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Mummy Dearest · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Her name was Sin, but
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  Speaker 1: she's now known to many as Lady Dy. Born around
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  Speaker 1: two b c. Lady Dye was an important figure during
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  Speaker 1: the Han dynasty. She had an eye for the finer
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  Speaker 1: things in life and was considered one of the social elite.
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  Speaker 1: She wore mostly silk clothing and cosmetics such as blush
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  Speaker 1: and powders to show off her wealth. Her lavish parties
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  Speaker 1: were catered with foods and wines only ever tasted by
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  Speaker 1: the royal family and the ruling class. She also entertained
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  Speaker 1: her guest with performances by musicians who played only for her,
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  Speaker 1: and when she wasn't hosting elaborate gatherings, Lady Dye could
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  Speaker 1: be found playing the guchin, an instrument typically studied by
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  Speaker 1: the upper crust of Chinese society. Unfortunately, for all the
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  Speaker 1: whining and dining she did, Lady Dye didn't get around much.
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  Speaker 1: It was her stationary lifestyle that most likely contributed to
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  Speaker 1: her premature death. It's believed that at the age of fifty,
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  Speaker 1: she suffered a heart attack brought on by a high
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  Speaker 1: cholesterol diet. Her body was interred alongside her late husband
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  Speaker 1: and eventually her son, in tombs deep underground. Buried with
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  Speaker 1: her were clothing, boxes of makeup, musical instruments, eating utensils,
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  Speaker 1: and other personal items. However, it wasn't Lady dys life
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  Speaker 1: that proved to be that interesting based on what we
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  Speaker 1: know today. She lived like many of her peers and
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  Speaker 1: died young, her lifestyle proving a little too rich in
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  Speaker 1: more ways than one. It wasn't until over two thousand
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  Speaker 1: years later in n that we learned about one thing
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  Speaker 1: that set Lady Die apart from everyone else. As mouse
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  Speaker 1: Doong spread fear across China a vague threats from a
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  Speaker 1: capitalist nation, meaning the United States, citizens all over the
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  Speaker 1: country started digging bomb shelters beneath their homes, which is
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  Speaker 1: why workers at a hospital in the capital of the
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  Speaker 1: Hunan province had begun digging into the side of a
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  Speaker 1: nearby hill. They had only dug about one feet down
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  Speaker 1: before stopping for a smoke break. What they didn't know
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  Speaker 1: was that just on the other side of the dirt
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  Speaker 1: was an open shaft leaking a flammable gas right behind them.
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  Speaker 1: They lit their cigarettes, which in turn ignited the air
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  Speaker 1: and dazzling bursts of blue fire. A team of archaeologists
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  Speaker 1: were called in to examine the scene, but the level
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  Speaker 1: of funding needed for a full investigation could not be procured,
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  Speaker 1: so they reached out for help to an unlikely source,
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  Speaker 1: local high school students. Teens volunteered to dig and sift
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  Speaker 1: as they worked their way down fifty feet of clay
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  Speaker 1: into a series of cavernous tombs. Each of the three
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  Speaker 1: noble corpses occupied their own tomb, but it was Lady
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  Speaker 1: Dyes that proved to be the most extraordinary. In its
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  Speaker 1: center stood a coffin painted black, a color signifying death.
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  Speaker 1: Within that coffin were three others nested, one inside the other,
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  Speaker 1: painted in different color schemes to depict the journey to
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  Speaker 1: the afterlife. They had been adorned with images of clouds, animals,
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  Speaker 1: and important places designed to tell a story of life, death,
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  Speaker 1: and rebirth. It was inside the fourth and smallest coffin
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  Speaker 1: where archaeologists made their most important discovery. Up until then,
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  Speaker 1: the mummies discovered in places such as Egypt had experienced
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  Speaker 1: significant levels of decay. Even with no exposure to the
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  Speaker 1: sun or the elements, their bodies had been desiccated into
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  Speaker 1: little more than dry skin on brittle bones. Lady Die, however,
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  Speaker 1: was a sight to behold. Her skin was soft and pale,
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  Speaker 1: with a presence of moisture. Her arms and legs could
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  Speaker 1: still bend at the joints, and none of her organs
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  Speaker 1: had deteriorated. Even her hair and eyelashes had remained in place,
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  Speaker 1: and there were traced amounts of red blood in her veins.
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  Speaker 1: An autopsy was performed, the results of which gave doctors
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  Speaker 1: deep insight into how she might have lived when she
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  Speaker 1: was still alive. They even found the vagus nerve, which
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  Speaker 1: is as thin as a hair and controls the expansion
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  Speaker 1: and constriction of the lungs. It often disintegrates with other
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  Speaker 1: body tissue as the body decays, but it was still
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  Speaker 1: present in Lady Dye. We know more about the Han
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  Speaker 1: dynasty today than we ever had before. All thanks to
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  Speaker 1: Lady Die. Her near perfectly preserved corpse, as well as
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  Speaker 1: the array of items found inside her tomb, have shed
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  Speaker 1: a light on an era of China's story, long thought
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  Speaker 1: lost forever and there may still be more to learn,
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  Speaker 1: either from her or the other tombs still hidden beneath
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  Speaker 1: the streets. It seems the ancient Chinese understood that the
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  Speaker 1: preservation of their dead was just as important as the
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  Speaker 1: preservation of their history. Sometimes we just have to dig
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  Speaker 1: a little deeper to find it. It's been said that
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  Speaker 1: the eyes are the window to the soul, though I'm
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  Speaker 1: willing to bet the eyes are more like windows in
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  Speaker 1: more ways than One look through a warped one and
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  Speaker 1: you're liable to see strange shapes or mismatched colors, or
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  Speaker 1: you might not see color at all. The way the
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  Speaker 1: eyes perceive light significantly affects how one sees the world.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, entire swaths of the Internet have waged war
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  Speaker 1: over the color of one particular dress, a gold dress. However,
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  Speaker 1: there is a condition of the eye that doesn't affect
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  Speaker 1: how we see color, and it's a bit more complicated.
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  Speaker 1: It's called stereo blindness, and it affects three to five
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  Speaker 1: percent of the population. People diagnosed with stereo blindness or
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  Speaker 1: unable to accurately determine the depth perception of objects. A
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  Speaker 1: forest of trees might look like one flat panel of
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  Speaker 1: green and brown, someone might knock over a bottle of
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  Speaker 1: soda on the table, not realizing it's six inches away
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  Speaker 1: rather than two feet. Neurobiologist and professor Susan Barry, also
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  Speaker 1: known as Stereo sus, suffered from stereo blindness in the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifties when she was only a few months old.
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  Speaker 1: During the first several years of her life, she underwent
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  Speaker 1: a number of operations to attempt to realign her eyes. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: they didn't have the intended effect, and she still had
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  Speaker 1: trouble reading road signs at a distance or seeing hands
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  Speaker 1: raised at the back of her classroom. Years later, she
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  Speaker 1: worked with a vision therapist who would help her achieve
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  Speaker 1: true stereoscopic vision. Bruce Bridgeman was another such person plagued
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  Speaker 1: by stereo blindness, and his story is somewhat stranger than Sue's.
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  Speaker 1: Born in nine, Bruce had always been a three dimensional
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  Speaker 1: person living in a two dimensional world. Doctors examined him
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  Speaker 1: from a very young age, and while the idea of
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  Speaker 1: surgery had been considered, his parents decided not to pursue it.
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  Speaker 1: They let nature take its course, and Bruce lived a
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  Speaker 1: perfectly normal, if a bit flattened life. You see, while
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  Speaker 1: most people's eyes point forward, thus allowing them to perceive
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  Speaker 1: depth and distance. Bruce suffered from a condition called exotropic strabismus,
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  Speaker 1: also known as lazy eye, except instead of only affecting
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  Speaker 1: one of his eyes, both of them pointed outward, hindering
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  Speaker 1: his vision. Like Sue, Bruce was also a neuroscientist and
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  Speaker 1: had studied his own vision since the nineteen eighties. He
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  Speaker 1: noticed how freeway signs were unreadable until he had already
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  Speaker 1: passed their exits, and how other people had trouble understanding
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  Speaker 1: of he was looking at them or not during a conversation.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't until two thousand twelve when Bruce got a
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  Speaker 1: whole new perspective on life. Literally. He and his wife
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  Speaker 1: decided to go see the new Martin Scorsese film Hugo,
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  Speaker 1: which was being shown in three D at the local theater.
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  Speaker 1: As the movie started rolling, Bruce slipped on his pair
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  Speaker 1: of three D glasses and marveled at how everything on
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  Speaker 1: screen seemed to jump out at him. He was able
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  Speaker 1: to determine the depth between characters and scenery for the
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  Speaker 1: first time in his life. He never experienced a film
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  Speaker 1: this way before, and for two hours he felt like
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  Speaker 1: everyone else. When the movie ended, Bruce removed his three
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  Speaker 1: D glasses, expecting to re enter that flat, two dimensional
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  Speaker 1: world that he'd left behind earlier. Instead, he noticed how
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  Speaker 1: things were a little brighter. There was a lamp post
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  Speaker 1: across the street. And I'll say that again if it
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  Speaker 1: didn't sink in, there was a lamp post across the street.
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  Speaker 1: Hours before, there had been no such thing as across
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  Speaker 1: the streets in Bruce's world. Now, scientifically speaking, there's no
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  Speaker 1: official proof as to what really happened to Bruce's vision,
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  Speaker 1: but the working theory is that the three D film
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  Speaker 1: jump started his visual system somehow. It realigned his eyes,
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  Speaker 1: allowing him to perceive depth. And while what happened to
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  Speaker 1: Bruce isn't something that can fix everyone facing stereo blindness,
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  Speaker 1: under his specific circumstances, it worked like a charm. Despite
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  Speaker 1: the apparent movie theater miracle, though there's still a lot
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  Speaker 1: more work to do. Bruce continues to train his eyes
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  Speaker 1: and improve his stereo vision. So while the film didn't
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  Speaker 1: entirely cure him, it's obvious that the effects of three
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  Speaker 1: D technology made all world of difference. I guess you
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  Speaker 1: could say it was worth the price of admission. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.