The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - REVISITING Naked Founding Fathers, Jalapeño Thumb, Counting Vampires

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

In our final rerun episode during Rachel's parental leave, we have the oldest episode yet. It features one of Jess' first appearances on the show in which she details strange vampire folklore (and why they love to count), Claire Maldarelli shares a weird pepper-related medical condition, and Rachel gets into why some founding fathers bathed outside, in the open air, naked. 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 Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- 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: Save 20% Off Honeylove by going to honeylove.com/WEIRDEST #honeylovepod Shop plans at ⁠https://MINTMOBILE.com/weirdest⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Use our exclusive link to save 20% off Honeylove at Honeylove.com slash weirdest. That's honeylove.com slash weirdest. After you check out, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Experience the new standard and comfort and support with Honeylove. Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? And 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.

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. Hey Weirdos, it's Rachel. I'm here to introduce one more revisited vintage episode while I'm on parental leave.

And yes, this is our last rerun. In just a couple weeks, we'll be back with a brand new episode with me back in the host seat. And yes, this really is our last rerun. because in just two weeks, I'll be back as your regular biweekly host. That's biweekly as in fortnightly, not twice a week. By the time you listen to this, I will be officially back at work at Scientific American working on my other show Science quickly. And yes, we will have started recording new episodes of the weirdest thing I learned this week. This last rerun is our oldest one yet. It features one of Jess's first appearances on the show, maybe actually the first appearance as a host,

along with the always excellent Claire Maldorelli. We talk about obscure medical conditions that you could only be diagnosed with by Dr. Google, strange tidbits of vampiric lore, and I really stick to my strengths by disrespecting the founding fathers and somehow circling back to the American Eugenics Movement, but in a fun way. That's right, it's the jalapeno thumb, naked air-bathing Benjamin Franklin, and vampire-counting ritual episode. I know you were all thinking it. This is one of our pre-pandemic episodes, so we were all actually recording together in the same room,

which is something we never got back to because remote recording works really well, and working remotely makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. I, for example, am recording from a rather luxurious pantry, at least by New York Metropolitan Area Standards. And yes, it is full of my family's canned goods, so anything good you hear in the audio quality is entirely thanks to Jess. Going way back in our feed to pick out this episode reminded me that we're just a couple weeks out from the show being eight years old, which is totally wild. The weirdest thing I'm learning this week is a show I started kind of on a lark based on the first idea that popped into my head while I was leading the science team at Popular Science. I would eventually become executive editor there and then choose to leave to go freelance because I was burned out and wanted to.

explore other ways of living. There were a lot of reasons why it was hard to leave popular science because it's an amazing publication. But the thing that made me struggle the most was the thought that it would probably mean the end of this podcast. Of course, it's now been several years and we are still on the air, which is wonderful and I hope will continue to be true for many years to come. But the weirdest thing I learned this week has only been able to continue to exist because you love it and you share it with your friends and you comment and review and tell popular science how much you enjoy the show. Obviously, a lot has changed since then. We're no longer recording in a studio that's actually a closet with a loud steam pipe and the sound of Midtown

traffic just outside. Now it's just me and my cans. The people who have appeared on Weirdest Thing as hosts and as guests have incredible careers, so much stuff going on. some of them are in entirely different fields now, and we love that for them. Jess, who initially just wanted to pitch in as an intern to help improve our editorial flow on the show, is now a showrunner I could literally not do this without. I got married, I published my first book, I now have a kid, and I also have a whole second show over at Scientific American. It's three times a week, so actually that's what I spend most of my time doing.

And somehow that means I'm a full-time podcast host, which is not what I imagined when I started the show back in 2018. I love what I get to do, and I'm really excited to get back into it and to get back to chatting with you twice a month. But again, none of this would be possible if you didn't love the show loudly. So thank you so much for making this my job. Okay, I think that's enough sappiness for both the intro and outro. So I won't be back at the end of the episode to add more. But just remember, I'll be back in your feed in a regular, normal, present tense way in a couple of weeks. 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 Jess Bodie. I'm Claire Maldarelli. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease of some kind of fact or story that we found in the course of our fascinating day-to-day lives as popular science reporters and editors.

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 what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. So, Claire, why don't you start with your teas? I would love to. There is a condition called jalapeno thumb. Hmm. Okay, all right. Jess, how about you?

I would like to talk about a Hungarian countess who was accused of being a vampire. So a few weeks ago, I had a fact that started with babies being a side show attraction and ended with Nazis. And this week, I have a fact that starts with Benjamin Franklin sitting around naked and ends with Nazis. It has gone full circle. Hmm. Okay. So which one do we want to hear first? I like vampires.

Yeah. Okay. Let's share with vampires. I would love to start. The reason I got hooked on this contest story is because I was catching up with an old college professor from undergrad from the University of Pittsburgh, Go Panthers. And this professor taught this class called Vampires, colon, Blood and Empire. That's amazing. Wow.

Yeah, it was one of my favorite classes ever. And it was all about the history of vampires. They've been around in history books and records for basically a thousand years. And they've percolated through different cultures. And it says a lot about these different cultures. So anyway, I was talking to this professor, and she reminded me of this figure named Elizabeth Bathory. And she was a very grim figure. So I decided to dig into her history.

She was a Hungarian countess from the 16th and 17th centuries. She was born in Transylvania. Whoa. Yeah. Very key fact there. And then she married into Hungarian royalty. Things were pretty chill for a while. And then her husband died.

And then things just like went off the rails. Strange rumors started circulating that she was murdering her servants and torturing them. And like there were all just young women, too. It was very strange. The Hungarian king heard that this was going to be. on. He was like, oh, that's pretty weird. Like, let's hold a trial and figure out what's going on. Let's hold a trial. Yes, let us really figure out what's going on here. They found out through this trial that she had, for sure, they had evidence of her killing 80 women. Which is interesting

because usually when a bunch of rumors start about a woman living alone doing nefarious things, it is like not true. Totally, yeah. This is the exception, I guess. That's just like the Salem witch trials. Totally. Totally. It is shocking. But in fact, she was murdering people. Yeah. It's a real plot twist. It is shocking. And, you know, they had evidence of 80 people, but really, the estimates say that she killed over 600 young women back then, which would make her the most deadly serial killer of all time if that holds up. Or the most deadly one that got caught. Ha ha. And so she was always, you know, a troubled child growing up. She always, like, wanted to see the servants getting punished, you know, growing up.

So there's always like some signs that she was a little bit of a sadist. But it seemed like the power really went to her head maybe when her husband died. And critically, you know, with all of these murders, people like saw her bathing in the blood of her victims. She was very, very fixated on the blood. So people thought that was a, that she was a vampire for this reason. That could be a bad sign. Yes, you know, a key sign there. The reason she did this is because bathing in blood, especially the blood of virgins.

origins was thought to, you know, increase, like, your youthfulness, like, make your skin, like, just glowing and make you look young. Young blood. People are obsessed with that through the centuries. Yeah, like, tech moguls are still trying to get their hands on young blood. And it's working. Teenagers, don't sell your blood to tech billionaires. Yeah, really.

Well, then they're the vampire facials. Yeah, I was going to, yes, that was my next point. Go on. Oh, yes. Well, as you probably know, vampire facials are where you... I don't know vampire facials. Hold on to your seat, Claire. You get your blood drawn.

It's your own blood. It's not somebody else's blood. But they like spin it to get the platelets, like the plasma. And then they do like microderm abrasion, I think, or it's like they do the needling on your face with your own blood to like get the platelets into your skin. Right? Yeah, it's basically like plumping up your skin with your own blood. You bleed your own blood and then they stick it.

in your face. It makes me bleed my own blood. But this is not a proven successful treatment or it is. So there are some studies that show that it, like, encourages tissue regeneration kind of thing. But it's not going to be like, it's not going to cure your wrinkles. Like, people say it well. Right, right. No miracle.

No, it's not. It is no miracle. Also, won't anything that jabs a bunch of tiny needles in your face encourage tissue regeneration because your body will be like, we need to regenerate this tissue? Yes. I wonder how much the blood actually contributes. That's a really good point. I wonder to.

Cracked the case. But back to vampires. I also just wanted to talk about a few of my favorite all-time greatest hits vampire facts. Because vampires have been around for a thousand years. There are so many great facts. I feel like I need this. I don't know very much about vampires. I'm so happy to provide.

So my absolute favorite fact, it has to do with how people used to bury vampires. or people that they thought were vampires. And after they would bury them, they would sprinkle poppy seeds on the grave because vampires are compulsive counters. Okay, checks out. Yes. So when the vampire would rise, when the sun would set, at night when the vampire would rise, it would suddenly see all of the seeds around it and would have to count every single one before going on the hunt. Poppy seed.

A two poppy seat. Remember there's literally a Sesame Street character. I was going to bring up. The count, who obviously teaches children how to count. And I want to know who on the Sesame Street staff is super deep into vampire lore. You know, like this is so deep. So there are a lot of funny burial things, too, like the counting. People also, oh, I came across this one report of people saying that they would exume a vampire.

and steal its sock and fill it with a bunch of little pebbles and throw it in a river. So not only would the vampire feel like his outfit was incomplete and have to re-complete his outfit, once he found his sock, he would have to count the pebbles. Oh, yeah. So that's going to, that's several hours of time you've bought yourself. Yes, definitely. And the last thing I thought was interesting about vampire burials, people have found bodies from 17th century Poland with, they were buried with a sickle,

And the sickle was kind of like around like the chest and neck area of these people. If they were a supposed vampire and they were to sit up and get out of their grave, they would just be decapitated. Oh, wow. Oh, God. Like a little booby trap. The worst kind of booby trap. Yeah. Which in my thought process is like, why not just decapitate it while it's sleeping?

Right. Right. Or just like, yeah, like quote unquote sleeping. Right. Or like if you're cleaning it in the ground. It's rude if you cut someone's head off and they're not a vampire. I guess that's true. Maybe they worried that they would face like divine retribution for. Yeah.

That's a great point. That's got to be it. But like if it's a vampire. Yeah. Reading into vampires again, you know, Googling around, falling into Wikipedia holes. I was also reading a little bit about why people were accused of being vampires in the first place.

And I came across this condition called porphyria, which is a group of diseases. Oh, God, I think I'm going to get them now. It's not good for me. It's when these substances in your body called porphyrens, I believe, is how you would say it. They build up and they affect your skin and your nervous system. And basically it makes you very pale and very sensitive to sunlight. So, like, if you go out in the sun and you had one of these diseases that falls under the porphyria umbrella, your skin might blister or react very poorly. And also another symptom of this.

would be that your gums recede, so your teeth look really big. And it also can affect your mental state too, right? All I know is that when I was a goth middle schooler, one of my favorite poems was called Porfiria's love song or something like that. And it was about a man going crazy and strangling his girlfriend with her hair, I think. Oh, my God. Like I said, Goth middle schooler. I don't remember the details, but I know Porfiria was involved.

Well, that would make sense. And people think that it could happen with inbreeding too, which was the case a lot of the times in these 16th and 17th century royal families like Elizabeth Bathory, not saying that she had this disease. But people thought that Vlad the impaler had Porphyria or a version of it. And he is the one that Dracula, Brom Stoker's book, Dracula is based on. A very stabby man. Truly, stabby. Loved a good stake. Those are my facts.

Wow. That's crazy. of vampires. I'm going to get porphyria now. Okay. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back. I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers like my money too. That's why after years of overpaying with wireless, I finally decided to try premium wireless from Mint Mobile for just 15 bucks a month.

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Yes, I do. Very excited about it. A little while ago, maybe a few weeks ago, I was talking to my sister on the phone. We were catching up about our lives as we do. And she was like, Claire. Last week, I got a jalapeno thumb. And I was like, what is that? I'm a health editor and also a hypochondriac and I have never heard of this disease. So it doesn't exist.

Tell me so I can add it to my arsenal. So she told me what happened. She was making Pico de Gayao. and about half hour after she finished, her thumb started burning. She ran it underwater, washed it off with soap, scrubbed it, soaked it with hot water. Nothing helped. The burning continued. So she looked at it, and it didn't seem like there was anything, like, broken or any cuts or anything like that, but it just literally wouldn't stop burning.

So she did, like, any good Maldorelli sibling would. She turned to Dr. Google, which confirmed to her that she was. was suffering from quote-unquote jalapeno thumb and soaking her thumb in milk would help. She did that and a little while later the burning subsided. That intrigued me. I had never heard of jalapeno thumb before because I think that medium style store bought salsa is spicy so I'm very out of the loop on any spicy diseases. But after my Google PubMed Wikipedia searching, it turned out that she was indeed right, as always. So on the internet, there are a lot of names for this common condition, including jalapeno thumb, though I will admit

to my point, this is not the most common name, and it's actually quite rare to call it jalapeno thumb. So I don't know what internet site she was on. It was definitely not WebMD, which is where I start. It's also called Hot Pepper Hands, Halapeno Hands. Hot Pepper Hands. That's actually more common name for it. And the most common being Hunan Hand Syndrome. One article on the University of Maryland School of Medicine's website notes, contact with other body parts give rise to other terms such as, quote, unquote,

Honon knows or Hunan eye. Interesting. The Hunan in Hunan Hand Syndrome refers to Hunan cuisine, also known as Shi Yong cuisine, which is from the Hunan region of China and is known for its liberal use of chili peppers. So what is this syndrome? The condition is caused by Capsyacin, which is a chemical compound found in the fruit of plants within the Cepsaicin family. These include red chili peppers, jalapinos, and habaneros. It's a colorless and odorless compound which binds to pain receptors,

and this triggers the sensation of intense heat or burning. For certain people, this can be incredibly painful. For my sister, she said when she figured out what it was and that it was relatively benign, and she said she just waited a while and the burning stopped. And I was like, that would not have been me. But okay, congrats. But she did say it did go on for hours. And when I looked at some blogs in which people complained about jalapeno hand and red pepper hand,

some blogs said it was incredibly painful. And quote unquote, one blogger said, I seriously felt like I wanted to cut off my fingers anything to relieve the pain. Wow. Goodness gracious. Apparently, the severity of the pain depends on how far down the capsaic and has reached in your tissues. So if it's a really superficial one, it's going to go away faster, which I think was my sister's case. And if it's further down, it will burn for longer.

Interestingly, just as much as the medical community couldn't agree on a name for it, they also can't agree on the best way to treat it. The most medically based sources say to use milk or some other type of antacid for skin and GI exposure, because I guess you can like eat too much hot peppers and get the burning in your stomach, which I have heard is bad. Again, I can't tolerate medium salsa. From the inside out? Oh, my God. Well, we have an article on popsight.com where one of our former writers, Kendra, ate the spiciest chip in the world. And she described both in the article and to me, because I was there, how she could feel it going through all the way down, just all through the intestines. And I think the only other thing she ate that day was a whole pint of ice cream.

God. And it was necessary. Isn't there also a video of that? Yes, there is. We will put that in our weirdest things post this week. It's great. There were a few other cool remedies that I thought I would share with you if you indeed. get jalapino, thumb, and milk, or some other type of ant acid doesn't work for you.

One report from the Journal of Toxicology reported that in New Mexico, where chili peppers are often prepared by roasting and manually removing the skin from the fruit, and this is often done barehanded. It causes prolonged burning pain, irritation, and arrhythmia. So in a survey of elderly Hispanic women, treatment with oils or cool tap water were frequently used as home remedies, and a group of researchers wanted to test which one worked better. So they did this research study that I will never partake in, in which 20 female subject immersed their hands in a standardized slurry of green chili for 40 minutes.

Oh, no. Yes, correct. That was the response I was waiting for. Afterwards, one hand was placed in cool tap water, and the other in vegetable oil, for a total of 75 minutes. Now, I feel like that's a really good study protocol, right? Yeah, it is. Everybody has two hands.

It's perfect. Exactly. Pain was scored using a visual analog scale while the hands were immersed in the chili slurry. What did they do while they were having their hands occupied for an hour and a half? Okay, that's a great question. And I feel like that would give rise to ways to deal with pain. Yeah.

If you find yourself in chili slurry. There must have been so many itchy noses during the question. course of that study. Oh, my God. Why? Well, because, like, their hands were submerged first in pepper and then in, and I just know that if you, if you can't scratch, everything starts to stitch. So.

I would probably ask the study administrator to, there had to be a scratch my edge. I bet there was a grad student who was just going around, just scratching. Yes, definitely. So conclusion, cool tap water immersion initially provided more relief while vegetable provided better long-term relief from the pain. And I would just start with vegetable oil than knowing that this apparently happens for hours and hours. So I would go directly for vegetable oil, just saying.

There are a few other case reports of far more extreme examples of jalapeno thumb or hot pepper hands, in which case the person reportedly went to the emergency room, and it was only managed successfully by a cocktail of medications, and I will list them all for you. One was a continuous stellate ganglion block, which is literally an injection of local anesthetic in the sympathetic nervous system of the neck. Yeah. That was accompanied by Gabapentin, which I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, which is a serious nerve pain medication and anticonvulsant plus local ice water because why not. And last but not least, fluasinonide application, which is a topical corticosteroid. only at that point the authors say did the person find any relief.

Wow. Yes. I wonder if that was just because it's such a weird and intense and unique pain if it triggered their nerves to just freak out. Right, right. I wasn't actually able to access the entire article, so I wonder what the conclusions that they found were that this was such a special case of it. Yeah.

So reading all this, I feel like my sister kind of lucked out with her. Pino Thumb case, but maybe also because she was just so calm about it that she didn't trigger all those reactions. Interestingly, Capsaicin is actually used itself as a topical analgesic medicine to treat pain, like muscle pain, itching, and neuropathy. And it does this by initially causing neuronal excitation, hello halpino thumb. And that is followed by a long-lasting refractory period at which point the neurons become desensitized to the stimulus. So it's actually pretty interesting. And it's this weird combination of like pain and relief, which I think is just really cool how the two are so interrelated. I'll leave you with some final notes.

While I was researching this, I was like, gosh, one day I'm just going to get jalapeno thumb. I know it. So let me figure out how to prevent it. I was about to ask. Right. I'm glad that you can detail this. So in the spirit of service journalism here, two final notes. And this is all I could find.

Wear gloves and do not touch your eyes while cutting hot pepper. That's it? That's all the internet had to offer, including a bunch of medical journals. Fine. I guess. Okay. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with one more fact. Hey, weirdos, looking for awesome popular science merch?

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So we're going to start with the fact that Ben Franklin enjoyed taking what he called air baths. Other people would refer to these air baths as Ben Franklin sitting around naked. So apparently... Is that technically a bath? Well, I'll get into that more. So apparently cold baths were very in vogue as a health aid at the time. But Franklin found them to be too bracing. He found cold air to be much more agreeable.

And so he got up almost every morning to sit around naked for around an hour. This is according to a letter he wrote to a friend praising the virtues of the air bath. He would get up almost every morning and he would sit around naked for about an hour, sometimes a little bit less. if it was really cold. And then he would like sometimes go back to sleep for a couple of hours afterward. And he was like, it's strengthening and enjoyable and way less bracing than a cold water bath. And I actually found a paper on the subject from a doctor in the early 1900s named Dural B. Webb. The only other thing I could find about him was that he ran a sanatorium. But he was reflecting on historical references to air bathing and speculating on the potential health benefits.

And there were several other historical figures that he noted had written about sitting around naked in the air and how good it was for them. He basically was arguing that layman had stumbled upon like a great medical intervention and that doctors should take note. He quoted someone in there saying it made sense because homo sapiens is not amphibious. So like we spend too much time either in actual baths or in clothes that like trap our shoes. that like trap our sweat. So he was like, we are open-air animals. We are not swamp creatures. It seems like a way to get out of bathing yourself.

And out of your clothes. So into the 1900s, people were talking about how great it was to be naked and have the air upon you. And he had some other justifications in this paper I read. One of his arguments was that skin actually evolved to do what clothes do. but thousands of generations of wearing clothing had caused it to atrophy. So if you spent more time naked, you would allow your skin to reach a perfect natural state. One other thing I learned while reading this is that in ancient Greece, the physician and historian Herodotus recommended the sun as a cure for the weak and soft muscles and said that the sun strengthened you. And apparently, Olympians exposed to sunlight improved their physical performance.

which they were like, it's the sun. And of course, now researchers are like, it was vitamin D. Yeah, I was like, they're vitamin D deficient. Also, like tans give you muscle definition. So they probably also just looked more buff. But all that Webb knew was that sunbathing had been purported to cause muscle growth. And he was like, what if it's not the sun? What if it's the air?

His argument in this letter is that he basically says, like, well, I got all the benefits. fits without getting a tan, so it must not be the sun, which is dumb. But anyway, then I reached a twist in the story because at the end of this article by Web, there's a note from a researcher who had responded, and then he responds, you know, I don't know if you guys are familiar, but the concept of peer review is that people read your paper and, like, comment on it and decide whether or not it should be published. I think Webb just went ahead and published this. I think things were a little more loosey-goosey at the time,

but there was still a system of like your peers might make a note and you might take note of their note. Those notes are the best. Yeah. So somebody was like, I can't believe that you did not talk about Joseph Knowles, who is a prime example of the strengthening qualities of air for after he lived naked in the name of science,

he was able to take down a bear with his own two hands. and some have said this isn't true, but I saw the area where he killed the bear, and I believe it. I'm paraphrasing, but that is literally what it said. And Webb responded very credulously to this. He's like, oh, yes, you know, I realize I haven't covered every aspect of being naked. He's not like, shut up. So then I was really interested in this man, Joseph Knowles, who in 1913, the Boston Post sponsored. He was a professional illustrator, and he wanted to go live naked in the woods in Maine for.

a couple months and asked the Boston Post to pay for him to do so. And he was like, he was going to live like a totally wild life, no clothes, no nothing. And he was like, I will write updates and draw illustrations on like pieces of birch with charcoal and leave them for you so that you can update your articles. And it was a big hubbub, not surprising. He was a naked man who decided to live in the woods. He went missing for a while. He went in with a jock strap and immediately threw it away. So he was literally, just naked out in the woods. And again, he claimed to have killed a small bear with a club in his own two hands. Who claimed it, him himself? Yes. And it later came to life that he actually

went and hung out at a friend's cabin and like pouted for two months, which is kind of perplexing because later in life, he repeated the experiment like for real in California. Maybe not naked. I don't know if that was the case. But he did go like live without any assistance out in the woods. So it seems like he could do it. He just didn't do it at this time. The friend he stayed with was like, yeah, he was just lazy. The real damning evidence here is that the bear skin that he said came from a bear that he had killed with his own hands. Oh, no.

Had bullet holes in it. Oh. Come on, ma'am. Apparently he bought it from like a fur trapper. I do have a picture that will also be at popsight.com of him. He is still in the jockstrap in this photo. here he is about to go off into the woods. Thank God he's just kind of like a normal looking kind of pudgy guy.

If he was standing up a little straighter, it would look like the Bigfoot photo. Yeah, it absolutely does look like that. And even though the wilderness stunt was a total hoax, it successfully, I think, doubled the post circulation. Wow. And allegedly, wowed medical professionals, which is the part that I got really interested in. According to the book that Joseph Knowles wrote about his own experience, And this is probably true. Harvard's Dudley Allen Sargent, a physician who invented gymnasiums, as we know them,

and the modern concept of physical education and personal training. He, like, invented the concept of testing people for their physical fitness. So he said there was great scientific merit in this, quote, experiment, even though it was a sample size of one, which is not an experiment at all. You know, I could go into the woods and kill a bear, and all you would know is that I had gone into the woods and killed a bear. I would not tell you anything about the larger population. He looked forward to seeing how a reprieve from modern society, including a salty diet, would alter this man. Yeah, he was like, we really want to see what it's like when men don't eat salt. That was apparently at the forefront of his mind.

He also said that Knowles, quote, considerable fat would protect him from the colds. Oh, burn. Yeah. And then afterwards, and this is from Knowles' book. Apparently, Sargent said that he was in the pink of condition, if ever a man was. and he came out scoring way higher on Sargent's fitness test than he had before going into the woods, allegedly much higher than Harvard's football players too. Sargent said, again, this is a quote from Knowles' book,

that with his legs alone, he lifted more than a thousand pounds. I am skeptical. You've seen the photo. Yeah. All of this was being spun up to be about like his exposure to the elements and not just the literal exposure to the air, as that person pointed out responding to Webb's study on the subject. But also just like being in the forest, fending for yourself, getting back to your primal roots. And if that sounds kind of gross and troubling, it is going to get more gross and troubling, I promise.

Sargent also said that his skin had become more perfect due to exposure to the elements. And in fact, people love to stroke his perfect back skin when he showed up at appearances. Sargent said, it serves him as a number of. overcoat because it is so healthful that it pours clothes and shield him from drafts and sudden chills, which is not how skin works, in fact. So why did everyone buy into this hype? And this is where it gets kind of gross. Because, you know, maybe he lied.

Maybe this section in his book is totally made up. But, like, there are, like, newspaper quotes from some of these experts saying similar things. And Sergeant definitely was, like, on board with taking these results really seriously. This story happened to fit really conveniently into a very dark narrative being pushed by many American medical professionals and just the general public at the time. And that was eugenics. It was the peak of the American eugenics movement. Yeah, I know we just talked about eugenics two weeks ago in my story about side show babies. I promise I didn't go looking for another story with Nazis in it, but they just keep showing up.

Can't get rid of them. Yeah, exactly. In the expert quoting section of the book, there's also a lot of talk of, and this is a quote, the physical welfare of the race and the degeneration caused by an urge for refinement. So there was a lot of talking this time in the early 1900s up into the 20s and 30s about how men, particularly white American and European men, had to get back to their like savage roots to maintain the superiority of the race. They were saying that life indoors was too easy and it was turning us into sissies that we needed to get out there and roll around in some dirt preferably naked. And when I say we, I of course mean white American men. We ladies were not supposed to be rolling around in any dirt naked or otherwise. So even the nudist movement in Europe in the 20s and 30s had ties to eugenics because nudist magazines, which I learned today were a thing, argued that it helped to counter the deceptive.

of clothes and makeups to promote natural sexual selection. So you know those tweets where it's like, take her swimming on the first date, that's what nudists did. Oh, my goodness. I'm sure there were some very nice nudists, by the way. No offense if your grandmother was a 1920s nudist. I'm sure she was lovely. And in fact, the Nazi party harness nudism in a lot of ways.

They outlawed nudist groups, not surprisingly, but they also kind of took this idea of celebrating bodily ideals. There's one third-right text that's like, we celebrate the women with the best racial background and the most beautiful bodies for breeding. No one will be able to conceal his or her flaws and weaknesses behind clothes. So they were very much like the form, the human form. It must be perfect. Go hang out in the woods. The moral there is that even if you think you're just reading a romp about a man running around in the woods naked for fun, there may be a eugenics angle there. So tread lightly. To end on a note that has nothing to do with Nazis, I wanted to know what the actual health benefits were of running around naked, if any.

You know, was Benjamin Franklin onto something? Or did he just, like, being in the nude? Which is fine. Everything I could find, I could really not find any, like, hard medical literature about nudity in this regard. I did find some physicians talking about like specific health benefits just based on their experience. It all came down to like really basic things like avoiding swampiness. It's not good to constantly be covered in sweat and clingy clothes and your body needs to breathe, particularly your genitals. Like a lot of the stuff about the benefits of nudity are really about like sleeping without underwear on, which my mom, who's an OBJN has told me my whole life.

Like, don't sleep with underwear on. I have been told that too, yes. It's just, it's not necessary, and your body needs air. And so that's true. There's no magic to that. There's nothing special about the air. It's just that there's something not great about wearing tight clothes all day. Also, if you're sleeping naked, it means you're sleeping colder,

and human bodies are generally designed to want to sleep as the temperature drops because that happens at night. And that's one of the things that, like, our modern world has kind of taken away from us, those natural temperature fluctuations. So, you know, that can be a reason why sleeping in the nude can be good for you. Vitamin D is great. So that doesn't mean you have to be in the nude. It does mean that spending time outside and being exposed to sun is important. Also, there's, like, research that spending time in the nude with friendly people you trust is good for your self-confidence and for building social bonds.

So, you know, in particular context, like, I don't know, there are countries where people sound not together in the new. nude. Maybe that's something you want to do. Check in with your friends. Make sure everybody's down first. But like, sure, that could help you bond and all feel good about your bodies, which is important. So the real takeaway is do what you feel and wear breathable fabrics, but probably no particular health benefits to just like sitting outside in the woods naked for an hour every day if it makes you feel good and you're not bothering anybody with your forest nudity.

That's fine. I would be afraid of ticks. Yes, that is a good point. So actually I take that back. Even if you think it's good for you, do a tick check. A thorough tick check. Yes, and stay away from poison ivy.

Basically, if you're going to do nude air bathing, I would recommend like an enclosed porch or like a window, just like be in a large room with a window, which is what Benjamin Franklin did. I don't think he was like rolling around in the mud anywhere. So he had it right out a little long. Yeah, exactly.

Wise old Ben. That's it. That's the whole story. What was the weirdest thing we learned this week? I learned a lot about vampires. Same. I really like vampires now. Oh, my God, really? Yeah. Wow, that's great. I feel like they were just such an unknown to me. I had no connection. Now I have a new disease. Well, congratulations, Jess.

Yes, victory. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, along with Jess Bode, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Thing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we'll pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes so you can feel confident it's what you

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