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Danger, Will Robinson · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: The world is full of danger. That much is undeniable.
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  Speaker 1: Some human beings are actually drawn to risk, skydiving, free climbing,
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  Speaker 1: chasing tornadoes. The list goes on and on. There's an
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  Speaker 1: excitement to putting yourself at risk, an adrenaline joke that
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  Speaker 1: reminds someone of what it's like to be alive. And then,
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  Speaker 1: of course, there are people who feel the opposite impulse
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  Speaker 1: to minimize risk at every opportunity, unity, to whom the
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  Speaker 1: simple act of leaving the house is a decision fraught
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  Speaker 1: with considerations. What either category of person might not understand, though,
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  Speaker 1: is that we have tools to measure danger that are
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  Speaker 1: extremely specific. Just like how we measure earthquake intensity or
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  Speaker 1: measure radioactivity, there are also tools that have been developed
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  Speaker 1: specifically to measure general peril. One such tool is known
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  Speaker 1: as the Duckworth Scale. Frank Duckworth began his career as
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  Speaker 1: a scientist in the nuclear power industry, but that's not
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  Speaker 1: where his passions lay. His passions were in statistics. After
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  Speaker 1: the Chernobyl disaster in the mid nineteen eighties, he devised
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  Speaker 1: a scale for measuring this sort of catastrophe, officially called
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  Speaker 1: the International Nuclear Event Scale. This measures nuclear disasters on
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  Speaker 1: a scale of one to seven, one being an anomaly
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  Speaker 1: and seven being a major accident. Now, the purpose of
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  Speaker 1: the scale was actually to calibrate media response and to
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  Speaker 1: help prevent news outlets from overreacting should a minor anomaly occur.
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  Speaker 1: He took early retirement in nineteen ninety two, but he
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  Speaker 1: would continue to develop formulas to apply statistics to everyday life.
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  Speaker 1: As a side note, five years later, in nineteen ninety seven,
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  Speaker 1: he would become famous for co developing the Duckworth Lewis method,
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  Speaker 1: a mathematical formula to calculate ideal cricket scores. It's still
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  Speaker 1: used today by cricket statisticians. But after cricket, he began
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  Speaker 1: to turn his mathematical skills to something a bit more universal,
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  Speaker 1: risk assessment. Using data taken from the British Medical Journal
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  Speaker 1: the man who developed the criterion for nuclear disaster severity,
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  Speaker 1: developed the scale of his own for measuring general danger.
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  Speaker 1: Similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes. The Duckworth scale
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  Speaker 1: is logarithmic in nature, essentially a scale based on orders
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  Speaker 1: of magnitude. The Duckworth scale measures a given activity over
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  Speaker 1: time and how likely it'll be to cause death. The
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  Speaker 1: scale measures each activity from a zero to an eight.
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  Speaker 1: For instance, Russian roulette with six bullets is an as
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  Speaker 1: on the Duckworth scale, meaning certain death. A train journey
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  Speaker 1: of one hundred miles lands very low on the scale
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  Speaker 1: at a point three. This leads to some curious statistical oddities, though,
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  Speaker 1: like the fact that vacuum cleaning and washing up carries
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  Speaker 1: a higher Duckworth's scale number five point five than the
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  Speaker 1: average risk of getting murdered four point six. So what
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  Speaker 1: do we do with these numbers now that we have them? Well,
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  Speaker 1: humans are pattern seeking creatures, but we aren't earthquakes. After all,
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  Speaker 1: the usefulness of this scale has likely faded over time.
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  Speaker 1: After all, the statistics that doctor Duckworth pulled from likely
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  Speaker 1: aren't still accurate over twenty five years later. They're mostly
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  Speaker 1: useful as a reminder, human beings are more than just
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  Speaker 1: statistics of their most common activities. And while you could
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  Speaker 1: become intimidated by the high numbers of smoking cigarettes or
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  Speaker 1: a lifetime of rock climbing six point nine and six
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  Speaker 1: point three, respectively, these numbers provide more than just reasons
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  Speaker 1: to never leave your house. After all, it can be
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  Speaker 1: strangely comforting to see how low certain activities. A flight
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  Speaker 1: of over one hundred miles ranks at a mere one
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  Speaker 1: point seven lower than driving the same distance, or even
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  Speaker 1: lower than taking an average fairground ride, which scores a
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  Speaker 1: solid two point zho. And look, people die every day,
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  Speaker 1: and they are always doing something when they pass away,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's something as mundane is going for a walk,
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  Speaker 1: or as thrilling as deep sea diving. The Duckworth scale
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  Speaker 1: shows us that the possibilities are nearly endless, not just
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  Speaker 1: in how people die, but in how people live. And
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  Speaker 1: as always, it's much more curious to be a statistical anomaly.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine it's a sweltering summer day in the Victorian English countryside.
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  Speaker 1: The air is hot and heavy, the bees are buzzing
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  Speaker 1: in the heather, and you're sweating through your petticoats. Today
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  Speaker 1: to cool down, you might reach for a tall, cool
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  Speaker 1: glode of water. Back then, it was much the same.
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  Speaker 1: The only difference there was the ice, specifically where the
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  Speaker 1: ice came from. It wasn't like the Victorians could reach
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  Speaker 1: into their ice maker and grab a few cubes instead.
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  Speaker 1: Back then, ice was big business, and in the days
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  Speaker 1: before refrigeration, most of the ice that chilled drinks and
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  Speaker 1: preserve food from England to Australia all came from one
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  Speaker 1: single lake. Before the early eighteen forties, ice was a
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  Speaker 1: family affair across the United States and in England. When
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  Speaker 1: local streams and ponds froze in the winter, people would
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  Speaker 1: harvest ice from them and store it in special ice
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  Speaker 1: houses packed in salt and straw. The ice would mostly
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  Speaker 1: last until summer, when it was used to keep food
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  Speaker 1: from spoiling in the heat. However, this hyper local way
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  Speaker 1: of harvesting ice really only benefited the people who lived
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  Speaker 1: near the source, and the quality of the ice depended
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  Speaker 1: on the lake or the stream that it was harvested from.
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  Speaker 1: Some bodies of water weren't exactly the cleanest, which could
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  Speaker 1: cause problems as the contaminated ice melted and then got
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  Speaker 1: into the food. Seeing an opportunity. Some ice companies sprang
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  Speaker 1: up shipping their frozen goods to other countries, but the
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  Speaker 1: ice business really didn't take off until eighteen forty two,
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  Speaker 1: when two guys, Charles Lander and Henry Ropes, launched the
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  Speaker 1: Wenham Lake Ice Company. Wenham Lake is a stream fed
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  Speaker 1: body of water in northeastern Massachusetts. The ice produced by
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  Speaker 1: the lake in the winter was so pure it was
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  Speaker 1: thought to be able to last in high temperatures without melting.
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  Speaker 1: With the lake's location close to the port of Boston,
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  Speaker 1: Ropes and Landers saw an opportunity, so in eighteen forty
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  Speaker 1: two they started building an ice empire. They crafted state
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  Speaker 1: of the art ice houses and their own personal railroad
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  Speaker 1: all to ferry those frosty blocks back and forth. And
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  Speaker 1: when they launched their first ice ship into the sea,
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  Speaker 1: they struck the jackpot. Sure, they lost a good portion
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  Speaker 1: of their inventory along the way, but when the rest
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  Speaker 1: of it reached England, France, and even Australia, the cold
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  Speaker 1: cargo sold like hotcakes. Now part of this was branding.
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  Speaker 1: Wenham Lake Ice built itself as pure while it insinuated
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  Speaker 1: local British ice was dirty. The company had a display
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  Speaker 1: in a London Street merchant's window with a two foot
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  Speaker 1: solid block of ice sitting in front of a newspaper.
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  Speaker 1: The ice was so clear that shoppers could read the
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  Speaker 1: newsprint right through it. Local ice just couldn't compete. Within
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  Speaker 1: a few short years, ice went from a finite local
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  Speaker 1: luxury to a widespread necessity. It was used in hospitals
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  Speaker 1: to keep milk from spoiling and to treat sunstroke. Butchers
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  Speaker 1: and fishmongers used it to preserve their wares. Brewers used
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  Speaker 1: it to make their beer, and it became a core
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  Speaker 1: part of the home as well. People began putting ice
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  Speaker 1: in drinks to cool them and using ice boxes to
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  Speaker 1: keep butter and milk fresh. They began making iced desserts,
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  Speaker 1: churning Wenham Lake ice with cream and sugar to make
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  Speaker 1: ice cream, pudding, custard, and all sorts of frozen delicacies.
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  Speaker 1: Ice wasn't just cool, it was a way of life,
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  Speaker 1: and Wenham Lake was the ultimate name and luxury ice.
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  Speaker 1: Queen Victoria even awarded the company a royal warrant to
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  Speaker 1: supply ice to the palace. Of course, it wasn't long
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  Speaker 1: before other companies tried to get in on the action.
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  Speaker 1: While Wenham Lake ice was seen as the highest quality.
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  Speaker 1: People also imported ice from other places in Boston and
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  Speaker 1: from Norway, which led to a curious phenomenon. To get
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  Speaker 1: in on the luxury ice market share, one company in
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  Speaker 1: Norway did something drastic. They renamed Opaguard Lake near Oslo
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  Speaker 1: to Lake Wenham so that they could export their own
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  Speaker 1: Wenham Lake ice. Ice continued to be big business through
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  Speaker 1: most of the Victorian era, with Wenham Lake and Boston
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  Speaker 1: area ice seen as the best, but it finally came
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  Speaker 1: to a halt with the rise of a new technology.
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  Speaker 1: Beginning in the eighteen fifties, several different commercial methods for
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  Speaker 1: creating ice took off. While people were still buying natural ice,
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  Speaker 1: mass produced ice slowly became the main market. By nineteen thirteen,
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  Speaker 1: the home refrigerator had been invented, and by the late
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties it was popular enough that nearly everyone can
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  Speaker 1: make ice in their own homes. Wennam Lake's name may
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  Speaker 1: have melted into history, but the story of the Victorian's
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  Speaker 1: favorite ice remains refreshingly cool. I hope you've enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities subscribe for free
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  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
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  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
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  Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
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  Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.