumped out either the sound of frogs croaking or the sound of talk radio. and the team was careful to know that they used recordings of both conservative and liberal pundits and both male and female voices. Were the D. Were the Puma's listening to NPR or like what was the deal? Just yeah, everything, everything. Though they were careful to avoid clips where people sounded like angry or aggressive. Because again, they wanted, they didn't want it to be like, oh, is a mountain lion afraid of someone who's screaming about, about about Hunter Biden's laptop

right right they didn't they didn't want to know are Puma's scared of someone screaming about those emails they wanted to know like are they scared of human voices and the answer is yes Puma's absolutely freaked out what they heard any kind of talk radio and really reacted as if like a potential predator of them was was nearby so yeah that's That's all I got for today.

But takeaways, like bring back the wolves, be careful when you're driving at night. Bring on the callus to your town. Yeah. I mean, that's the solution. Absolutely. Of course. Yeah. We just need some glittery vampires in the woods.

Population control. It doesn't matter when you listen to this. It is true. You always need glittery vampires in your life. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with one more fact. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank.

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Oscar Meyer hot dogs and Heinz mustard. Grill up a dog, add classic yellow mustard, or loaded Chicago style. We all know it's not a cookout without Oscar Meyer and Heinz. Okay, we're back. And, um,

hellie, tell me about this academic hoax, maybe the best one of the last century of the 1900s. I mean, it kind of like starts in the 1900s, but then it moves into the turn of the century. Got it. So you know what?

Like, who even knows? Who's counting? Who's counting exactly? What is time? Yeah, 96, which it feels like it should be like 15 years ago, but it's actually more like 30 years ago. Yeah, you are killing me, Ali. You are killing me. I am so sorry to point this out. It's very sad. And, you know, this is, it is a scientific fact, but it's more like a story of academic intrigue, I would say.

We love those. Yeah, you know, it's like the needy and greening. of academia. And, you know, the reason I chose it is that I sort of like took this story and I changed it a little bit in my book that's coming out, theoretically. And I hope I won't get sued by the parties involved. And if I do, I am so sorry. I am on academic. I don't have a lot of money. Please also me. I would have said, I would have said we would help you, but we're a journalist. So good luck with that. But it is definitely the wrong fandom legion to piss off. I will say that. Absolutely do not come for us.

Okay, please, we are good people. There are worst people in the world. Please focus on them. Okay, so the main actor of this story is a physics professor who at the time had a joint appointment at NYU and the UCL, so both in the US and in the UK. And his name is Alan Sokol. And his main area of interest is quantum field theory, quantum field theory, which I don't know very much about.

But because, again, I'm a neuroscientist. I'm not a physicist. And physics is one of those topics that somehow always kind of like passed through my brain, whether it was like high school or college or, you know, biophysics in grad school. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to study this for the exam and that I completely forgot everything. But so that was his main area of interest. And in 1996, he wrote a paper that was called transgressing the boundaries towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity. Okay. So a lot of very complicated buzzwords and very cool terms with very hard to understand meaning. And he, you know, what you do when you have a paper, you submit it to an academic journal, right? And he submitted it to social tax, which was actually a journal of cultural studies.

So it was a little bit different from his field. He was a physicist. And this was more about like humanities journal. But the main gist of the paper was that quantum gravity is actually not a real. thing that exists, it's a linguistic construct. And that, you know, it's kind of like one of the main tenets of postmodernism, the idea that reality is kind of how we interpret it and not really out there as it exists. It's, I mean, and I don't actually struggle with understanding postmodernism because I have a

very like concrete, like practical brain basically. Yes, I'm not very good at any of this. My husband is in the humanities and like sometimes he has to tell me what things mean, which is always very embarrassing. But, you know, that's the main gist of the paper was that, yeah, quantum gravity is a linguistic construct created by people. This was a very chill guy, I imagine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a, you know, it's a white man in academia.

Yeah, so I think we can't. Like everyone. You know what I'm talking about. Yes, exactly, like most of them. And, you know, I actually read some excerpts of the article, and it's a lot of buzzwords, a lot of really complicated concepts. You know, like epistemology, ontological, postmodernism, stuff like that, a lot of that kind of jargon.

All the kind of stuff that you would put in your Tinder profile, basically. Exactly. And so he submits the article to social tax and the article is accepted. Actually, I think the editor asked for some edits, which is, I don't know if you guys, if you have any experience of submitting an academic paper to an academic journal, like edits are always there. I've never had a paper accepted without edits. Usually, you know, it goes through peer review, which means that the editor finds

a couple of scientists who are in your field and are able to understand and who are competent in your field, they are going to go through your paper. They're going to read it and find any possible pitfalls of your study. They're going to figure out whether the interpretations that you're making out of your data are actually legitimate or you are reading too much into what you have done in your experiment. You know, he in this, in this, case the article didn't go through peer review but the editor of the journal did feel like you know based on the credentials of the main author Alan Sokol who you know had these very prestigious appointments and based on what he knew about you know quantum gravity and postmodernism he really felt like the

article deserved to be published right right was published. So they were like, oh, this guy's way too famous. We're not going to card you. Get into the bar right now. Exactly. Exactly. It wasn't a physics journal. So like, yeah. Yeah. It was. Yeah, exactly. Everything here is so suss, though. Yeah. Yeah. And to be clear, social text was a good, important journal for the humanities. It was a good journal in cultural studies. So right now there are a lot of like predatory journals out there where you can. publish for money you can pay for to have your articles accepted but that's not what happened there like this is a very reputable journal and you know the article gets accepted it gets published and then

three months later another article comes out this time in a magazine called lingua franca and it's another article by alan sokol the same guy who wrote the first article the same physics professor and basically In that article he revealed that the first article was a prank. It was a hoax. He actually just made it up. It's a bunch of buzzwords and, you know, just made up things that he wrote down and that he submitted to the journal to get it published. And what he was trying to prove, according to this article that he wrote,

was that a lot of cultural studies and humanities journal are culturally lazy and they are going to publish all sort of nonsensical crop as long as it ideologically fits the type of agenda that the journal has. And as long as what is written has positive references and the right person wrote it. to write like fuzzy words so like this must be some good stuff basically yeah and you know another thing that the article did there were several positive references and and citations of other postmodernist scholars so you know it felt like there was you know kind of like a tie with the overall cultural community at the time and yeah that's that's basically that that's what happened um so at that point you have social text with this article out and then Linguo Franca with this other article out. And the social text, of course, is like, oh, crap.

Oh, my God. published it. Like, this is our reputation. And this was, I mean, at the time, I was very young. I had no idea what was going on. But my understanding is that it was a very big deal in the sense that it was kind of like attacking an entire field. And just generally the

scientific rigor of a discipline so there was a lot of bickering after this Alan Sokol sorry go ahead I was just going to say just to imagine if back then they had like TikTok like the Selena Haley

like eyebrow debacle is nothing compared to this basically It would have been I mean I would have been like scrolling the shit out of it. I would have been... I know. Yeah. And I mean, the takes on academic TikTok and Twitter are like truly amazing. I don't know if you guys remember a couple of years ago. We had Warmgate where someone basically tweeted that the sea elegance, the main like model organism used in psychology was like an over-hyped animal or something like that.

And like the sea elegance researchers were so mad. Oh my god. Twitter. It's the nerdiest Twitter battle. Warmgate. I love that. The wormagadon. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Can you imagine something like this? And, you know, as I go on, like, because this accident I got, had like, there was a legacy and things are still kind of happening that are on social media. But, you know, first, I'm just going to tell you what happened And right after, there were, you know, like I said, a bunch of peaking, the original paper written by Socal, the transgressing the boundaries paper, was retracted by the journal.

The journal put into places a lot more like checks and balances. They're like way more strict when it comes to peer review now because social tax still exists as a journal. Right. still a thing. But they are, you know, everything has changed. They're saying, you know, we're editorially doing better. But I always kind of found this story fascinating.

Like, I remember hearing about it in grad, not in grad school, in college still and thinking, this is fascinating. I wonder what the players involved felt like at the time, especially the people who did publish the book. Like, were they feeling like? I don't know. I wouldn't a lot of guilt toward my entire discipline and a lot of hatred for SoCal if I were then. But on the other hand, you know, maybe we deserve to be called out if we're not good at our job. Like there's so much stuff going on here from like an emotional standpoint that

I don't even know what side I am on. I mean, I was going to say like it's there's a valid point to be made there. But I still feel like the whole like publishing to opposing like, papers on these two different journals, it was sort of like a jerk move. Like it's a very jerky way of making a valid point. That's what I'm saying basically. That, yes, I think that's how I feel about it as well. And you know, like I think SoCal has tried through the years. Like he has tried to make the point that, you know, what he was trying to do was to

eventually improve the discipline. Yeah. But, which is valid and genuine, I guess. But like, it's also like this guy's a physicist. So like, what happened to him that he woke up one day? So like, you know what? I'm just going to do this. And I'm going to fix academia at large.

Amazing. What philosophy major dumped him? That's the question. Absolutely. That is so true. Like, I need to know what heartbreak is on the core of, of this. And you know what's funny? Like in my book, I have the main character, the hero did something like this in the past when he was much younger than Sokol was at the time. And he,

it was such a dick move. And like he has to kind of, you know, as the years go by, he has to kind of like deal with what he has done as he grows up and he's like, oh, wow, I was a total dick. And I made a mistake. And, you know, I heard a lot of people. He has to kind of deal with that. So that was fun to write. That sounds like such a good setup and I'm really excited to read it. The other thing that this hoax reminds me of is that a few years ago, a researcher put out a paper. I think it was some kind of nutritional thing and it was something to do with like chocolate being good for you. The chocolate paper. Oh my God. Okay, get me up to speed because I don't know anything about this. Basically they published a

unlike how chocolate is good for you and they were like anyone who looked closely at our DNA analysis would have seen that this was not a good paper but look at how all of the all of the science journalists ran away with it and it's like okay like you're making a good point about how the media tends to cover and run away with and like misrepresent nutritional studies which are notoriously hard to learn anything from. And like frankly, most of the overhyping usually comes from the researchers and it's just that the writers are not doing a good job of like being like, uh. So like there's a really valid point being made there.

And also making a fake study doing press for it and then being like, ha ha. Gotcha. That was really weird. Why did you do that? Yeah. If I recall correctly, the main problem of that study was that they had collected like literally 30, like, dependent variables so that like they would find, they basically had a ton of data on a very small sample. And they were like, if we do statistical analysis at some point, one of the variables will be statistically significant between the difference between the chocolate group and the known chocolate group.

Right. So like it was it like yeah yeah no no I don't think it was yeah they did like a lot of classic statistical bad actor stuff that like definitely happens in studies and people have gotten there like a bunch of papers retracted for but like also if you put out a press release for it I don't know I just felt like he really there was some entrapment going on there yeah I don't becomes a social experiment and like it's not exactly it's just not that nice and it also feels like you know when you recruit participants for an experiment you have them sign uninformed consent right but we kind of are the subjects in these experiment right right there is an element of are you are you learning with me or are you using me to learn something about you know the the system

of peer review or the system of the way, like the way media talk about science. Yeah. And I don't know that I am a willing participant in that. Well, and then like all of the people who read that information and not that it would have like radically changed anyone's life because again, like, nutritional studies are notoriously tricksy and like things come out all the time that could be used as evidence that chocolate is good or bad for you. So I think that was their argument like, oh, this won't really make a difference. And also it's the writer's fault not ours. But it's like, you still conspired to put false information out in front of readers. So that's that.

I don't know what ethical board looked at that. Yeah. And like I am a scientist, but I am totally the kind of person who would like read a headline, chocolate is good for you and run with it because I really like chocolate. Yeah. Listen. I will take whatever. Exactly.

Confirmation bias. That's what I'm here for. Well, um, I don't think you. oversold that at all, I think that was great. And I'm really looking forward to seeing the rom-com spin. The biggest hoax in the history of hoaxes. Is that the plural of hoax? I have no idea. That's the treat. That's what we're going to cover. So what was the weirdest thing we learned this week? It's a good week. I was going to say that because I usually have like my mind-made up at this point, but now I'm like, everything has been very juicy. I mean, for me, the idea

that people can carry, yeah, for 60 miles that much wood is still. It's insane. It's mind-boggling. I am the idea of the grad students stuck together for days at a time. Yes. That is amazing. Yes. So I do think that is our win for the day. That being said, I am very, very, excited to read love theoretically and see your spin on this academic hoax, Ellie. Would you remind our listeners where they can find your work? You can find it. I mean, I'm assuming wherever books are sold and if you don't want to buy a book, which is totally fair on the library. Yeah. Awesome. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, along with Jess Bode, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire.

Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Thing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pass. We pass. Pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes, so you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way, with Ralph's delivery and pickup. And right now, you can save $20 on your first delivery or pickup order. Ralph's, fresh for everyone.

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