The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - The Piss Current, Mucking Up Space, a Cocky Legend

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Divya Anantharaman aka Gotham Taxidermy joins the show to talk about a bird with a very big personality. Plus, Rachel talks about a whale conveyor belt, and Lauren dishes dirt on the ISS (literally). 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 Balint's Twitch: ⁠https://www.twitch.tv/sciants_streams ⁠ -- 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! Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to ⁠⁠https://www.liquid-iv.com/⁠⁠ and use code WEIRDEST at checkout. Give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince! Go to ⁠⁠https://Quince.com/weirdest⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.  Open your account in 2 minutes at ⁠https://chime.com/WEIRDEST⁠. Chime. Feels like progress. No matter how you say it, don’t overpay for it. Shop data plans at ⁠https://MINTMOBILE.com/weirdest⁠ Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to ⁠⁠https://www.Zocdoc.com/WEIRDEST⁠⁠ to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

The Hilton sale is on now. on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and text stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office.

So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popper. I'm Rachel Feltman. I'm Lauren Leffer. And I'm Divya. Divia, welcome to the show. Welcome back, that is. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be back. Would you remind our listeners what it is that you do because it's very, very cool? Yes, thank you. So I work as a professional taxidermist and I'm, yeah, it's a pretty fun job. It's pretty interesting. No two days are alike. and I'm lucky enough to have both scientific and artistic clients. So I get to do a little bit of everything, but my focus is birds.

Wow. Amazing. Well, we love birds here on Weirdest Thing. And we're psych to have you back. And Lauren, since you've become a regular face voice on Weirdest Thing, listeners might be wondering who you are. Would you remind them? Yeah, that's right.

I live inside the Weirdest Thing podcast now. Yeah. It's a good place to be. I'm a freelance science journalist and a contributing writer for popular science. Well, welcome back. We always love to have you on. Thank you. It's good to be trapped inside the computer.

Well, let's jump 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, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then once we've all had the chance to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and the weirdest, oh my God, sorry, Friday brain. Keep all this thing, Jess. No editor. Stay in it.

You know what it is, though. It's because I make silly little, I like to tell people, I hope one day pops I will sell weirdest thing merch again. I can't sell you weirdest thing merch, but I do create some things in Canva that are based on weird things I have learned. and you can find those in my T-Public and Red Bubble Shop. And right before we started recording, I saw that somebody bought one of my, don't talk to me until I finished spinning my little science yarn shirt. And I was so happy because it's one of my favorites that I kept thinking of that.

So that's why I messed up the intro. But you guys know what it is anyway. So I'm not even getting to get back into it. It's fine. Graphic design is my passion. Check out my T-Public and Red Bubble Shopps. Lauren, what's your tease? Oh, okay. So my tease this week, the International Space Station is so clean, it might be making astronauts sick.

Uh-oh. We need those little microbial guys. They're so important. Yeah, it turns out. Tivya, what's your tease? My tease is, I mean, it's a little cryptic, but kind of on brand. Getting old is better than the old. Sorry, Friday brain for me. Getting old is better than the alternative, or is it? Oh, that is very cryptic. Jess's face, once again, I regret that listeners cannot watch. My tease is that I am going to talk about something called the Great Whale Conveyor Belt. And, yeah, it's a great phrase, great science. Great image. Yeah.

Yeah. The logistics. I'll dive right in. Pardon the pun. So you've heard of, no, please. Does the great whale conveyor belt imply that there is a lesser whale conveyor belt or that there is like a not-so-great whale conveyor belt? Yeah, a not-so-great whale conveyor belt?

I will get into it. And I'm wondering, is there like other equipment so we have a conveyor belt? Is there like a puttator? A forklet and a pump. Yeah, of lift. Yeah. There's a funnel and a pump, in fact. Oh, okay.

All the simple machines. Just waiting for the great whale pulley system and lever. So you've heard of whale falls probably, which is, and we've talked about them when we were to swing before, that huge nutrient boost that happens when whales die and sink down to the seafloor. It lasts for years. They basically become like cities that live on the seafloor. It's incredible. But far fewer people have heard of a hot little commodity called whale urine and air. everything it does for the ocean.

And a study came out recently that looked at whale urine and more broadly at a phenomenon known as the Great Whale Conveyor Belt. And side note here, I definitely first read this in the same vein as like the Great British Bake Off like implying that there's a lesser whale conveyor belt. But actually it's great whale in terms of the term for whales of great size. It's not a very exact grouping. There are not particularly related whales that fall under the Great Whale heading. It's like a dozen species, including such heavy hitters as humpback whales and blue whales.

The smallest of the so-called Great Whales is the Pigney Right Whale, which is like 26 feet long. So yeah, these are big boys and girls. And that is what makes the conveyor of whales great. But we already knew that whales helped move nutrients through the ocean, which is what this conveyor belt refers to. It's basically the whales acting like delivery drivers for nutrients through the whole ocean. Or if they're, you know, if they have less agency, like they're on a conveyor belt through the ocean. But yeah, there are lots of ways that whales keep nutrients moving through the ocean. There's something else called a whale pump.

This was described in a study back in 2010. And that's where basically whales dive down deep to feed. And then they go up to the surface to do like everything else, to poop, to pee, to give birth. And all of those processes release lots of waste. I don't know if you've ever seen a whale placenta. Google it. They're huge. A lot of times when people see sort of indeterminate blobs of biological stuff in the ocean.

And they're like, what the hell is that? 200-pound blob. It's often a whale placent. Wait, what do you mean lots of times? Does that happen often? People are always wearing. No. Huge indeterminate blobs. I guess so I guess I'm biased because I grew up near the Jersey Shore, but I feel like we always had stories about mysterious ocean blobs. So those were usually sort of like big hunks of like gunk and foam on the sand. I think, you know, it's less common for people to spot a whale placenta. But it has happened. There are new stories. where people are being reassured that the crazy, like, alien chest-burster-looking thing bobbing through the ocean is, in fact, a whale placenta, the miracle of life.

But anyway, there are lots of waste products that you create by being a mammal who's alive, and whales do much of their living up at the surface after eating way down deep. So they're basically bringing all those nutrients up, like a pump, the whale pump, and re-releasing them, redistributing them much higher up in the ocean. But in this recent study, researchers wanted to see how much nutrient movement happens when whales move horizontally instead of vertically because they move a lot. Many great whales spend their summers feeding in high latitude areas, and then they migrate to tropical and subtropical coastal areas to breed in the winter.

So for example, humpback whales travel more than 5,000 miles to breeding grounds off Costa Rica from the southern ocean. Dang. Yeah, yeah. Gray whales can travel 14,000 miles round trip between Russia where they feed and Baja, California, where they breed, which is just the contrast between those two places is really funny to be, like, more than just temperature alone, very different vibes. Totally. That's like complete like global circumc like which coast of Russia to Pacific? Right, probably probably the one closer to California. But still big trip.

And in the Arctic and North Atlantic, there are a lot of species that move from like high latitudes off of North America, Iceland and Europe. So think Alaska, Iceland, you know, Greenland, whatever, to breeding areas all the way down in the Caribbean and off the west coast of Africa. So yeah, whales move a lot and it's just part of their life, part of their routine. We still actually don't know exactly why whales migrate. And in fact, there are species of great whale whose migrations we like don't really have a handle on yet. But the general consensus is that pregnant females in particular probably want to give birth and nurse their young in like warm, shallow areas.

areas that are pretty sheltered. Young whales are smaller. They have less blubber to insulate them. They're also, of course, much more vulnerable to predators. And also, apparently, very, like, shallow sandy waters muffle the sounds whales make. And moms and newborn calves are constantly talking to each other. And some researchers think that they don't, they want there to be, like, less resonance. So killer whales are less likely to show up and try to attack them. Yeah, so there are probably a lot of reasons why they make this trip, but it's a big undertaking,

and they generally fast on the trip and over the winter. Like, these places where they're breeding, there is not a lot of food, and also they don't seem to be looking for food. Research found that the North Pacific humpback can gain about 30 pounds a day in the spring, summer, and fall, so when they're in their feeding grounds. And then they can lose as much as 200 pounds of blubber a day while they're in their breeding grounds, which is wild to me. I know they're very, very big, and that's a tiny percentage of their weight, but that's still

just wild. Wait, was that 30 pounds versus 200 pounds? Like, they lose 200 pounds. Yeah, they lose it faster than they gain it, but they're also in the breeding grounds for a shorter time. Okay. So, yeah, they really got to get to eat in when they're in their spring, summer, and fall locations.

They have to get it while they get in's good. But what that means is that all of the biomass they shed in their winter homes, you know, placentas, poop, pee, and then carcasses for any whales that die while they're in those breeding grounds. All of that contains nutrients that they consumed over the summer. So they're conveyor belting all of those nutrients from one place to another over these really vast distances. And this is where the funnel comes in.

Researchers also pointed out that it's kind of a pee funnel. They highlighted the pee because apparently the urine, they looked at these different sources of biomass. And they were like, the urine does seem to be like really important in particular. They said it's kind of a pea funnel because they're way more spread out when they feed than they are when they breed. They kind of congregate in these small areas when it's breeding season. So one of the researchers compared it to like gathering leaves from all over your yard and then putting them together in a compost pile, which is probably really important because a lot of these tropical and subtropical waters don't have a lot of nutrients in them. I'll get back to that in a minute. But I saw one researcher say that like when you picture the crystal clear waters of like the Caribbean or something, that's a sign that there's like not a lot going on in there nutrient wise, which makes sense.

I had never really thought about that. But obviously, if you want to support life, you need these nutrients. So in the new study, they looked at humpbacks, gray whales, and North Atlantic and Southern right whales, which are just four great whale species that have really well-studied migration patterns. And they estimated that these animals drop more than 100 million pounds of biomass and 8.3 million pounds of nitrogen each year, which is huge, obviously, huge amount. and nitrogen feeds phytoplankton, which support the whole food chain. So, again, thinking about those like crystal clear, warm coastal waters, they are crystal clear because there's not a lot of nitrogen and not a lot of phytoplankton as a result.

So it turns out that maybe without these whales showing up and peeing out a whole bunch of nitrogen, like a piss load, truly. I was okay. I'm really glad you said pig. Because I was going to say that maybe they called it the P-Funnel so that they didn't have to call it the P-Ccurrent. And then I was going to ask Jess if we're allowed to say Piss or if that counts as a curse that she has to edit out later. Go Piss, girl. We can say Piss.

I'm giving Piss the green light. Yeah. Great. I'm also picturing like if they're more hydrated is the Piss still nutrient risk but clearer? You know what I mean? It's such a good question. I mean, I think because they're not really. eating, like I imagine they're probably pretty, like, dehydrated by the time they get there.

Though I don't know where most of the moisture content of a whale comes from. I was just about to ask. Where are they? Is it just food? It must just be food. Yeah. And then I'm sure they get some amount of water, even though they're in salt water. But anyway, that's a question for another day. I'm not a marine biologist, but it is a very interesting question. Their kidneys must be on some, like, completely crazy stuff to be doing it. Absolutely. Yeah. Forget the Gila monster. We got to study whale metabolism. So yeah, nitrogen super important feeds phytoplankton, which then feeds everything else, literally. And the researcher said in the study, the overall scale of nutrient transfer by whales is pretty similar to that of seabirds we see moving marine nutrients onto land.

and into island ecosystems where they have their nests. But birds are staying pretty local when they move those nutrients, like maybe tens or hundreds of miles at most. And these whales are traveling thousands of miles. So this is almost certainly the kind of biggest scale nutrient transfer, you know, on a global scale that we've ever seen. And it's really cool. And the impact of the whole whale conveyor belt thing,

is probably bigger than the estimates in the study because, again, they only study those four species of whales. And there are other really large whales like the fin whale and blue whales that we understand way less about. So if these two species behave in the same way where they're eating a bunch and then migrating and not eating when they get to their breeding grounds, then the level of nitrogen that whales are releasing

could actually be like three to four times higher. So very cool. And they also pointed out that there were other sort of sources of biomass from whales that they didn't measure. They looked at poop, pee, carcasses and placentas, which are definitely major sources of biomass. But they pointed out that some whales are thought to maybe kind of molt when they're in their breeding ground. So like a lot of skin might be being sloughed off into the water, having a little spa day. Exfoliating. Yeah, exactly. And there's also the calves poop, and they didn't look at the calves. They just looked at the big mama and bapa whales. There's also milk that probably gets spilled into the water. So there are all these other potential sources of nutrients from their feeding grounds that are getting spread around.

But like I said, they did really emphasize that, like, pee is a huge part of this. And just to give you a scope, the fin whale, which, again, they didn't include in this study because we don't know that much about its migraine. but we do know how much it pees, and they produce 250 gallons of pee a day, which is more than pools. Are you going to do the Olympic swimming pools? I'm not, I saw it compared to a kitty pool, but the size was like pretty large. It was like a 10 foot by something kitty pool. So smaller than an Olympic pool, but a lot, you know, you could submerge in the pee. And that's more than 500 times as much pee as the average human producer. no matter how hydrated you are.

So, yeah, it's a lot. And in the Hawaiian Islands, Hubekw National Marine Sanctuary, this study found the nutrient input from whales basically doubles what would be there otherwise from like natural, local, physical forces. And one thing that's kind of a downer, but also really cool to think about

is that this resource transfer definitely used to be way higher. Industrial whaling absolutely desistensual. many of the great whale species. Even populations that are doing pretty okay now, it's nothing compared to before whaling was commercialized. And the researchers estimated that all those nutrient fluxes from great whales were probably three times higher than they are now before humans started hunting whales on an industrial scale, you know, as opposed to more sustainable whaling from indigenous cultures. So yeah, a little bit of a downer note at the end, but the fact that it's still

so impactful and that they like are literally making life in the ocean possible is really awesome to me. Well, and you know, we can make the pea funnel great again. We just we can. It's up to us. Forget save the whales. Save the pea funnel. Save the whale pee. Save the whale pee. Yeah, we need it. I also, I loved this because, you know, a lot of people are familiar with amber grease and the idea that like whales can produce precious stuff. But I was like, no, you don't even know. They're just literally pissing out liquid gold in the Caribbean. When you said whale placenta, this is the brain rot that I'm at. The first thing I thought of was some goop or like moon dust type of like, you know, pseudo-science health company.

When I was, I was trying to get a good like general estimate for how big a whale placenta is. And I couldn't get a good answer because they're different species of whale. And also we don't come across a ton of their placentas. But when I was Googling how much does a whale placenta, Google auto-filled cost? And I was like, no. Who's Googling that stop? Yeah, yeah, see? Yeah, you got to market that.

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Okay, we're back. And Lauren, tell me more about what's going on in space. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm on some sort of space kick right now. I feel like I'm going through a phase that I should have gone through when I would was maybe like six or seven years old. Last time I was here, I was talking about hibernating space squirrels. This time it's going to be the space station microbiome and astronaut health.

I can't be 100% sure, but I think it might be some of the added recent Elon Musk exposure that has me like really seriously considering this idea of space colonization. You know, he's obviously ascended to a new height of global influence. And his big idea about human universal expansion becoming an interplanetary species, I've been learning there's a there's a lot of hurdles still in the way to that. And it turns out the more I learn about space, the less I want to live there. Yeah. Can I just say, thank God there are that many hurdles.

We don't need to do that. Big Earth fan over here. Leave the moon alone. She deserves her space. Mars, we shouldn't just, Mars can do its own thing. But anyway, I digress. Back to the facts. So it turns out astronauts aboard the International Space Station deal with all sorts of minor sickness while they're in space.

They get rashes, develop sudden allergies and hypersensitivities. Research has shown blood markers of inflammation go up. They also have to deal with latent viral infections like chickenpox and mono bubbling all the way back up to the surface. And they start shedding more viral particles. Overall, they experience what's been characterized as immune system dysfunction. None of them have gotten really sick with an infection while up there, which is great. But still, it kind of doesn't bode well for the concept of inhabiting space indefinitely. that when we're up there for a long time, things start to get wonky in our general immune systems.

You know, keep in mind, there's also a lot of other health risks and difficulties of space travel, like muscle loss, cardiovascular changes, balance, inner ear shifts, radiation exposure. I feel like I'm reading one of those like side effects lists in a pharmaceutical commercial. Ask your doctor. Yeah. And like I said, I really don't want to live in space. Anyway, there's a few running hypotheses for why space gunks up astronauts. immunity. One big factor is probably microgravity, also known as the reason astronauts are always floating around. Without Earth gravity, human body fluids redistribute in a way we're simply not

evolved for. It's thought to impact how white blood cells form and function. It also might be responsible for other known problems like space anemia where astronauts red blood cells just start self-destructing at a higher rate. Not good. Aside from microgravity, there's stress and isolation in space, the really limited diet changes in sleep and physical activity. All of these are part of this concept called the space exosome, which comprises the environmental influences and conditions of space travel. One aspect of the space exosome is the space microbiome. Microbiome research, you've probably heard, has gotten really big in the last decade or so. We have this growing understanding that our individual microbial worlds, you know, in our guts,

on our skin play a big role in health. And then there's the external microbial worlds that we move through every day. The environmental microbiome shapes our internal one. And also it's been linked to things like allergy and asthma rates among children who grow up in certain urban settings. There's this one really, really frequently cited 2016 study of Amish and Hutterite children that found the Amish who had more direct contact with animals on farms, had fewer allergies and lower asthma rates than the Hutterites who otherwise lived very similar lifestyles, but used

farming equipment that minimized animal exposure. Sometimes you'll find way worse and less rigorous studies of Amish kids and other farming communities used to justify raw milk exposure, but just remember that raw milk doesn't seem to be the critical variable here. It's probably the other environmental exposures. Please don't drink raw milk. There's avian influenza in it. Don't do it. If you want to get lots of good bacteria in your dairy, just eat traditional yogurt. Mm, kaffir, et cetera. Or swim in the ocean with all the whale pee.

Yeah, that's so true. Drink that. Okay, so this is all to say. Research suggests immune function is determined in part by environmental microbial exposures. And now we're getting back to space. We have obviously no definitive evidence of microbes on other planets, but we do know for sure that there are extraterrestrial bugs out there because we put them there. So the International Space Station is host to a very specific subset of microorganisms,

you know, bacteria, fungus, viruses, although I'm not totally sure they count as organisms, et cetera. And they're all Earth origin. And recently, researchers have been digging into what characterizes these teeny, teeny tiny ISS passengers. Study published in February conducted one of the most thorough surveys of the ISS microbial. and chemical environment ever done. And then they compared all of those little swabs taken from ISS surfaces to various

earth samples. They found some kind of unsettling stuff. One quick aside on the chemicals, the chemicals they picked up on, they were indicative of like a super industrialized setting. And also the findings were wild because the scientists couldn't identify or trace most of them. They were largely mystery chemicals. Also there was PFAS, which is maybe not surprising.

It's in the air. It's in the water. And now it's in space. Love some forever chemicals. And on the microbes side, the, the ISS microbial community, it most closely resembled that of a hospital isolation room. So not just, yeah, not just regular hospital, but like the reverse air sealed isolation chambers that they were keeping people in during the COVID pandemic

and also for other infectious disease purposes. So the ISS, it's super lacking in microbial diversity. And the bulk of the microbial life is human-direct. arrived. Just 6% of all the major known bacterial groups are represented on the ISS that's in contrast to homes on Earth that host between 10 and 15% of those bacterial claves. And then outside, like just in the walking around the park, that representation goes up to 30% in any given place. And depending on the place, it's a different 30%. So in the course of our regular earthbound lives, we're still interacting with all sorts of different microbes, which is generally good,

unless it's not in a few specific cases. So like I said, what's on the ISS is mostly human derived. It's a lot of staphylococcus or staff, which generally lives and grows on our skin. The other microbes present came from things like industrial building materials, cargo drops, and food, human waste. So we're back to poop and pee. And a zone on the ISS, like the node that they sampled, that also was a big determiner of the microbial makeup, perhaps unsurprisingly, The kitchen food zones and the bathroom zones had really distinct signatures. And then they also found a lot of circulating genes for antimicrobial resistance more than a thousand.

And some number of those genes were present in 90% of all the collected swab samples, which means they're literally all over. Antimicrobial resistance, if you don't already know, it's a big problem. Because if pathogens acquire antimicrobial resistance genes, they become superbugs, impervious to antibiotic or antifungal tools. Space seems to be an especially good setting for some of those extra yucky germs to emerge because of everything I've just described, but also because the excess radiation might be speeding up some of the microbevolution.

Couple that with immunosuppressed astronauts, and it's not a great situation. It's a risk NASA and other space agencies have been aware of for a long time. That's why they do put so much effort into sanitizing space shipments and keeping things as clean as possible. but as the recent February research shows, it might be the wrong kind of clean, or cleaning alone doesn't seem to be the answer. In fact, the part of the space station subject to the most disinfection and frequent cleaning was, again, the poop pod, which is fun fact, also the same zone where the astronauts exercise. It had the highest amount of microbial diversity, not necessarily the good kind, and had high amounts of antimicrobial resistance floating around. frequent disinfection there could be what's kind of causing that.

It might be reducing microbial competition and fueling the possibility of these hard-to-treat pathogens popping up. Cool. So one way forward, the study, it wasn't just about identifying the problem. They also tried to get towards some potential solutions. So one way forward is to move away from like really strictly trying to sanitize the ISS and shift towards trying to foster a more earth-like and healthy microbiome in space. Make some kimchi in there. That's what I'm saying. That's literally cheese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So prebiotic and probiotic foods are a big thing.

Like one of the researchers I spoke to, he kept suggesting Nato, like the fermented tofu product or fermented soybean product. Also, I don't know, maybe the astronauts want to get really into kombucha brewing, although I don't know how carbonation is your gravity mix. Right, that would probably be. Well, astronauts and people who study them are always talking about how they have their sense of taste is like dampened in space, so they go crazy for flavorful foods. I feel like if you're ever going to be into really fermented soy products and really spicy, pickly kimchi, that's the time.

Yeah, that was actually one of the things I kept coming across in all of these studies about astronaut health was because their taste is so modified, it's really difficult for them to maintain like a diverse and nutritious diet, even if they have those foods available, which is, again, like a difficult thing to have all of those foods available. I don't know. I just keep thinking about is it like, there were so many space movies that came out all at once, but there was like the potato farming on Mars one. I think it was Matt Damon.

Yeah, the Martian. Yeah, the Martian. That's like the image that kept popping in my head when I was reading all of this work. Anyway, yeah, so probiotic food, that was like literally one of the suggestions. They also floated this idea that different sorts of. probiotic cleaners might help. So instead of just harsh disinfectants using things that maybe include some like nice, nice bacteria as a bonus. And then there was this other recommendation that the February study authors proposed. Do either of you want to make a guess about what it was?

Shower less. That's a, it's a good thought. I was going to say sweat more or like? Sweat more shower. Let's just make it so stinky. on the ISS. Yeah, I feel like whatever it's going to smell that. Yeah. So it wasn't, it wasn't quite that, but it was, you know, vaguely similar. It was dirt. The scientists, yeah, they are, they are floating the idea of just bringing dirt, you know, technically soil, onto the ISS so that astronauts can stay healthier and we can maybe spend

longer in space without having our bodies freak out. If you're curious, here is the exact quote from. the study, quote, introducing an environmental non-salin soil mixture could potentially alter the microbial composition of industrialized built environments, including the ISS to align more closely with the microbial communities found in environmentally exposed habitats, which is a super technical way to say rub some dirt on it. And to be clear, I spoke with one of the study authors, Peter Dorstein, a chemist and microbiologist at UC San Diego, and they're not thinking like, we got to put big shovelfuls of soil onto the ISS.

Seems bad for computers and microgravity. Though I was picturing like you go into the dirt room and you just hang out in the dirt vortex for a while. Yeah, I mean, you're not super far up. So I should work for NASA. It seems like it'd be a better place for exercising than the poop pod. Yeah. Really fair.

Yeah. I'm not sure why they made the decision to put like the exercise. and the like human waste zones she'd get like maybe it's because like all the sweat and stuff necessitates cleaning anyway i i mean like i did take a dive like i tried to figure out exactly what it looks like when astronauts use the bathroom and it involves like tubes and vacuums and is like not not the same as down here no yeah anyway it's very contained not not dirt shovels but he said that him and his co-authors they thought maybe some nice pot at house plants could spruce the place up. So containing the soil in some sort of vessel, probably having some plants growing in that vessel to keep up both the soil, you know, microbial matrix and, you know, why not plants?

Again, why not grow some of the food? You could, you know, from cabbage seed to kimchi, it could be like a whole self-fuling cycle. Farm to table. Ooh, yeah, farm to space table. And so soil in the pots with the plants. And they, you know, it probably couldn't just be any old dirt. They'd have to probably sanitize some soil or compost and then re-inoculate it with the types of bacteria they're hoping to propagate. And the idea would be that this exposure to healthy soil, live growing plants might improve what's happening in astronauts' bodies and also might work to outcompete some of the scarier stuff that's currently growing on the ISS surfaces.

It's all like kind of speculative at the moment. way more research is needed because we're just now getting to the point where we really understand what the microbial environment looks like and how it could be impacting astronauts. But now that we have this massive data set on what's there, scientists at least have a starting point for future analysis and improvements. And maybe soon we'll be bringing some moist, fresh, lowercase earth to space. That's the dirt on space dirt. I love it.

Make space a dirty, let the astronauts be stinky. I love space dart. It's great. Stinky astronauts, pee whales. Yeah, we're mucking it up. Right. Everything has something to give, you know. All right, we're going to take one more quick break, and then we'll be back with one more fact. 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, Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at M365 copilot.com slash work.

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Okay, we're back. And Divio, you're very mysterious tease. I can't wait to hear more. I know. So I don't know how. much poop or pee is going to be in my story. It's okay. We've got plenty for today. We'll figure how to add some. Yeah. I know.

It's probably kind of disappointing coming from a taxidermis that and not, in fact, gross. But here we go. So my story is about birds, surprise, surprise, and it's about cockatoos, but one cockatoo in particular. So cockatoos can live to be up to 80 years old. But with everything, there's always this exception to the rule. So enter, Cocky Bennett. Good name. Yeah, I know.

The name is pretty extra. There's also this sort of like not so scientific fact that goes with the name in that Cocky Bennett was a Gemini. And as a Gemini myself, I will happily speak up and say that having, being a little extra is pretty co-related to our existence. Gemini's assemble. Yeah, Gemini's assemble. And Gemini cockatoo, it's over.

So, you know, being a cocktoe is a very, very, you know, a very flamboyant, very extravagant kind of species, especially Cocky Bennett, he was a sulfur-crested cockatoo. But what's even more extra and what's even more extra than living to be an almost record-breaking 120 years old? So, again, normal cockatoo lifespan, 80, Cocky Bennett, almost 120 years old. Wow. I really, I knew they could live a long time. I did not think it was anywhere near that long.

I thought it was like 50, 60. You're doubling it. I know. He's exceptional. He was absolutely exceptional. So his early years were spent as a companion to a sea captain, and this captain spent most of his life trading on the South Seas. And you know what happens when you travel with someone for a long time, whether, I don't

know, maybe you're in space, but back then they were at the sea for these long periods of time. They got very attached to each other. and Cocky Bennett was the sea captain's lifelong companion. And cockatoos are also really, really smart birds. Kaki became very talkative. Even, you know, and even when they went back to land, their bond was very strong too. So the total time they spent together, Kaki and the captain, was 87 years. The captain passed away.

So Kaki outlived, yeah, Kaki outlived his human. So, and it happens, it actually happens a lot with, you know, even with the ones that aren't like sort of at this upper echelon of almost like record-breaking age. There are so many that outlive their humans, and so they do have to, you know, they do have to find a next of kin. I know that I've in passing read about cases where certain parrots have even been used out as like witnesses in cases where there was maybe some foul play in a human's death. But in Kaki's human's death, it was not the case. He was old and passed on peacefully. So after this, Kaki was entrusted to the captain. his nephew, and the nephew found a home for cocky at this place called the Sea Breeze Hotel and

bar. And cocky being his talkative, sassy, and very loud cockatoo, as they tend to be, he fit right into his new job. His official title was being the cock of the bar. So he would greet these passerby and regulars from his cage, and he had perches made just for him. And, you know, he wasn't just last. and, you know, it wasn't just like this loud celebrity bird.

He also had a tip jar at his perch where he raised funds for a local hospital. Oh. Yeah, it was really, it was really sweet. Philanthropy-minded cockatoo. Yeah, totally. He's such as loud. He's very philanthropic. And they even, one of the cutest details I found from the story is that they even made

sure Kaki's name was on the donor plaque so that he would get the credit. And I feel like that's also very, very, very Gemini. emblematic too. But, you know, being a cockatoo, cocky also knew how to get very rowdy. And especially being in a place like a very popular bar. So he would get into the patrons beers and other alcoholic drinks. He would, you know, maybe consume a bit much or he would kind of get the, you know, get the cans and get the dregs out. And he would start screaming and shouting. And one of the things that he would scream and shout in his old age was if I had another. bloody feather, I'd fly. And that was a reference. Yeah. That was a reference to his state. He was

he was almost featherless when as he aged, he kept losing feathers. He had progressive citizen beak and feather disease, which just got worse and worse as he aged. So he was losing feathers. His mandible was really, very, very long at the tip. And his claws grew really, really long, too. and they were really gnarled. And, you know, this is despite the efforts of all of the love that his humans could give him. I also think it might be despite the best efforts of veterinary care at the time. You know, a lot has come a long way since the old days of Cocky Bennett. But in any case, you know, his immune system was deteriorating and though most of his appearance was really rough and not his prime state, his beady little eyes were said to have plenty of life

and his grating voice was as loud as ever. So someone, I mean, someone presumably taught him to say the feather line, right? He didn't just come up with that one on his own. He wasn't over there manufacturing zingers. I mean, I feel like these words are so smart. I know they do learn from mimicking, but in some cases they do, you know, they just observe people and pick things up. So it might not be that someone told him, hey, say these words.

Sometimes it can just be, you know, things they observe. absorb and get through passing as well. I love the idea of just like a super geriatric bird, though, kind of like going off in party mode. Same, right? I'm like, I don't really have a ton of like want to go to a bar, but if there's a bird there and an old bird that's like talking to people and like, you know, sassing them, why not?

Yeah, that sounds great. So as he aged, even, so as he aged, you know, as his like physical self-phisture he still had inside plenty and plenty of bigger. So eventually his time at the Sea Breeze came to an end when the person he was with at the Seabreeze left and retired. So he was given to another bar since he was such a good bar. He was such a good cock of the bar. So he's given to another bar called the Wilpac Hotel and Bar.

And he continued his antics there. And one of the interesting stories I got from that place was that he would imitate the voices of some patrons to say something offensive about the other patrons. And this often started like bar fights. Oh my gosh. Messy. Yeah, he was stirring it up. I know.

And I love this so much because I'm just picturing like this old-timey, like real housewives of Cockatoo County. Like just drinks thrown on faces. Yeah. And just, yeah. I would tune in a lot more for that. So Kaki's obituary was printed on May 27, 1916. And again, in Gemini fashion, May 27th is my birthday,

which is also how I learned about this story from looking things up. And one of the lines from his obituary said from the Sunday morning herald, it read that he died on Friday in his 120th year. The old bird absolutely featherless for the last, 20 years, but maintained his patter till the day before his death. I know. And, you know, with the passing of a companion and, you know, these animals that are so close to us and especially someone like Kaki, who was such a loved and memorable character, there is a lot of grief and there's a lot of wanting to hold on. So Kaki Vennett's last guardians wanted to preserve him in all his glory, however bizarre he might have.

looked, they wanted him memorialized with the art of taxidermy. And it's very interesting who they chose to do the taxidermy because at this time, in the 1800s, there were many, many taxidermists around. This is sort of the golden age of taxidermy. When you think of all of the, you know, sort of Victorian taxidermy, all of this, like, you know, all these elaborate dioramas, the age of exploration and all of these, all of these things that were going on, there's this background that we have to consider. But even among this, Kaki didn't go to any old taxidermist. He went to these two trailblazing taxidermist. This was a mother-daughter team at the time, Ada Jane Rohu and June Catherine Toast. They were this mother-daughter duo that were very well known for their talent. It was also

very rare for women to be in taxidermy at the time, let alone to have such a high public profile. They were super talented, but they were also very, very bold. So at a time, when, you know, just women were not in the spotlight and didn't really have rights or anything. They were really bold advocates for not just rights, but specifically for equal pay. They found out what their male counterparts were being paid at the museum and said, pay me that or else I won't do it. And, you know, and they made a lot of advances for, not just themselves, but for other women who came after them, which really cool. Yeah, and I'm like, this is so cool that this amazing bird was preserved by this, you know,

by these amazing taxidermists. Another thing that's super interesting about them, too, is that they did both scientific and, like, more artistic and interpretive work. So they had a store where you could get, you know, something like a bird on a branch or like a hat made out of, you know, made out of some some rare birds. They had like, you know, all of the, they had all the weird stuff, and they also had more of the straightforward taxidermy. And I think that's probably why they were chosen, because they had the skills to work with someone challenging, like cocky. Having no feathers and naked skin is really hard. I was going to ask, did they restore plumage or did he stay naked in the afterlife?

He stayed naked. That's who he was. I love that. Yeah. So there's not much to, you know, with feathers, you can cover things up. You know, you clean with the taxidermy process, the skin is taken off of the body. It's cleaned, scrubbed and, you know, fully, fully clean. and then it's tanned and preserved and mounted onto this anatomically accurate sculpture.

But with fur and feathers and even with scales of reptiles and things like that, you can arrange things. You can cover things up and get things looking nice and smooth. With naked skin, you don't have that forgiveness. So the sculpture underneath has to be absolutely perfect and you need to do some cosmetic, a lot of these cosmetic treatments to kind of make the skin look alive again because after tanning, it, you know, it becomes this like gray faded beige weird colored, you know, mask because there's no more blood flow in life. So restoring the color, making that sculpture perfect between the skin and the form underneath

it, you know, they had the skill. They had, you know, the skill and sort of like artistry to do that and to make him look like himself with studying his anatomy and knowing how to treat his skin. And as someone who works on birds and especially with aged pets, I can say it's certainly, it's certainly not easy and I should send you all a photo of cocky. Yeah. I've been over here like loki looking it up on the side, but I don't know then if I'm looking at a picture of him alive or the taxidermied version. Yes, I'll send a photo of the,

I'll definitely send a photo of the taxidermy. Another thing that I really loved about his story too is that, you know, a lot of taxidermy is about this like a trophy or even if it's not like a hunting trophy. It's about, you know, the prime example of the species. What does this look like at its best? What does it look like at its most, like so-called perfect? But a lot of times those ideas of perfection are, you know, really based in honestly this like colonial BS and, you know, project onto animals and people even like, you know, we just deserve so much more than that. So for me, Kaki is such like a wonderful piece of taxidermy because he was this character, this like a cultural icon in Australia.

And although he's not like the prime example of his species, he's still. a very significant example of a species. And for the time, too, it also showed the ravages of a disease that didn't have as much treatment. And, you know, the work is just like a testament to the skill, you know, testament to all the tenderness of the people who, you know, who came across his life and came across him. And I also feel like, you know, he had this very tenacious will to live. And he was just like, well, someone's going to preserve me and it's going to be the two best women that I can find.

You preserve me. So he now lives at the Cogara Historical Society. So he's on display there. They said that there were pieces of his beak from life that were routinely trimmed and little pieces of his claws that were routinely trimmed that were kept by his owners as mementos.

So they had proof of his age because, again, documentation at this time. Sure. You could just kind of say anything. Yeah. I mean, enough people lied about being that old. Like, it's way easier to be like, this Parent, age shit. Yeah.

It's been all I forever. Right. Yeah, totally. So they say some of those pieces are missing. Mitch, you know, we have a obituary and we have the generations of people who kept, who kept Kaki and I'll send some photos of that. And yeah, I mean, Kaki's story is just this, you know, it's just sort of like combination of, you know, history where and especially history related to like a science and preservation, it can be so rigid with like our emotions just firmly. separated from the facts. But, you know, Kaki's story just combines them all. And it's a reminder to me that taxidermy is like, you know, it can be this record of taxonomy. It can be, you know, this very,

this very rigid record of taxonomy. But these animals, they carry like histories and culture, and they kind of become these artifacts that take on a whole new meaning as time goes by. And I also think about the grief in taxidermy, too. You know, it's not this, it's not this like whole detached thing that people feel like. There's like, you know, the direct grief of losing a companion, especially someone like cocky. We're in the broader way where we have grief through this like ecological loss as we're seeing things decline now. But any case, you know, humans and animals, we have this immense and personal bond. And I really appreciate that.

And rest in peace, Kaki. RIP. Yeah. That was a real yarn. That had like twist into, I can't believe that Kaki hasn't had like a comic series or cartoon. I know. Cocky and the Sea Captain especially, like his whole like kind of the prequel to the bar life. Like I'd watch that so hard.

Yeah, I'll send you his obituary and the photo of his taxidermy, which does have the Getty images thingy on it. But you can see he looks great. He looks. They did an amazing job. And he's a very striking looking character. Yeah. I can't wait to see.

They really captured his essence. They did. Yeah. he looks he looks good good for 120 plus however many decades it's been since 1912 19 i know his death year oh yeah his death year was 1916 yeah may 27th 1916 yeah year birthday 1916 yeah have you all heard about like the i think harriet the tortoise who was owned by both charles darwin and Steve Irwin, like, spanned the entire period of time because the tortoise lives so long. That's amazing.

I figured that's, like, already been a weirdest thing episode, but. I don't think so. No, that's incredible. So maybe next time. Yeah, prequel, pre-teaser. And you can do the same one, getting old. We'll just, we'll reboot it with a different animal. But I don't think the tortoise was, like, as talkative.

is my guess. Yeah, yeah. But maybe just a sassy. I don't know. You can say a lot with a look. I know. She probably are like the chewing, you know, like gazily chewing on a leaf.

Yeah, I'm sure she still had personality, but maybe did not instigate as many bar fights. Yeah, there's not much where I'm like, ooh, I'd love to time travel, you know, like, I really like, as much of a mess as our modern world is, I really like the rights and stuff we have. But I would, you know, I would take a safe, I would take a guarded trip to Taki's time to see the bar fights he was starting because that's amazing. Oh, for sure.

Yeah. What a great story. Divya, thanks so much for coming on again. Would you remind our listeners where they can find your work, birds and otherwise? Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. You know, being on here, I listen to y'all all the time. So I stand weirdest thing.

And you can find me on social media. I'm Gotham taxidermy, G-O-T-H-A-M, taxidermy, and my website's the same name, too. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, 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.

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