The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Evil Forrest Gump, Poopsmiths, Penis Legs

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

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!  Click here to follow our sibling podcast, Ask Us Anything!  -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman Popular Science: www.twitter.com/PopSci Produced by Jess Boddy: www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy Theme music by Billy Cadden: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? I'm talking about mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis dummies and a lot more. And you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code Weirdest. It's third party lab tested and ships directly to you in a discreet box. Best of all, everything's backed by Mood's 100-day satisfaction guarantee. And like I said, you can get 20% off with code Weirdest. So if you're looking to try some new cannabis products, head on over to mood.com. Get 20% off your first order now with code weirdest.

That's code weirdest for 20% off. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room.

Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton. Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and heck 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 Fultman. I'm Sarah Kylie Watson. And I'm Annie Rowarda. Annie, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you. I'm so excited to be here. Listeners, in case you don't know Annie by name, you almost certainly know what she gets up to on the internet through depths of Wikipedia, which is one of my favorite things, honestly.

Do you want to tell listeners who aren't familiar if they have been living under Iraq and don't like memes or fun things, what you do? For the past two years, I've posted funny things from Wikipedia on Instagram. And then now it's on TikTok and Twitter as well. Some recent posts include a picture of a cat staring at some grass. The Wikipedia caption is a cat looking at cat grass. I talked about the athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics, which you've talked about on this podcast, a great story that involves rat poison and wild dogs and apples that are rotten and purposeful

dehydration, which you can already tell is a bad idea for a marathon and all sorts of fun things from the best online encyclopedia that the world has ever had. Yeah, I love, there are a lot of things I love about what you do. First of all, that you are like neutral about how important or serious or hilarious the content is. Like you share really interesting stuff, stuff that like leads to really important like insights or conversations. And you also post things that are just inherently hilarious because they are like absurd taken out of context. And that's how I feel like memes should be. Memes are just another medium.

They are merely the platform. The content can be whatever we want them to be. I'm really passionate about memes. I think they say a lot about society. And I care a lot about the Internet Archive. And so I recently started Deps of Internet Archive. That's something I did this week. So we'll see what that becomes. Maybe by the time this episode airs, it'll be huge and good. Or maybe not. Maybe it'll die out. Who knows?

Well, I was going to say, the other thing I love about what you do is that I feel like, you know, I am I'm a little older. I am 30. And I definitely, I remember when Wikipedia was new and when it was what our teachers told us to like never cite. And I am very much, very frequently speaking to boomers about how like actually. It is a really incredible encyclopedic database. And like, yes, like anything else, you want to like look at what sources they're citing. And it's like starting point, not an endpoint often if you're looking for like an in-depth coverage of something. But it's this amazing collaborative resource. And I really love how much you love it because I think that that is something that actually a lot of people who are not like super internet native still have not wrapped their heads around. So, yeah. I mean, it has everything you want to know.

There's a list of fictional raccoons. There are 6.5 million articles in English, and they were all written by volunteers who just wanted to write about them. I think it's beautiful. I think it's what the internet was supposed to be. I think Wikipedia is the best website ever. Amazing. Okay. Well, we are definitely going to hear more about Wikipedia.

I suspect strongly. I have some stuff from Wikipedia, as I always do. But let's get into the show. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a tease about some kind of fact or story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, editing, Wikipedia, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear 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. Sarah Kylie, why don't we start with your tease? I'm here to talk about how snakes have two penises but zero legs. I love how that's presented as like an equivalency, you know, like, you would like, they are related.

They would have some, like. I suspect there's more to that statement. So I'm looking forward to getting into it. Annie, what's your tease? Oh, I'm talking about the world's worst businessman. Oh, a high bar. I'm excited. I'm excited to hear. My tease. My fact is a little all over the place today. I'm going to be honest. It's not as neat and tidy of a narrative as I sometimes achieve. But I'll say that I started

with spiny lobsters and I ended with home brewers arguing on a message board about making beer out of piss. so I'm going to share some of the stuff I learned between A and Z. Should we just start with that? Let's just start with that. Get it out of the way. You guys don't brew beer with your pee? Yeah, no, don't do that. I'm definitely going to say don't, don't do that.

But I'll get back to that in a second. So I started off thinking that I was going to do a story. about how lobsters pee out of their faces to communicate. And the thing is, I just wasn't able to find a lot about this that wasn't in the form of like a pretty specific academic paper about like particular qualities or problems posed by this method of communication among lobsters. Like there was one like, does the changing pH of the warming seas? interfere with lobster piss communication.

That was not the actual title of the paper. I'm so sorry if that was your life's work that I just summarized. But so that I think is going to be a story for another day. I'm thinking about starting a newsletter of some like weird sex stories that didn't make it into the book. And the lobster piss thing does have to do with lobster sex. So maybe maybe I'll save it for that. Listeners, probably by the time this airs, I'll have gotten around.

launch in that newsletter, so check it out, whatever it's called. But that had me Googling a bunch of stuff about urine in general, because I was thinking about how, like, for us humans, given the way urine works for us, the process of making it and getting rid of it, the idea of it coming out of your face is like pretty gross. But like really, urine does not have to have any association with like a butt, your genitals. It doesn't have to be something that like comes out of the bottom of you in an area that tends to be considered taboo and dirty, even though, you know, we could spend a lot of time talking about how, you know, silly that is.

But urine as people frequently rediscover on TikTok is not actually like literally you drink water and it comes out the other end of you. It is your blood basically becoming more watery than salty. your intestines absorb water. It doesn't like go down into your stomach with the food you eat, generally speaking. And as your blood starts to, you know, be kind of like more saturated with water, then your kidneys are filtering it out along with lots of stuff your body needs to get rid of. And then it kind of sits in your bladder so that it has somewhere to go. And then you pee it out. So when you think about urine that way in that it's really like a blood byproduct, not

like anything that has to do with like poop. It coming out of your face seems like way more neutral. It's like spit in or sweat in. It just they happen to, you know, shoot their waste byproducts out of their faces and also use that to try to find people to have sex with, which is, I don't know, I guess relatable. But anyway, so in thinking about like, What facts can I share about like the human bodily process of making urine that will kind of like maybe make people, um, uh, a little kinder to these like piss face lobsters and maybe not, um, so grossed out by them. Um, I ended up stumbling across, uh, a Wikipedia page for, uh, Lant, which is basically the, the product of fermented urine, which was used for all sorts of things throughout history. And I was familiar with the idea that you would keep human pee around for useful stuff.

I knew that it was used to like tan leather in a previous episode of Weirdest Thing where I talked about books bounded human skin. I talked about like the doctor who was really gross and used patient's skin. He like threw it into a bedpan to like deal with it later. And that was actually like a pretty smart way to preserve it because that's how you tan leather. But anyway, that's a different episode. I also remembered in the Dear America books, the Revolutionary War one, I believe. Her mother is a laundress and she talks about having to save all of their pee to do the laundry. And of course, I was like, ew, old-timey people.

They lived so gross. They smelled so bad probably. But yeah, so there is a name for this aged urine. And it is Lant, which is from the Old English land, which apparently referred to urine. I didn't go farther into the etymology than that. But yeah, you would put it aside and you would actually ferment it, which I didn't know that that was a crucial part of the step because that like ups the ammonia content. So there's actually like a lot of ammonium in this like concentrated fermented, human urine. And that has all sorts of uses.

I mean, the ammonium is like caustic. So like I said, cleaning, bleaching clothes and tanning leather. But it can also be used to make saltpetre for gunpowder. And this was actually like one of its most valuable uses. So potassium nitrate, which is. often called saltpeter. Fun fact, doesn't actually make you infertile or not horny, which is a very common belief. People used to talk about salt Peter getting like slipped into like military members food to like make them not have be horny and have babies, which actually ties in very well to

the previous episode about the horny gay bombs, but different story. But yeah, getting, potassium nitrate is really difficult, even if you kind of get the like natural starting point of it and refine it. It's like a really complex refining process, a lot of steps. And it's actually easier, especially if you don't live by kind of like natural deposits to refine it from bat guano or bird poop or human urine. If you have ever owned a bird or a reptile, You know that the sort of like slimy poop that a lot of animals produce smells a lot more like pee than poop because it's full of ammonia, just absolutely nasty. So anyway, humans for a lot of history, if they were making gunpowder, they were making it from either like scraping up pigeon droppings or taking fermented pee. and basically like distilling it and crystallizing it and producing this saltpetre.

Now, I was looking for more information on this and found a few really fun little sources that I'll link to you on popside.com slash weird. The Yorkshire Historical Dictionary has an unintelligible entry on the use of the word Atlant, definitely not meant for people from outside of Yorkshire to ensure. boy, but I will link to it just in case. And the University of Delaware has an American material culture that I found like a random blog entry from a fellow from 2019 that was talking about their sort of pet project trying to figure out like whether there were formal systems of collecting or trading in urine to create Lant since there are so many examples of ways it was used, not just around the home, but in like industry. Because obviously, you know, bleaching clothes, you could be like,

well, people just like collected their own urine to bleach their own clothes, maybe scaled up slightly if you were like a laundress, but like people producing gunpowder who were probably needed it at scale. And there are references here and there where people will just very casually without citing a source, say like, and the whole village was expected to participate. paint. And this University of Delaware student was like, says who? Like, what was, were they compensated? Was this under duress? Was there a system? Um, so I'll link to this on popsite.com slash weird. Uh, they basically concluded that there was like no good information out there about, um, how this worked. Uh, we do know that in 17th century England, uh, there was such a

desire for Salt Peter that King Charles I actually issued a proclamation that families had to collect urine from their homes and livestock. And they had to hand it over every day to Salt Petermen who came to collect it. And apparently in the 1600s at times, they were actually allowed to go into private homes and like dig up like their dove houses and cellars to get the kind of like poopy soil that was at the top of their like packed soil floors. Um, Oliver Cromwell did then say like, no salt Peter man can't just bust into your homes looking for dove poop, which, uh, is, is good, I think. Um, but that was the, the only real instance this scholar found of like a proclamation being like the P is a shared resource.

We must contribute all hands on deck. Um, so yeah, it still kind of remains a little bit of a mystery sort of like how different societies and individuals handled the fact that like this thing that everybody made was such a valuable commodity. You know, on the one hand, everybody pees. So you would think like there wouldn't have been such a rush. But on the other hand, any time something is a commodity, like someone will want to have the most of it or keep other people from getting it. So am I saying that someone should write like a musical, a graphic novel about people like trying to control the piss trade?

Yes, absolutely I am. And maybe that will be me. One last thing. Well, two last things I'll say, because I promise to get back to the beer. So we do know a lot more about a related. collection agency, which is the job of gong farmer. It's the word gong from the word gang, which was a word for like going in some old English adjacent language. And these people are also sometimes called nightmen. And they were poop smiths. They collected the poop. They,

it was their job to collect all the poop. That was not because it was a precious commodity, but because for a lot of years and a lot of places, the best way to deal with people having to go was having some kind of privy or cistern. And those were designed to not be watertight so that the water would just drain out into the ground, which I'm sure was great, never caused any problems. But you still had the solids that would build up over time. So periodically, somebody went in there and shoveled them out. It was a well-paid job, but a not a very well-respected one. I saw a few sources saying that the so-called nightmen who were called that because

they had to work overnight because nobody wanted to see you shoveling poop in the middle of the day. In some places, there were rules about like where they could live, presumably because they smell that. And I will say like a couple of the entries I saw on this leaned into the, the total myth that people during these time periods didn't bathe a lot. People bathed. People have like bathed in like every culture that's ever existed on the earth. How they've bathed has, you know, very depending on their culture and what was available at the time.

But like no medieval people didn't walk around just like not knowing they were smelling and not caring. And certainly if they were able to make fun of nightmen for smelling bad, that meant people were bathing, generally smelling good. So no, these were not dudes who walked around just smelling more and more of poop every day of their lives and never showering. But they did have a pretty hard go of it. I will say that I have a friend who bought a property in Philadelphia and has become an amateur archaeologist because there are privy pits there. and she and her husband have like accidentally became part of the like very intense like privy pit digging community because you can find like amazing, you know, early colonial America artifacts. I will definitely try to get her on the show.

I've been meaning to you for a while. So this is not the last we will talk about privy pits and their historical importance. But yeah, we know a lot more. about the guys who were hired to get poop out of town than we know about the guys who were hired to get urine into a centralized location. And isn't that fascinating. The one last thing I'll say is that when it comes to the word Lant, that fermented urine byproduct, one of the things that will come up, There was a great Saturday morning breakfast cereal comic that referenced it that I'll link to on popside.com slash weird is that there's this thing called lanted ale that's referenced in a few historical places. And it's basically the way it's talked about is like those sneaky low life taverns people will like make ale taste stronger by adding this like ammonia to pee to it. no one has been able to actually find like a brewer talking about doing this.

It is almost certainly just a case of something I talk about a lot in my recent book where like people like to make fun of people who are lower on the, you know, the social ladder than they are or who came from a slightly earlier time. people love to think that other people are backwards. So a lot of times in history, like, we will see people talk about something. And there was a period in academia where historians, if you were somebody trying to just write a fun book, you might just like gather together all these things and be like, look, 10 different people talked about Lant and Ale.

So it was definitely real. And it's like, you know how many magazines wrote about like rainbow parties in the 90s? these. Like we, people just say stuff sometimes. Doesn't, doesn't mean that it happened. Um, so I'm going to come down on the side of saying that I don't think anyone actually, um, made lanted ale certainly don't think it was like a common trend. Um, and similarly, you know, some of the stuff that people talk about fermented urine having been used for, I'm a little skeptical of, like one that gets shared a lot in kind of like listicles is, that people used it as a teeth whitener.

And I'm not going to say that definitely never happened. But the source I see people citing a lot as like the original, um, origin of this info is Catalyst, the Roman poet. And he's making fun of Ignatius. Basically he's saying you're so full of piss, meaning like, full of it, uh, that you probably do what they do in Spain, which is like, brushing your teeth with urine to make them whiter. So the brighter your smile shines, the more full of piss you are. And I'm like, that is to me very clearly a man lying about what people from a different country

to and using it to dunk on another poet. So I just think that whenever we're talking about something that like shocks our modern sensibilities as much as the idea of using fermented urine. that we maybe have a tendency to, uh, like really let our minds go wild. And I think it's important to point out that like this was a really useful tool. And like, wow, how innovative that this stuff that's going to be around no matter what, um, like makes your clothes cleaner helps you make gunpowder, um, which is a thing you may want, uh, depending on where and when you are in his.

history, making rockets, like cool fun rockets was a thing that saltpeter was often used for. And yeah, cleaning. Look, people didn't have a lot of options. So I think it's really cool that people found these uses for land. And I would love to see historians be able to like dig a little more into like how this actually worked. Was there a system? I'm going to be following up with this person from University of Delaware. I want to know if they learned more. And also just like pour one out for the poopsmiths, you know, before indoor plumbing,

somebody had to do it. Yeah, that's my whole story. I'm so sorry. That was a roller coaster. I feel like I learned a lot, though. happy to help. Every time I pee, I'm going to think of this. Excellent.

Thank you so much. Yeah, it obviously made me think of Homestar Runner, but it also made me think of the second season of Miracle Workers, which is a great, hilarious show. And Steve Bushchemi plays a poop smith, who is very proud of his work, as he should be. Because, again, somebody had to do it. 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 company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? I'm talking about mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies and a lot more. And you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code weirdest. I'm not a smoker myself, but I do love the occasional weed gummy to, you know, help me go off to Dreamland. and I can't have one right now because I have a new kit, and, you know, I definitely miss it a little bit. But maybe you can have a weed gummy, and you can get one at mood.com. So the reason that different cannabis grains can make you feel different ways isn't just about the THC.

It seems like it's also based on other components called terpenes. Turpines influence how a product tastes and smells, and it seems like they can also impact the way you feel. Mood partnered with dozens of small American farms to custom cultivate flour with specific turpine profiles designed for specific moods. So you can choose your cannabis gummy, edible, flour, or pre-roll based on how you want to feel. Just go to mood.com and click Shop by Mood. And yes, it is now 100% federally legal to have really great bud shipped right to your door. It's third party lab tested and ships directly to you in a discreet box. Best of all, everything's backed by Mood's 100-day satisfaction guarantee.

And like I said, you can get 20% off with code weirdest. I'm eyeing Mood.com's Delta 9-THC buttercream carmels because in addition to not being able to have THC, I also can't have dairy right now. So the idea of having a caramel that also me out and sends you to Dreamland sounds very nice. And speaking of fun edibles, mood.com has delta 9 THC freezer pops. So if you're looking to try some new cannabis products, head on over to mood.com. Get 20% off your first order now with code Weirdest. That's code Weirdest for 20% off. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen

and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this shell will get a $75-sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Okay, we're back.

And Sarah Kylie, tell me about snake peenai. please yeah so this will also um be kind of in the poopy realm um but but yeah um i didn't know this apparently other people know this i'm not really a lizard person but um yeah male snakes have two penises and a lot of lizards do which i don't know that blew my mind i have i we've only ever had dogs but um i mean it's a decent amount of lizards and other things have two penises it looks like even um um Some lizard-looking things don't have any penises. There's one marsupial that has a four-headed penis. So there's just everything out there.

So maybe we'll hear about the marsupial next time. But yeah, I've been living in blissful unawareness of the double penis conundrum, which is also called a hemipenus my entire life. So now y'all can no longer live in ignorance either. And again, just a really, really interesting Google search history look today. But the story of how I figured out that this existed is kind of fun. So in the past month or so, I've kind of switched in my job from doing just science and sustainability to doing a little bit of kind of everything. And pretty much everything also meant that our new tech news writer, Andrew Paul, covered a YouTuber's, like, adorable little attempt at giving a snake, quote unquote, back their legs.

And so this kind of ended up being like a plastic tube that the snake slithered through and then had like, little robot legs, which was really cute if you like snakes. I mean, I don't even really like snakes when I thought it was cute. So, yeah, and the snake's little, like, robot legs even like kind of waddled like a lizard. So really, really cute. But the real winner of the story is that I learned the fun fact that snakes actually have legs as embryos, and those embryo legs that, you know, don't ever become legs, have a lot to do with why they have two penises. So the penis legs. So, yeah, snake penis legs has been the only thing in my Google search history for like two hours. A Faustian bargain for two penises, if ever I heard. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I was like,

okay, so there's got to be some, there's got to be lots of like fables out there that I just could find because that is fascinating stuff. But yeah, so millions of years ago, snakes did have legs. So about 150 million years ago, we had ancestors of slithery snakes like walking around, waddling around on their like lizard legs. And according to a report published back in 2016, snakes still have the leg development ability in their DNA, but the make the legs happen switch is just kind of turned off. So technically they have the capability, I guess, of growing legs, which you can see kind of in their embryo to snake development. But so there's lots of little weird things in this, and here's another one. This is because of a gene that researchers call the sonic hedgehog gene.

And I've spent like 15 minutes reading the same paragraph on Wikipedia and I still don't really have. understand why. But yeah, so if I say Sonic the Hedgehog, it's about a gene. And it's responsible for growing limbs. And so these researchers found that the Sonic Hedgehog gene flickers, quote unquote, briefly in Python embryos that are around 24 hours old. And the gene previously hasn't been spotted in actual slithering around pythons. And so for the first 24 hours of embryonic development, snakes have legs. And then a light bulb goes off and they're like, no. So why that happens is still, you know, a little bit of a mystery. But yeah, so Martin Cohn, who is a professor at the University of Florida, who is an author of that Python study, told NPR back in 2016 when it came out that the

sonic hedgehog gene controls the development of more than just arms and legs. But DNA regulates whether they turn on and off or not. And these regulators are called enhancers. So this is all backstory. We're just talking about legs right now. We'll get into the penises in a minute. But pythons don't have that enhancer anymore. Somewhere down the line of the past several million years, it was just chopped from their DNA. And it's not just pythons, booconstrictures, cobras, vipers, etc., are all missing the hedgehog enhancer. So I've got the hedgehog gene, but they're missing the enhancer. So that's what's going on, I think.

But weirdly enough, the gene activated in the making of fingers and toes still works in snakes. So that's another weird thing. Cohn and his researchers made a pre-cartilaginous model of all the skeletal elements of the limb of the, you know, embryo snake. And apparently there's like a whole leg and foot growing. Like there's like, they're like ready to go before Sonic the Hedgehog turns off. And so that's kind of the mystery, like, you know, the introductory mystery of why snakes don't have legs. It's not like anything like super dramatic. You know, there's lots of theories about why this might have happened, you know,

wanted to hunt more slitheringly or swim better. But yeah, that's still something to unpack in the future. But yeah, so what does all that have to do with the double penis? Well, this is the exciting part where some of Rachel's reporting at the Washington Post from 2014 gets to join the story. So we can jump back to a 2014 study in nature that focused in on the differences between squamates, which is like the big genus of lizards and amniote penises. So this 2014 study found that in lizard, snakes, birds, and mammals, the development of the genitals is run by the embryonic structure that is the cloaca, which is basically like in humans, it's like an embryonic but lizards and birds and stuff get to keep it.

And it's in everything, everything whole. Everything whole, yeah. So when we're talking about bird poop, like smelling like pee, it's because the poop and the pee come out of the same place. So that's another thing I learned. I probably should have known that. I think that's okay. Like, you know, now you know it, and that's great. But I think that's okay for you to not have just known it off the top of your head.

Yeah, I just am learning a lot. I learned a lot today. So, obviously, humans don't have a cloaca except for when you're embryos. We have anises. And, you know, that's where we get rid of solid waste through the anus. And but cloacas are for everything. So number one, number two, everything goes out this hole. And it also kind of works for reproduction, too.

It's just like an everything hole. So yeah, woohoo, exciting stuff. But yeah, so fetuses have cloaca, which basically when you're developing, whether you're a lizard or you're a person or whatever, it signals to send out nearby cells to turn them into genitals. The location of the cloaca is key, though, because in lizards and snakes, it's right up close to those hind legs, or the hind legs that could have been, I guess, for snakes.

And so on the lead author of the study, who is a postdoc at Harvard said apparently in both locations there are pools of cells that have the ability to receive this call from the koaka. When you move the signaling center, you can recruit different cells. So when this postdoc

plopped cloaca tissue near the growing limbs of chicken embryos, you had chicken penises growing close to their legs. So it's a location game. So a little bit of butthole tissue placement can make us have leg penises. So that's step one.

And so there's even more to unpack here from all around the same. The 2014-the-2016 was like the prime era of figuring out what was going on with legs and penises for snakes. But since even before then, in 1997 a study came out where we've figured out that there are two genes that direct the development of legs and genitals in mice. So there's a gene out there or two that basically are doing the same thing, enhancing, quote-unquote, genitals and legs. So basically these are kind of like the light switches with Sonic, like make things grow or not. And they're both at work in penises and in legs. And I think it was, yeah, 2015, a bunch of scientists were like, well, what the heck about snakes? Like, they don't have any legs.

So they searched the sequence genomes of snakes, a bow constrictor, a Burmese python, and the king cobra. and found counterparts of 65 mammalian limb enhancers. So they have the enhancers. But they also found that about half of the enhancers were active in genitals, as well as limbs in mice genome. So there's just all of the stuff that is similar. And this article that I found that was describing this from Ed Yong in National Geographic back then,

lip enhancers are also active in the genitals, but not the eye, skeleton, or brain. They're more like an all-purpose appendage enhancers rather than limb-specific ones. turning on similar sweets of genes in arms, legs, and penises alike. So, exciting stuff. And so after they figured this out, the researchers took one of the enhancers, HLEB. I've been breeding as HLEB, but I know that's probably not right. But the researchers took one of the enhancers HLEB and chopped it out from the mouse embryo DNA,

which caused the mice to have smaller hips and penis bones, which makes sense. And then they replaced the HLEB and mice with lizard HLEB, and it served the exact same function as mouse HLB, so it helped build the mouse penis and legs. But then they replaced the HLAB with Python LB in the mice, and mice only regained control of the genes and the genitals and not the legs. So funnily enough, it also switches on some genes in their noses, too, so just weird stuff all around.

But yeah, moral of the story, this one's a short one. I wish there was more research to talk about when it came to all of this, but snakes have two penises, And for various genetic and evolutionary reenosis, those penises are kind of where the back legs should be or they would have been in the past. So yeah. And another fun, there's a couple other fun penis snake facts that I have. Excellent. So we can just throw those in.

They only can use one of their penises at a time. And apparently, like, if you're, like, in competition for a lady snake, it's like whatever's closest kind of makes the cut and they can rotate them. So it's like, oh, okay. I don't know why they can rotate them is the sentence that really broke me. Like, yeah, I don't know. This was too far in the radical for me to dive into on a Friday morning. But yeah, so they can use them both, but not at the same time. And also, apparently their penises are not like tubes, like kind of like how a mammal

penises. It's like a slide. So it's like, how I picture it is like a snake is an airplane and like an emergency slide comes out and the people come out. That is what I picture it to be like, except it's on both sides of the plane. So that is what I have gathered from this. Perfect. So yeah. But, you know, female snakes also have a cool reproductive fact, which I felt like they deserve a shout out because this is so devoted to their male.

counterparts. But they can control their pregnancies and when they get pregnant. So they can store sperm for like five years before becoming a mom, which is really cool, good for them. Because yeah, I think I'd be traumatized after the double penis slide event. I think I would need some time. Yeah, they need to take some time. Well, and what's funny about that is that, you know, snakes are, it's still not super common, but they're like one of the kinds of animals where parthenogenesis is the most common, meaning, you know, the female reproducing without help from a male, basically just like self-fertilized eggs that are sort of little clones of herself. And whenever it happens in captivity, they always first have to check that like she wasn't just

holding on to some sperm for a really long time because there's always the chance that even if she's like, lonely as time. Even if there hasn't been a male in there for like 20 years or like maybe it was that. And then, you know, they'll test them and it'll be one or the other. I've definitely covered studies about both. I definitely covered a study that was like, wow, this snake sure held on to this semen for a long, long time. And then once where it was like, oh, nope, that was just her. That was all her. So they have a lot of options. There are so many. There's two penises. If you want to go that route. with one snake. Like, there is a lot there.

But, yeah, so no legs, two penises, and those things are related. That is the one-liner. Well, I like the Sonic Hedgehog shout out, because the story of that is so funny. I just pulled up a 1994 article in the New York Times called A Gene Named Sonic, but Dr. Clifford Tabor, a developmental biologist at Harvard Medical School, wanted to name each newly detected gene in this category after. hedgehogs. So the first one is the Indian hedgehog. The next one's the moon rat hedgehog. The next one's the desert hedgehog. But then Dr. Robert Riddle, trying to be goofy, finds the most important

one of all that determines limb formation for all of us. And he names it Sonic Hedgehog. And so now doctors have to sit down with parents and say, hi, like your child might have these really serious limb abnormalities. What's the gene responsible for this? Oh yeah. headhog. So it's a little funny, but it also could be a little bit frivolous. Yeah. But hey, I'm all about jokes. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, when we get into, there are ethical issues that come up in terms of scientists and researchers and clinicians naming stuff that they identify for exactly that reason, where it's like, it's all fun and goofy until that's something that is coming up in conversations that like really impact

people's lives and are part of like really intense conversations. And yeah. So on the one hand, I love that he pulled that gag on the other hand. I can definitely definitely see the argument for changing it. There's so many funny biology names. This is a rabbit hole. This is a rabbit hole. This not my topic, but there's also mothers against decapantoplegic. Decapantiplegic. Somebody, I'm sure, has a better pronunciation out there than I do. But they find that this mutation in the mother's gene represses the embryos decapineplegic. I'm sorry in advance.

And I'm just going to stop saying that word. But they name it mothers against decap, blah, blah, blah, blah, kind of to be like mothers against drunk driving as a joke. joke. That's a little rude. Ha, ha, ha. Everyone at home is just cracking up. But they thought it would be a little goofy. Yeah, well, and it comes up in, like, I think the ones that get publicized a lot are, are, like, species names. And I think in terms of gene naming and disease naming,

like, people kind of reined it in a few years ago. Like, I don't think. Obviously, I'm sure there are exceptions, but I feel like there was a, seems to have been a general agreement that Gene should just have boring names that we're not going to like cause problems later. But in species, people will still be like, this is the Beyonce's butt be. And, you know, often that's all good fun. And then every once in a while you get one where you're like, oh, oh, okay. Scientists, they're people too.

We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with one more fact. Your summer starts now with Memorial Day deals at the Home Depot. It's time to fire up summer cookouts with the next grill for burner gas grill on special buy for only $199 and entertain all season with the Hampton Bay West Grove seven-piece outdoor dining set for only $499. This Memorial Day get low prices guaranteed. at the Home Depot. While supplies last, price invalid May 14th or May 27th.

U.S. only exclusions apply. See Home Depot.com slash price match for details. Peak pollination season, and my business is scaling fast. To keep the nectar flowing, I need a phone plan with top priority data speeds. That's why I chose GoogleFi wireless. My connections stay strong even when the hive is buzzing. Plus, unlimited plans started $35 a month. Now that's a deal that doesn't stay.

Explore GoogleFi wireless plans today. Plus taxes and government fees. GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd. But too often, life gets busy. Or the price holds you back. Price Line is here to help you make it happen. With millions of deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars, you can go see the game live.

Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Okay, we're back. And Annie, the worst businessman of all time, a really a tall order. He might actually be the best businessman of all time. Oh, okay.

And I promise there are no penises in this one. There's no talk of poop. It's not quite as scientific. But when I saw that you talked about the 1904 Marathon saga, I was like, oh, I can definitely talk about Timothy Dexter. So buckle up because in the biography written about this guy in 1858 by Sam Knapp, the first sentences, never since the flood has there lived a man so little appreciated as Timothy Dexter. And it goes on to say, the fame of this singular man was not confined to the town, county, or state in which he lived,

but many of the anecdotes respecting him have been published in different parts of the world. Basically, this guy is super well known. He's kind of laughed at by high society. They're not appreciating him. And this biographer is arguing that this guy is actually shrewd. You can judge for yourself whether this guy is an idiot that got lucky or if he's the smartest businessman ever. So what do wool mittens, coal, whales, Bibles, and stray cats have in common? While they all turned this guy into a really rich 18th century, businessman. So he was born in Massachusetts, well, what is now Massachusetts, in 1747, and he had almost no formal education. He dropped out of school as a little kid. He became a Tanner's apprentice at 16. And then when he was 22, he married a rich 32-year-old widow, and together they bought a mansion. Okay, so already he's kind of winning. I don't know what he said to score this widow, but he, boom, becomes rich. Good for Timothy. after the Revolutionary War in 1783, he was about 36, he bought a ton of depreciated continental currency.

That was the paper money that was in circulation from 175, the start of the Revolutionary War. And before that, like we had no central bank. You know, different places had different currency. They were trading beaver peltz. Like it was kind of just whatever, anything goes. Then they have the continental currency. They print it like crazy. And they actually suffered from some economic warfare when the British people introduced even more continental currency.

And Ben Franklin later said that it was a tax that people paid to pay for the war. They had all this continental currency. It becomes worthless. And that's a form of taxation, according to Ben Franklin. So that's a little rabbit hole for you about that. And today sometimes we'll say not worth a continental. Maybe you say that. My uncle says that.

I have heard it. It comes from this. Okay. So Timothy Dexter buys a bunch of it. He's taking a bet here and everyone's laughing. There was a lack of power because some founding fathers were strongly opposed to the idea of a national banking system. Like there was no federal reserve. There wasn't even a treasury until 1789.

And Congress couldn't buy bills back in exchange for bonds. So like they couldn't stop the depreciation through taxation. No power to levy taxes. I'm getting all these flashbacks to American history class. So anyway, 1778, it's only 15% of its face value. Wow, really sucks. By 1780, it's 2.5% of its face value or what it was before. By 1781, they're worthless. They don't even circulate. And Congress decides, hi, we'll buy back your Continentals for 1% of the face value in treasury bonds. However, in Massachusetts, where Timothy Dexter lives, they pay face value. So this guy gets even more money. He then builds two ships and he decides to export things to the West Indies. The Bahamas, Turkson, Kekos, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic, all the places that you'd want to go to vacation.

That's where he decides to do trade with. And I'm using West Indies because that's the term that his biography used, but that's just one of those Christopher Columbus terms that distinguishes the West Indies from actual India. Anyway, first he sells bed warmers. This is a deliberate ploy by rivals to bankrupt him. Why would they need bed warmers where it's very warm all the time, right? Yeah, that's fair. He sends them on ships and people find them and they say, hey, actually, these can be ladles for the molasses industry. He makes a huge profit.

He then sends wool mittens. He intersects with some merchants and they say, oh, we're going to Siberia. we buy these from you, he makes a huge profit. It's the luckiest man who ever lived. People tell him jokingly, send coal to Newcastle. This is a British idiom and it describes doing something pointless because Newcastle has a massive coal supply. It's in northeast England. So he truly sends coal to Newcastle. Again, this is where you wonder, is this guy an idiot or is he actually smart? I think he might have been an idiot because he sends coal to Newcastle the day the cargo arrives, the miners go on strike. And so he makes a ton of money by doing this. How did he know?

How did he know this? He's, there's no way he knew. There's no way he knew. He ships gloves to the South Sea Islands, which is in Oceania. Again, very warm. And the gloves get bought by Portuguese boats that were already going to China. He takes a ton of, he makes a ton of money. He exports Bibles to the East Indies. Again, Indies is this BS Age of Discovery term made up by colonialists, and it doesn't really make sense anymore. But he's going to the Indian subcontinent. Not a lot of Christians there. I don't really know how the Bible market would be in India. What do you think? Probably not that big. Well, actually, it was huge. There were a bunch of Christian missionaries that didn't have Bibles. He then sends stray cats to the Caribbean Islands. Again,

makes a profit because they had a rat infestation. A lot of of this is coming from him. He's telling these stories. So you have to take it with a grain of salt, but some of it is backed up. Like the Newcastle thing, that's real. That's the one I would think was definitely not real. The New England Historical Society wrote about him. And they say, like, yeah, this guy drank all the time, but they said, despite his drinking, Dexter still has a business sense. Irving Wallace noted, Timothy Dexter founded his fortune on sobriety and hangover. He never drank in the morning and he never conducted business in the afternoon. So he just has his cycle. Maybe that's how we have to do it, guys. Maybe that's how we're going

to make it big. Maybe we're going to be sober in the morning and then drunk all afternoon, just like Timothy Textor. Sounds like a very healthy way of living your life. He hoarded whale bones by mistake. How do you do that? By mistake. Not quite sure. This is written in Margaret Nicholas's book, The World's Greatest Cranks and Crackpots. And then he ends up selling the profitably when corsets come in vogue because the whale bones can be used to make corsets. Like, that's crazy. That's crazy. So by this point, he's very wealthy and he's completely ostracized by New England socialites

because he's really weird. He's still married. He's still married, but he has, quote, a roving eye, according to one biographer. And his wife's not happy with him because he drinks all the time. He gets this big house and then another house in New Hampshire. So he's in Newburyport and also in Chester, New Hampshire. And meanwhile, his relationship with his wife was really suffering. So he looks like he's winning at life, right?

But he's losing at what matters to him, which is fitting in. Remember, they say like ship Cole to Newcastle and he was like, sure, I will. And maybe that was just an attempt to fit in or to make friends. We'll really never know. he often told visitors to his house that his wife, who is alive, had died. He was like, yeah, oh, she died. And he would say that that was... He gives that energy.

He would say that was her ghost. There are written documentation that he just said that his wife was a ghost. So no wonder she's not really happy in this marriage. In one notable episode, he faked his own death, holds a funeral. 3,000 people attend the wait. and then he just wanted to see how people reacted. When he did not see his wife cry, he popped out, he shows up, and then he promptly canes her. I think that's really funny until the caning part, and then it's like, wait, actually, this isn't

really funny. This guy sounds like he was like a psychological terrorist. Like it's giving like American Psycho, 1700. Just like this man in his house of horrors full of whale bones telling people you're a ghost. Okay. So he's reaching the end of his life. And he writes a book to share all his wisdom that he has learned. He calls it a pickle for the knowing ones.

It's available for free on Project Gutenberg. It's also available on the wonderful Internet Archive. It's 25 pages about, it's about 9,000 words. And I mean, I can read you some of this. but it is truly nonsensical. There's a preface, which I was reading and I was like, oh, this is actually totally cogent. Like, this is making total sense to me. And then I got to the actual book and I was like, oh, oh, wait a second.

Just I can't really like show you with my speech the way that the spelling is so inconsistent and the capitalization is random, but you just have to know this. This is the first sentence. To mankind at large, the time is calm at last, the great day of, rejoicing. What is that why? I will tell you, those three kings is raised. Raised, you mean should know, raised on the first royal arch in the world, almost not quite, but very high up upon. So they are good mark to be seen. So the women's like to see the front and all people love to see them as the Quakers will come and people slyly and feel good. And say how the dough friend father George Washington is in the center, King Adams. He's describing his house.

Um, if you didn't catch that. this sounds like someone just trying to make an approximation of someone like from that era talking like a nonsensical just like word jumble that if you're not paying attention it's like I thought I was talking about the apocalypse yeah I also thought this was about the end of the world so I believe that he is um talking about his home which was an out of outdoor museum with 40 wooden statues of figures. Louis XVIth. Adam and Eve.

John Hancock, the first three presidents that he was describing in the paragraph I read clearly, as you all understood. Wow, all the heavy hitters. And it also has Timothy Dexter right among those great men. And it says the motto, I am the first in the east. I am the first in the West and the greatest philosopher in the Western world. So that's his house. That's his museum.

It attracts people who become weirdly fans of him. By the way, this book, he self-publishes it. He distributes for free. And people back in the day, like, this was published in 1802, they really had a taste for irony. Like, I always forget that people back then sometimes had similar senses of humor. And it becomes a cult classic similar to the room. Amazing. He prints it.

It goes through eight printing cycles. And people got really angry because there was absolutely no punctuation in the entire book. There's 8,847 words, no punctuation. So he decides to add some pages at the end of just punctuation. And he says, sprinkle them in as you please. That's actually hilarious. That's man. All the part of this guy.

I'm shocked you didn't become like president or something. Oh, I know. So lots of the people that knew him. considered him to be a bit stupid. And his obituary when he did eventually die said, quote, his intellectual endowments not being of the most exalted stamp, which was rather polite. He died in 1806 at the age of 59. His home remained for a while, but then a storm in 1815 damaged the statues.

They are no longer there. and we just simply remember his legacy from the stories that are told about him and, of course, a pickle for the knowing ones, which has many Goodreads reviews. I'll read the top the top reviews on Goodreads. Perfect. Short, incomprehensible, and utterly bizarre. Highly recommend. Yeah, that's like, I mean, that's like you could describe life that way.

Another top review is just philosophy genius. So never since the flood has their lived a man so little appreciated as Timothy Dexter. And I hope that the takeaway is that sometimes if you're a total misfit, things might work out for you. Sometimes if you act with delusional confidence, you might be successful. Can you imagine this guy on Twitter? Can you even imagine the tweets he would come up with? I can because I think I think we have several successful businessmen today who are living it. They're keeping his legacy strong.

As you were starting this story, the like hapless, like successful by accident guy in the islands, I was definitely picturing like Rees Darby in our flag means death. But then once we got to like actually this man was probably. probably psychotic and really cruel. I was like, no, I take it back. He doesn't get to be played by Reese Darby. But I still would definitely, I would consume some fiction about, about this very kooky, confident guy. He's like terrible Forrest Gump.

Yeah, how I see it. Yeah, totally. Like, if Forrest Gump actually existed, it would probably be more like Mr. Dexter. It's the darkest Forrest Gump timeline, absolutely. Wow. Thank you so much for that. I cannot believe I've never heard of this man before. And will I read his book? No, probably not. But I will watch the inevitable HBO show about him where he's. Oh, 100%. Yes. Iified. What was the weirdest thing we learned this week? What are people feeling? Timothy really I'll be thinking about him for a while you know I think that the accidental whalebone hoarding is something that's going to be really really bothering me for a while I'm really going to be like was he like a really dumb time traveler or something like there's like

it's giving like I don't even know like outlander is that is that's a character from um back to the future Biff whatever Yeah, he just accidentally. He's just like a man with an almanac in the right place at the right time. I will say that the detail about whale bones was driving me nuts because I was like, I need to know more about how you accidentally hoard whale bones. Who just does that? Oh, yeah, my closet where I keep all my whale bones.

Like, no one says that, you know? And it's written in this book by Margaret Nicholas. I tried to get my hands on it. but unfortunately it did not come to my house in time so perhaps the wikipedia editor that cited that book was making something up and i mean you never know with wikipedia i am a big wikipedia fan i'm the wikipedia of the year i just found out but congratulations thank you i mean now i just sound like i'm bragging but i'm just going to say that like you know all wikipedia editors know that wikipedia is not a perfect reliable source and you should always check the citations. And on this one, I was not able to.

So take it with the grand salt. Books aren't always reliable sources either. Most nonfiction books aren't fact check. And when I was writing my book, if I was trying to track down the origin of something and the dead end was a book, I was like, they made it up. They fucking made it up. So, you know, I don't think, I think like Wikipedia may be like that's more obvious to people. And that's like better because books people are just like they grew up being told like don't believe what's on the internet. You got to go check it in a book. And books, people. It's really fast and loose.

Let me tell you what. My book was fact checked. And thank God. Because there's a lot of stuff that was wrong in there. Annie, congratulations on being both the Wikipedia individual of the year

and the winner of this week's the weirdest scammer this week. Woo! Thank you so much. It's so fun to be here. Yay! I've been such a long-time listener, first-time guest,

that this is really exciting for me. Oh my gosh. Well, definitely not a last-time guest. We will have you back. And listeners, definitely check out depths of Wikipedia and depths of internet archive.

The weirdest thing I learned this week is a popular science podcast. We're available on all major podcast platforms, so subscribe wherever you're listening now. And if you like what you hear, please read and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps other weirdos find the show. For more information on the stories you heard in this episode, come find us at popsai.com slash weird. You can buy our merch, including weirdest thing, t-shirts, totebags, and mugs at popsi.threadless.com. The show is produced by all of our hosts, including,

me, Rachel Fultman, with editing and audio engineering by Jess Bode. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for listening, weirdos. 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.