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What makes us yawn? · Stuff You Should Know

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