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Short Stuff: Schmidt Stinging Pain Index · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. But
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: he's here in spirit, so this is short stuff. So yeah,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I missed Dave. I missed Dave two. It's been a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: little while. I haven't seen his lovely, handsome face. I
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: have not seen another human being in two years. Oh
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: that's not true, it's been a while. You know. A
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: human being who I have never seen but wouldn't mind
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: seeing because he has a great mustache is a man
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: named Justin O. Schmidt. He seems like a stash guy. Oh,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: he's a big time stash guy from pictures. So I've
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: seen him in pictures. I've never seen him in real life.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: How about that? Yeah, he seems like a guy I
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: wanted to see, like if there were any interviews with
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: him on video, because he seems like quite a character
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you would have to be to come up with what
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: he did. Which is the Schmidt sting pain Index, which
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: is a scale that qualifies at Lee east and I
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: guess quantifies numerically the pain associated with the stings from
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: different insects. Right, so we've talked about the hot pepper chart,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I think we've talked about the regular pain chart, yeah,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: with the faces the faces, uh. And I think Schmidt
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: realized that there was they knew about like the damage
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a sting could cause, but like not the actual pain level.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah? And he was already he you know,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: he works with um, I'm not terrans bees, wasps and ants.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: He's an entomologist, we should probably say, um and he
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: was getting stung already, and he's like, well, I might
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: as well be the one to just go ahead and
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: start making something like this so that there is some
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: sort of index of how how painful these things are.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: And I think ultimately Chucky was trying to see if
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: there was a correlation between the amount of damage done
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in the amount of pain inflicted in a really and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: where was Dr Schmidt working at the time a home
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: of our national champion Georgia Bulldogs. That's right, feel so
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: good to say he was probably there not too long
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: after the last time they were national champions. Yeah, I
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: mean that was eighty and I think this was, yeah,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: eighty four is when he first published the first index.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: He's now at University of Arizona. No one in Georgia cares, Oh,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: come on go wildcats. Sure, I think that's wildcats, right, Yeah,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that's wildcats, Arizona State, the sun Devils. So, as the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: story goes, he was going back to his office at
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: U g A there on campus, probably north campus, where
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the science buildings are. I didn't go over there much.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Not very good looking part of campus, but that's where
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: those science buildings are. And you haven't been to Athens
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: in a while, right, it's been a while. You should
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: check it out. It's it's a you'll see people there too,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: so you can kill two birds with one stone. Okay, people,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen them in a while, that's right. So
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: he was coming back after a cross country road trip
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: with his wife, Debbie, who's a zoologist, and this is
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: when he put out his Schmidt. It was it's like
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: one of the few times you can name something after
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: yourself without like because of ego. You know, it's it's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: rather appropriate. He named it for himself, not just for
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: all of the pain he endured. He was stung at
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: least a thousand times by his estimate, while he cataloged
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: eighty three different species, but also like the personality he
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: he associated with the index too. It's not just like
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: A sweat bee is a one moving on like he
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: he had to describe what the pain was like or
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: else it's basically useless. Yeah, I think, I mean, we're
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: going to probably spend the rest of this episode talking
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: about this stuff and how brilliant he was in his descriptions. Right,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: should we do a couple of them before the breaker?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Should we break? I say, we break and then we
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: come back and just let him rip. All right, let's
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: do it go sweat bee. Sweat bee is a one.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's surprising that it's even a one.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: But sweat bees are little tiny bees that are attracted
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to human sweat, as you probably know, um, And they
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: don't sting very often. And I don't think we said chuck,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: umour doctor what? Yeah, we didn't say zero to four.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: It's a big one. But also Dr Schmidt didn't. He
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: rarely tried to get stumped. But I think sweat bees
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: might have been one of the ones that he basically
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: had to to make sting him but induced thank you,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: But he said that, Um, the sting is light, ephemeral,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: almost rudy, as if a tiny spark has singed a
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: single hair on your arm. It's like a nice peanut
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: garugio too exactly. People very frequently. Um uh compared this
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the Schmidt stinging pain index to like wine descriptions. I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: love it tasting notes. How about fire ants? The fire
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: ant you would think would be higher, but it's only
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a one. Uh and uh, you point out very astutely,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and we should thank a business insider um Atlas Obscura
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: terminics and science blogs for a lot of this stuff.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: But you point out that you know, it's a fire ant,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: not a thousand fire ants on your foot at once.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: That's a whole different jam. But even still, fire a
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: fire ant bite hurts. So the fact that it's one
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: is a really good reference point for all the ones
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: that come after that. Sure, yeah, I mean it's not
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a zero, so there is pain involved. And this is
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and of course you're not allergic obviously. Uh. If you're allergic,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: it's a whole different thing. But if you're not allergic,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: it's described as a sharp, sudden, mildly alarming sting, like
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch. Okay,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: so far, so good. I could handle those. Now we're
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: starting to get into where, like I just don't want
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to have anything to do with these things. Like starting
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: with the bald face hornet, that's a two. That's a two.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: And the way that Schmidt described it also apparently the
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: bald face hornets sting will keep going for about five minutes.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure those five minutes seem a lot longer
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: than actual five minutes. But he said that, um, that
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: this sting is like rich, hearty, slightly crunchy, So well, yeah,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that's exactly right. What would that mean? So he goes
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: on to describe it as similar to getting your handmashed
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: in a revolving door, and all of a sudden it
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: does kind of like take more shape, doesn't it sort of?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: And he had to do that because a bald face
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: hornet is a two, a yellow jacket is a two.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: But he points out like their stings are much much different.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: They feel the pain associated with them feels much different. Yeah,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: because the yellow jack it can go on for about
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: ten minutes, give or take a minute or two, and
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: it described as hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. Sorry, uh, there's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: also something I need to point out and I know
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I've talked before about the time I was stung eleven
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: times in the face and neck when I came upon
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: a yellow jacket nest camping. They they hurt according to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: how deep the stinger was. So the far and away
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the worst one and the longest lasting, was the hardest
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to get out. It was almost fully buried in that
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: little uh is it the orable bone right under your eyebrow?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: And it was, it was almost completely in there, and
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I barely got it out. And that one throbbed and
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: hurt for way longer than ten minutes. Why did you
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: do that? Why did I do what? Why did you
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: get stung by eleven yellow jacket? I didn't do it
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: on purpose. Man, Were you like going after their honey
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: or something. No, we were just we were going down
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the side of a mountain toward a river, and you know,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: they had their nests in the ground, and we just
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: disturbed it. And we got down to the river and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden they we were swarmed. And I
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: probably ran a mile through the woods, and they were
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: probably not a mile, it felt like a mile half
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a mile, and they were still coming after us. Like
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: we stopped and like here come eight or ten of
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: them still after us angry angry yellow jackets. I should
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: probably also point out to Chuck that I know that
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: their yellow yellow jackets are wasps and wouldn't make honey.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I was joking, right, How about red harvest ants. Have
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you ever been stung by one of those? No, that's
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: a three though, That's that's getting on up there. Yeah,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: well you could have though, because you lived in human
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and they're found in New Mexico in Arizona. But they
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: they can inflame your your nerves for hours. It says, yes,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: your ingrown tone all. Actually, I had a descriptor that
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I always said for years about the one in my
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: eyebrow was it felt like someone had a thumb tack
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: stuck on that bone and they were just tapping it
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: with a little ball peen hammer. So I guess I
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: get kind of identified more than I thought I did
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: with weird descriptions. Man, that sounds so terrible. I'm glad
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: you made it. Yes, the paper wasp is next. The
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: most pain I've ever seen my daughter in was this
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: past summer when she got nailed by a wasp. Awful.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: It's a three point oh, she screamed, like I've never
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: heard before, and I felt so terrible. The good news
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: is it's only about fifteen minutes and then it completely
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: went away. Um and the pain. And this is actually
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: what she said. She said, it's caustic and burning, with
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a distinctly bitter aftertaste, like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: acid on a paper cut. That's crazy. So she's she's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: read Schmidt's book. No, I think she just improved it.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that's really good description. Maybe Schmidt
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: was astra projecting at that moment and happened to find
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: his way. I'm not. I'm fifty. I've never been stung
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: by a wasp. You better knock on wood, buddy. Although
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the wasp, yeah, true, but before that eleven and trust me,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I paid for it with that eleven. But I had
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: only been stung maybe a couple of times in my life. Really,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I haven't been stung much. He's been stung like four
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: times already, and she's six and a half. Wow. We yeah,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I think that has me beat to what's your worst?
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I don't remember. I've kind of blocked it out. And
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I think about it, but probably be yellow jacket. I
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: think it was a yellow jacket as well, their ground dwelling, right, well,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: yeah these were in the ground. Yeah, it's exclusively in
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the ground. But yes, I've been stung by a yellow
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: jacket and it is not pleasant at all because they
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: just the wasps look painful. They do. You me found
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: this one, Um, I want to say it's a tarantula wasp,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: but I don't know if it is or not. But
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it was purple and orange and it looks just mean,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. And she was like that,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I that looks like something that shouldn't be near momo.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: So she got away and then she went and looked
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: it up, and yes, it turns out it has one
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of the most painful stings on the planet. It actually
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: is a four I believe, which would make it tied
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: with the bullet ant, which um Schmidt apparently says is
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: it's a four because that's all the scale goes up to.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: But it's actually like off the charts painful. Yeah, it's
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: listed as four plus Central and South American ant big
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and black and uh twelve hour pain, pure intense, brilliant pain,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: like firewalking over flaming charcoal with a three inch rusty
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: nail in your heel man. Yeah, yeah, I've I've heard
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: that there's videos of people purposely getting stung by a
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: bullet ant on if you want to see that. Yeah,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: there's like a whole group of people who like go
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: around using the Schmidt Stinging Pain Index and purposely get
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: stungs and make videos of it, just to see what
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: it's like. Write it out. Um, you got anything else?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else? Okay, well that's it for short Stuff.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Everybody steer clear stinging insects. But if you ever do
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: get stung by one, check it out on the Schmidt
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Stinging Pain Index and see if he's right and short
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production
• 12:37
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• 12:40
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• 12:43
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