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Short Stuff: Mexican Jumping Beans · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: There's other Josh over there, and this is short stuff.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Getty up down, Mexico Away, Chuck. Yeah, if you're wondering
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: where Jerry is, she's fine. We just she's out for
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, and we happen to be recording
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: a lot those couple of weeks. So in podcasts years,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: it probably feels like Jerry's has been out for months
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and months. Yeah, not true. It's not the case. Just
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: two months. No, she's doing great. But really, everyone pray
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: for her. Right, that's a pretty good check. That was
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: very nice to think. Jerry's gonna appreciate this if she
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: ever hears it. Not a chance. So when you were
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a kid, did you were you aware of the idea
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of something called Mexican jumping beans? Yes, okay, so was.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I think probably from like cartoons or something like that.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if I assume that they actually existed.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Did did you think they existed? I don't remember when
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I first saw them. Oh wow, you still never seen them,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: have you? No? I never had. I've seen them on
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the YouTube, so that's it. Yeah, I've seen him in
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: person at some point, And I don't know if it
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: was just because you know, you can buy them in
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: a little uh souvenir packs and stuff like that. So
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I saw him when I was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a kid or when I was an adult and finally
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: went to Mexico. I don't know, but I've seen him before. Well,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: there was like a glory day in the in the sixties,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I think, where you could walk into like a KB
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: toy store in the United States and find Mexican jumping
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: beans for sale, the golden Age of Mexican jumping beans.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: That's right, But I guess we just kind of spoiled
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: it if you were, you know, aware of Mexican jumping
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: beans and thought they were just kind of made up
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: like snipe ponting or jackalopes or whatever. No, they're actually
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: for real. Chuck can verify that. But the thing about
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: them is they're not actually beans um their seeds, but
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: they do actually move and kind of jump a little bit,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: move around at least on their own. And for a
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: while at first, no one really had any idea what
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: the heck was going on. We just knew that it
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: was kind of cool to watch and a little thrilling,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: especially before the television and even really before radio. This
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: is what people did. They stood around and watch being
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: roll around on their own or like ant farms or
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: police circuses. Yeah, simpler people. So they should have just
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: called them Mexican jumping seeds, because that's just as good
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to me. I don't know why the bean made it
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: more marketable. Necessarily, maybe because they look like beans. I
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. I mean their seeds. They
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: should just call them that. Hey, asqua Keene Hernandez, the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: jumping being king, he could tell you. We'll get to him.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: But they are seed pods. They're from a plant called
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the Yerba de Fletcher or the Sebastiana pabo Nanna, very nice,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: it's all right, you said Latin and Spanish in the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: same breath. That was really great. That means herb of
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the arrow, which it was taken from the fact that
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the poison from the shrub sap was used sometimes to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: tip the poison for their arrow tips from local tribes.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I think I looked it up. I think it might
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: be the Yaqui who did that. All right, well, it's
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a deciduous shrub. It's got leathery leaves that it's dark
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: green but then turn red in the winter. I bet
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: it's beautiful. It is. I think I looked up pictures.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: It looked nice to me. I've never seen them. I've
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: never been to the to the Rio Mio. I hadn't
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: even heard of it. But it sounds creamy and delicious. Yea, well,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that's the region where they're found in Sonora and Chihuahua.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I can't even get a good laugh out of you
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: with my dad jokes anymore. They're that bad. Uh. That
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: one was okay, all right. I wasn't sure if you
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: were serious or not. So they grow on these rocky slopes,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and back in the nineteen twenties is when they first
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: started to kind of hit the States. That's when they
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: came state side in San Francisco. San Francisco, and there
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: was an article in the chronicle about the little freakish
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: brown seeds that just basically delighted people of all ages. Yeah,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Mental Flaws had a pretty good article on this. Um.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: He said that these beans cavorted about to the edification
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and delight of children and grown ups. Yeah, well, actually
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: they said seeds, Yeah they did. They call it seeds correctly, right,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: because this was pre Joaquin Hernandez, right, so I guess he.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I wonder if he really was the one who changed
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: it over to beans. Who knows that he's a smart kid.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe take a break. I think we're at the halfway point. Sure,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: all right, okay, chuck, enough enough dilly dallying. Let's get
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: to Joaquin Hernandez. Please. Who is he? He is a
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I who in the forties was twelve years old and
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: was aware of Mexican jumping beans, although they weren't called
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: that at the time, he knew they were kind of interesting,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: but he thought, maybe if you marketed these things just right,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: you could really have like a novelty on your hands.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Joke shops will go bonkers for these things. And he
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: was absolutely right. He's like, kids are dumb, Yeah, kids
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: like me. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. This guy was
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: twelve years old and he became the literal jumping bean
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: king right over the following decades. I think Alamos and Sonora,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: where he lived, is now the capital, the jumping mean
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: capital of the world. It will probably never give up
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: that title. Why would it so? Um? Early on, like
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: people did not know what was going on with these things.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: They were just delighted by them. Some people were kind
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of curious, some people had an idea. But there were
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: early theories before it was widely understood, things like, um,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that there was a static charge or something like that
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: maybe making bounce, or there was gas trapped inside that
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: was somehow exploding. Who knows. It turns out that botanists
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and biologists are anomologists, I should say, figured it out.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe the all three Linda hand, yeah, they all. It
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: was a joint effort, but they the entomologist that's who
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going with, said, you know what, you know what's
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in there. There's a live, living moth larvae in there,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and that is what's making these seeds bounce. That's right.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: The jumping bean moth lay this little eggs and the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: flower of that plant, and then of course the eggs
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: are then in the seeds. Starts to rain in the springtime,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and that seed develops and matures and it splits into
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: three little guys. Uh, they fall on the ground and
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: then those they don't always but usually those little smaller
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: parts have the martha larvae inside larvae larvae, and that's
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you know, they're in there. Screaming help. Well, they're doing
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: all sorts of things. For one that they they um
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: burrow or they make their um there cocoon, I guess
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: in the in the um these seeds, because they eat
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the seed from the inside out as they're kind of
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: going through this metamorphosis into a moth. And if you
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: have Mexican jumping beans you can get them. Still. If
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you have them and you take care of them, you
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: could actually witness the moth emerging from the seed eventually.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: But in the meantime it's eating the seed from the
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: inside out, which causes movement um. And then also they
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: weave their cocoon. They spend their cocoon inside and they
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: suspend it from the interior walls of the seed. And
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: so when they move about, their movements are telegraphed through
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: the cocoon and the silk that's like attached to the seed,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: which is it creates enough energy or enough force to
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: actually move the seed pod. Yeah, and I think, uh,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: where did you get this? Was some of this from
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the mental flaws article? I know there was a um
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: There was another thing that I will mention in a second,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: if you will keep talking, Okay, I'm not stalling him.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I not know. The cool thing that they mentioned is
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that if it was just a little larvae inside, it
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: would in order to move that being like it moves,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: it would smush itself. If it was just like slam
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: dancing against the walls. That one was all josh, oh,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: that was all you all right, Well, the fact that
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: it those silk cables from the cocoon are attached is
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: what makes it move because uh, and then the the
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: example of the whip makes a lot of sense. You know,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: when you use a whip, the whip crack at the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: end is has way more force than what you're doing
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: with the handle of the whip, right exactly. It's the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: same principle basically, right. Um. And the this the stuff
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: that I based that on came from Wayne's word. It's
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: an online textbook of natural history. Nice. Yeah, check it out, everybody. Yeah,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that's one of the cooler facts of this one. I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: think the other one that shot that stuck out to
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: me or shot out like a little uh jumping bean moth.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Are you saying you like the fact that I made
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: up out of whole cloth the most that's your favorite one.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: It finally happened, Thank you. Chuck. The other one I
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: thought was really interesting is you expose these things to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: heat to get them to jump around, and the they
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: think that that might be a an adaptation basically that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: when these beans are out there baking in the hot sun,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: they're like trying to scooch over into a shady spot
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: by making those movements. Yeah, and that amazing. That's pretty remarkable.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: It really is. So if if you have Mexican jumping
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: beans and you want to make them jump for your friends,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and they don't actually jump is not quite the right word.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: They move about. They kind of shimmy, they'll roll, tumble
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: that kind of really catch air exactly. Well, put dude
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in a very eighties gleaming the cube way that's right. Um.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: But to make them really move, you just expose them
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: to heat. Put him out in the sun, and so
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: they try to move out of the sun. Well, if
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you can kind of keep them in the sun, they're
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: really going to start moving. The problem is is this
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: can kill the larvae inside. Yeah, the problem is it's
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: super mean, It really is. So like if this happens
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: out in nature, you know, if the the the larvae
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: can't move the seed pod to a shady spot and
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: actually dehydrates and dies from the heat. That's that circle
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of life kind of stuff, right. Yeah, But if you
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: believe that every living thing deserves respect and to be
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: treated well, then do not give these to your children, no,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: because if you do kill them and it's just for
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: humans amusement, that is that's a little mean. Yeah. I mean,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: just think of the kid where this being, if the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: adaptation theory is correct, is desperately trying to get to
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: shade and little Timmy keeps just shoving it right back
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: in the sun with a magnifying glass on it. It
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: makes you want to shove little Timmy, that's right, as
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: if he were the kind of kid who would squish
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: a lady ug or something. Good. Point. So, um, there
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: are people who say, hey, you can keep these things
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: as pets if you want everybody. In fact, there's a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: website called jban dot com okay and jbing dot com
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: says you can keep them cameround in your pocket and
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the body heat will make them wiggle. If you actually
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: want to let them, um actually come to fruition, you
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: want to keep them in a cool place so that
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: they don't have to wiggle. They can use their energy
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: for eating um. But you want to keep them wet,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: so you missed them once a week and eventually if
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: you take care of when you can see a moth
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: come out sometimes amazing, It is amazing. Mexican jumping beans
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: are chuck. Amazing. That's right. Well, that's it. You got
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: anything else? Got anything else? I don't either, So this
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: is short stuff Audios. Stuff you Should Know is a
• 11:50
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• 11:54
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