The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Fetish Origins, the Big Oyster, the Most Luxurious Fruit

Episode Date: April 24, 2019

The weirdest things we learned this week range from preferring to have sex on a carnival velcro wall to eating a banana in tin foil with a knife and fork. Whose story will be voted "The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week"? 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 buy tickets for Weirdest Thing Live on June 14th!  Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman Eleanor Cummins: www.twitter.com/elliepsies Claire Maldarelli: www.twitter.com/camaldarelli Popular Science: www.twitter.com/PopSci Theme music by Billy Cadden: www.twitter.com/billycadden Edited by Jess Boddy: www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/popular-science/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/popular-science/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Freud thought that the reason people have foot fetishes is that the foot looks so much like a penis. To which I say, what was wrong with Freud's penis? 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 Claire Maldorelli.

And I'm Eleanor Cummins. So a quick note before we get started, we're actually going to take a quick mid-season break after this episode. It's just going to be a few weeks. We'll be back really soon. We just want some time to work on some extra special episodes for you. We're thinking about maybe going to some strange new locations, getting some really awesome and weird guests co-host to come on. So we're going to have some exciting stuff. Never fear.

You'll see us back in a few weeks. And you may even see a freaky bonus episode or two drop in your feed in the meantime. Also, we have our next live show set for caveat in New York City on June 14th. And it's not too early get tickets because our last two live shows totally sold out. So we will post a link in the article for this week's episode. And with that, let's get into the show. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of factor story that we picked up in the course of reading, writing, scrolling through Twitter, being horrified by Reddit, et cetera. And then we 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 with the weirdest thing we learned this week, actually was. Eleanor, why do you start with your teas? I would like to talk about three trillion oysters that have disappeared from New York City. Oh my God. What a caper. And a tasty one at that. Delicious. Claire? On the food trend, bananas were first introduced as a luxury item, wrapped in tinfoil, and eaten with a fork and knife. Whoa. Like a baked potato. Exactly. Wow. Okay. My teas. is that researchers once got mice to develop a jacket fetish. Whoa. I don't even know what to say.

Can we start there? Sure. Yes, absolutely. Yes, we can, Eleanor. So I have to credit my fiancé Oliver. He heard the Falcon Sex Hats episode where Sarah told us about Falcon sex hats. And he immediately texted me and said, this reminds me of the jacket fetish. with the mice. It's actually rats, I'm realizing now. So apologies for slandering mice.

The jacket fetishists are indeed rats. So researchers were interested in kind of the idea of like sexual conditioning in general and had done some experiments on rats and trying to get them to associate particular things with copulation. In this 2014 study, they allowed virgin male rats, which is just such a phrase, to have sex with female rats who were wearing special little jackets. They were like these little velcroed, just little articles of clothing. Nothing particularly special about them except that rats don't wear clothing. So any clothing is a big to do. So basically the male virgin rats first exposure to mating was with these female rats in jackets.

And what did that result in? I don't think I'm going to be able to hear that. I will tell you. So basically, throughout the course of the rest of the little experiments they did, the males preferred to mate with female rats in jackets, as opposed to the unclad rats, the nudes, if you will. And they would actually, when they had kind of just like a wealth of choice, they would mate more often with the females in jackets.

and they would also make more mounting attempts, and they would ejaculate more quickly, which I guess means the same thing in a rat as it does in a human. I didn't really ever think about it. But yeah, and this isn't, like I said, they had done some similar research before they had used scents, so they had taken like almond extract or some kind of almond scent and basically done almost the same experiment, but with that smell instead of the jackets. So they got virgin male rats to associate the smell with sex. And then they only liked the rat ladies who had that perfume on.

So one thing that is not surprising about this study, but that I still found kind of annoying, is that all of the articles about it had headlines such as ever wondered why men like lingerie. Rats proved it. So it is true that this is like the same idea that. when you're exposed to something and associate it with sex, you are more likely to continue to associate that thing with sex if it happens when you're young and formative. But it annoyed me that they specifically talked about lingerie.

And I get that it is tempting to refer to a lady rat jacket as lady rat lingerie. But I think it's more interesting when instead of being like, why do men love Victoria's Secret so much to actually talk more? broadly about the sexual preferences people develop and why? Because lingerie is like a pretty, I mean, I don't know, there's a lot of social conditioning around lingerie, Victoria's Secret, for example. And there's a lot less conditioning material around for, shall we say, more unusual sexual taste and preferences, and yet they exist. And so I was curious about where the latest research is on that. So fetish. What does it mean? It refers actually specifically to an object. So most of the

things we would refer to as like fetishes are in fact parapherias. Wow. That's the broad term for like atypical sexual preferences of any kind. But that has really interesting history because when you look at the DSM, which psychologists used to diagnose various conditions, In the 60s, there were sexual deviations, which I'm sure you can imagine included lots of things that are just... Just sex. Just sex. Right. And then in the 80s, they created this concept of parapherias to be more like it's not necessarily a psychological condition to be gay, for example.

But they still had this bucket of things that they were like, this is unusual, which makes it a condition. And so there were several named parapherias, things like zoophilia, but the non-specified parapherias that were still considered conditions included stuff as innocuous as like enjoying dirty phone calls. It was very, it was a strange time. This reminds me of that one time that I went to a new doctor and I had to fill out like 10 pages of forms, which I showed everyone in the office. Yes, I remember. And they included very weird questions and definitely like a lot of, um, that old-timey thing of like masturbation? Is it evil and deadly? Wait, what? I did not see these ten forms. So strange. They were like, do you have like ancient diseases?

Like, do you masturbate? What else were there? Do you remember, Rachel? I don't remember. I do. But you're right that they, I think they were from. How many times have you had polio? Yeah, I think they were from the 70s. Yeah, very, very weird. They just had not changed their intake paperwork. Blast from the past. Yeah, and so it wasn't until the DSM-5 that they changed parapheria to paraphylic disorder. So now the only thing that is considered a psychological disorder is a parapheria that either causes you harm and distress in your day-to-day life or is inherently harmful to other people or, you know, involves you acting on things that partners can't consent to. But going back to the rats, there is this whole group of theories about why different people are into things that are less typical.

And a lot of researchers do think that it has something to do with conditioning when you're young. I feel like the Velcro on the rats is less like lingerie and more like a rock climbing harness. Like the idea of being like Victoria's Secret explained. Or I'm just thinking like at those fairs where you put on the Velcro suit and then like jump up once. It would be like if your first sexual experience was on one of those Velcro walls. Yeah. And then you just always had, you were like, it's not that I won't have sex not on a Velcro wall. But it's just better than it.

Exactly. So that's kind of that theory. But it's also one of those things where like all we know is that there's still a lot to learn. And everybody is different even within. groups of people who are into the same atypical thing. And so there's some evidence that, at least in some cases, there may be like a physical brain wiring thing going on. And I found a couple of really interesting examples of that. So there was this one instance, it was a 1954 study published in the Lancet, where it was one of the very few academic case studies of pin fetishism, meaning safety pins,

Not using sharp objects on skin, which is more common, but the safety pin itself as an object of just aesthetic appreciation. It's not that the safety pin was used for anything, but this patient who was a man with epilepsy, as long as he could remember, he said he would enter a translike state when he gazed at a safety pin. It was just like so pleasing to him that it was driving him to distraction. And he would just, like, even thinking about a safety pin as early as childhood, he said, would give him what he called thought satisfaction, which I think is like that ASMR shimmer. Totally. Yeah. So just kind of a like not totally sexual but sensual, you know, enjoyment. That's how I feel about office supplies more generally.

Yeah. I mean, I think there are a lot of people who feel like incredibly satisfied aesthetically by objects of particular, you know, neatness and beauty. So I don't know that we today would call this guy's safety pin thing like a sexual fetish, but it was certainly a fixation on an object that had some kind of sensual component for him. And so that kind of haze that he went into ended up growing into seizures. And they eventually had to give him a temporal lebectomy to remove part of the brain that was causing this epilepsy. And so not only did it get rid of his seizures, but he no longer fetish. shy as safety pins. Whoa.

It was just gone. He had a normal relationship with safety pins from that time on. So, yeah, it's really interesting to me that there was such a one-to-one brain fetish relationship for this guy, that it was specifically safety pins, and then it was specifically not safety pins anymore. It wasn't like he just generally felt this way about staring at things that he liked, and then he didn't feel that way anymore. It was safety pins.

So, yeah, I don't know what happened there. You know, maybe he was having small seizures and didn't realize it. And there happened to be a safety pin present during one of them. And it just became part of the whole thing. We probably will never know because it was 1954 in the Lancet. And records were probably poor. So one more actual brain wiring thing that I find really interesting. So when you look at the homunculus of the brain.

I love the homunculus. Yeah. So I will link to a photo of that. but it's basically a drawing to show where the different parts of your body's, like, nerve activity are particularly active in the brain. So it's this weird diagram of a brain, and then there's, like, a foot and a giant mouth because the more sensitive parts of your body are bigger to show the... The hand is, like, huge hand. It's absurd. But the reason I bring it up is because researchers not long ago finally realized that the foot and the genitals are like right next to each other.

And feet are the most commonly fetishized body part. And all research on like groups of people who are like, yes, I will admit that I have atypical sexual preferences. Most common among them is always feet. And I was reading a vice article that I'll link to about this research and this idea. And it was actually really interesting because the author was talking about the development of his own preference for feet that had this very tangible, wholesome origin in his childhood where he was like an adolescent at camp. And the cool thing that summer among the girls was like putting flowers between their toes and walking around with foot jewelry made of flowers. So, like, adorable as far as as fetish origin stories go, in my opinion. But then he also talks about this idea that it's because wires get crossed in your brain

because the sensory areas that deal with feet and that deal with generals are so close. So I thought that the article as a whole really captured how nuanced human psychology and sexuality is and how, in most cases, there probably is some. physical brain component and some conditioning component. And everyone's okay. It's all good. And these rats lived happy lab rat lives in spite of or perhaps because of their admiration for lady rats in Velcro jackets. So hats off. Jackets off to them. All right. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be right back. Okay, we're back. And Eleanor to apologize for mentioning feet at all in the same room as you. Why don't you go next? Thank you so much. I accept your

apology. So Bill de Blasio recently announced that he's going to be dedicating $10 billion to expand the financial districts East River Waterfront by 500 feet. So he's the mayor of New York City. And basically he wrote this article in New York Magazine in March. And he was saying that in order to prevent against sea level rise and storms, this is something we have to do to secure not only like lower Manhattan, but also sort of the epicenter of like the global economy. And the reasons for this are super clear, right? We had superstorm Sandy in 2012. We've had more than a foot of sea level rise already in New York City since 1900, which I think is something not a lot of people know. And we anticipate that there could be as much as six feet more sea level rise in the city by

2100. So the plan that he put together is for a combination of like grassy berms and removable barriers that will be some, you know, things that you can erect like when a storm is coming. And those will mostly be on like the Hudson Riverside. But on the East Riverside, he writes, quote, the South Street seaport and the Financial District along the eastern edge of lower Manhattan sit so close to sea level, just eight feet above the water line and are so crowded with utilities, sewers, and subway lines that we can't build flood protection on the land. So we'll have to build more land itself. So this announcement is that what they're going to do is they're actually going to expand that by 500 feet or two city blocks into the river. And that will actually be

at an elevation higher than the land itself. And so when sea level rise or storms come in, it's going to kind of create this protective barrier from, you know, these banks and data centers and things like that. And reading this, it reminded me of my single favorite New York City fact, which is that the city was basically built on oysters and that there were an estimated three trillion of them in New York City's waters at the time that Europeans arrived. Wow. And this has huge effects on the sort of growth of the city that we know today. So Pearl Street, which is actually in the financial district, it's like right on the east

side and is one of the streets they're trying to protect, is named for the mountains of oyster shells that had been discarded by the Lenape, who were the Native Americans who lived on this land before Europeans arrived. Sometimes the mounds were like four feet deep and they were transformed into roads. They became pavement. You could burn them down and make lime, and that became a paste for building in the colonial era. So a lot of buildings were made from oyster shells. Wow. Built this city on oyster shells. Yeah, yeah. Liberty Island used to be called Great Oyster Island because you could barely access it because there were just so many like oyster shoals underwater. Teddy Roosevelt, his family lived in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Like, it's sort of written all over the city.

So the question is what happened? Because as anyone who knows New York today knows that it is, not a particularly hospitable environment to marine life. And basically, it's kind of twofold. So one was that we ate a lot of them. We were hungry. We were so hungry. An estimated $1.4 billion were being pulled out of the water and eaten at peak each year. Wow.

Which is, yeah, an incredible amount of oysters. They were really popular in New York City. And, you know, like there are poems written about them, you know, like people who are like Oh, means written about them. Yeah, like oysters like being, you know, brought up and down. the streets on cart and people buying them and they were sort of like the food of the masses in New York City. And what happens is that oysters grow kind of like underwater skyscrapers. So they build on top of each other generationally by in these like really dense layers. And they take a

really long time to form as a result because they're all sort of dependent on each other. And we basically just like we're eating them too fast for them to really like reliably replenish themselves. That sounds like us. Definitely. But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was poop. So, yeah, ours, human beings and their molten waste. So Mark Kirlanski's The Big Oyster, a play on the Big Apple, because he's acknowledging the true food here, the one that really matters. He writes, if eating an oyster is tasting the sea, eating a New York oyster was tasting New York Harbor, which became increasingly unappealing. And basically, people were dumping raw sewage into the rivers and into the ocean. and it had a devastating effect on like all marine life, obviously.

Oysters can process up to 50 gallons of water a day each little oyster. And they're basically just like the like natural filters. But they, and so they can sort of move through like a certain amount of sewage. This was definitely too much. And then what also happens is that they can't process heavy metals or PCBs. So those just get trapped in the oyster. And then if you beat the oyster, they're like trapped inside you. So it's not like a great idea to be eating them when they're exposed to such harmful pollutants.

And I think it's actually funny, like, well, no tragic, that New York City actually kept doing this into the 1990s. Like, we were still dumping. No. Yeah, even as it became illegal, we were still dumping sewage into open bodies of water. But by then, the oysters were long gone. So there are definitely still some oysters today, right? Like, they think there might even be in the guanis, which is everyone knows is like the nasty. Those are like the cockroaches of the oyster world.

Yeah, exactly. Like, nothing alive should be in the guanis, and they think that there might be some oysters there anyway. They're clearly, like, nowhere near their former numbers, and the ones that are there probably just, like, hanging on for dear life. And so there's, like, this kind of conversation around, like, what we lost, when we lost the oysters. And so one thing is that idea of them being cleaners, right? Like, if you have to get rid of a certain amount of waste and you have a lot of oysters, like, you have a natural filtration system.

Like it's an incredible sort of resource that we destroyed. But then also to sort of tie it back to what Mayor de Blasio is doing, like we lost a seawall. Like they were a natural set of breakers. And they can be structurally similar to coral reefs in terms of like their density and size. And I mean, three trillion oysters is sort of enough that from like a sailor's perspective, you would have to reconsider like the maps of New York as we see them today. because you wouldn't be able to just pull your ship into, you know, an existing harbor. Like, you would be coming up against, like, increasingly dense oyster kind of communities.

And so they were just truly incredible and had a really protective effect, not only on Manhattan Island, which is between two rivers, but also on Long Island, which is, you know, right there at the edge of the ocean. And so what is interesting is, like, a lot of people are taking this very seriously and kind of want to bring the oysters back. So there's something called the Billion Oyster Project, which has already planted tens of millions of oysters. And they do this really interesting thing where they're like recycling oyster shells that come from restaurants in New York City because like they need those bases for these communities. And then planting new live oysters and trying to help them grow.

And obviously these are not edible. The water is much cleaner than it has been historically, but it's definitely still full of pollutants. And they're not trying to harvest these oysters for food. but they're just trying to establish, you know, that we can clean water this way that these communities of oysters are viable and that we can have them be a part of like a healthier New York City environment. And so, you know, for now, you can support organizations who are doing that work. It's definitely a really exciting thing from my perspective. But also, you know, you can just think about this history the next time you eat an oyster, especially if it's the New York City special, the Blue Point. So that is my oyster story.

That's incredible. I wonder, can they do it in other areas around the country, like shorelines besides New York, or is it just? Yeah, so there are different types of oysters regionally. So the one on the East Coast is the Cassatray of Virginica. And you could definitely, like, restore them. They do better, I think, in other communities. Like, New York has been particularly hard on his oysters. But yeah, like, they also, it influences all of the different flavors you get. So cold water versus warm water, like, affects the size. of the oysters that grow. And then obviously, I have to say as a person from the West Coast, the oysters out of northern Washington State and like Southern British Columbia are so superior to East Coast oysters, I'm sorry to say. The way that they like concentrate the very hyperlocal streams and rivers, each one has such a distinct taste. Whereas like the oysters of Long Island, I think a lot of people will be mad at me for saying this, all just sort of taste like They're all from Long Island.

Like, they're not that distinct. I don't want to taste like I'm from Long Island. No. So, so definitely you can and people are bringing them back. It's interesting, like, what is for, like, farming and, like, being actively managed for food. Yeah, because some of them wouldn't be able to be eaten, like, what you were saying. If we eat them, then we ruin the benefit of building the walls and whatnot. Totally.

Also, they're full of all our gross poop. Exactly. Yeah. So it's a very delicate thing. And honestly, like, kind of controversial for that reason where, like, agencies are concerned about how informing the public about these things will, like, affect them because nobody wants them to go and, like, grab them and take them and be like, this is food because they're definitely not. Right. But, yeah, it is really exciting that people are taking these little bivalves seriously because they really pack a punch, like 50 gallons a day for an oyster, like half the size of your palm. I find that so impressive.

Yeah. So efficient. The Rumbas of the sea. Yes. Yes, wonderful. All right. That's great. Okay, we'll take a quick break and then we'll be back.

Hey, weirdos. Hope you're enjoying this episode of the weirdest thing I learned this week. I want to tell you about another Popside podcast that you might enjoy. It's called Techathlon. Tech, A-T-H-L-O-N. Every Monday, the Popsie tech team will join me, Jason Letterman, to tell you all about the week's latest tech news through games, trivia, and competitions that you can play along with.

It's a crew of Popsie staffers you already know and know. love, and we would love to be in your podcast feed. Subscribe to Techathlon wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. That's Tech, A-T-H-L-O-N. Now, back to the weirdest thing I learned this week. Okay, we're back, and Claire is going to tell us her fact. Time to talk bananas. I personally think bananas are the perfect fruit.

They come in their own biodegradable wrapping. They're easy on the stomach, and they have fiber. What more could you want in a fruit? Most importantly, they're the best milkshake flavor, if I have to say. Wow. Yes. Also, frozen, they make any blended beverage better. Correct.

Correct. Covered in chocolate. Some people like that. I hate chocolate. I hesitate to speak on bananas after I tweeted about how their flaps touch your face and was ridiculed in the office for literally weeks. But please continue. I sit here stoic and silent.

I'll buy you a banana for after this episode. Teach me how to eat one place. And I won't judge you for how you eat it. Thank you. You're welcome. So my fact this week comes courtesy of my brother-in-law, Dan Crane, who required a shout-out to provide me more information about this. So there's that.

He and my sister have been loyal residents of the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia for quite some time, and they are now leaving, heading over the mountains through the woods, as I call it to the burbs of Philadelphia. So this episode is in part a plea to keep them in the city, even though they have already purchased their house. They are destined for suburban wasteland. The banana, back to that. Also a favorite fruit of my sisters,

was first introduced to America at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 in Fairmount Park along the Schuylkill River. Wow. So we have her neighborhood to thank for the banana. Now, as not to be confused, the banana is no new trendy fruit for 1876 standards. Many believe it originated in the rainforests of Southeast Asia, where wild species still grow today. They even might have been cultivated as early as 1,000 BC. Wow. But by the 1400s, it had made its way to the west coast of Africa and onto the Canary Islands and the Caribbean, where Portuguese and Spanish-Spanish-San. sailors brought it. Many even later thought that the fruit had its origins there because it became such a huge part of the culture and grew so well there. Today, you can buy a banana,

sometimes even a bunch, for a dollar or less. But when it first reached the United States in Philadelphia, it was very much a luxury item. So now, imagine 1876. We're celebrating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. America holds the centennial international exhibition in Philly, which became the first official World's Fair in the United States. It was held for seven months straight from May 10th until November 10th, and it attracted nearly 10 million visitors, including people from 37 countries. I always forget how long those things are. I know. Like, you think it's just like a weekend, like Coachella or something. I watch a TV show in a day, and they used to just hold these like

giant live entertainment things for years. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, there wasn't much, you couldn't just power through. There wasn't a lot to do. Right. It was held on the fairgrounds, as I said, along the Schuylkill River. And it was very much like a celebration of the Declaration of Independence.

But at the same time, it was very much a modern-day consumer electronics showcase and food exhibition. So there was this whole exhibit area that was set up to show, consumer products for the first time. And these included the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, the Remington typographic machine, also known as the typewriter, Heinz ketchup, I didn't know that, the precursor to the electric light, hires root beer, which was among the first rootbears. I'm smiling. This Japanese plant called the kudzu, which became a plant species to control other invasive species.

And the right arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty were even showcased at the exhibition. And for a fee of 50 cents, visitors could climb the ladder to the balcony, and the money raised was used to fund the pedestal for the statue. Wow. Oh, I was going to say, it was like, did they just like take it? But that was before the Statue of Liberty was finished. Right. As I should know, because I had talked about it in an episode once. She just seems timeless.

Indeed. She's a lovely, lovely woman. In addition to all these things, there were bananas. So a little farther away from the Consumer Electronic Showcase was this 40-acre display. Remember this is Philly, 1876, so 40 acres, yes, of tropical plants. And they had taken all these, like, plants from around the world and sort of, like, displaying them. Among the most popular were bananas. So local grocers would take a banana, peel it, put it in tinfoil,

and then serve it with a fork and a knife for 10 cents, which was about an hour's wage worth of work. Oh, my God. And they were the most popular fruit at this exhibition. Like, everyone wanted to try their hands at eating a banana. So it was like buying a $15 banana if it was like an hour's work or more. If you live in a city that supports labor, which you should. But anyway, it was an expensive banana.

It was a really expensive banana. And everyone was just super. into it. They were like, what is this thing? Like, everyone was talking about the banana. So afterwards, after the centennial exhibition's conclusion, the banana kind of remained this elusive, sort of expensive luxury item where people would say, like, oh, have you tried a banana? And, like, I tried it at the World's Fair or whatever. It was, like, very much, like, a sign of success that you had tried a banana. But they were only really available in port cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Boston for years after the exposition. And it wasn't until,

this Cape C-Cod sea captain named Lorenzo Baker, who happened upon the banana in Jamaica and brought it back with him to New Jersey and sold them. And they sold so quickly that he was like, oh, my gosh, this is a business. By 1885, he and a businessman from Boston named Andrew Preston created the Boston Fruit Company and sold the bananas more widely throughout America. Other people capitalized on this as well. and now the banana is among the most popular fruits around the world. Definitely in my household. There's always money in the banana stand. Yes.

And it all started in Fairmount in Philadelphia. Great place. Some people should just stay there and not move. I'm loving imagining these like boozy white Victorian people with feeling so cool, but being losers eating a banana with a fork in. knife out of tinfoil. Yes. That's a great image.

I mean, if you take a banana and put it in tinfoil and, like, cook it over a stove, it's really good. Yeah, it's a great, like, campfire dessert. Yeah. I love the flow of, like, fruits and spices. Like, it's so interesting to think about how essential they are, but that they, like, probably all came from, like, their own distinct little forest. Like, the idea that nobody had chili peppers until Europe made contact with the new world

is astounding to me because like Indian cuisine, Chinese food, like how would you make it without that? Yeah. What were they eating before? Yeah. How did any of us survive? Yeah. Or I wonder today all like the superfoods, none of them like originated in the U.S. like avocados and coconuts.

It's like how would hipsters survive? I'm hungry. Me too. It is lunchtime. So who won? What was the weirdest thing we learned this? week. For me, it's oysters because I've never thought about the fact that I live in the big oyster. Same. And I kind of hate, like, eating oysters. And so now I feel validated that we

should have never eaten them to begin with. They're there for an ecological purpose. Yeah, they are not to be eaten, okay? Not everything is for the taking. 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 rate and review us on iTunes. It helps other weirdos find the show. You can buy our merch, including Weirdest Thing, t-shirts, tote bags, and mugs at popside.threadlist.com. Our show is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Faltman, and our editors, Jess Bodie and Jason Letterman. 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. We roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for citizens' bank. Stitch fix. Stop shopping. Get styled.

Not today's sweatpants. Somebody's wearing jeans that fit. Wow! No photos, please. I'm just a regular dad who happens to have a stylist. I can really look my best when someone else makes the decisions. Hey, we can all see you two-way mirrors. Just share your size, style, and budget, and your stylist sends personal. looks right to your door.

Stitch Fix. Get started today at stitchfix.com. I want to hug you. I'm going to hug you. I'm coming in for a hug.