The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Lotion Spider Brouhaha, ADHD Superpowers, Earth's Evil Twin

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

Scientist and Twitch streamer Knimbley joins the show today to talk about how astronomy and Elden Ring intertwine! Plus, Jess returns to talk about lotion spiders, and Rachel explains how ADHD used to offer a real survival benefit in the olden days. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our Facebook group or tweet at us! Click here to learn more about all of our stories!  Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman  Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman Link to Jess' Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman Produced by Jess Boddy: www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy Popular Science: www.twitter.com/PopSci Theme music by Billy Cadden: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ Thanks to our Sponsors! Right now, get 60% off at https://Babbel.com/WEIRDEST This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off your first month at https://BetterHelp.com/WEIRDEST Ask for Claritin-D at your local pharmacy counter. You don’t even need a prescription! Go to https://Claritin.com right now for a discount so you can Live Claritin Clear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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.com. 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. Hey weirdos, before we get into the episode, the weirdest thing I learned this week needs your help. For the first time ever, the weirdest thing I learned this week has been nominated for a Webby Award. This is a huge deal and it's really exciting. And the best news is that you don't just have to sit there with your fingers crossed hoping we win.

You can help us take home the Webby People's Voice Award. All you have to do is go vote for our show sometime before April 18th, 2024. You can find the link in the show notes of this episode or on my Patreon, or you can go to vote.com to show your support. You will find the weirdest thing I learned this week in the Science and Education podcast category. Voting is only open until April 18th, so please go cast your ballot right now and tell all your friends. Jess and I are so excited about this nomination and winning would mean the world to us. So we're so grateful for your support. Okay. Now it's time for the show. Thanks for voting. Weird At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and text stories every week.

And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of popular science. I'm Rachel Feltman. I'm Just Bowie. And I'm Nimbley. Nimbley, welcome to the show.

Yay. Nice to have you. Thank you for having me. Jess, why don't you take the lead on talking about this awesome guest and who they are and what they do? Yeah. This is Nimbley, my Twitch creator-streamer friend. She is so lovely and wonderful. Does a lot of really calming content.

Nim, do you want to explain kind of the stuff you make? Yes. First of all, thank you for having me here. Yeah. We're so happy. Oh, stop. We're so happy to have you here. Yeah.

I mostly play high and dark fantasy games and I read the item descriptions and encyclopedias a lot. Yeah. To an unhinged degree at sometimes. Yeah. Bursting through doors and talking about information. Yeah, that's what I do on the internet. Yeah. I love your content.

I love what you make. Yeah. Thank you. I'm really shy too. I apologize if there are pauses, but I'm happy to be here. This is me going to be challenging myself. It's like a boss fight, but a loving one. So thank you for challenging me on this lovely gloomy Wednesday.

Yes. Is it? It is Wednesday. It is one day. The episode's air on Wednesday and we're, in fact, recording on one. Who knows what the weather will be like when this airs. Indeed. You know, I feel like 50, 50 champs.

It'll be gloomy because that's springtime. Well, we're so psych to have you on, and let's get right 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 we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, boss fights, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was, in a non-competitive, chill-friendly way. Because the world is competitive enough without it.

Also being on the show. Jess, why do we start with your tease? Which I'm sure actually has nothing to do with video games at all. You know, every time I'm like, actually this time it doesn't. And this time off the cuff, I don't think it does, but no promises. I might take it there eventually. my tease this week is that I want to talk about the lotion that attracts spiders. Oh, no.

Yeah, I need to know that so I can never buy it. I will explain. My fact today is that ADHD may have evolved to make us better at foraging berries, which, whoa, you know, rude that that can't be my job today. But I forage facts instead. Wow. What a connection. I love that.

Nimbley, what's your tease? I am a fellow fact forager and my weird thing that I learned this week is that Venus, which is seen as a goddess of love and a planet of beauty is actually evil and horrible and toxic and habitable. She's fantastic. I love it. Jess, why do you get started with lotion spiders? I would love to.

I'd love to not end on that haunting note. Yes, definitely more haunting. Maybe this won't be haunting at all, but I'm nervous. No promises. Okay, cool. So, yeah, basically lotion spiders. So this was a big story around the internet, like at the end of last year, like in December of 2020. And, you know, we've also been hearing a lot about.

like the children like running through Sephora. I was like what about the children, but yes. The children. They are running through Sephora. The drunk elephant children, yes. I have, I truly, okay, I, this is very random, but I was in Aspen for work. And there were so many children who were not just wearing luxury skincare, but like made up like adults in a way that reminded me of like, so I'm 32 and you know, in my

youth we all wore business casual we like dressed like little adults yeah in a way that it's like it's not even like um it's it's not even like creepy skeezy it's just like odd and that was what their makeup was like the gaucho pant yeah yes exactly the gaucho pant the sensible blazer in middle school um and yeah that was what their makeup reminded me of i wasn't like oh this is like hypersexualized and creeps me out, I was just like, why do you have contouring like your 40? That's a good point. That's so weird. It was imagining like Sing Kid eyeliner.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, oh, you know, just walking around. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. So, yeah, you know, the kids in Sephora, you know, transition phrase, spiders in Sephora?

Makes you think. So basically, yeah, at the end of last year, someone left a review on Savora's website. It was about a specific kind of lotion from Seoul de Janeiro, which is one of the brands. Those kids are going after like drunk elephant. But it was the Delicia drench body butter. And yeah, that company also makes like that Brazilian bum bum cream that goes in your but cheeks, which I think is just awesome. But anyway, so I'll read you the review of this delisia drench body butter.

Okay. This is on Sephora's website. One star, scent attracts wolf spiders. Oh, no. If you're scared of wolf spiders, watch out for these lotions, L.O.L. I wanted to love them so bad. But one of the ingredients is like kryptonite to wolf spiders. And I just want to note, this is just speaking on the review.

Cryptonite is not used correctly. Right. And I probably mean it would scare them away. This person means that it is a little bit of a little. attracting them. Anyway, okay, so she continues, or they continue. I guess I don't know this person's pronouns. When I put it on, instantly one will come out.

Normally I'll see whenever you like three years used this and it was every day. I stopped using it and I haven't seen one sense. Oh, and one time the spider wanted to eat whatever ingredient it is so bad that it chased me. I swear on everything I'd run left, it ran left. I ran right, it ran right. Like it was Like Scooby-Doo Like it was legit following the scent

And no the scent isn't that good Nothing a $5 vanilla cream can't match Wow So yeah Do be careful if you're frightened of spiders Especially the big wolf ones Also please don't hurt them If you do wear this and appear

Use a cup to put them outside Sorry for a disappointing review And that's the end 22 people marked it as helpful I will say I will add. So that appeared. And then after this review appeared, a couple others did saying kind of a similar thing. And not as entertaining of a message.

But, you know, people are saying, I saw wolf spiders when I wore this. So, and, you know, for those who don't know, wolf spiders, you know, they're these dark colored arachnids that have these long, skinny legs. They live in North America. they can get up to like an inch inch to half two inches in diameter like they're not little guys they're they can get pretty large and their bites are not

a big danger to humans like it's like any bug bite some people are allergic to their venom but it's pretty rare so not hugely troublesome spiders but they obviously can give you a fright especially if you do not like bugs

especially spiders So, yeah, a handful of lotion spider reviews pop up on Sephora, but then someone posted it to Reddit. And everybody was like, wait, I too have experienced this. Sure. Reddit is the go-to place for I-2 have experienced this, I would say. Yes. You can post anything and someone will be like, oh, me too. Exactly.

That's how you verify information actually is I put my query and then Reddit. Reddit, yeah. I'm sure. Exactly. Lotion attracting spider Reddit is what I'm sure many of people typed in. So here's a Reddit post from Sage Gray 3. This explains the spiders. Dot, dot, dot.

Though, this review made me laugh so much. I stopped in my tracks and realized that, strangely enough, I've seen a couple while wearing it. The last time I wore it, one crawled right in front of me. I took a photo and asked Google, what kind of spider? And sure enough, wolf spider dot dot dot very strange dot dot dot dot i sure didn't correlate it with the lotion dot dot dot dot dot and then this narration is exquisite oh i'm so glad i'm having fun if you can't tell um and then

so this other person's named hey it's just chaco is their Reddit username they did an experiment you know arm share scientists many of those in this in this tale, saying that they wanted to do an experiment. So this is their post. I will experiment today and keep you updated. Update four hours. I've seen two spiders at work. One came at me and one didn't. I put some cream on a tissue to see if it would interest a spider. We'll update soon. Update at 10 hours. Spiders went to the tissue paper. I think they're attracted to the pheromones of the cream. Oh, the pheromones of the cream. The pheromones, which that'll actually come. back.

Okay, this is also an aside. But in this thread, someone, there were kind of, a lot of people were kind of talking about like lotions or perfumes that attract other bugs or animals in their experience. And someone was saying that they were wearing Victoria's Secret, pure seduction body spray.

And they went swimming in a river and they got swarmed by fish. Like they kept kind of like getting nibbled. And then. then she this person kind of felt like a bigger bite and then they're like oh my god I'm bleeding and then they looked and there was a huge alligator gar that was like chasing them and like gars don't like go after people that's wild I know I need to see what this looks like yeah they're they're definitely freaky looking but they're like you don't normally have to worry that one of them is gonna it's gonna snack on you yeah and again this is anecdotal who's to say

If this is true or like if it was the Victoria's Secret Pure seduction. Sorry, Rachel, go ahead. Oh, no, just it's funny though, because there's, I would have to look up which one it is, but there's a Victoria's Secret perfume, or maybe not Victoria's Secret, but there was a very like girly, sugary perfume involved in that because it had, it turned out to have pheromones that attracted lions. Yeah. Like, it's not an uncommon thing.

Right. I think a lot of entomologists like scoffed at this whole thing, which I'll talk more about too. But like when people say like, oh, it's the pheromones, it's the pheromones. But like it's not totally unfounded. Right. Yeah. You know. So of course, as you might guess, Reddit discourse blew up about lotion spider saga. And this is armchair scientist number two. This person thought they had all figured out speaking of pheromones. This is from marching koala. This is what they said. Hello. I just didn't. a little dive into chemicals that attract spiders because I really don't like bugs. According to studies, there's a two-component female-produced pheromone of the spider. It basically signals for sexual communication. The chemical analysis reveals that farneousil acetate, diisobutal phallothate, and hexadec, hexadellasexedosal acetate of the spider webs exhibited higher relative abundance in sexually receptive females. This person is just reading from like a scientific study and I don't think fully grasping exactly the particular this what they're saying could be true but I don't think I think they're taking a lot of context basically and basically they're saying that those

two chemicals the pharnaceal acetate and hexadecal acetate attract male spiders. They did not specify what what spider this study looked at and at the end they say summary but spelled with two U's URY instead of ARI, it's URY. combine Farnasseal acetate with hexaducal acetate in the right dosage And it might bring all the thirsty boys spiders to your yard Because you may also smell like a thirsty girl spider Basically they're saying that those two

Chemicals, oh I skipped this part Basically those two chemicals are what are commonly used in many body creams and lotions And those are two chemicals that are also in this scientific study about spider pheromones So they're making this connection that if this lotion that people are saying attracts wolf spiders has these chemicals and that wolf spiders use those chemicals as pheromones, unisually natural to think that that is what's going on. And then somebody saw this message and tweeted,

it's literally made out of spider pheromones. You can't make this up. Y'all are wearing spider pherombs and attracting all the male spiders. Oh my God. That's what somebody tweeted. So incredible. What a microcosm of internet. Yes. Lour creation and divorce. Truly, it really got out of hand very quickly. So much so that the lotion brand chimed in. Oh my God. They said, quote, all of our products, including our new Delicia drenched body butter and upcoming Cheriosa 59 perfume mist are free from Farnassell acetate, diacetyputeal phallateate, and hexadecalacetate.

So they said, we don't have any of those things you guys are talking about. about none of the quote unquote spider pheromones are in these are in these products they didn't say they didn't have other spider pharma it would have been easy to just say we don't have any spider i guess they're like we can either confirm or deny yeah pretty much um and they ended their statement by saying quote so while they may attract a lot of attention from people they won't from arachnids even though we love all creatures at soul degenero which i think is land out a little thing but also kind of nice. Yeah, I was about to say I feel bad for laughing because actually someone clearly

painstakingly crafted that statement and it's sweet. Yeah, yeah, I think it's nice. So basically this idea kept proliferating online even though Zoldes Genera was like, we don't have these chemicals, or we don't use these compounds that could be likened to a spider pheromone. So, you know, at the end of the day, What are the entomologists say? What do the scientists say about all this? Like, could this lotion really be attracting wolf spiders? You're probably asking this. Yeah, absolutely.

Yes. Big surprise. Scientists say, nope. Dang it. I know. Well, it's good. If you don't like spiders, I guess. But I too was hoping for a little bit of a mechanism at play. Right. So, okay, Floyd W. Shockley, which is the name of an entomologist, if I've ever heard one. This guy is the chair of entomology collections committee at the Smithsonian. And he told the New York Times that the memes showed a, quote, glaring lack of understanding about the diversity of wolf spiders. This guy also sent, this is in an email. So he's at his desk furiously typing this. Absolutely. It is highly unlikely that the skin cream company, through random chance, combined enough things in just the right proportion to mimic a

spider compound. So he did say highly unlikely and not impossible. I would like to clarify there. So you never know. At the end of the day, though, this probably was a case of confirmation bias. Right. So this was in the, this all kind of went down, as I said at the end of last year, which is during the winter months, which it's getting colder. Bugs come inside to shelter from the cold. People probably were wearing this new lotion that just released. They saw the spiders coming inside. They were like, oh, these two things are connected. And I'm noticing. the spiders more because I'm reading about the reviews online. Right.

So it could be confirmation bias. And then another scientist debunked this or tried to debunk it, I guess, by explaining that the sex pheromones that these armchair scientists claim could be in the lotion are actually super mega specific to each individual species of spider. There are like thousands of different kind of wolf spider species. So the chance that this weird chemical reaction would happen precisely correctly to attract the all the same wolf spider across all these reviews is like very unlikely. And yeah, just, you know, at the end of the day, I'm wrapping up. But, you know, in general, the entomology

community was kind of prosnickety about the whole thing. There was a press release that called it a brew ha ha, which is a word I would like to bring back into my vocabulary, I think. And like there was this one university of Cincinnati professor George Utz, I think, is how you say. it. He said he's wolf spiders in the lab. And he said, quote, the internet is a great source of information, but it's not always accurate. And someone putting a dab of body butter on a tissue and reporting it on Reddit that it attracts spiders doesn't count as research. So they, they were up in arms. He's not wrong. No, he's not wrong. Let me be clear. I'm imagining like a Powerpuff Girls, Professor Eutonian scenario where the scientists were in the lab and accidentally reached.

Spider bombs. Wait, that's so cute. So, yeah, that's basically, you know, that's my story. And I also want to say, like, at least here in America, Australia, their spiders are so scary. But at least here in America, you know, don't fear the spider. Unless it's like a black widow, you know, that there's things you should fear. But generally, if you see a spider in your house, like, it's probably doing a lot of good for you. It's probably eating other annoying bugs.

I like the original person who kicked all of this off What they said in their review If you see a spider in your house, don't kill it Put it in a cup and take it outside Like spiders are people too Not really but they're good They're good they're good they're good They eat mosquitoes

Yeah You know I don't want to like Hang out with a bunch of spiders But like I do respect their I respect their person You know Yeah Wow I love that

What a great story It had so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I feel like I went on an entire journey with that thing. Yeah, me too. That's why I was like, I got to talk about this. Of spider avoiding lotions and stuff. And also like, it truly was a plot twist for me that there were no video games involved.

Because honestly, when you said spider lotion, I was like, ah, something from a video game where it's a lotion made of spiders. It sounds like it should be. I will say it to the last of us, too. I haven't played. I haven't played last of us too. I've only heard of the first one. It feels like there could be spider lotion. That's true.

It sounds kind of blood borny, honestly. Like, there's a spider named Rom in that game, and she's wonderful. She used to be a scholar. And then she, you know, learned too much in a lovecrafty way and then turned into a spider. So she's great. Anyway, there's my video game connection. Fear the old bomb. Fear the old bomb.

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Because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for citizens back. Okay, we're back. And I'm going to talk about my fact, which is about ADHD, a thing I have. I do. Yay. And was diagnosed with as an adult. Me too.

Yeah. The tale is oldest time. And so, yeah, this is mostly about a new study, but I also want to. explain some of the context of the research. But basically, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania recently released a study on the potential evolutionary benefits of ADHD. You know, of course, a lot of neurodiversity has historically been talked of in terms of negatives.

And I think increasingly things like people are talking about things like ADHD and autism and being on the autism spectrum as being like more neutral. and potentially having things about them that are really cool. And obviously that really resonates with me as somebody who, you know, does have like a funky brain. But I think, you know, it's also really important from like a scientific perspective to sort of like break away from the idea of like what is sort of like normal and good and, you know, really increasingly getting away from the idea that there's any like right normal way. for a human brain to work. Because, come on. Have you ever been in a brain?

I'm absolutely unhitched. All the time. I have been in a cat brain, but that'll be for another conversation. Oh, my God. So in a study, they analyzed data from 4507 adults once they pulled out, you know, the surveys that couldn't use, always part of a study, who played an online forging game. and the objective of the game was to collect as many berries as possible within an eight-minute span, which honestly, I was reading the description of this game, and I was like, this feels like really familiar.

And I'm like, wasn't this literally a game in Neopets with berry collection? I'm going to keep describing the game and tell me if you agree. So players could either choose to keep collecting berries from the bushes in their original location or move to a new patch. And then moving would cause them like a brief time. out, which was not part of the Neopets game, but this was a time study. And there was no guarantee when they moved that the new patch would have as many berries as their current location. So you were taking a risk, but the number of berries you could get from each bush would go down each time you forged it again. So like, you know, you could take the strategy of being like, I am making

sure I've gotten every possible berry from these bushes where I know there are berries, or you can lose a little bit of time to go look for bushes that might be more plentiful. But there was definitely a berry picking thing in theobets. That was like there was also sort of a search versus exploit tactic. I do have a vague memory of that. I can see the bushes in my mind's eye. I was never very good at it. But apparently...

I think you would as well pick your own? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Wow. Well, I would simply love to know if researchers from this study were inspired by that game or just happened to create something very similar. If you were listening, please let me know. But yeah, they played this game. And then along with the game, the subjects took a survey that was designed to assess whether they had symptoms of ADHD. So it was self-reported. It didn't constitute like a full or formal diagnosis, but it screened for traits like. having difficulty concentrating. And when the researchers compared the survey results with the gameplay stats, they found that people with ADHD symptoms played differently and actually more effectively than people

who didn't have those symptoms or who ranked lower on that symptom score. Basically, they were more likely to move on to another bush more quickly, and they collected an average of 602 berries compared with 521. So, you know, a pretty big difference when you're talking about having enough berries to eat. Of course, that being said, I probably don't need to tell you that this isn't exactly a perfect model for like actual foraging. The researchers do hope to do a similar experiment in the future involving in person foraging. And in that case, they would also actually use people with a formal ADHD diagnosis instead of relying on these self-reported surveys. That would obviously be a much more complicated experiment to run, and I absolutely volunteer.

I want to go pick berries for science. So please call me. But, you know, while this study does have its shortcomings, this isn't the first research to suggest that ADHD traits and other types of neurodiversity might have evolved to actually help our ancestors survive in just very different conditions than most of us live in now. And that, you know, the quote unquote downsides of these conditions are often due to a mismatch between what the traits evolved to do and like what we're expected to do from day to day. We did not evolve to sit in chair and type. Darn. I personally love to sit in chair and type.

I love that my job is not like Chase Mammoth. but apparently my brain might be designed more for Chase Mammoth than for sit and tear in time. My body, absolutely not. But listen, we live in a society and we've had many years to become what we are. I wrote a post once for, I wrote it for my substack, but I'm going to cross post it to my Patreon because I'm transitioning over to that platform. But it was called We're Not That Pinnacle of Anything. And it was about like we tend to have this, this bias to believe that, like, humanity is evolving towards something and, like, getting, becoming more perfect, which is really based on, like, you know, the fact that eugenics was mainstream science for way more of modern history than people like to admit or reflect on.

And actually, evolution is super random and is not, we're not getting better or worse. We're just getting different. And sometimes you spend like 90% of your species history foraging and hunting. And then you switch to being agrarian and then industrial. And that's a relatively short time for traits to catch up. So everything just gets a little silly. And that's okay. We're all fine.

But yeah, other studies have examined the differences in how people with ADHD search for information and objects and found that we spend more time in the explore phase of forging versus the exploit phase. So that's literally, you know, searching for bushes with berries in them versus grabbing the berries from the bush. And of course, explore and exploit are both crucial to coming home with berries. But you can either, you can lean really hard into seeking out as many new bushes as possible. You can lean really hard into just making sure you get every single berry that you see in front of you at any given moment. And most people are going to do something in between those two tactics. And yeah, people with ADHD tend to be more into exploring. And the connection that researchers often make is that we have this, you know, hyper-focused tendency with ADHD.

where, yes, you have trouble paying attention often in certain circumstances, but there's also this tendency to get really focused on a thing, often not the thing that's like, quote unquote, important or like good for you to focus on. And so like talking about hobbies and, you know, going on Wikipedia spirals, literally this show exists because of my hyperfixations. Like, truly, that is why we are here today. But yeah, the idea that what we're doing is like going into that explore phase and not caring so much about the exploit and not caring about finishing the task or starting another task and really just playing around and explore in. There's actually some ongoing research I found that I'll link to on my Patreon and on popside.com slash weird that suggests that kids with ADHD are less susceptible to inattention bias, which. is that thing that the study with the gorilla tests.

So there's this very famous study and you can find the video online and test it for yourself where it's like, okay, count how many times this ball gets passed and people are throwing the ball around. And then in the course of that video, spoiler alert, somebody in a guerrilla suit walks across the screen. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And inattention bias is the phenomenon where something really, really wild can happen. But if you are focused on collecting other information, you can just completely miss it because our brains filter information for us. So even though it's right in front of your face that there is a gorilla walking across the screen, your brain might not really show you that gorilla in a meaningful way. because it's like, we literally have to keep our eye on the ball.

So anyway, there are some researchers working on the idea that kids with ADHD, because of this, like, sort of tendency for exploration and not, like, focusing on sort of arbitrary tasks, that they might actually be less susceptible to inattention bias. As far as I can tell, that study hasn't been published yet. It's maybe been presented at some conferences, but I do think it's, It's a really intriguing idea. I certainly did not see the gorilla. But listen, we're talking about on average.

So there is also some evidence to support the idea that this is like an evolutionary benefit. So in 2008, researchers found that members of a nomadic group in Kenya who had gene mutations associated with ADHD were in better health than average in their group. And then those same mutations were associated with malnourishment in closely related people who lived as farmers. Basically, this group had people starting to farm while others were continuing to live nomatically as they had for generations. And you could see these ADHD-associated gene mutations having very different impacts on them. Of course, it looks like this study was looking at the gene mutations as opposed to really screening them. for ADHD behaviors, but it is really intriguing. There's this broad idea known as the Hunter versus Farmer hypothesis that the hyper focus

associated with ADHD was just really useful for that like 90% of human history that we were foraging and then much less useful in agrarian and industrialized life. Yeah, one 1998 study just to like tie a bow on how useful ADHD can be. but also painful. When 1998 study found that adults with self-reported ADHD were much better at being able to postpone eating, sleeping, and other personal needs to absorb themselves in an urgent task, like a last-minute deadline. Huh. Yeah. Which does track.

Sure. Or a boss fight and a game. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, exactly. And that's a mindset that would have come in handy for, like, unpredictable. food acquisition, like this sudden appearance of a herd of animals or an unexpected bounty of

berries, less useful when you like farm. That has a pretty set schedule and just a lot of not very exciting work you have to do every day. Yes, some researchers, this is like, I only found like one paper on this, but it's just really interesting. So I'll mention it with that caveat. Some researchers have even suggested that sugar can sometimes trigger hyperactivity symptoms because the fructose makes our brain thinks we've come across like a foraging bounty and they're like time to look for more berries. Right. And yeah, obviously we have a lot more studies to do to like say with any kind of certainty

that, you know, this is why ADHD evolved and, you know, what it was useful for in the past. but I just think it's it's so important to really be willing to like reframe our perspective on, you know, how brains work. And even on like, you know, what quote unquote disorders might mean for people. And like just for comparison, you know, ADHD was originally called hyperkinetic impulse disorder. And when a British pediatrician, Sir George Still brought it, which is an ironic name. Yeah. When he first brought it up in 1902, he called it an immoral defect of moral control in children. What?

It really boils down the fact that the disorder in ADHD is about, like, kids not doing what you think they should be doing when you want them to do it. Not that it can't cause real problems. I don't mean to minimize genuine struggles that people can have, but it's like, it's all very context dependent. And I think that's so important when we think about like how brains work and how people behave and like what is good in normal. And yeah, I'll just end by saying that the Association of Foragers actually has this lovely essay that I'll link to that's just a couple of foragers with ADHD talking about how

useful their ADHD is for their foraging because they like, you know, look in more places and they spot more stuff and they're like exploring and they're like we don't want to do the admin tasks for the forging association and we'll admit that but um boy are we great at finding stuff on the ground um so yeah that's that's my fact today that's lovely that's such a i don't know that's cool to see the other perspective on it totally hyperkinetic makes me feel like a superhero though i might have to be brand briefly yeah like on Honestly, I think hyperkinetic is so absurdly over the top that it kind of swings back around to being like, cool. Yeah.

Okay. We're going to take one more 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, four-burner gas grill, on special buy for only $199. And entertain all season with the Hampton Bay West Grove seven-piece outdoor dining. signing set for only $499. This Memorial Day, get low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. While supplies last, price on invalid May 14th or May 27th.

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Actual prices may vary. Limited time offer. Okay, we're back. And Nimbley, tell me about Venus and everything that I didn't know about her. Okay, so Venus,

also known as Aphrodite, if you're thinking of the mythological creature, character, whatever you like to call her, or Earth's Evil Twin, as she's been dubbed by NASA. It's always kind of fascinated me, but especially since I've been doing some research for some Eldon Ring stuff, some Eldon Ring DLC drip that we've been getting over the last few weeks. I'm really excited about that.

Me too. And people that are into the series are probably like, okay, we're. what does this planet slash goddess have to do with the game? I'm not going to talk about that too much, but how I got there. I was looking at toxic girl bosses with an Eldon Ring. There are many. And specifically ones that are golden in hue. And then that got me on another little tangent spiral.

And I was thinking about, okay, interplanetary cosmic horror type be. And then I got me thinking about Venus, the planet, because I think of, you know, beauty and nature and birth is a major theme around the goddess. But a lot of that scientific research began from astrological research. I know that seems like I'm all over the place because I am, but I promise this is going to make even more sense when we look at first the myth of Venus. So in short, this is pulled from Mythopedia.com. It's a little bit hard to source scientific facts with mythology because it's historical. Sure. And it gets tampered with a lot.

But so, Mythopedia gives this brief overview of Venus being the Roman goddess of love, maternal care, reproduction, and desire. She's seen as the loveliest of all deities by Immortals and God. like but what we don't know about her was her entomology of her name so we know that it is likely derived from the classic Latin noun Venus which means love but there's another connection within the Latin language which is venom venom venom which sounds like venom which literally means poison Poisonous Charm or Aphrodisiac, which is so funny that just mentioned the pheromones and attracting horrible awful things because that is one of her true origins. It's all coming together.

It's all coming together. And that got me really curious about, like I mentioned, the planetary side of Venus because it being Earth's evil twin, composition-wise, Earth and Venus are very similar. when I went and did my initial digging on NASA, so science at nassah.gov, there was a really lovely interview covering why is Venus called Earth's evil twin? We ask a NASA scientist. So it follows. Venus and Earth are sometimes called twins because they're pretty much about the same size. Venus is almost as big as the Earth. They also formed in the same inner part of the solar system. It's our closest neighbor. So when they were formed, they were made out of the same materials. So you would

think that they would turn would have turned out to be very very similar but they went down to very very different paths so we live on earth we know what earth is like it's inevitable for the most part our weather is kind of weird you know climate change but venus is covered with this horrible horrible horrible thick gloomy golden murky carbon dioxide atmosphere and has a supercharged greenhouse effect and it's so hot that it can melt lead and it's so hot that it can melt the temperatures on the surface of Venus are 900 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a little bit too toasty for me. Yeah, a little warm. And the clouds are 15 miles thick. So it's essentially just this entire golden, murky hot pot. Why does that draw back to Venus, the goddess and why does

that draw back to Eldon Ring? I won't go on that too much just for spoiler territory. But it is fascinating. Now that I am hearing your fact and thinking about Eldon Ring, I'm like, this is fascinating and I don't want to spoil too much people who haven't played the game because if you haven't played the game you should you should but um I love where you're going with this and I we can talk offline because this is really cool it's so cool shout out to from software for just my mind but uh it made me think about how I I don't know I think it shattered my mind and thinking Oh, I know that Venus is not habitable because I know that scientists have sent out different exploration probes throughout the years, but I wanted to do some more digging because I feel like we know a lot about Mars because we're trying to terraform it, hopefully, at some point. But I went back to NASA because where else would I go for, you know, American space exploration?

Totally. And there were apparently 40 missions to Venus. 40? Not all done by NASA. I think there were several that were done in Japan. That was the most recent. That was in 2010. And when we see how that went. So the Akatsuki mission of Japan was a Japan's first successful mission to explore another planet. Currently still in progress and seen as successful based on NASA's website. We're hoping to get more. factories back about Venus's atmosphere because as it stands, we know that it is horribly toxic and inhibitable. But we want to understand how Venus came to be that way because, as we know, currently, the Earth is experiencing its own greenhouse effect due to climate change, which is right, you know, kind of frightening to think about someday the Earth may also be 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily, that's not in the cards for us anytime soon.

But with my doom scrolling, I was really curious, like, how soon could that be? Because, you know, that's where these go. I hope this isn't getting too scary for the podcast. No, no, this is good. We scare people all the time. That's what I was like read about as I was reading this. I'm like, this research hasn't been successful yet. You know, all these probes end up getting lost.

And it's actually pretty fascinating going back to this. that point. When you look at the list of 40 missions to Venus, most of them up until 19, so this began in 1961 by the USSR. And the first successful mission was done by NASA in 1962. What does successful mean? It just means that they got the craft to land and get a small bit of data back. But I think they figured out how to build their spacecrafts properly when it came around to 1975. And since then we've been sending, we being earthlings, have been sending crafts back to Venus pretty much every three years. Wow. And just gradually getting more and more data.

It's very difficult to find science relating Venus's atmosphere back. to the greenhouse effect on Earth. But fortunately, the University of Chicago, of all places, wrote a research paper on how Venus originally had water similar to Earth but lost it. So this article is by the University of Chicago News and titled, Was Venus Ever Habitable? New You Chicago City cast doubt. Research suggests the planet lost this water early on in its history. For centuries, humans have been wondering whether anyone lived on Venus.

In the 60s, telescopes delivered bad news. Modern-day Venus is thoroughly hostile to life, shrouded in thick, acidic clouds, and sweltering at 900 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the question remained whether Venus started its life as a more habitable planet before a runaway greenhouse gas effect baked it dry. But a new study from the University of Chicago argues there is little chance the planet was ever habitable. By examining the composition of Venus's atmosphere today and running simulations of its past to recreate those conditions, the researchers found very few scenarios in which the planet could have sustained liquid water and moderate temperatures for long. It continues here to say, our research suggests that Venus has been unhabitable for at least 70% of its history,

four times longer than some previous estimates. From a great distance, Earth and Venus could be cousins. They're both rocky and similar distances from the sun, but clearly they have had extremely different outcomes as far as habitability goes. And this part I thought was really funny because it just reminded me of Lord of the Rings for some reason. So the trouble is that even though Venus is close to us, the planet keeps its secrets. Venus is extremely hot surface means no landing craft has lasted longer than a couple of hours. And volcanic eruptions have obliterated most evidence from ancient rocks. and they're hoping to learn much more.

It's a really exciting time for planetary science. This is how they wrap things up. There is hope. Oh, my God. This toxic planet, this toxic goddess, she gives a little shred of hope. After a long drought, three new missions for Venus are planned for the next decade.

NASA's Da Vinci. Oh, yeah. I've heard of that. You heard of that? Yeah, we'll send a probe to Venus's surface and its veridus mission, which will map Venus from orbit, as well as the European Space Agency's probe and vision, which will use sound and radio waves to try and analyze the planet's interior from orbit,

to hopefully get more data about Venus. I thought this was really neat because, one, there is a part of me that hopes that we can find some way to research the planets that are around us, but it also made me wonder, and I said that I would make this connection back to the goddess Venus and back to Eldering, and this is where that's beginning. So we don't know much about Venus's history. We know that it's a horrible, toxic, and abidable planet. People have still been trying to figure out.

Venus has said, no, you shall not pass. I will burn everything that you send to me. And that got me curious again because when it comes to mythology, a lot of it is seen as kind of witchy mumbo jumbo and you know there is some of that but for me when I what makes me most passionate about science is knowing that it came from this sort of mysticism and yeah totally totally a lot of those foundations like those same you know theories were coming by mathematicians so I went back and Doug did a bit of digging on Venus's origins and I found some dark stuff. The Sydney Morning Herald describes the dark side of Venus, a goddess that represents more

than romance. And it starts pretty ominously. It says, things do not start well. Venus or Aphrodite, as she was originally called by the Greeks, was a primordial creature said to have been born out of an endless black night before the beginning of the world. What? Ancient Greek poets and myth makers told this ghastly story of her origins. But it continues to say, despite Aphrodite's violent and salty start being born of darkness and in this night, the young goddess emerged from the sea on barren dry land and witnessed a miracle, green shoots and flowers springing up beneath her feet. I think this is what motivated some early scientists to think that Earth and Venus,

or similar. It's really hard to find that. I hope that I can find more research on that. And I'm also hoping that scientists talk to historians and specifically people that study myth more because I think that there's a lot of knowledge to be gained there. Oh, the cult, the cult of Venus. So she had a cult. This is not listed anywhere. So this is really, really neat. So I went over again to the dark side of Venus, the goddess of war as well as love. It's super hard to find that. And I think this fees into the duality of the planet itself. It's got this golden alluring hue, but it's wicked hot and toxic, much like Queen America. But again, no spoilers for Eldonor Ray and Joyers.

So the Spectator writes here, in the fourth millennium BC, a fearsome trio of goddesses swept into Bronze Age Cyprus from Mesopotamia. Anana described in a poem written in circa 2,350 BC of blazing dominion clad and dread, writing on fire-red power, was worshipped in 180 sanctuaries in Babylon alone, while Ishtar was immortalized as she who vanquishes all. Astarte writing in the boughs of Phoenician boat encapsulated war, death, and destruction, as well as life and sex. arriving in Cyprus, a version of these three meddled with the local nature goddess who had succeeded, I don't know if I could say this without laughing, the penis heads, this forming a bizarre and alarming bird-headed woman. She came complete with sexy curves, baby at breast, and glamorous earnings to offset her evil-looking beak and eyes. What? So that is the true origin, according to. the Mesopotamian Cyprus poem

of Aphrodite. That's wild. Yeah. Penis head, beak, bea-eyed woman with a cult, which coincided with a copper mining boom on Cyprus. Her warlike attributes fell into abeyance, and instead she was worshipped as a source of pleasure

and union between men and women. The impulse behind civilization and progress. Her powers were still double-edged. Desire can be destructive as well as harmonious. And she was also, interestingly, non-binary. Oh, nice. With a beard. Does that sound like anyone from Eldon Ring?

Yes. Yes, it does. This tradition flowed into the Greek myth of Aphrodite, whose over-sexed father, the sky god, Oranos, was castrated by his son, Kronos. this gets a little gruesome so we're going to skip over that just in case somebody's having launched or something but I found that so fascinating and I'm really hoping that we get some sort of information on the surface of Venus thank you for listening to my tangent I'm sorry please play L dinnering yeah wow that's so fun I love that yeah yeah thank you for

being another person that talks about video games and science on this show because it's usually me. Well, you are much more coherent in your in your descriptions than I am. It's all good. I have so much. I've been doing this for a long time. It's all good. Now I'm thinking so much more about the Eldon Ring DLC and now I want to read more about Venus and make more connections. This is awesome. I didn't think to look at Venus, but it's it's like textbook how it connects to Eldon Ring. Yeah. It's interesting. It's really interesting. Big time. Thank you so much for coming on. This was great. Would you remind our listeners where they can find you? You can find me across the internet at nimbly.garden. I stream on Twitch a few days a week at twitch.tv slash nimbly.

And you can also listen to my lore podcast, Ethereum Film, Lordkeeper at anchor.fm.fm. and the conversation is a little less sparks flying, fact foraging. But yeah, thank you both for having me on. Thank you for giving me a space to ramble off about Venus and her beacon and evil planets. And her penis head. Yeah. Yeah. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, along with Jess Bodey, who also served.

as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Thing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos. You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft.

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