The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Roman Water Fights, Pet Squirrels, Perpetual Pre-Singing

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Vinny Thomas joins the show to talk about Victorian-era pet squirrels. Jess hops behind the mic to discuss filling the Roman colosseum with water, and Rachel unravels how chewing gum can stop us from "pre-singing." 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! Make progress towards a better financial future with Chime. Open your account in 2 minutes at https://chime.com/WEIRDEST. Chime. Feels like progress. Give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince! Go to https://Quince.com/weirdest for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at https://MINTMOBILE.com/weirdest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's code Weirdest for 20% off. No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet. So Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks co-pilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs to help him see if he can afford it. Co-pilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice. work. Now, Hank has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets.

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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 Feldman. I'm Just Bodie. And I'm Vinnie Thomas. Vinnie, welcome to the show. Woo!

Yeah! Thank you guys so much for having me. Yeah. Oh, gosh. It's a pleasure. Would you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and what brings you on the show today? Yeah, I'm Vinnie Thomas. I'm a comedian and a writer and an actor and also an animal enthusiast.

Yeah. And I'm so excited to do the show. Awesome. And I understand you have a new. show out recently. Could you tell us what is called? I do. There's a movie on Amazon Prime called You're Cordially Invited. Ah, amazing. Yeah, so go peep that if you have a second or two hours. Perfect. I'm so bad now at knowing whether something's a show or a movie because they're all on streaming. So there are all these things where I'm like, I'm putting off watching it

because I think it's a whole series. And then it turns out it only requires two hours of my life. These are the modern issues we have to contend with. We're so psych to have you and let's get right into it. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story that we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, etc. And decide which one you 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, you know, a little science yarns. we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was in, you know, a chill, low stakes, non-competitive way where sometimes we don't even remember to circle back

and talk about what all the facts were. It's sort of just, it depends on the day. Jess, what's your tease? Happy to have you back on this side of the mic again. I'm happy to be back. This is great. My tease is that the Romans filled up the Coliseum with water allegedly. That allegedly, such intrigue. I can't wait. A loaded, allegedly. My tease is that I'm going to talk about why the heck we chew gum. What's up with that?

Yeah. Amazing. Vinnie, oh, sorry. My tease is that we've domesticated the dog, the cat, and the cow. But what if they were a secret third option that we almost domesticated? Oh, I can't wait. I love weird attempts at Amund. domestication stories. We've done a few on weirdest thing and there's they never get old.

I love hearing about people saying what if this random animal also a pet. That's exciting. I'll jump right in with gum chewing. It's been a while since I went first. Please. So this fact started with the song Baby Shark actually. I won't sing it, but you know the one. because I host another podcast called Science Quickly for Scientific American. Go listen to it. It's great. And we recently did an episode all about the science of earworms. And one of the wildest things I learned recording that episode is that there's a study that

found that a great way to get rid of an earworm is to chew gum, which I'd never heard before. And first of all, it was surprising to me that if there's this great life hack for getting rid of earworms, that I hadn't heard it. But then the explanation itself is also really cool. That's not the bulk of this fact, but it is the starting point. So scientists from the University of Reading did this study a few years ago. And the gum-chewing thing, it has to do with something called sub-vocalization.

Basically, when you think about lyrics or even just like words, I'm somebody who gets like phrases stuck in my head a lot in addition to songs. Yeah, I feel about. Yeah. you're thinking about a word or a lyric, something kind of freaky happens in your subconscious. You might know, your results may vary, but a lot of people have sort of, they'll hear it internally. But it's not just that you're hearing it in your head. When you hear words in your head, even if you don't like actually move your jaw, you are subconsciously getting ready to talk

or to sing those words. Like basically the nerve signals that. that would move your jaws in your throat are sort of like waking up and practicing. So if you could like look into, you know, if you were like in an MRI, I guess, while you were sub vocalizing, apparently there is like some movement going on. It's just not enough to, you know, actually make you vocalize. It's like pre-singing. Yeah. Yeah. So what you're saying is that we have some evolutionary trait that predisposes us to always almost breaking into song.

Yes. It's true. It's true. Crazy. The theater. We're always ready. We're always ready to bring the song. That is so true. And yeah, actually, like one aside about sub vocalization is that when you Google it, a lot of what comes up are speed reading communities giving each other tips on how to stop sub vocalizing because their their mindset is that hearing words in your head slows down your reading.

because you can only read as fast as you can say the words in your head. And that's just no way to live for me. Like I... That reminds me of like when you're like, if you're trying to chug a beer and you're not supposed to swallow, actually, you're just supposed to let it go down your throat. Like that's the same thing. I would love to stop and take a minute just to absorb speed reading community. Yeah.

Yeah, true. Because what do they meet up and just like rip through text? What do we do with each other? I think they're all just competing to be the speediest speedyest. speed readers and giving each other sort of like really, I don't know, giving each other really critical feedback and tips about how they can be the speediest readers. And to me, that's just not what reading's about. I'm with you.

Did you imagine going to one of their conventions? It's the most annoying thing in the world? No. Sounds like people at like a livestock auction or something. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Honestly, I'd be more interested in learning how that works. But yeah, no shade to anyone who is really into speed reading.

If you find it's like amazing for your productivity or just like a fun thing you like being good at, that's cool. But I do like the draw of it that it's like it could kind of give you more hours in your day. You know, like you could consume more media, but like at what cost, you know? I'm already consuming too much just. Exactly. At what cost? A problem we all have. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But I think like anything, there's sort of this like, you know, this trend. towards ultimate optimization being like the goal. And it's like, well, maybe it's okay to not be reading the literal physical limit of words you could read in a minute. But anyway, apparently a lot of people who are into speed reading really hate sub-vocalizing.

And I think trying to turn off the voice inside my head would actually drive me insane. I don't want to do that. There, but yeah, this process is called articulatory motor planning. And it's really important in allowing us to like speak successfully, like turn our thoughts into speech without a huge delay. Cause when you think about it, that's like a process that involves like a lot of nerves firing and a lot of muscles moving.

So it makes sense that we sort of like get ready to do it. And you know, our brains are like, oh, I see you're thinking a word. You might want to say it. And if I wait to get ready, then like you won't do it in time. The way you said that was like the like Clippy and Microsoft Word. Yeah, I see that. The voice in my head is always clippy.

Yeah. I also found one study that suggested that sub vocalizing songs can make you more likely to sing them with good pitch because again it's like your body sort of warming up. So all of this is an important background because in 2015, a study showed that chewing gum can help people get earworms out of their heads, get songs unstuck. And the researchers think it's probably because... probably because the jaw movement disrupts the nerve signals that are trying to get us to practice singing the song. So it sort of just like gets our brains off of the track of thinking through that song because it interrupts this physical process we're unaware of that's related to it,

which is kind of freaky to me. But the last thing I'll say about earworms is that if that doesn't work, your best bet is actually to just lean into listening to a song you like, because it's really hard to keep one song in your head while you're actively listening to another one. Though I will say caveat, challenge accepted, I've definitely done that before. But my brains, it's like bad in there. So I think for most people listening to a different song, we'll do the trick. I could have just made this whole episode about earworms, but I want everybody to go listen to the awesome earworm episode that already exists over at Science quickly.

So make sure you search for that wherever you're listening if you haven't already started tuning in. But obviously, I can't just leave you with like that one gum chewing study. So instead, we're going to talk about gum for a second. When you look for the earliest evidence of gum chewing, you'll probably find some research about 10,000-year-old pieces of chewed up stuff from Scandinavia. These were objects that were very clearly chewed and then not swallowed. They had DNA from human saliva on them. But it was this very like tar-like substance.

It was made from birch tree bark. So very sticky, very like tough to chew, not anything that resembles modern chewing gum. The origins of gum as we know it probably stem from some people say chickle, some say chickle, which yes is where chicklets get their name. Who says chickles? Oh, my God. Who says chichol? You know.

Nobody says chickle. I agree. And several dictionaries told me otherwise. So I am with you there. At first, that was the only pronunciation I could find. And I was like, no, that's wrong. So, you know, chickley, more correct. And yeah, so that's a milky latex that comes from the sapadolatries in Mesoamerica.

The word probably comes from Nahuatl word for sticky stuff, which is chikla, or a very similar Mayan word that I could not find a pronouncer for, but similar. And basically, that makes sense, because we know that the Mayans, a lot of chewing this milky latex, at least as early as year 200 AD, they were using it to get maize out of their teeth or to freshen their breath. And there's other evidence, you know, from around the world of like resinous substances being chewed, like I said, but this is sort of the, like, gum as we know it, becoming really popular. And I read one article that said, you, like, can't really overstate how popular it was and how ubiquitous it was. It was, like, comparable to, like, beer in Germany or cheeseburgers in the U.S.

Like, it was, it's just a thing people did all the time. And the Aztecs would also get into chewing the same substance, but apparently it was not as universal. There were, like, very rigid sort of of societal norms about who chewed gum. Apparently, little kids and old ladies could chew gum wherever they want it all the time. But if men shoot it, it was considered effeminate. And if, like, young women, so like, you know, no longer a child, not yet an old woman, if they chewed it, they were considered loose. That's my favorite stereotype in popular media, by the way.

Whenever you see like a woman on screen chewing gum, you're like, she gets around. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. If she blows a bubble, then like, oh yeah. Come on, pretty woman. Exactly. Yeah. And yeah, if you were like sort of just in solid adult range but weren't elderly yet, then it

was like very vulgar for you to chew gum. That's very interesting to me that the trend was picked up by the Aztecs, but they were like, don't be crazy, like chewing stuff out in public. So I have a question for both of you. What do you think gum is made of now? I always heard that it's like rubber or something. Isn't it? What's the word with an X?

Oh, xylitol? Or Zorbitol or one of those things? The thing that's bad for dogs. Yeah. So I get a lot of TikTok. I haven't been on TikTok much lately, but when I'm on TikTok, I get a lot of ads for like the rugged natural gum brands. Yes, I've seen that.

I've seen that. There are always like gum is full of plastics and other petroleum-based products. And unfortunately, this is true. So like, I don't love that, to be honest. I mean, this is not me endorsing any particular brand of rugged paleo-friendly gum. But, like, it is true that a lot of mainstream gums are made with stuff that we would not consider food and that, like, are used in industrial applications that might horrify you because they're, like, rubbers.

And then, again, a lot of petroleum-based products. And I'm always, like, you know, banging my pots and pans about how much stuff has petroleum in it, that people don't realize. I mean, all plastic. So many makeup products have petroleum stuff in them. And so it's just like, you know, I don't, that stuff is everywhere. You can't avoid it. And I don't want to freak people out. But it might be worth looking into what's in your gum. Also, did you ever hear about the guy who invented Vaseline or like discovered it? Yes. I think we've talked about it on the show, actually. He ate a spoonful of it every day. And it was just junk, he found an oil machine. And he looked to be like,

90-something. You got very old. Well, I'm sure it really cleaned him out. Like, it's probably very regular. Yeah. Probably like a flipping slide down. Yeah. Exactly. And like you said, like Zorbital and all of the other, you know, things that start with like X's and Zs. There are a lot of sugar alcohols in sugar-free gums, which isn't necessarily bad. But, you know, fun fact for people who don't know, those can be a big gut issue trigger for some folks. So if you chew a lot of sugar-free gum and you have hot girl tummy problems, that might be worth investigating. Something that I think a lot of people don't realize can be making you feel icky. So how bad is gum for you? Unfortunately, like a lot of petroleum-based

products, there's a lot of like smoke and mirrors around that. And it's like, mysteriously, we have not done a lot of research on whether we should be chewing on petroleum products. So it's kind of up to you to find out what ingredients are in your gum and how you feel about them, but then there are the benefits of chewing gum, which do exist. So the authors of the earworm study suggested that chewing gum might also help interrupt like intrusive thoughts in general through the same mechanisms by like, you know, if you're activating these nerves that are activated when you move your mouth, that it can sort of like derail your internal voice sub-localizing these negative thoughts.

And there isn't research specifically on that yet. But as someone with OCD, I find that very interesting and might be investigating it myself. And apparently the gum industry found it interesting too. I found this report from last year about this marketing campaign that Mars, the candy company, put out. It was a $50 million campaign called Quiet Your Mind Mouth. And it was, they didn't like explicitly connect to any research study. particular, commercials kind of imply that chewing gum silences your negative inner voice. And apparently the gum industry took a big hit during the peak pandemic time.

You know, people weren't out and about worrying about their breath, I guess. And so let's see, in 2024 gum sales were expected to peak at 19.7 billion, which might sound like a lot. And it is up from the 16.1 billion that the industry made in 2020. But back in 2011, sales peaked at $25 billion. So gum is not what it used to be. And unsurprisingly, the gum makers are latching on to the idea that it might be good for us.

And there has been some research on how gum impacts our mental health. Unfortunately, there's this one big meta-analysis that gets cited a lot that was actually retracted. So, you know, I should note that that doesn't mean that all the studies that looked at are bad, and I don't know the details of why the study was retracted, but it remains retracted. So, you know, a lot of articles out there referencing big studies about mental health and gum are, in fact, not referencing anything. But there have been some small studies that have found a reduction in stress hormones and an increase in productivity. Something that I found really interesting is we don't know what the is, but it does seem like chewing is a stress reduction thing for a lot of animals, including humans. I mean, if you think about it, like nail biting and clenching our teeth, you know, is a thing we do when we're stressed. And apparently in rodents, there's evidence that, like, having stuff to chew on, like, wooden sticks can, like, really lower anxiety-related behaviors and even lower the risk of, like, stress-induced ulcer formation. again, in mice. But yeah, again, we don't really know what goes on with that, but it does seem like chewing sets off a whole cascade of sort of soothing body experiences for us, which is interesting and

cool. Also, you'll find some resources saying that chewing gum increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain, which does seem to be true, but then there isn't really any evidence that this like increases our cognitive performance in the moment or anything like that. So we don't really know how much of a benefit that might have. It does seem like chewing gum makes most of us feel more alert, which is cool. Anything that makes you feel less stressed is it's working. And obviously gum is a pretty cheap intervention to try. And then also it's worth pointing out that if you form an association between chewing

and especially with a particular flavor of gum while you're studying, then like that can help with recall and focus because we're very like sensory animals. So the sort of main known benefit of chewing gum is that it increases our saliva production, which helps with cavities because it helps keep plaque from building up. That being said, that only works if the gum is sugar-free. If there's sugar in the gum, none of the upsides for your teeth are worth the downside of chewing a bunch of sugar in your mouth.

You know, gum, we don't really know how bad some of it is for us. So maybe do some research and find a gum recipe that makes you feel happy about putting it in your mouth and your body. But it does seem like we have this innate desire to chew. And for thousands of years, gum has been there to give us something to chew on. And that's incredible. For sure. I think everyone should reject Big Chew, find your local gummerie, bunch of local gummen, they produce from like closely derived ingredients.

Find that person chew your local gum from your local gumman. Artisanal handcrafted gumman, yes. Find your local gum. I think chewing gum gave me TMJ, to be honest. Really? That is so fair. I used to chew way more gum when I was younger and I do have really bad TMJ. See, I would chew it all the, I used to sell gum in middle school.

I have like a little binder. You were the gumman. You were that guy? I was the gum guy. Absolutely, I would sell gum. And I chewed all the time. And my jaw was like, it goes like this now. Yeah.

You take tips to me, but it's like popping in and out all that. Oh, yeah. Well, and I also, you know, I found some stuff about Jess, you will love this. The, you know, history of chewing gum in baseball. And a lot of people wonder, like, why is this the one sport where it's like totally acceptable to just be chewing up a store of the whole time? And I mean, the answer is just that people used to chew tobacco and that became part of the culture. And Big Chew was invented, not invented, gum already existed, but Big Chew was started up because a baseball player, I think it was like a ball boy, which is such a weird phrase.

But, you know, a gentleman ferrying balls for them was carrying like pieces of licorice because he was like, oh, I don't do tobacco. And it was getting to be about that time where it was like, guys, maybe we shouldn't be chewing all this tobacco. I'm noticing this tobacco is falling out of a hole in my mouth. Yeah, exactly. So a player was like, huh, what if we chewed other stuff? And that's how Big Chew was born. And again, chewing is just apparently a universal human instinct, self-soothing and great if you have an earworm. So yeah, that's what I have to say about gum today.

I love that. I'm still just like so fascinated about the earworm and gum thing. Like the fact that I'm like pre-singing something in my brain without even knowing it is like I'm fascinated. I know. I know. And I do love the Vinny your point that that means where we're all ready to break out into a musical interlude at any moment. True. All right.

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And Jess, tell me what may or may not have happened at the Coliseum. Yes, yes. Okay, so back in the day, and we're going to be. by back in the day, I mean like 80 AD, like way back. The Romans had this thing and it was called the Coliseum. You know, I'm sure you've seen it. If you've traveled to Rome or know someone who's traveled to Rome or seen classic films like perhaps the 2008 sci-fi cinematic classic jumper with Hayden Christensen,

which is I think that movie is awesome. When I think of Rome, I think of jumper. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it would see between 50 and 80,000 people. It was made of, or it is still there. It's made of limestone, volcanic rock, and a little bit of concrete. And as you all probably know, it was like the place to be for the Romans. So it was like their TikTok basically.

Like that's where you go to like be entertained and get maybe brain rot. Who's to say? Probably some brain rot. A little bit, I'm sure. So they held like what would you go there to see? A lot of stuff. But oftentimes it was like a gladatorial show. So people fighting in front of a crowd.

And then they also did something called Venacio, aka the hunt, where they imported animals from Africa and the Middle East, like rhinoceruses, hippopotamuses, elephants, giraffes, oryx, barbary lions, panthers, leopards, bears, Caspian tigers, crocodiles, and ostriches. And they would like, you know, it's like they would hunt them and all that stuff, which I hate. But like, you know, I can see how that could be entertaining for a certain kind of person. And for both the- There were no video games, Jess. I know, I know, I know. I think it's so sad to think about how many of those animals are extinct.

I, yeah. Yeah. It is. The A-Rox and like the North African elephant. Yeah. We only know about them from like being killed in the Roman Colise. Exactly. So a cool thing about this though, speaking of theater, is that for both the gladiator stuff and like this animal hunt stuff,

the Coliseum had these like elaborate sets and theatrical designs that folks would move around and set up, which I love, like the fact that they have entire sets behind these shows. Yeah. And it makes me wonder like, you know, like what was it like to work at the Coliseum? Like, like who were those folks? Like were there like Roman theater kids? Like the stage managers, the techies. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, they did all that stuff in addition to like religious events and, you know, a lot of stuff, big multi-purpose arena. But one event they also allegedly did back then. And let me be clear, historians do kind of argue about whether this is fully true or not, but we'll get into why that.

is they apparently filled the Coliseum with water and staged naval battles, which like, when I heard about this, I was like furrowing the heck out of my brow. Like what did they? What? That sounds fake. There's so many holes in that thing. Like, how? And I'll get to that too. Just got to put a tarp down first. That was literally my thought. I was like, giant tarp. So filling, you know, filling something with water, staging a naval battle. It has a name. It's called Namakia, I believe it's pronounced. And it was a thing that folks had been doing since before the Coliseum was even built. So Julius Caesar, back in Rome 46 BC, he created this sort of artificial water basin arena in the bend of the river Tiber.

And he plunked in these ships called bierems, triremes, and quadreams. And those are boats whose names correspond to the number of rows of people rowing all the oars sticking out of the sides. So they're those old boats you see in movies and illustrations and stuff with like a gazillion ores coming out of the sides. And I was also thinking about this, like it's going to take some serious choreography once you get all those oars going. Like I guess there's the guy that yells. Right. There's usually some kind of, well, like I sometimes I go to row house, which is a rowing based group workout. Oh, cool.

And I do appreciate that it's a group workout that's like makes way more sense, like logically and historically. than a group spin class. Yeah. Because when you're all rowing together, like it does, you are like, oh, man, we've got to move the boat that is this workout. I love that as a concept. Interesting. Are you often concerned with the historical relevancy of your workout? You know, that's a great question.

And not consciously, but I do feel that it helps center me in the moment to how things make sense. I mean, I personally love my hunting and gathering class. I think he's wonderful. Yes, yes, yes. But yeah, no, like, it's, people are really good at like, you know, getting into rhythm together. And I imagine when there was a giant man yelling at you and maybe somebody playing a drum, that was probably even easier. I'm sure.

I also like imagine how many Romans would never have the opportunity to really see the ocean. You know, they're kind of like stuck in the city. And it's not like they'd travel anywhere, you know, they live to 32 or whatever. And it's like, this is as close as they're going to get to being on a cruise is seeing this naval battle with a call team. That's so valid. Okay, so the boats that we're talking about, they are huge and there were so many of the boats that there were 4,000 oarsmen total in these battles that would hop in and participate. And then each side additionally on top of the oarsmen got a thousand fighting men in this naval battle. And this was like a battle, but it's kind of more of a

mock battle. But it's also still kind of a really battle because they did really fight. I mean, like, gladiators really died for real. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Just because it's staged doesn't mean. Yes. They really committed to the role. Yeah, they committed to the bit, which I respect. Yeah.

And why? Mostly because they were like prisoners of war. Sure. Like people who committed crimes that were sentenced to death. They had no choice. Right. Nobody was getting into it for the love of the game. I mean, maybe like one guy.

I'm sure there's always someone who is. Yes. A hundred percent. And actually, the people, weren't the only people who died at these things. Spectators would be so hype that they would camp out along roads to get a good spot to see the show. And people would like push forward and get trampled or crushed because they were like so excited. It's just like a Taylor Swift concert.

Literally. And there were a good number of these Namakia, these naval battles put on over the years. They were super rare because, you know, consider the undertaking it would, you would need to create these. So they were often used to celebrate big war victories or commemorate the completion of monuments. Augustus did one in two BC, also kind of by digging out an arena near the Tiber. And it was bigger than Julius's fight, more people, more ships. And the Nero held one in the year 57 AD. But he actually constructed a wooden amphitheater to do it. And sweet, sweet Pliny the Elder wrote about this event and how they covered this wooden amphitheater in a beautiful

azure awning, spangled with stars. It was spangled. Yeah. So it was like a night sky. I love how artsy fartsy they got with it. High school prom. Yeah. Totally.

I was like Nero was so unwell and like a bad guy. But you know, you also get a level of theatricality with someone that unwellity. Yeah. That you just don't get otherwise. I agree. He is a star first and foremost. Definitely. Sometimes that comes with being a little toxic.

Oh my God. I'm playing this new video game right now that came out last year called metaphor refantazio. And the villain in that is like, he's great. He's one of the best villains ever written, in my opinion. But he's so good because he's so evil and scary. But he doesn't do it to like be evil and scary. He's doing it because he's dramatic and extra. And it's so funny.

It's a great game. I really like it. Metaphor, recantatio. That's what it is. That's what it is. It's why the people who make persona, if you guys know what that one is. Yeah. But anyway, these water arenas, they started using their aqueduct system to

fill them up and they would stock them with fish and seals and hippos and aquarium yeah yeah and i was wondering like how deep are these you know like how like how are they doing this how much water are we talking and there is research from the university of chicago shout out chicago that analyzed some old roman texts so they think the water could have been it could have been as shallow as five feet deep so enough for a boat to be buoyant but also enough for larger animals like horses and european bison to participate which they did. And I have to imagine battles with more big-ass warships had deeper water, but, you know, could have been like five feet deep.

And apparently if people with death sentences were fighting, they would just make the water deeper so that the risk of drowning was also at play. Oh, fun. Yeah, they're so lovely. Did you guys see the new Gladiator movie? I haven't seen it. Okay. Well, you would have loved this because they did flood the Coliseum.

Really? In a scene that made me say, oh, brother. Yeah. They put it in the Coliseum, and then they filled it with giant sharks. Okay, I need to see this. I need to see this. Very easy to import in Rome. Yeah, no problem at all.

Certainly aquariums today don't have trouble pulling on elk sharks in. So people are like falling into the water and immediately being eaten by like giant, I don't know, their justification would probably be they're bull sharks and they can live in fresh water. But girl, how did you get those sharks there? I didn't know I needed to see the new Gladiator movie, but here's it. here we are. Oh, it's really boring, but you have to watch just for the sharks. Yeah, just for that scene, I feel like it'd be enough.

So, so yeah, on top of the bloodlust and general spectacle of these things, people are also apparently like really horny for the Namakia. These places kind of turned rife with drunkenness and debauchery and, you know, people are having casual hookups left and right, brawbles and sex workers were a large part of these festivities. Like, I'm just imagining people getting like so jazzed about the spectacle and the violence that they just like turn to each other and like, you know, they're taking it. with the passion. What if we kissed at the flooded coliseum? Yeah. You guys seem like Roman graffiti at the Coliseum and stuff. And it's all like, it's like Helvetica sucks phallus.

It cracks me up, man. They don't know their nerds yet. No, it's so true. Oh my God. And the poet Ovid wrote about this. And he was like, with such a throng, who could not fail to find what caught his fancy? So he's like, you know, How could you not be horny at this high-oxane carnal shit, you know? So, yeah. So finally coming back to the Coliseum, surely they've tried to fill that bad boy with water, right? Some historians think yes. Others think no, mostly because they aren't sure how they would waterproof it, which was my question. See, that's not a good reason to think they didn't try.

I agree. It's a good reason to think they didn't successfully get boats in there. I agree. I feel like people back then were putting tar on everything. Do you know what I mean? They were chewing it. They were chewing it. They were slathering it on walls.

They were putting it on boats. They could have waterproofed that thing. No problem at all, man. Yeah. And one scientist wanted to check that out. And his name, his name was Dr. Martin Crapper. Shut up. That's his name.

That's why you pick this story. I'll be honest. I was reading about this. And when I saw that his name was Dr. Crapper, I was like, this is it. Yeah. This is it. So he is from.

Northumbria University and he published a study in the proceedings of the institution of civil engineers titled how Roman engineers could have flooded the Coliseum. So first he talks about how fast the Aqueducts could fill the Coliseum's 4,241 cubic meters of space, which is just a bit smaller than an American football field. Based on geography, arrangement of water availability in the aqueducts, the Coliseum could have feasibly been filled with water in as little as 34 minutes, which is fast. Others say, depending on how much of the city's water is rerouted, it takes closer to a couple hours, which I think sounds a little more reasonable.

That's still fast. It's still fast. It's still fast. And they're probably like, you know, it probably was closer to a couple hours because they're probably not rerouting water from like the emperor's house, you know. We know our whole thing is that we somehow have plumbing, but not today because we're filling the Coliseum. Yes.

We must desiccate the four to have our water show. I mean. That they probably did do, but. So, yeah, they never could really fully explain the waterproofing situation, but the fact that Nero was able to build a standalone wooden arena for this makes it very plausible that they could retrofit something for the Coliseum. And the Coliseum does have very complex underground tunnels and plumbing. So it's probably easy to drain when they're done.

So it's probably like, you know, already a good site to do that at. And writings about these water fights, these normal, When I say waterfights, it sounds like a super soaker. Yeah. But in historical writings, there are a few nomacia that had ambiguous locations that could have actually been held at the Coliseum. And so it's likely it happened at least once. According to Cassius Dio in 235 AD, this was like a historian. He said a water fight did take place in the Coliseum at 86 AD.

And not only that, but it apparently coincided with a violent rainstorm that led to the deaths of all combatants. as well as many of the spectators. So it was a banger. And yeah, Nomakia, huge giant water fight reenactment. People actually died. The spectators went absolutely buck wild for them. And it probably, probably had, you know, emphasis on probably, happened at least once in the Coliseum.

Wow. Has it been in a video game, Jess? No, but it needs, well, I don't know. Not that I've seen. For once, I did not, I did not bring a video game into this somehow. No, but one came in anyway, which thank you. God, you know. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I brought in the moment of time. The name was impossible to remember. I'll tell you that. Metaphor, refentazio. Nope, in one ear, ask you. Not possible. All right, we're going to take one more quick break, and then we'll be back with one more fact.

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network usage. Okay, we're back. And Vinnie, what did we try to domesticate this time? Thank you, girlfriend. In the 1700s in Colonial America, Americans were keeping all kinds of wild animals as pets, but none were so popular as the squirrel. Now, why were they keeping wild animals? I can only assume it's because they didn't live very long, and they're like, why not? You know, why not keep a squirrel?

And probably because they didn't really understand rabies, right? If someone got bit and they contracted rabies, they were a witch. It wasn't because they had a squirrel. Totally. It was so popular to keep squirrels, in fact, that one of our very founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin himself kept us. squirrel. He named it Mungo, a terrible name, I think, for a squirrel. And it passed away after

being attacked by his dog, Ranger. Oh, geez. We know about this because he recorded it, right? He wrote a little note about it and he said, thou art fallen by the fangs of want and cruel Ranger. Oh, my God, my dog catches a word that I cannot say because she is sitting next to me and she knows what it is. And I'm going to say that now when she catches one of one of those things. Wait, spell it out. What is it? It's K-I-D-S. No, although she does not, she does not with children either. Yeah, so they kept all kinds of squirrels, right? It was mostly the gray squirrel, but also some people dabbled in the red squirrels. Some people dabbled in the flying squirrel. It was mostly gray squirrels. And this started to blow up, right? By the 19th century, there was actually a ton of literature about how to take care of squirrels.

And they would say things like, every now and then, it's okay. to give your squirrel a fig. Like, so specific, people would name their squirrels stuff like Dick and Robert and Peter. Oh my God. They would say stuff like, please children, and this is a direct quote, or pretty direct, please children, allow your squirrels to crack their own nuts. That's so important. Yeah, it's so important to let your squirrels crack their own nuts so that your squirrels build what?

Confidence, right? We don't want soft squirrels crank. I can't crack their own nuts. So there were other wild animals, right? Like people would keep rabbits, which are, of course, not rodents. They're lagomorphs. Write that down, everyone. Oh, I always forget that.

Isn't that crazy? I think it's kind of a goofy distinction. I think they should be allowed to be rodents. It's insane. Yeah. But squirrels were always the most popular. And part of the reason we know this too is because there are a ton of portraits of, like, ultra wealthy children with little squirrels on leashes.

from this time period. It's like oil paintings of the palest child you've ever seen in your life with a squirrel on its lap. And it's like, it's like Rebecca out to mania and Bricka rocker. Her beloved squirrel. Her beloved squirrel. What's very funny about this is that it starts to taper off

in like the 1910s, right? By 1910 people had stopped keeping squirrels. Why? Because they realized they're insane. And most of the time, they would be. buy squirrel from a little shop, but every now and then you would get a squirrel from a wild, which seems like a bad idea all around. And this was a very interesting story to me because it brought up a lot of questions about

like what domestication is really and what animals could we have domesticated? Because I remember going to school and seeing, I would see all the time like piebald squirrels, right? Like there are squirrels with these black and white spotted patterns. And that's a pattern that really only happens with frequency and domesticated animals because it's not a safe pattern to half, right? Oh, sure, right. If you have little cow spots,

you're going to be killed and eaten by something. So seeing a lot of them really indicates that these squirrels are very comfortable and probably changing because of how close they live to humans. And those squirrels are one of a few animals like raccoons whose distribution has really expanded because we've, like, built forests across America, right? So maybe they're domesticating themselves in a different way

and we had nothing to do with it. But at the same time, I would love to have seen the squirrel breeds we would have developed, you know? Yes, gosh, yeah. You guys have seen those guinea pigs that look like two pays. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a squirrel with a super long, stupid tail

or, like, a squirrel that's really thin and has long legs for racing. Oh, my God. There were a lot of avenues we could have taken, and I love thinking about the road less taken. Of course, you should not keep a squirrel now. it's mostly illegal in most places, but it's also weird.

I think it's bad to take a squirrel for a while. I think it's strange. And if you want a squirrel, just get like a domesticated rat. Right. Almost exactly the same. Yeah. Which was another fun thought to me.

I was like, we were able to successfully domesticate so many of the rodents, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, right? But squirrels never quite reached that mark. And I have to assume it's because they're athletic and a little bit violent. And they're pretty smart.

Yeah. A squirrel can outwit you in a way a guinea pig simply cannot. Yeah. In a way a guinea pig is not interested in. Sometimes I see the way people keep guinea pigs. And it's like the guinea pig has nothing between it and freedom but a six inch wall. Yeah. And it's just like, I don't have the time.

I don't have the internet. Can't be bothered. I can't do this. That might as well be the great wall of fucking China. Oh, wait. I have one other funny detail, I think. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here it is. Oh, I love this. I love this. This author was like, she described squirrels as jumping about her room and peeping out from wooden eaves. Writing an instance is recorded of no less than 17 jumps of sugar. Oh, wait, wait, hold up. Oh, wait, okay. A squirrel stole 17 lumps of sugar from her drawing room.

I don't know. It's the very, it's the richest person sentence I've seen in my life. Oh, yeah. Do you or where's the sugar? Well, a squirrel has stolen 17 lumps of it to the drawing room. And it's hiding them in the eaves. Yeah, but what do you guys think? If you could domesticate an animal, what would it be?

Oh, that's a great question. It's really good question. I am very, I've always been very taken with the domesticated foxes. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. And I think we've talked about them on weirdest thing before and how, like, the fact that some foxes were domesticated has led to a lot of confusion and people trying to buy them as pets. And the ones they're buying haven't actually been domesticated. They haven't had, like, generations of breeding to make them more. puppy-like they're just sort of tame they're like you know yeah this was born in captivity and

we raised it to probably not bite you and it's just a very different situation but i love i think foxes are so beautiful and cute and i do love the idea of having one that thinks it's a puppy but yeah i think we also talked once when we were just saying about a guy who tried to domesticate zebras turns out zebras are real little shi they're not built for that really bitey animals yeah really bite me. And it's like, we already have horses. We don't, that's not. But you know what's crazy? Like, I think about camels. I've never met a camel that had a good attitude. Oh, no. Totally. They're always giving you side eye, dude. They're always giving you side eye. They're always grumbling. Like, they've evolved to grumble. They don't take pride in their work. They hate it. They hate to be around us. They're always disappointed. Their palates are always being inflated or flopping out of their mouths. Yeah. I'm like, how did people do camels? You know? Yeah, I don't know. I think it was, yeah, just sort of a needs must. They were like, this won't die if I write it through the desert. Yeah.

What about you, Minnie? What animal would do you try to do? I sometimes think, and I don't know, maybe it's wishful thinking because sometimes I see them and I'm like, they're not super bright. I don't know if it would work, but giraffe. Oh, that would be really cute. Sometimes I imagine myself riding on the back of a jet black giraffe. Oh, my God. Yeah.

It's got long like four locks and a main and I'm like just riding it through the prairie. And everyone's looking at me and they're like, who's that? And I'm like, oh, I'm the Duke. I'm the local Duke. Yeah, on my giraffe, obviously. On my giraffe. This is the domestic giraffe. That needs to be an oil painting.

Oh my God. Okay, I'll do it. Great. You don't have to sell me twice. I'll make that oil painting. Excellent. I think I want the high racks to be my domesticated pet, which I think that they, I think people already have them as pets, but I don't know how chill that is.

So yeah, that seems not chill. That seems not chill. Free the high racks. Yeah. Free the high racks. Hashtag free him. Yeah, I just love the high racks. They're my favorite little guys.

Or am a pangolin. Oh, yeah, that's a really good one. Yeah. They're really in trouble. So maybe we could help them out by making them pet a bowl. But no, they're like, I always think of them. They're like, well, sentient pine cone dinosaur creatures. And having a little one that, like, lived in a purse would be fun.

It would be so cute. I read this book about domestication and it described, like, there are similar traits across all species that happen when they become domesticated, right? It's like a condition that physically affects you. You get like a larger cranium. Your ears tend to flop. You'll get the piebald spots. And that's like a symptom of being domesticated by humans. And I think it would be so cute to see a pangolin with like a swished up face.

And he's got like his like scales are different colors and his floppy. years, totally different animal. Floppy ears does remind me I recently was out in Arizona visiting a friend and I'm, you know, from the East Coast have spent most of my time on the East Coast and I saw a havelina for the first time. Wait, what's that? No one ever told me about havelinas. They're scary.

Oh, this one was very cute. What's a havelina? A peccary. Yeah. So it's like the American version of a wild pig looking fig. They're not pig. But if you saw one, you would, well, if you saw one, you'd be like, my first thing I was like, what is that, like, tiny, adorable wild boar.

But they're different. They're the ones that actually, you know, evolved in the Americas as opposed to being brought over from. Oh. Are these the feral hogs? No, no, no. These are totally native. They're an indigenous animal.

Okay. There's a couple species. In America, we have the Havillina, but in South America, there's the Chicoan peccary. Okay. And they're like smaller pig type animals, kind of in the same pig. group, but with really skinny snouts. And they are pretty cute, but they will, if you get close to them and their babies, it's like, yeah, yeah.

They are mad. Yeah, no, I don't, I don't, I don't mess around with wild animals because I did grow up in the woods, but this was one of the cuter animals I respected from a distance I've seen in a while. Just drop that like nothing. Yeah. Yeah, I was, I was raised by the creatures of the wilderness. Yeah.

I mean, South Jersey is basically, that's the vibe down there. And, but I, yeah, they have like the one I saw. And I think in general, they're like very, very fuzzy. And this one was like big enough to be like, oh, that's an animal, but wasn't big enough to be frightening to me. And they have like very floppy ears. I sent a picture to a friend and he actually sent back a picture of his dog with the ears circled and was like the same. And then also when she ran away, she had like a little corgi butt. You know how corgi is kind of like the little like leap they do.

and their little, you know, butts little just like flopping behind them. That was what it looked like. So I was like, I don't know why nobody thought I should know about these animals. It also seems like I saw a particularly chill and cute one. I might have felt very differently if I had. I'm from Colorado and so I spent a long time like in the southwest, taking trips to like New Mexico and Arizona. And let me tell you, like I saw one once and it was terrifying to me because it did the thing where it like stiffened.

Sure. Yeah. Raise the hair on its back. So I've always had a little bit of a fear of peckeries and also a mountain lion. Sounds like that one I feel like Pokemon. Oh, that's really fair. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, what a great episode. So many good facts. Yeah. And I loved all of them. I'm not going to say I want a pet squirrel, but I do kind of wish I could be a fly on the wall for some like really obnoxious rich person in the 1800s wrangling their pets squirrels. I think that would have been really fun. Agree.

Vinnie, thanks so much for coming on. It's been great having you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Would you remind our listeners where they can find your stuff? I would love nothing more. You can find my stuff on Instagram and TikTok at V-I-N-N-U-N- underscore A-Y-Y. That's V-N-N-U underscore A-Y-Y.

You can also see me on your cordially invited on Amazon Prime. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts. including me, Rachel Faltman, along with Jess Bodie, 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. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals, because we're built for what you're building.

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