Latest / Stuff You Should Know / SYSK Selects: What Makes us Yawn?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's
- 0:03Speaker 1: s Y s K Selects, I've chosen what makes us yawn?
- 0:06Speaker 1: It's actually a really good question about something everyone does,
- 0:10Speaker 1: and yet we don't really fully understand. After all of
- 0:14Speaker 1: these eons of people yawning and all these centuries of
- 0:18Speaker 1: science studying things like people yawning, we still can't explain
- 0:22Speaker 1: what yawning is. So buckle in and enjoy this episode
- 0:27Speaker 1: of Stuff You Should Know. Selex, Welcome to Stuff You
- 0:33Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
- 0:42Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
- 0:45Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. You're getting comfy. Yeah, okay, well you put
- 0:49Speaker 1: the two of us together, and this is Stuff you
- 0:50Speaker 1: Should Know the podcast. Frank was squeaking. I thought I
- 0:54Speaker 1: was in Frank. Was that Frank? Yeah? I was sorry,
- 0:57Speaker 1: I'm in Francine. Okay, sorry Francine squeaking, You are in Frank?
- 1:02Speaker 1: Who are you? Let's build a chair? Uh? People have
- 1:07Speaker 1: never heard this or like, what are they talking about?
- 1:09Speaker 1: They've already turned off. We name our chairs people then,
- 1:12Speaker 1: and everyone he named cars, boats, and chairs. Yeah, a
- 1:15Speaker 1: surprising amount of people named chairs. If you don't, you
- 1:18Speaker 1: should be paranoid because people are talking about you. It's right, um, chuck, Yes,
- 1:23Speaker 1: have you ever oscitated? I have, I've even uh pendiculated.
- 1:30Speaker 1: Do you pendiculated before? I pendiculate every morning? You know
- 1:33Speaker 1: what we we sound like? Um people running for the
- 1:38Speaker 1: Senate in nineteen fifties Florida. Yeah, there's like Florida has
- 1:42Speaker 1: a rich history of um like people running for political
- 1:46Speaker 1: office using technical terms for things that sound way worse
- 1:49Speaker 1: than they are to like smear their opponents. Really. Yeah,
- 1:52Speaker 1: there's this one guy who went and I can thank
- 1:54Speaker 1: Uncle John and his bathroom readers for um who went
- 1:58Speaker 1: after his opponent and said that his sister was a
- 2:00Speaker 1: thespian in New York and like all these people are
- 2:04Speaker 1: like boo boo. Yeah, and apparently like the smear campaign
- 2:09Speaker 1: was successful. That wasn't the only one, but this guy
- 2:12Speaker 1: used that a couple of couple of technical terms. We
- 2:15Speaker 1: should probably tell people what we're talking about, right, because
- 2:18Speaker 1: you said you pendiculate every morning, easily every morning, and
- 2:22Speaker 1: that is a what that is a yawn and a
- 2:25Speaker 1: stretch combined together. And as one of my favorite things
- 2:28Speaker 1: to do in the morning it is. Did you did
- 2:30Speaker 1: you see that painting of the It was a self portrait,
- 2:33Speaker 1: the artist's self portrait sounded like it was from like
- 2:35Speaker 1: the sixteenth or seventeenth century of him pendiculating. It's just
- 2:39Speaker 1: as awesome oil painting of this, you know, Renaissance man
- 2:45Speaker 1: stretching and yawning. Yeah. I love it because it feels
- 2:48Speaker 1: good and it uh, it ties me to my pets,
- 2:52Speaker 1: you know, because like I see them do it, they
- 2:55Speaker 1: see me do it, and I'm kind of like, hey,
- 2:57Speaker 1: we all eat, we all pee and poop, and we
- 3:00Speaker 1: all pendiculate. My little cattle stretching yawn. My dogs will
- 3:03Speaker 1: stretching yawn, and I will stretching you. So do you
- 3:06Speaker 1: guys make one another stretching ya on? You know, I'm
- 3:08Speaker 1: gonna start looking out for that because I have not
- 3:10Speaker 1: noticed that. But apparently yawning can be contagious to animals, right, Yeah,
- 3:14Speaker 1: there's a fun little game you can do jogs supposedly
- 3:18Speaker 1: chimps for sure, but probably not cats, I don't know. Yeah,
- 3:22Speaker 1: just because it's not in here doesn't mean it's not true. Um,
- 3:26Speaker 1: there's a fun little game. You complain the next time
- 3:27Speaker 1: you're hanging out with people if you feel like manipulating
- 3:30Speaker 1: them on a biological level, Um, just yawn and just
- 3:35Speaker 1: start paying attention to how many people yawn as a result,
- 3:38Speaker 1: and it should start some sort of chain reaction among
- 3:41Speaker 1: maybe of the people, because that's the that's the statistic
- 3:46Speaker 1: of how many human adults yawn in reaction to seeing
- 3:52Speaker 1: somebody on, seeing video of somebody on, hearing about somebody yawning,
- 3:58Speaker 1: reading about yawning, Like how many times did you yawn
- 4:01Speaker 1: while you read this article? A bunch? And people will
- 4:03Speaker 1: probably yawn while listening to this, Supposedly it's pretty much
- 4:06Speaker 1: impossible not to. Yeah, do you ever? This just really
- 4:10Speaker 1: shows how deeply disturbed I am. I will not I
- 4:13Speaker 1: will suppress or cover up a yawn if someone else
- 4:17Speaker 1: has made me on sometimes just so I don't give
- 4:19Speaker 1: them the satisfaction. Oh yeah, I've done that before. Sometimes
- 4:22Speaker 1: he was like, no, I'm not like just some stranger
- 4:24Speaker 1: on an elevator. They'll yawn and I'll just be like, Nope,
- 4:26Speaker 1: not me, buddy. One of those people who don't realize that,
- 4:29Speaker 1: like they're they're just your mortal enemy for no real
- 4:32Speaker 1: good reason, when in fact they really don't even know exists, right,
- 4:35Speaker 1: they're like some guys on the elevator, right, So yawning
- 4:38Speaker 1: is involuntary. Um, And I've seen a range of of
- 4:44Speaker 1: weeks that a fetus has been observed yawning from eleven
- 4:47Speaker 1: to twenty and uh, that sort of disproves one of
- 4:51Speaker 1: the well many things, disproves one of the theories, which
- 4:54Speaker 1: is that we yawned to oxygenate ourselves. Yeah, because a
- 4:57Speaker 1: lot of people think that fetus is um, breathe amniotic
- 5:01Speaker 1: fluid in the womb, and that is absolutely not true.
- 5:05Speaker 1: The oxygen to the umbilical cord. Yeah, so they're not
- 5:08Speaker 1: clearly not yawning to oxygenate themselves. Right, And we'll debunk
- 5:11Speaker 1: that with other things in a minute. Sure, Um, but
- 5:13Speaker 1: that's still it is a little bit of a mystery though, Like, yeah,
- 5:16Speaker 1: the other the other ideas for why we yawned don't
- 5:19Speaker 1: really hold up in the fetus either. It feels like
- 5:22Speaker 1: that's where the key to the mystery of yawning is
- 5:25Speaker 1: going to be found in. All right, should we go
- 5:30Speaker 1: there over some theories and well, hold on, first, you're
- 5:31Speaker 1: saying it's involuntary. I found this one thing, Chuck, that
- 5:35Speaker 1: there's a type of paralysis like a lesion on the
- 5:39Speaker 1: brain where you can still if you yawn, you still pendiculate,
- 5:44Speaker 1: So like you're paralyzed arm. If you yawn deep enough,
- 5:47Speaker 1: will will raise, will rise. Yeah, pretty weird. Huh. There's
- 5:52Speaker 1: only been a few cases of it over like the
- 5:54Speaker 1: last hundred and fifty years, but it's been documented in
- 5:57Speaker 1: a number of different places. Yeah, but that is such
- 6:00Speaker 1: a surprise. Yeah, seriously, they're like, can I be tired
- 6:04Speaker 1: more often? Um So when you yawn, just physiologically speaking,
- 6:09Speaker 1: you're gonna open your mouth. You're going to suck in
- 6:12Speaker 1: air into your lungs. I read one place that you
- 6:15Speaker 1: your eyes usually close. They did this big study and
- 6:19Speaker 1: found that most time your eyes closed. But I don't
- 6:21Speaker 1: think it's like all the time. You know that's sneezing
- 6:24Speaker 1: you're thinking of. No, they did a study on on
- 6:27Speaker 1: the eyes of the yawner. Well that's part of the
- 6:30Speaker 1: yawn too, as far as um queues go, Like, it's
- 6:33Speaker 1: not just the mouth opening your eyes quint. Yeah, and
- 6:36Speaker 1: I found like the really good deep yawn, um, my
- 6:38Speaker 1: eyes will generally close. So you're gonna flex your your abs.
- 6:42Speaker 1: It's good workout. It's gonna put your dye for RAM down.
- 6:46Speaker 1: You're gonna fill your lungs with air and then exhale
- 6:49Speaker 1: and that as a yawn stretch, you're pendiculating. UM. Also,
- 6:55Speaker 1: parts of your brain become active, right. UM. Basically what
- 7:01Speaker 1: happens when all of this, when you go through all
- 7:02Speaker 1: this process, a bunch of neurotransmitters and dopamine are activated.
- 7:09Speaker 1: And that is why a guy named Robert Provine thinks well.
- 7:13Speaker 1: He says that, UM, yawns are basically a part of
- 7:17Speaker 1: a change from one state of arousal to another. Yeah,
- 7:21Speaker 1: like I was asleep, now I'm awake, or I was
- 7:23Speaker 1: I was alert, now on board, or I was like
- 7:26Speaker 1: just ho hum, and now I'm like in the mood
- 7:30Speaker 1: because there you can yawn when you're sexually aroused. So
- 7:33Speaker 1: that mood, YEA, the mood, the mood, the Glenn Miller mood.
- 7:38Speaker 1: That's what they had to call it back then, and
- 7:40Speaker 1: that's what we have to call it today on this
- 7:42Speaker 1: family friendly podcast. UM. What's going on to is physiologically speaking,
- 7:48Speaker 1: as we are distributing UM, something called the surfactant, which
- 7:52Speaker 1: sounds gross and it kind of is. It's a wedding agent. Uh.
- 7:57Speaker 1: To cote al violi in the lungs. Um. But are
- 8:02Speaker 1: they saying that's what happens or that's why it happens,
- 8:05Speaker 1: that's what happens. Okay, they're not saying the reason is
- 8:07Speaker 1: to cope the alboli with surfact then, right, it could be.
- 8:11Speaker 1: I mean, for all we know. No, we still have
- 8:14Speaker 1: no idea what function yawning provides. Same with the the
- 8:18Speaker 1: yawning as a symbol of arousal or is a sign
- 8:20Speaker 1: of arousal. They think that it's really just a byproduct
- 8:23Speaker 1: of it, you know. Okay, but it explains why people
- 8:27Speaker 1: who are nervous or dogs. I'm sure you've seen dogs
- 8:29Speaker 1: who are nervous and they yawn and like that really
- 8:32Speaker 1: kind of weird, unsettling ways when they're super worked up. Yeah. Yeah,
- 8:36Speaker 1: and humans too, you know, like people will yawn when
- 8:39Speaker 1: they're nervous. It's it's it's it's a sign that you're
- 8:42Speaker 1: in a state of arousal. And what that state of
- 8:45Speaker 1: arousal is depends on the situation. Yeah. They point to
- 8:47Speaker 1: Olympians who yawned before like a race, and um, which
- 8:52Speaker 1: Poopoo's one theory that we're going to get to the theory.
- 8:56Speaker 1: So we just get to the theories. Let's get to
- 8:58Speaker 1: the theory. Poops. That theory though, that you have to
- 9:00Speaker 1: be bored or you have to be sleepy retired. Yeah
- 9:03Speaker 1: like that. There's the boredom theory, and it's kind of
- 9:06Speaker 1: been pretty fully shot down just by you know, just
- 9:10Speaker 1: casual observation. There's also the physiological theory, which is that
- 9:16Speaker 1: this is the one that I'd always heard when I
- 9:17Speaker 1: was younger, like, why are you yawned? Is because you
- 9:20Speaker 1: needed your oxygen deprived or you have an abundance of
- 9:24Speaker 1: carbon dioxide. So you're drawing in a bunch of oxygen
- 9:27Speaker 1: and like putting out a bunch of carbon dioxide. That's
- 9:30Speaker 1: why you're yawned. And provine or provine that you mentioned. Yeah,
- 9:35Speaker 1: he tested this one right, Yeah, pretty simply. He just said, okay, well, um,
- 9:40Speaker 1: let's just give some athletes a bunch of oxygen and
- 9:42Speaker 1: see if they um, if they breathe, if they yawn
- 9:46Speaker 1: any less than they didn't. He also um increased the
- 9:49Speaker 1: carbon dioxide in the ambient air and people still kept yawning. Okay,
- 9:56Speaker 1: so that one's gold, but they didn't yawn anymore. Yeah,
- 9:59Speaker 1: so we can put that to bed. Yeah. Plus also
- 10:01Speaker 1: there was a terrible um hy proof associated with that
- 10:05Speaker 1: hypothesis that that explains why people yawning groups, because when
- 10:10Speaker 1: you have a big group, more carbon dioxide and less oxygen,
- 10:13Speaker 1: and that's like you're all fighting over the oxygen. Right,
- 10:16Speaker 1: So you're there yawning. Yeah, whoever can yawn the deepest lives?
- 10:20Speaker 1: That doesn't sound right. Evolution UM could play a part.
- 10:24Speaker 1: Some people think that maybe we used to yawn took
- 10:27Speaker 1: took Wood yawn to bare his teeth to intimidate folks
- 10:30Speaker 1: around him UM, or that it developed as a signal.
- 10:35Speaker 1: Took Took would give a signal to his mates that hey,
- 10:38Speaker 1: we gotta we're hunting now and we need to go
- 10:41Speaker 1: now gather would so I will yawn to tell you
- 10:45Speaker 1: that like pre speech, right, Yeah, like a bird turning
- 10:49Speaker 1: if the whole flock. Yeah, that makes a little bit
- 10:52Speaker 1: of sense, But I still don't believe that one. I'm
- 10:55Speaker 1: with the brain cooling theory. That's like the most recent
- 10:58Speaker 1: one and it seems to be the one that people
- 10:59Speaker 1: are subscribing to. Ye. Scientists generally are leaning toward the
- 11:04Speaker 1: fact that UM, when our brains are warmer, yawning might
- 11:08Speaker 1: cool it down in A cool brain is a more whatever,
- 11:13Speaker 1: a better brain. I guess I should say I just
- 11:15Speaker 1: better for thinking I just yawned, did you I did? Okay,
- 11:18Speaker 1: I didn't see it. Well, I covered my mouth. You
- 11:21Speaker 1: might have thought I was purpening. I think I did. Um.
- 11:25Speaker 1: So the brain cooling theory, that's the one that most
- 11:27Speaker 1: people think is lately, that's the that's the explanation to
- 11:32Speaker 1: your yeah, um. And there's another piece of research that
- 11:37Speaker 1: people are going into that um is the idea that
- 11:41Speaker 1: contagious yawning is the result of empathy, right, that you
- 11:47Speaker 1: that you empathize, The more you empathize with other people,
- 11:50Speaker 1: the more susceptible you are contagious yawning. And we said
- 11:53Speaker 1: earlier that like I think of human adults, UM are
- 11:59Speaker 1: susceptible to contagious yawning, right, which the MythBusters confirmed by
- 12:03Speaker 1: the way. Okay, so there is some sort of link
- 12:06Speaker 1: between what we perceive his empathy and the susceptibility to yawning.
- 12:11Speaker 1: When you see somebody else yawning or reading about yawning
- 12:14Speaker 1: or whatever, I wonder if it's like a boy, that
- 12:15Speaker 1: guy's tired and just let me make him feel better. Well,
- 12:18Speaker 1: the pro vine again, he's like really into yawning research. Um.
- 12:23Speaker 1: He he has done m r I scans where he
- 12:27Speaker 1: shows I guess pictures of people yawning or talked about
- 12:29Speaker 1: yawning and you know they yawn um. And when they do,
- 12:33Speaker 1: he says that mere neurons go off friends, right, So
- 12:37Speaker 1: are our mere neurons are activated when you see somebody
- 12:39Speaker 1: else yawn? And apparently that triggers the yawn. But people
- 12:45Speaker 1: take it a step further in this quest to prove
- 12:48Speaker 1: that empathy and contagious yawning are you know, want work
- 12:52Speaker 1: hand in hand and saying, well, then people with autism
- 12:56Speaker 1: that that they shouldn't be able to to be susceptible
- 12:59Speaker 1: to contagious yawning, right, because they're known to have less empathy, right,
- 13:03Speaker 1: they had trouble connecting with others or um, they have
- 13:06Speaker 1: trouble developing what's called the theory of mind about other people. Um.
- 13:10Speaker 1: And there have been a lot of studies about whether
- 13:14Speaker 1: or not people who are people who have autism are contagious?
- 13:20Speaker 1: Is too susceptible the contagious yawning? Yeah, and it's it's
- 13:25Speaker 1: it's been proven, not proven, but at least. The data
- 13:28Speaker 1: says that the more, uh, the the stronger your autism,
- 13:35Speaker 1: the less you will yawn, even though uh they will
- 13:39Speaker 1: yawn when someone is pretending to yawn. Was that what
- 13:41Speaker 1: it was? Yeah? I think it said that, Um, when
- 13:45Speaker 1: they're watching video of people just moving their mouths, then
- 13:50Speaker 1: non autistic kids yawned more than kids with autism when
- 13:54Speaker 1: it was really yawning. Does that make sense? Yes, Well,
- 13:58Speaker 1: hold on before we get to that, um, because this
- 14:01Speaker 1: is like a whole thing to me, the idea that
- 14:03Speaker 1: if you have autism you're not susceptible and contagious yawning.
- 14:07Speaker 1: Let's let's first I have a message break from our sponsor. Okay, Josh,
- 14:27Speaker 1: So I believe we were talking about autism and yawning,
- 14:30Speaker 1: which is I just learned a thing for you. Well, yeah,
- 14:34Speaker 1: you said that there was. Um. They have found that
- 14:37Speaker 1: if you have been diagnosed with autism, you're less likely
- 14:40Speaker 1: to be susceptible and contagious yawning. And they found that
- 14:44Speaker 1: the higher on the autism spectrum you fall, the less
- 14:48Speaker 1: lucky would you would even be right? Yeah, which would
- 14:50Speaker 1: suggest that there is that link because they've tied there
- 14:53Speaker 1: there's a link between uh, empathy and an autism and
- 14:58Speaker 1: empathy and contagious yawning. So this autism and studying kids
- 15:02Speaker 1: with autism is kind of like the fulcrum. So yeah,
- 15:06Speaker 1: it just seems to me to be kind of Um,
- 15:09Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't I don't buy all the
- 15:11Speaker 1: studies that have been carried out. Another studies kind of contradicted,
- 15:15Speaker 1: like they other studies have shown that like kids with
- 15:18Speaker 1: autism focus on people's mouths rather than their eyes, So
- 15:22Speaker 1: maybe they're missing the cue. Member. We said that your
- 15:24Speaker 1: eyes scrunch, so like a yawn is not just people
- 15:28Speaker 1: opening their mouths. It has all these other facial characteristics
- 15:32Speaker 1: that might trigger a yawn and another person. So maybe
- 15:36Speaker 1: kids with autism are simply missing that. So you're saying,
- 15:39Speaker 1: maybe the data could be skewed by other factors. It
- 15:41Speaker 1: could be plus. I just remember when I wrote this
- 15:43Speaker 1: article like years back, I was kind of like, yeah,
- 15:48Speaker 1: it's just it seems just slightly off, like, yeah, you
- 15:52Speaker 1: got a good gut though, Well thanks man, I've been
- 15:54Speaker 1: working on it so bad. Um Well, we should also
- 15:59Speaker 1: mention too that this goes back a long way, like
- 16:02Speaker 1: I believe was it Hippocrates? Yeah, was the first person
- 16:06Speaker 1: to start sort of postulating ideas, and he was like, uh,
- 16:11Speaker 1: he thought it was fever related, like sickness. It could
- 16:13Speaker 1: help cure you. So I got a fever and the
- 16:16Speaker 1: only prescription is more yawning. That's why here's the father
- 16:20Speaker 1: of medicine. That's right, because he was the first guy
- 16:23Speaker 1: to just start saying stuff. But you know that was
- 16:26Speaker 1: pretty quickly disproven. Right. But um, the idea that yawning
- 16:30Speaker 1: has something to do with um increasing our alertness and awareness,
- 16:36Speaker 1: which is kind of one of the current views of yawning.
- 16:39Speaker 1: Um that dates back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yeah,
- 16:42Speaker 1: well it increases your heart rate during inhalation only um,
- 16:48Speaker 1: not during uh the I think it it It increases
- 16:52Speaker 1: and then levels off and then just drops back down
- 16:53Speaker 1: to the more pretty quickly, I got you. Yeah, but
- 16:56Speaker 1: up to like thirty beats per minute increase. Right. Yeah.
- 16:59Speaker 1: I read a real heavy article on this study that
- 17:02Speaker 1: really just made my eyes cross. But that was a
- 17:04Speaker 1: long and short of it. Right, But that's one that
- 17:06Speaker 1: dealt with the eyes, Like they really measured all kinds
- 17:08Speaker 1: of stuff. Uh. And when we said that fetus is
- 17:11Speaker 1: from eleven to twenty weeks of development yawn in utero
- 17:15Speaker 1: and did you see any of like the four d
- 17:19Speaker 1: ultrasounds of fetus? Is yawning? Is it adorable? It's pretty cute,
- 17:23Speaker 1: but it's also weird at the same time because they're
- 17:25Speaker 1: not fully developed. It's it's like, oh you, it's like
- 17:29Speaker 1: a little baby platypus kind of um, but you have
- 17:33Speaker 1: to be around age four before you um can Uh,
- 17:37Speaker 1: you're susceptible the contagious yawning. Yeah, it's there, any way
- 17:41Speaker 1: to put it besides susceptible the contagious yawning, I don't
- 17:44Speaker 1: think so. Do you feel like you've said that like
- 17:46Speaker 1: a lot and I've had trouble with it every time. Uh.
- 17:50Speaker 1: There's another couple of researchers who a couple of years ago,
- 17:53Speaker 1: um Andrew Gallup and Omar Tansi Elda car H. They
- 17:58Speaker 1: found that outside temperature could affect the amount of yawning.
- 18:01Speaker 1: So if it's warmer than usual, then you're gonna yawn
- 18:04Speaker 1: less frequently because um. Their explanation is the outside air
- 18:10Speaker 1: is useless to the organism because it doesn't need to
- 18:13Speaker 1: suck in more oxygen. I don't get how the temperture
- 18:15Speaker 1: would affect that though. Well, if it's warmer temperature and
- 18:19Speaker 1: you're using the cooler air to cool your brain, if
- 18:23Speaker 1: it's warmer than the temperature of your brain, then okay,
- 18:27Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah all right. Well they had other
- 18:30Speaker 1: tests though, that's that showed that the amount of yawning
- 18:33Speaker 1: increase both when outside temperature and the temperature of the
- 18:37Speaker 1: brain increase. Yeah, it's all over the place. No, no
- 18:40Speaker 1: one knows anything about yawning except Robert Provine, the foremost
- 18:46Speaker 1: leading authority. Well, well he's proven that like seeing your
- 18:50Speaker 1: hearing about somebody yawning, it triggers your mirror neurons. So yeah,
- 18:54Speaker 1: I think somebody should do a documentary on these people
- 18:56Speaker 1: that become obsessed with yawns. No, just like a certain
- 19:02Speaker 1: small thing. So you're yawning right now? Um, And that
- 19:06Speaker 1: was unsatisfying because you made me laugh in the middle
- 19:08Speaker 1: of it. I think like fast, cheap and out of control.
- 19:11Speaker 1: I've talked about it before. Errol Morris's documentary sort of
- 19:13Speaker 1: did that, but that was about like studying naked mole
- 19:17Speaker 1: rats or lion taming or um what's it called when
- 19:21Speaker 1: you clip the hedges in diopiary gardening. But someone they
- 19:25Speaker 1: should do things that are even more like mundane, like
- 19:28Speaker 1: this dude that has dedicated as life to yawning. I
- 19:32Speaker 1: just think they'd be interesting, Like what drives provine? Figure
- 19:36Speaker 1: this out? When it really doesn't matter, you know what
- 19:38Speaker 1: I'm saying? Well, I don't know, because and it's not
- 19:40Speaker 1: just yawning. He he frequently is cited as a yawning expert.
- 19:44Speaker 1: He's an evolutionary biologist. Okay, so like, but yawning, since
- 19:48Speaker 1: it's involuntary, and since you find it in all vertebrates,
- 19:51Speaker 1: it kind of gives some peek into our evolutionary past. Plus,
- 19:56Speaker 1: he probably just loves a good mystery. Sure, he had
- 19:58Speaker 1: a great quote too. We were talking how arousal yawning
- 20:01Speaker 1: is a is a byproduct of a state of arousal.
- 20:04Speaker 1: He was saying that he believes that um, yawns and
- 20:09Speaker 1: orgasms share a neurobehavioral heritage. Yeah, so, like they're possibly
- 20:14Speaker 1: rooted in the same behavior. Like remember you said it yourself,
- 20:17Speaker 1: when you pendiculate feels good, same, you know with the orgasm. Yeah,
- 20:23Speaker 1: so I've heard those feel great, right, So possibly if
- 20:27Speaker 1: you trace the lineage of this behavior back far enough,
- 20:30Speaker 1: you'd see like, oh, they both came from when humans
- 20:34Speaker 1: juice to stub their toe. They thought it was awesome,
- 20:36Speaker 1: and then the things diverged into these two things interesting
- 20:40Speaker 1: into uh, yawning and what happens when you're in the
- 20:44Speaker 1: mood the Glenn Miller mood. Right, Ah, you got anything else? No, man,
- 20:50Speaker 1: that is yawning forever until somebody figures it out. It's
- 20:54Speaker 1: a mystery. Yeah, and I kind of like it like that,
- 20:57Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think it's it's so
- 21:00Speaker 1: amorphous that there's no no one has a clue. Like
- 21:03Speaker 1: sometimes we've talked about stuff that science couldn't fully explain,
- 21:06Speaker 1: but we almost always like pick a theory, like this
- 21:09Speaker 1: is the one. It just hasn't been proven yet, right,
- 21:13Speaker 1: this one. I don't feel like we did that, Like
- 21:14Speaker 1: we both like the brain cooling one, but it was
- 21:16Speaker 1: kind of discarded. Yeah, and I'm definitely gonna keep an
- 21:19Speaker 1: eye on my pets, um, But then I don't know
- 21:23Speaker 1: if like, can you induce that just by noticing more,
- 21:27Speaker 1: you know, you know what I'm saying, or maybe what
- 21:29Speaker 1: I'll do is I'll watch Emily around the pets so
- 21:32Speaker 1: no one's in on it. Just be careful, you don't
- 21:34Speaker 1: accidentally change their behavior just by observing it's Buckley farts
- 21:41Speaker 1: every time he stretches too. And see that's what I'm saying.
- 21:44Speaker 1: We'll see if Emily farts while she andiculates, right, that'll
- 21:48Speaker 1: be the death's nice. Um. So okay, I think if
- 21:52Speaker 1: you guys want to learn more about yawning, you can
- 21:55Speaker 1: type that word into the search bar at how stuff
- 21:57Speaker 1: works dot com. And since I said search part means
- 21:59Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. Uh, not quite yet, my friend.
- 22:03Speaker 1: We have a quick word from our sponsor again, and
- 22:05Speaker 1: then we will we have a great listener mail though
- 22:07Speaker 1: about Rodriguez. So oh yeah, yeah, okay, all right, so
- 22:11Speaker 1: this is a time for message break, okay, and no,
- 22:33Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. Huh yes, And I already
- 22:37Speaker 1: gave it away because I wanted people to stick around
- 22:39Speaker 1: for this and it is called I hang Out with Rodriguez.
- 22:43Speaker 1: So we mentioned Rodriguez, the singer songwriter from the sixties who,
- 22:49Speaker 1: unbeknownst to him, was a huge, huge hit in South America.
- 22:54Speaker 1: And no, South Africa, what did I say, South American?
- 22:58Speaker 1: It's such an idiot now South Africa. And then like
- 23:02Speaker 1: down there once on the left ones on the right
- 23:05Speaker 1: and then later in Australia and um so we covered
- 23:09Speaker 1: that in our Apartheide podcast and you can see the
- 23:11Speaker 1: documentary searching for Sugarman's Super Interesting. Which one best documentary
- 23:16Speaker 1: this year? Right? Yeah? Yeah? Have you seen How to
- 23:19Speaker 1: Survive a Plague? That was up for Best Picture too,
- 23:22Speaker 1: best Documentary? Yes, it was a good Yeah, it was
- 23:25Speaker 1: really good. Um it was. It's about the early gay
- 23:31Speaker 1: like AIDS awareness movement and like it's just what they
- 23:35Speaker 1: were up against. His mind boggling, you know, like that
- 23:38Speaker 1: society was just kind of like, no, God's punishing you.
- 23:41Speaker 1: Good luck with it, pal, jeez. Yeah, it was really something.
- 23:44Speaker 1: I saw our friends Steward of Superhuman Happiness. Who are
- 23:48Speaker 1: they're fans of the show. He scored the soundtrack. Oh nice,
- 23:51Speaker 1: he did a really good job with it too. You
- 23:53Speaker 1: want to check that out. Um. I saw another trailer
- 23:57Speaker 1: the other day for a documentary about this family of
- 24:00Speaker 1: Jews who hid in a underground for a year and
- 24:04Speaker 1: a half during World War Two and they never told
- 24:08Speaker 1: their story because they didn't think anyone believe it. In
- 24:11Speaker 1: this caving cave diver not cave diver, caving guy found
- 24:14Speaker 1: these human objects and traced them back to this family
- 24:18Speaker 1: and they came out like the surviving ones, like told
- 24:20Speaker 1: their story of his amazing it's called No Place on Earth,
- 24:27Speaker 1: and uh, it's coming out soon. It looks awesome. All right, Well,
- 24:30Speaker 1: there you go, everybody. We like to recommend documentaries around here. Okay, Rodriguez, guys.
- 24:35Speaker 1: It's so fun to hear you talk about Rodriguez because
- 24:37Speaker 1: I've known him a little bit here and there. I'm
- 24:39Speaker 1: glad he's getting recognition. And here's a story about the
- 24:42Speaker 1: first day I met him. September two thousand seven, I
- 24:45Speaker 1: moved into a one year old apartment building in the
- 24:49Speaker 1: Cast Corridor neighborhood of Detroit. It was a bar across
- 24:53Speaker 1: the street called the Bronx, and after getting moved in,
- 24:56Speaker 1: my boyfriend and I went over there, had a night
- 24:58Speaker 1: of celebrating and talking with some old and new friends.
- 25:00Speaker 1: Our friend Dale pointed out this dude wearing all black
- 25:03Speaker 1: with sunglasses on, said, you know, Rodriguez, that guy over
- 25:05Speaker 1: there is bigger than Elvis in South Africa and Australia.
- 25:09Speaker 1: I didn't understand the gravity of a statement at the time,
- 25:12Speaker 1: but being friendly people, we talked late into the night
- 25:14Speaker 1: with Dale and Rodriguez the bar clothes. We decided to
- 25:18Speaker 1: walk back across the street to our new apartment, and
- 25:20Speaker 1: Rodriguez followed us out with his guitar and toe. It's
- 25:23Speaker 1: very quiet out about three in the morning. The apartment
- 25:26Speaker 1: building was you shaped, with a big courtyard in the
- 25:28Speaker 1: middle and low lighting. It was really beautiful. There was
- 25:31Speaker 1: a single picnic table and we sat there on it,
- 25:33Speaker 1: talking more and more. Rodriguez pulled out a pint of brandy,
- 25:37Speaker 1: offered us some and then asked if we wanted to
- 25:38Speaker 1: hear his new song, saying he had just written it
- 25:40Speaker 1: the other day. He said sure because he seemed so
- 25:43Speaker 1: incredibly excited about it. He played the song for us
- 25:46Speaker 1: and played it again, which I thought was interesting. He
- 25:49Speaker 1: played it twice, So did you like that? You want
- 25:52Speaker 1: to hear it again? Wait before you answer, let me
- 25:54Speaker 1: play it a second time. Uh. And then we talked
- 25:57Speaker 1: some more about music and love and he played it
- 26:00Speaker 1: once again. No way, I guess he played it three times. Um.
- 26:03Speaker 1: I saw many many times over the next few years
- 26:05Speaker 1: and met his middle daughter as well. He'll played the
- 26:07Speaker 1: same song every time. But I'll never forget sitting under
- 26:10Speaker 1: the stag stars all alone with him in a majestic
- 26:14Speaker 1: old Detroit courtyard giving my boyfriend and me a private
- 26:16Speaker 1: concert of a single song. That's cool played Thrice in
- 26:19Speaker 1: passing the Cheap Brandy. He really is. It's kind and
- 26:23Speaker 1: happy of a soul, as the movie says, that's cool.
- 26:26Speaker 1: When you watch Churching for sugar Man, you can see
- 26:27Speaker 1: a couple of people talking to the Bronx bar and
- 26:30Speaker 1: even see my old apartment in the background. I hope
- 26:32Speaker 1: I see you guys soon, Love Julia. Well, thanks Julia.
- 26:38Speaker 1: Hat tipped to you for being aware of the word Thrice,
- 26:41Speaker 1: and for um, I guess waiting out the storm in Detroit. Yeah,
- 26:47Speaker 1: and for listening to that song three times like very
- 26:50Speaker 1: patient understanding with the smile plastered on your face the
- 26:53Speaker 1: last time, Like yeah, very cool memory, I imagine. Yeah. Um,
- 26:56Speaker 1: let's see if you have a story about any so
- 27:00Speaker 1: famous singer, songwriter, filmmaker. Anybody remember the guy who hung
- 27:05Speaker 1: out with Henry Hill and became like really disenchanted as
- 27:07Speaker 1: a result. Yeah, yeah, if you have a good story
- 27:10Speaker 1: like that, We're always in the move for a good yarn,
- 27:12Speaker 1: especially if it's true. You can tweet to us if
- 27:15Speaker 1: it's a really, really short story um to s y
- 27:18Speaker 1: s K podcast. That's our handle, the whole thing um.
- 27:21Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
- 27:24Speaker 1: you Should Know all one word. That's our Facebook page.
- 27:27Speaker 1: You can send us an email to stuff podcast at
- 27:29Speaker 1: how Stuffworks dot com and has always joined us at
- 27:32Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
- 27:37Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's
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- 27:44Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows