The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Traveling Barber Uprising, Rats Taking Selfies, Honeyguide Helpers

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Maritime archaeologist and historian Joel Cook joins the show to spin the tale of how traveling barbers almost coordinated an uprising that could have derailed the American Civil War. Plus, Rachel talks about a very delicious mutualism between humans and greater honeyguide birds, and Sara Kiley chimes in to talk about why rats might want to take selfies. 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! Get 20% OFF @honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/WEIRDEST! #honeylovepod Right now, get 60% off at https://Babbel.com/WEIRDEST Ask for Claritin-D at your local pharmacy counter. You don’t even need a prescription! Go to https://Claritin.com right now for a discount so you can Live Claritin Clear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? I'm talking about mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis dummies and a lot more. And you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code Weirdest. It's third party lab tested and ships directly to you in a discreet box. Best of all, everything's backed by Mood's 100-day satisfaction guarantee. And like I said, you can get 20% off with code Weirdest. So if you're looking to try some new cannabis products, head on over to mood.com.

Get 20% off your first order now with code weirdest. That's code weirdest for 20% off. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsor jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned. this week from the editors of popular science. I'm Rachel Feltman. I'm Sarah Kylie Watson. I'm Joel. Joel, welcome to the show. Yay! Thanks so much for having me. Listeners, I came across Joel, because of his show for PBS, which is called Rogue History and does these really awesome deep dives. Joel, would you tell listeners a little bit more about who you are and what you do? Yeah. So I am

started out as an archaeologist and an historian. I graduated from East Carolina with the masters and PBS just kind of found me and reached out. I asked if I wanted to try out a little pirate show that they were doing that ended up being rogue history. It's been really successful so far. We've gotten to spies at this point just all types of different cool little topics and we're open to do more of the future. Yeah, listeners who enjoy weirdest thing, which I hope you do if you're listening, I think you will also really like Joel's show. So we're super psyched to have you on to share some history knowledge. Let's get into it. On the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story 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 time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was in a on competitive, everything is made up in the points don't matter, kind of way. Sarah Kylie, what's your tease? So I'm talking today about why rats might love taking selfies. Great, same. I am a rat who loves to take selfies.

Who is it? Wonderful. Joel, what's your tease? I'm talking about how the Americans in the war say the United States from being overgrown by traveling barber. Oh, I'm so excited. My tease is that I want to talk about the birds that help humans hunt for honey, the lies that people tell about the birds that help humans hunt for honey.

And maybe that says something about like our society as a whole or whatever shrug emoji. I don't know. Why do we start with rat selfies, Sarah Carly? Yeah. I'd love to hear more about that. Yay, rat selfies. Okay, I've had this one like cooking. for months. I'm so excited to talk about the rat selfies. So yeah, first off, I'm going to start

by talking about some selfie science. There's not really a lot of science out there on selfies, but I did manage to scrounge up a few numbers. So according to a 2015 survey, Millennials spend on average a total of seven minutes a day capturing selfies. Worldwide, some estimates say that around 92 million selfies are taking every single day, representing about 4% of all photos. taken according to the Pew Research Center, one in three photos taken by 18 to 24 year olds as a selfie. So it's safe to say that in the modern world, the self-portrait is as important and iconic as it's ever been and why we love them and why we can't stop taking them is still up in the air. So according to some researchers, selfies are able to like capture the deeper meaning

or like, you know, like the hidden details of people's personalities or the events in their lives. But, you know, there's some selfie haters that are like, okay, people just take selfies because they're vain or because they're tasting likes. So still up in the air. Again, there's not a ton of selfie science. But luckily, like, here's the thing, is that before we had the technology to just take pictures of ourselves whenever we wanted, the people who had the means to commissioned wildly expensive like sculptures of oil paintings of themselves that took hours of human labor and then

hung on a wall forever. And I just, I think, you know, if they could have taken instead many pictures of themselves on a device that fit in their hand, would that have been better? No, we would have like almost no art because so much of art history has involved rich people paying for the art that they selfishly want. But, you know, I do think it's, we haven't gotten Vayner. Just the tools have changed. No, I definitely don't think we've gotten Vayner. I mean, if you, and the thing is, at least selfies, like, they're kind of of you.

I feel like a lot of, like, art is like, I'm like, who is this? I'm like, what I'm looking at, like, medieval art. I'm like, this is simply not, like, this, like, inbred king who, like, has the same grandma as his life. Like, I'm like, come on now. But anyway, I mean, selfies, they're imperfect in their own ways. But I'm going to get to the core of my discussion, which is other creatures might like taking selfies. But the reasons are similarly up in the air. So in this case, we're talking about these rats that love taking selfies, apparently. But even before that, you know, there's always like three befores in my statements. We're going to talk about the, uh,

psychological experiment called the Skinner Box, which I'm sure has been brought up about a million times here. So if you're a regular listener, this is going to be just a follow up. But basically, the Skinner box, it's an invention psychological experiment box from B.F. Skinner, who is a mid-20th century psychologist. And he's most famous for his theory of behaviorism. In the 30s, he proposed this theory of operant conditioning that basically states that behavior change and learning happen. when the outcomes are effects of punishment and reinforcement happen. So basically, like, it's kind of like training your dog, which is what I'm trying to do right now. I've got an eight-month puppy, eight-month-old puppy. Yeah, when they do something good, little treat. That's basically the core of, like, learning. So a response is strengthened by reinforcement. And as it increases, the likelihood that a desired behavior will be repeated again in the future.

So, yeah, me tricking my dog into sitting and staying for a treat. I'm sure most of you guys have tried this in some shape or form. But the Skinner Box was kind of like the chamber in which this was developed. And he tested out this theory on like rats and pigeons when he was at Harvard. So the box basically had a lever and a snack tray. And you guessed it. Press the lever and food pops out. Great.

And then like a little hungry rat gets first placed in the box and you're like, what am I doing here? I'm just wandering around. and then they figure out, oh, if I press the lever, I get a snack. And then all of a sudden they're just like, boop, boop, boop, bonk, bong, bong, bong with the lever. And so they've learned how to use the lever. It's awesome. So it's a great little trick. And this has been done over and over with different rewards for the rats.

Like, I think they've done this with drugs. I think they've done this with zaps to their little rat brains, like over and over again. Like, this is a tried and true thing. So no matter what, they bonk. they get the nice thing. And enter reinforcement theory, which is basically saying individuals are rewarded for specific behavior. The likelihood of that behavior occurring goes up.

If individuals are provided with the opportunity to escape bad situations, they will be motivated to act accordingly. And if certain behaviors are not reinforced, they are less likely to be reiterated. So treat. Give a treat. And you're going to see that behavior more often. This is the gist of it. And so fast forward to today.

and we've got a Parisian photographer and grad student, Augustine Lineet, I think. I'm trying to get my best Parisian pronunciation, but it's not really there. So he basically gave a little tweak to figure out of adorable little rodents like rats had a knack for self-portraits. So basically he built a transparent tower

with an attached camera, and then he put two rats in there. And when the rats bonked the lever, food came or not food it was a little sugary treat so just a little bit of sugar and it also set a camera off and then the camera basically the photo that was taken would be able to be seen by the rats so we've got this clear tower bonk treat and selfie which came out to be like really really cute pictures which i will absolutely send to everyone because they are just so i love rats too i'm like such a like little fuzzy creature person. So this one is very exciting to me. Pictures of fuzzy creatures.

And they ate it up. They loved the button. They kept bonk, bonk, bonk, the button getting a treat, taking a picture. And eventually the sugar aspect of the experiment waned. So would they keep doing it? Even if they didn't get like the snack part of it. And they did. So every like time you bonk the lever, you don't get a treat. But every bonk meant a selfie. And they kept pushing the selfie button, even when there wasn't sugar. And sometimes they even ignored the sugar after a while. they just were like, selfie is enough. Selfie is enough of a gift for me to keep doing this thing. And so, yeah, jumping into conclusion that rats are in it just for the selfies is kind of a stretch, obviously. We can't really ask the rats like, hey, do you think you look cute? And that's why you're doing

this, which I would assume they'd say yes, because I'm sure they know. But it does kind of like tie in this experiment to our own relationship with social media. Scientists have proposed that social media is kind of like a skinner box for people on their own. Like just press the camera button on your phone, click through a couple of filters and voila. Maybe you'll be rewarded by like a like a like a like a comment or you know a little DM if that's what you're looking for. So and this has been studied before as well. Bjorn Lindstrom, who's a professor of experimental and applied psychology at VU Amsterdam, did research of his own about this in 2021. So he looked at or analyzed a million posts from over 4,000 individuals across multiple social media platform. And basically his findings

back up that the idea that human behavior on social media conforms qualitatively and quantitatively to the principles of reward learning. So like he even described this himself, which I thought was really charming. So I'll describe it to you about this like feeling of like, okay, if I put my selfie out there, maybe someone will like it. So he did a little post in Springer Nature when his study came out. And he wrote, the times I've posted caused a mixture of anticipation, satisfaction, and disappointment, all depending on the likes or lack thereof my photos received. Having spent much of my career so far applying computational models of reinforcement learning to human social behavior, I became more and more convinced that likes function as a social reward that encourages future

posting. More specifically, my feeling of disappointment when getting fewer likes expected or exhilaration when the likes kept streaming in seemed very similar to a prediction error. The difference between the actual outcome and the outcome one expected, which plays a key role in the psychology and neuroscience of learning. So anyway, but in a completely different, like, view of this whole thing is that we just, animals, us, people, we just like pushing buttons in general, which made me laugh how loud when I was reading of. But the New York Times did a really beautiful write-up of this, which has all the photos than anything. That's where I found this study, which is from 2014.

So basically, human volunteers preferred to, like, administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts, quote, unquote. So according to the authors, most people seem to, like, do something rather than nothing, even if it's negative. So the rats might just like pushing the button because, you know what, sometimes we don't need to be alone with our thoughts. And I guess a lot of us experience that. I personally, like, I'm a TikTok scroller till I die. Like, I totally relate to that, probably even more so than the likes or dislikes as a treat. I'm like, I'm just mute my brain.

I would like to see another, you know, silly video of a cat dancing. But there's no telling. if it runs that deep with the rats. But at the end of the day, I love this experiment. I think it's totally cute. And the pictures are amazing. The rats, the photographer named them after himself and his brother, which is really, really cute.

So you see him like talking about Augustine and Arthur with the names of the little selfie rats. And it's like just a fun reminder that as different as we think humans are from like the rest of the animal world, like we're just like not that different. Like we all love sugar and treats. and rewards and buttons. So that's my little story. We're just hairy little guys pressing buttons.

That's all we are. Exactly. We're hairy little guys taking buttons. And now that we're not living in the art era, we can all see it forever. Everyone gets to see it. So yeah, that's what I have to say about rats and selfies. That's awesome.

I love that. Yeah. Well, and it's so true that, you know, social media, it is definitely the like pulling the lever for for the treat even when the treat isn't really there. I remember back when we all actually used Twitter, they rolled out a change where like when you sort of tried to reload your feed. Like if you tried to keep scrolling when there was nothing new, it used to be that it would just sort of like wiggle back and be like there's nothing new. You ran out of Twitter. Right, exactly.

And then they changed it so that if you did that, it was. would start surfacing. It was basically the beginning of the like sort of for you page on Twitter where it was like maybe you just want to see this other stuff. And people were like, why is it showing me this stuff? That's so stupid. And the answer was like, because we keep trying to get it to show us more stuff. So they came up with more stuff it could show us. And that was really a button. And they were like, fine, have something. That felt like kind of a gotcha moment. I felt got because I was like, oh, I do do that, don't I? I've really tried to. I took Twitter off my phone, even back when I used a lot, and I eventually took TikTok off my phone. And I want to get back to making more content on TikTok

because I love it as a way to engage with people. But I got to, for me, the scrolling feels like something to keep under control, which I don't think is universally true. I don't think there's anything wrong with self-soothing with a scroll. I just think for me, it's gone to some dark places. I am very similar with my tick-tuck scrolling. I have to. I said timers. Yeah. Yeah. I think setting timers is a great way to handle it because it's like, listen, life is hard. There's nothing wrong with me wanting to be hypnotized by this screen. We live in a society. But maybe maybe keeping it from stretching out into infinity. Amazing.

Well, rats, they're just like us. No surprise. We should be so lucky. They're wonderful creatures. We are going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with some more facts. Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? And talking about mood.com, they have an incredible line of cannabis gummies and a lot more. and you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code weirdest.

I'm not a smoker myself, but I do love the occasional weed gummy to, you know, help me go off to Dreamland, and I can't have one right now because I have a new kit, and, you know, I definitely miss it a little bit. But maybe you can have a weed gummy, and you can get one at mood.com. So the reason that different cannabis grains can make you feel different ways isn't just about the THC. It seems like it's also based on other components called terpenes. Turpines influence how a product tastes and smells, and it seems like they can also impact the way you feel. Mood partnered with dozens of small American farms to custom cultivate flour with specific turpine profiles designed for specific moods.

So you can choose your cannabis gummy, edible flour, or pre-roll based on how you want to feel. Just go to mood.com and click Shop by Mood. And yes, it is now 100% federally legal to have really great bud shipped right to your door. It's third-party lab tested and ships directly to you in a discreet box. Best of all, everything's backed by Mood's 100-day satisfaction guarantee, and like I said, you can get 20% off with code weirdest. I'm eyeing mood.com's delta-9 THC buttercream caramels because in addition to not being able to have THC, I also can't have dairy right now.

So the idea of having a caramel that also mellows me out and sends you to Dreamland sounds very nice. And speaking of fun edibles, Mood.com has Delta9 THC freezer pops. So if you're looking to try some new cannabis products, head on over to mood.com. Get 20% off your first order now with code weirdest. That's code weirdest for 20% off. 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 oceanfront room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book 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. Okay, we're back and Joel, tell us some, some rogue history, please. Okay, so it is time to put the conspiracy hats on because this is a conspiracy story. My favorite hat. You see a whiteboard behind me with strings going everywhere, just pop up out of nowhere, you know, like this is one of those stories. So Moses Dixon, Moses Dixon was born in 1824 in Cincinnati. His father was possibly his mom's former enslaver. Not a lot is known about their history, but his dad was white.

His mom was black. They came from Virginia together. That's all we really know about them. And they ended up in Cincinnati, Ohio. Moses Dixon is born. He has eight other siblings as well. And he's born into a very interesting. racial time in Ohio. Really anytime in the 1800s in the United States is a very

interesting racial time to be fair. Not a great time. But in Ohio specifically at this point, Moses Dixon experiences in his childhood two race riots in Cincinnati over Ohio's planned black codes. So they have these black codes from 1805 to 1807 and they try to reinstate them in the 1830s. And the rule behind that is that any black person who does not enter into a bond, which is basically just like a holding fee. And they have to pay a fee as well to stay in Ohio. Anyone who doesn't agree to do that is going to be sent out of Ohio. So anyone who can't afford to do this is kicked out.

So it makes the population of black people in Ohio a lot smaller, obviously. So Moses Dixon is growing up in that kind of life experience. He loses both of his parents by the time he's 13. So he, you know, he has both of, he has all of his brothers and sisters and he gets to take care of. And he starts training as a barber under William Darns. And here's my science part because barbers at that time period were technically scientists. Yeah. So they did it all.

They did it all. You know, they were surgeons, like white surgeons and medical professionals in some ways besides cutting. hair, you know, they did a lot of different stuff during his time period. So he starts training as a barber under William Darnes. And interestingly enough, William Darns is Mark Twain's barber. So Moses Dixon, this is the first time you're going to see him making a connection with someone else who we all know. But it's not going to be the last time, right? So yeah, so he's like, Moses Dixon, he's kind of at the periphery of a lot of different stories. And Mark Twyton, is one of those first ones where he probably did know him and run into him occasionally.

But after he does his barber training for three years, he leaves home at 16, so he leaves home in 1840 and he becomes a traveling barber on the Mississippi River. So during that time period, you have steamboats that go basically look at ferry service up and down the Mississippi River. So he joins up on a ship. He travels the Mississippi River for three years. He has a as all of the experiences that you're going to have moving up and down the center of the United States. And he, for the first time, witnesses, he witnesses slavery face to face. You know, like he's known about it. Obviously, his mom was a former enslaved person.

But he's witnessing it for the first time. And he says that he witnessed such scenes of monstrous cruelty as caused his African blood to boil. And following that, he vows to use his privilege as a free black man to do something about it. So at some point in that, he also becomes a Freemason, which another layer of conspiracy, it's like, ooh. Yeah, put it on the murder board. Yeah, so like all the things are happening. He becomes a Freed Mason, and he also makes friends with 11 other people who feel similar to him, 11 other black men. And they agree to a symbol in St. Louis in August of 1846, and they form this revolutionary organization called the Knights of Liberty.

And the goal of the Knights of Liberty is to eventually overthrow the institution of slavery in the South. So Dixon is elected as the chief of this group, and these 11 other men are spreading out through what we know is the southern states. They're everywhere except Missouri and Texas. Moses Dixon in the meantime, while this group is, you know, going out, they're recruiting men. They have to be people who are industrious and not, you know, they're looking for people who don't have, like, I guess, attitude problems in the way because they need people who can keep a secret, people who aren't going to get fired up too easily. Because this is a top secret organization. Oh, yeah. You imagine a-

Gotta be careful. Yeah, you imagine a random guy walks up to you. And he's like, hey, do you want to join a secret organization that's going to overthrow the government? That's something you should probably keep a secret. You should probably not, you know, go to the saloon and be like, well, I'm a secret organization. You know what I'm saying? So they're looking for people who can do that and who can stay quiet. And they're spread out, I mean, literally all over the South.

They have people in Mississippi, in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Virginia and they're they're working to recruit this army and they're training at night they're pulling people away from plantations like go out because that that's definitely a thing during that time period is that people on these plantations they're doing most of their personal things at night so dixon is saying that this is what some of these groups are doing is preparing this 10 year this 10 year construction of this army so in the meantime the Knights of Liberty are developing underground railroad connections as well according to Moses Dixon. So Dixon himself, he goes back to St. Paul, Minnesota.

And while he's waiting on his army to prepare to overthrow the government, he opens a restaurant because he not only is he interested in violence. He's interested in fine dining. However, the restaurant Relatable. You know, the restaurant does not go well. He is lightly shot by an angry patron at one point. What? Lightly shot.

A light gunshot by a patron. I don't know what that says about how good that fine dining was, but it didn't last super long. Everybody's a critic. It's a tough industry. So he doesn't stay in the restaurant business long, but he does still have connections that he's making during his time period. So the 1850s, the time that we're talking about, is also the time where John Brown is moving around all over the country trying to stir up trouble for the radical abolitionist movement. Frederick Douglass is becoming a star, you know, on the speaking circuit.

You also have the colored conventions that are happening. So colored conventions are these just, they have gatherings in each state. where all of the like premier, I guess, black people like you, it's, if W.B. Du Bois would call it like the talented tint. These people are gathering and saying, okay, so what are we going to do for the next two years? What are we going to do for the next five years to protect our people and prepare our people for the future that we want? So he's present at the one in Ohio, the colored convention of 1850, and he's meeting all of the premier abolitionists of that place. He said that he knew John Brown. He said that he said that.

and Frederick Douglass, it's probable that he knew Harriet Tubman as well. So he's making all of these different connections to all of these different people while he's building this giant army of formerly enslaved men. He also is fundraising for the Underground Railroad and for this army by kind of played a little subterfuge game. So when he's interacting with like white abolitionists in the North who are his potential donors. He's like, all right, I'll come clean. We're, we're going to do some bad stuff. But do you want to help me do bad stuff? You know, like, do you want to form an alliance? And these people are like,

yeah, I'd love to do that. That sounds amazing. But in the South, where he's dealing with people who are heavily invested in plantation slavery, he manages to find people who are like, well, I'll support your underground railroad because that's what he tells them he's like i'm just raising money for underground railroad get these people have these terrible plantations and they're like well sure i'll give you money because no one would ever run away from my plantation like you know my plantations you got to tailor your messaging yeah got to do right he's like my plantation is wonderful so you know i'll donate to you so that those other plantations can then lose their you know enslaved people and then now i'm back in business It's called meeting people where they're at.

Exactly. That's exactly what's going on. Doing the work. Right. So in 1856, the time has come, right? Moses Dixon's like, okay, we're going to finally do this. But then he decides that we're not going to do it. You know, according to him, this is all according to him.

And he says in 1856, he's like, well, we decided not to do it because you're familiar with like the Missouri Kansas conflict. all of that is happening in front of his face. Like he's saying that the Civil War is kind of brewing. He's like, well, why would I launch a rebellion with 46,000 men when the government can do it with a million? You know? Yes. He's like, I'm just going to wait.

We'll see what happens. And there are people that kind of use that as a reason to dispute that he actually had this plan. But if you look at rebellions, like slave rebellions that happen in 1850s. That is a banner year for it. So it seems like maybe that could indicate that there are other people around him who disagree with this decision. Right. Which is fascinating. But that's not the coolest thing.

I talked about that colored convention, right? There are also other black Masonic-based organizations like the African Mysteries, which is a group based out of Detroit that works on the Underground Railroad. the ground railroad. They're also known as the order of the mid of oppression, which is metal. So they're working out of Detroit throughout the 1850s. They're ferrying and enslaved people from the south to freedom in northern U.S. and Canada. They said that they aided as many 50,000 refugees from slavery with their railroad work. But that is also what Moses Dixon said that his group did. So you're wondering if these groups are actually talking about the overlap of what all of their collective groups are doing during this time

period. You also have the black string band, which is formed in 1859, by white radical abolitionists in order to protect John Brown from the authorities and from vigilantes. And this group is trying to form a diplomatic relationship with Haiti to convince the Haitians to, like, of course we know John Brown's story of trying to, you know, start an enslaved uprising and free all of these black people from the chains of slavery. They're also trying to convince the Haitians that, hey, we're going to do this from the north. You should come in from the south and attack through maybe Florida or Louisiana or Alabama, somewhere like that and help us kind of wipe it out, like to smash it in this pencer movement in the institution of slavery. So even after John Brown,

They still have this going on. And it kind of flares out whenever the Civil War starts because, of course, the U.S. Navy is much more active. Haiti also has a lot going on during this time period. Haiti always has a lot going on. They're busy. Yeah. So the Haitians are like, you know, I don't really think fighting a giant continent of

the countries. They can't have any time. Yeah. That's not really in our cards for right now. Yeah. So they decide not to join up with that. And then the Civil War happens. Everything kind of works out for Moses Dixon and friends anyway.

But the interesting thing about it is that, like I said, there are people that kind of question like, did this actually happen? Did Moses Dixon have this army that he says he did? Was it as large as he says it was? You know, but when you look at all the other pieces, everything matches up with what he was saying. And the question is, was he just piggybacking off of their stories

or were they all kind of reporting the same information and making themselves the star of the story? But like it's possible that this could have been a barber, a traveling barber. Yeah. Working together with all of these different groups across the country to establish something that could have been a legitimate, like we're talking about if it happens,

the third largest uprising of all time. So, I mean, it's just massive. Moses Dixon, after this, maintains a different group called the Knights of Tabor, and that group has hundreds of thousands of members all over the country. And it's supposed to be a fraternal organization. He also works with, like, the exoduster movement, the refugees that are coming from Louisiana and connects with them. So it's just like his body of work beforehand, his body of work after,

demonstrates that this guy was capable of moving people in this kind of way. But it seems like maybe the Civil War, oddly enough, is the thing that saved our country from being broken up in one way versus another because the Civil War happens before all of these little revolutionary pieces are ready to strike. And that's my story. That's so interesting. Where is the HBO series? I was going to say, we say this about so many things that we're saying.

But like HBO, when? Yeah. Like, it was really the restaurant sidebar. I was like, oh, this is, this is network TV gold. Yeah. Right. There has to be, in this HBO series, there has to be a restaurant scene. It's got to be there.

Oh, yeah. A whole season. And for the astrology people, the other thing, too, is Moses Dixon is an Aries. So he's like, ooh. Oh, he is an Aries man. That's another piece of evidence appearing to that. I mean, he's definitely giving Aries man. Yeah, for sure. For good. You know what? We could use some chaotic energy for good. I'm here for it.

I love that. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with with one more fact. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal, everything you need to study and play

with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th, terms at AKA.m. slash college PC.

Your summer starts now with Memorial Day deals at the Home Depot. It's time to fire up summer cookouts with the next grill, four-burner gas grill, on special buy for only $199. And entertain all season with the Hampton Bay, West Grove seven-piece outdoor dining set for only $499. This Memorial Day get low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. While supplies last, price on in May 14th or May 27th. U.S. only exclusions apply.

see Home Depot.com slash price match for details. It's peak pollination season, and my business is scaling fast. To keep the nectar flowing, I need a phone plan with top priority data speeds. That's why I chose GoogleFi Wireless. My connections stay strong even when the hive is buzzing. Plus, unlimited plans start at $35 a month. Now that's a deal that doesn't stay. Explore GoogleFi Wireless plans today.

Plus taxes and government fees. GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Okay, we're back. And it's time for my fact. I have this giant Google Doc, like truly apocalyptic long and large at this point, full of potential ideas for weirdest thing.

It's, I've been using, I used to have a different one every season, but then this one became so massive that I was like, I've used like 10% of the links in here. So I'll circle back to it next year. And, you know, now we don't take breaks anymore. So anyway, it's been my weirdest thing, slush doc, since like 2021, probably. And one of the links that I've had in there for ages is the Wikipedia page for the

Greater Honey Guide. But then everything changed when this Atlas Obscura article attacked. So anyway, it became a more interesting story. And so now I'm finally talking about it. The Greater Honey Guide, it's this sub-Saharan bird that it engages in a behavior that is so fascinating to people that its entire genus and its entire family is named for that behavior, even though there are only maybe two species in the bunch that definitely act this way. There's one that's debatable. So their family is indicator a day and their genus is indicator. And that name comes from the greater honey guides habit of literally guiding humans to sources of honey. And this is not like a vaguely true folkism either. Like, oh, follow that, the sound of that

bird, you'll find honey, which, you know, those things are often totally real. But this is like literally the humans called the birds for help. The birds recognize the request. They log the ticket. And then they help them find the honey. Research has shown that hunter gatherers are almost six times more likely to find hives with a honey guide assist than they are without. Those people, the people that are often talked about in relation to honey guides are the Hadsah of northern Tanzania. Even if you don't recognize their name, you have almost certainly, I would say definitely heard of or read research about them because they're basically the only true hunter-gatherer

society that have maintained their traditional way of life but are not like an uncontacted group. They are in contact with their agrarian and industrialized neighbors. Some of the population, by the way, has started to do some farming or to live in villages. Again, like this is bound to happen when there isn't some sort of, you know, self-imposed line between you and the rest of the world. But a quarter of them are still hunting and gathering. and those of them that are still do it the same way they've seemingly always done it, and they get all of their food from wild game and plants.

So lots of researchers go to hang out with them. Their land is at least somewhat protected by the government. A lot of people will do things like encroach on your way of life and your land if you're not engaging in capitalism yourself. So unfortunately, it's necessary that they have this sort of official protection. And very fortunately for us, they have historically been very gracious with researchers who come in and hang out with them. So if you've read an article about, for example, like how eating a modern diet versus

a traditional hunter-gatherer diet changes your microbiome, it was almost certainly based on research on the hazza. By the way, research on them has also shown us that hunter-gatherers, or at least some of them, naturally ate really varied diets, diets that varied a lot seasonally. And in terms of the balance between plants and animal proteins, they are the reason why someone insisting that a paleo diet with like, you know, no nightshades and only meat is fine if that's what works for you, but not going back to some wholesome, truer, ancient human way of life. One surprising thing that researchers have found in studying their diets is how important honey is to their diet. It can make up as much of a fifth of the calories they consume.

Wow. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, you know, when you think about it, honey is sugar water. It's pretty high in carbohydrates. So, again, very anti-paleo diet. But a real, a great get in nature, like in terms of, you know, just sort of, you know, just sort of, giving you energy. It also tastes great. A lot of the articles I read in researching this were like, you know, keep in mind that the flavor of honey is very dependent on what the bees are getting into.

And a lot of these honeies are like, have very harsh flavors compared to sort of like farmed honey for mainstream consumers. But still, it's sugar. It tastes pretty good compared to stuff that you can grab off of a tree in like an arid environment in most cases. And also, you know, in a lot of these hunter-gatherer environments, it's available year-round. So it makes sense when you think about it that they consume so much honey. And so yeah, that brings us to the honey guide bird, which a lot of the hudzee use when they are seeking out honey. And, and, basically what a lot of researchers say is that if you don't know what's going on, it seems like the men just have this habit of like whistling absent-mindedly when they're walking, but it's not.

They're doing a very specific whistle to attract the honey guide bird. And then when they hear one of the birds calling back, they like walk towards the sound, keep making noise to get its attention. And then the bird will eventually like be like, be like, I found honey. It's over here. And they make a huge fuss. And yeah, some researchers have estimated that up to 10% of this group's total diet calorically is found with the help of the honey guide bird, which is incredible, right? It's wild. But a lot of popular media on the subject takes things like a little too far in the Disney princess direction of this story.

So a lot of depictions of this process, including like documentaries, which I'll get back to in a minute, suggest that this is this mutually beneficial partnership between birds and humans. You know, humans ask for the help. Birds provide the help. And then humans always pay the animal for their services with like giant chunks of honeycomb full of wax and grubs, which the honey guide bird loves to eat. But the real story is, you know, a little less perfect fairy tale. Oh, the natural world is so amazing. And these humans live in a simpler, more, you know, harmonious way with nature.

So a lot of this comes from an Alice Obscura article that I'll link to on popsight.com. So weird, it's excellent. It's by Kara Gimo. And it focused on Brian Wood. And I was like, I know that we've talked about Brian Wood before. And in fact, when I talked about what we can learn from chimps that live past menopause, he has been involved in a lot of the research on that large chimp habitat where we get a lot of info on their behaviors. So yeah, really, really cool biological anthropology researcher.

And he first heard about the Honey Guide when he was in grad school. And he was like, ha, that's really surprising. You know, this is shared as this example of mutualism, which is when two species are interacting in a way that benefits both of them. And we know that mutualism is really important in the natural world. You get like plants and pollinators, you know, gut microbes and mammals. But it's pretty unheard of for there to be a mutualistic relationship between humans and a wild animal. Like domestication, obviously, you know, was a form of.

mutualism, but it would just, he was like, this is such a strange, unusual story. It almost sounds too good to be true. And so then he, he went and actually spent some time with these hunter gatherers, quite a lot of time, actually. And he was pleasantly surprised to see, like, yeah, these foraging trips often involve looping in the honey guide. And he did a lot of the research on like how useful these birds are that people find more honey, they find bigger nests, they find the honey faster. But he found that like contrary to many of the depictions he had seen that had made him surprised, the hudza tend to like go out of their way to destroy the stuff that the bird would

eat. They burn it or bury it. Yeah. And well, he was like, you know, This is what we would call a manipulative behavior or manipulation is an actual term in biology. So it's basically it's like one animal has acted in a certain way to try to get this other behavior out of the other animal and it is working. And that has like affected how both of them behave. And yeah, he asked these these gatherers to explain why they were just.

doing what they were doing. And he was like, the bird will get too full if we don't do this. And then it won't help someone else. You know, like the bird eats all of the honeycomb and then she's lazy. And you need to know that the birds are going to keep answering humans calls. and he said in fact it often boiled down to like I need to make sure my like neighbor doesn't go hungry because I let this honeybird gorge itself and get lazy and I think you know while I didn't find like a specific reference to this I think the assumption is that like the bird will get some of the wax and the grubs they're not like meticulously destroying and hiding every morsel, but they're keeping this from being like a huge cash out and focusing more on

limiting the bird's access to its potential payment than they are being like, here it is my thank you. Here is payment for your services. And yeah, Brian Wood, he collected seven years of data, hundreds of hours of tailing foragers. And then he and his colleagues finally submitted a study on this relationship for publication 2013. And they were like really detailed, like tons of evidence. And actually one of their, the reviewers of their article responded being like, I know this can't be right because I've seen on YouTube that they pay their honey guides. And there had been a documentary, several, but there was one documentary in particular that this reviewer had referenced that really edited footage.

to make it seem like, oh, they leave this little payment, they tip their driver, you know. And, you know, you was like, this is nature faking, which is the term for, you know, manipulating documentary footage and images to make animal behavior seem like something it's not. And it happens so often in documentaries. It's like sometimes maybe unintentional, because, people are like prone to anthropomorphizing and, you know, want to tell a good story. But it's often like pretty insidious and intentional because people love anthropomorphizing and want to tell a good story. So yeah, this idea persists. And I will say there are other groups

besides the Hadza that do work with honey guides. And it's quite likely. And there is some evidence that a lot of those groups do pay them in a more deliberate way, just sort of their relationship with the bird is different. But it may, you know, this may have something to do with how much of these people's diets rely on honey. Because again, it does seem to be this motivator that's like you don't want to, if you overfeed the bird, you're hurting another. person who's not going to be able to get help from that bird.

And again, this awesome Matlas Lipsqueur article, I definitely recommend folks read it, but I will just mention that, you know, the author also talked to some researchers who made the point that like this is this really pervasive idea that indigenous people live in some sort of like harmonious relationship with nature. that, you know, at first glance, it's like, it's nice to think of their relationship as harmonious. But it can be dangerous because then, you know, people who do things that strike outsiders as like not being nice or like not being in this perfect harmony with nature can actually face, you know, like a loss of protections that they need to keep surviving on their land. Right. So, yeah, people are like it may seem harmless to sort of keep sharing the like Disneyified version of how the HHSA interact with their honey guides. But, you know, it's like a real bummer that people like think it's less cool if they need to manipulate the bird a little bit.

because, you know, it's nature. Everybody's, everybody has to do what they need to do to survive. And it's actually, again, it's like coming from this very sustainable, altruistic place. It's just that the bird isn't their main partner. It's the other humans that need to get fed. And the hodigods do fine. They're alive. They're eaten.

Yeah. Even, you know, I also just want to say that, like, I think this behavior is so still. still so, so cool. We don't need the sort of like rosy, oh, these guys are best friends with these birds who they pay fairly for their bird labor. We don't need that for it to be a really awesome story of human ingenuity and animal intelligence.

More recent research involving Brian Wood and some collaborators, they realized that how they, people and the, uh, the, the Yao in Mozambique, uh, use really different calls to get the honey guys attention. Um, I'll post links to some clips on a pop site.com slash weird. So the hatha is, is that like whistle, really beautiful whistle, actually. Um, you could, you can imagine, you can understand why people who didn't know what was going on were like, they just love whistling. They're whistling all the time. Um, the yaw is, is very different. Uh, it's, it's more like a rumble and a growl. It's hard, it's hard to describe. It's not a sound I think I would make for any

random purpose. And so they realized that they had these very different sounds and they decided to see whether where a honey guide bird was from would impact like how they responded to these different calls. And indeed, the ones who hang out where the hads are from were way more likely to respond to the whistles and the ones that hang out where the yow are from were way more likely to respond to the very unbird-like sound that they made. So, you know, this is showing that these birds have learned to respond to these calls. They understand at least to some extent what they're being asked to do. And yeah, it's also, they have really interesting ideas about why the sounds are different. For example,

But the HADSA, they do do some hunting. And the thought is that maybe the whistle came about because sounding like a bird helps them get the bird's attention without freaking out other animals that they might potentially want to hunt. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And the Yao don't hunt mammals with bows and arrows like the Hotsa do. So first of all, less of an issue for them to, like, scare off non-birds. But they may even be trying to sound more like a predator to keep other animals away while they're trying to do their honey-finding business. Again, that's, like, very speculative.

But we do know that the sounds they have developed are recognizable to these birds, which is so cool to me. So, yeah, that's my story about honey and birds and whistling dudes getting some good, good sugar water out. But yeah, I came across in the course of researching this, so many articles that still are like, and the hudsa pay their birds. I even found one article that, and I think this is totally unfounded, I could not find any reference to it in Ryan Wood's work. Of course, I could be wrong. But one article just said with like no link to source. So of course, many birds are no longer willing to find honey for them. I'm like, that's not true.

They've been doing this for thousands of years. If there are fewer birds, it's probably because people are cutting the tree. trees down. I know the birds are retiring. They're trying to start a union. Yeah, exactly. That was the vibe. Like, obviously the birds aren't standing for this.

I'm like, I think demonstrably they are. They have for probably since before humans were homo sapiens. But anyway, yeah, very, I love, I love people figuring out cool stuff. And, you know, listen. Many, many partnerships are not equal, but these birds seem to be doing just fine. And these hunter gatherers are also looking out for each other, which I think is awesome. Yeah, a lot of great, great stuff today. Honestly, like, there's a lot going on.

Much to think about. Much to think about. Yeah, I love, I love when we get a mix. of history and animals. And I love when I don't have to apologize for my fact being so depressing. It's like we, it was a fun one. A lot of good vibes. Joel, thanks so much for coming on.

It was so great to have you with us. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. This was awesome. I really enjoyed it. Well, we'd love to have you back some time. But for now, would you remind listeners a, where they can find you in your work.

Yeah, so my handles are freelance Joel on Instagram and on TikTok. And then for Roke History, if you want to check that out, it is on YouTube under PBS Digital Studios. 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. Fit for your ambition. First Citizens Bank. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on me.

Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer at Columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on allolotion. You're welcome. Columbia, engineered for whatever.