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10 Accidental Inventions: By the Numbers · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
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Speaker 1: And since we're here together, you can't see us, but
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Speaker 1: we are here. Don't be so solipsistic. Thanks. Did I
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Speaker 1: get that all right? I think so? Okay, Um, it's
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Speaker 1: a stuff you should know. But yeah, here we are. Um,
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Speaker 1: how are you doing? I'm great? Oh, I'm glad. I
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Speaker 1: like these little top tens. I think they're a nice
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Speaker 1: digestible light form of Hey, I'm gonna tell a couple
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Speaker 1: of these at the next dinner party. I throw. Yes,
0:52
Speaker 1: they're like or dervs. Yeah exactly. They're like, um, pigs
0:57
Speaker 1: in a blanket. Yeah, oh good hum it, pigs in
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Speaker 1: a planket. They're like cocktail wheaties in that particular barbecue
1:04
Speaker 1: catch up mixture that stuff. I um, yeah, they're all
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Speaker 1: that and more chunk. That's right, I've got one for you.
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Speaker 1: We're talking about ten accidental inventions. Um, and I know
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Speaker 1: we've talked about this a lot, but I think it
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Speaker 1: bears repeating the accidental discovery of LSD of acid. Yeah,
1:26
Speaker 1: probably one of the funniest things that's ever happened to
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Speaker 1: a chemist ever. Ye. Sure, Alb Alb Hoffman back in
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Speaker 1: the I think, started working at Sandos Pharmaceuticals in Switzerland,
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Speaker 1: and he decided, who's going to get to the bottom
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Speaker 1: of air got? And air got is it's a mold.
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Speaker 1: I believe our fungus I'm sorry that grows on rye
1:48
Speaker 1: in particular um and has long been known to like
1:51
Speaker 1: make people do crazy weird stuff. And they think that
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Speaker 1: maybe the Salem witch trials were the result of air
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Speaker 1: got poisoning. Sure, or the Enlightenment was a result of
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Speaker 1: got poison It's possible at quote unquote poisoning, right, Eric
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Speaker 1: got um craziness. Uh. And Albie Hoffman was trying to
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Speaker 1: um go like Alb, Yeah, he's dead, he can't hear okay. Uh.
2:16
Speaker 1: He was trying to figure out, you know what what
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Speaker 1: you can do with us. He's been studying it for
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Speaker 1: a while and he came up with lysergic acid, dicyltamide
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Speaker 1: and um. He made several attempts at it and on
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Speaker 1: his derivative LSD. He got some honest hands, I guess
2:32
Speaker 1: ingested it somehow fingertips. So he he has it on
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Speaker 1: his fingers and he goes home to lay down. He
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Speaker 1: starts seeing like fractals and colors in a kaleidoscope, and um,
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Speaker 1: the interested him, I guess you could say. So he
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Speaker 1: started researching heavily, like injecting it and getting bike rides
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Speaker 1: to him, his assistant and all that stuff. He took
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Speaker 1: it on. He took it on accident, and then three
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Speaker 1: days later he was like, maybe I should try that
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Speaker 1: for real, and then he got to ride home on
3:00
Speaker 1: a bike from his assistant in April. Sixt Is now
3:04
Speaker 1: referred to his bicycle day about those hippies and one
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Speaker 1: of his quotes that I thought was really great when
3:10
Speaker 1: he first described it, he said it was quote a
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Speaker 1: not unpleasant, intoxicated like state. And that was on the
3:18
Speaker 1: first time. Apparently by the bicycle trip got a little harry.
3:21
Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, But then you know he passed through
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Speaker 1: that wave into the wave of not unpleasant once again. Right,
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Speaker 1: So he would say it was an accidental discovery of
3:36
Speaker 1: the nature of the psychedelic nature, and he said we
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Speaker 1: should start using this stuff for like medicine. Yeah, well
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Speaker 1: the hippies had other ideas. Yes. He ultimately referred to
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Speaker 1: um LSD as his problem child. He wrote a book
3:51
Speaker 1: called My Problem Child in I think it was kind
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Speaker 1: of one of those ones where it's like, you're my
3:56
Speaker 1: problem child. Come here, here's some money. He wrote that
3:59
Speaker 1: eight Why I believe so? Boy, I didn't realize he
4:02
Speaker 1: lived that long. That's pretty cool. Yeah, he was an
4:04
Speaker 1: old guy. Well, I mean he he drank a tablespoon
4:08
Speaker 1: of LSD every day and that's what gave him his longevity.
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Speaker 1: I think. Uh so that's number one, right, or that's
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Speaker 1: actually number ten. That was the intro. Well it counts.
4:18
Speaker 1: I don't think it should count. So you got another
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Speaker 1: one then an extra? Yeah, I'll just make it up.
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Speaker 1: Is apparently is what we do, uh, Josh. Number nine
4:27
Speaker 1: corn Flakes is fictionalized in the TC boiled book The
4:32
Speaker 1: Road to Wellville? Was that a TC boiled book? Yeah?
4:35
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. He's great. Uh did you see
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Speaker 1: the movie? Uh? Yeah, I've not seen the movie or
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Speaker 1: read the book. Yeah, Matthew Broderick, Anthony Hopkins, it was good.
4:46
Speaker 1: I've been the Battle Creek before that. Oh you really have?
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Speaker 1: When and that's the home of cereals, right Kellogg series
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Speaker 1: basically Kellogg's Cereal Here we go. Uh, Will Keith Kellogg,
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Speaker 1: he was um interested in medicine, and he was working
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Speaker 1: as a doctor at the Battle Creek Sanitarium with his
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Speaker 1: brother helping him out with and this is in the movie,
5:06
Speaker 1: you know, like with their diets. He was trying out
5:08
Speaker 1: sorts of weird treat huge on enemies. He also discovered,
5:13
Speaker 1: uh or created the first acidophilis soy milk. Oh really yeah,
5:18
Speaker 1: and some sort of meat alternative that ultimately led something
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Speaker 1: to something like American tofu or something. Yeah. Boy, what
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Speaker 1: a genius. Uh. And he is responsible, by accident for
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Speaker 1: corn flakes. Oh, Will was, and I'm sorry John Harvey,
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Speaker 1: his brother was responsible for those two things. Well it
5:35
Speaker 1: runs in the family. Yeah. Um. He was making bread
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Speaker 1: one day at the old sanitarium there in Battle Creek. Uh.
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Speaker 1: He left a boiled wheat sitting out for a little
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Speaker 1: too long. He came back and he rolled into the
5:46
Speaker 1: dough and it became flaky, which is not what he
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Speaker 1: was looking for. But he was like, you know what,
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Speaker 1: I thought this in the oven anyway, Let's see what
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Speaker 1: happens and it baked these little flakes that the patients
5:56
Speaker 1: he were like, boy, these are delicious. We should pour
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Speaker 1: some milk over this stuff and cut a banana into
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Speaker 1: it and put it in a box. Can we get
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Speaker 1: some freez dride strawberries added? Exactly? And uh, eventually he
6:08
Speaker 1: tinkered with it and switched it over to corn as
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Speaker 1: the main ingredients of wheat, and uh, that was corn flakes,
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Speaker 1: my friend, That's how I took off what's he added
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Speaker 1: or used corn? I'm sure it was kind of like,
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Speaker 1: this isn't good, but what is this? Wheat easies are terrible? Yeah, exactly,
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Speaker 1: And then he tried it with corn and they were like, oh,
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Speaker 1: that's really good. And that formed the Battle Creak Toasted
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Speaker 1: corn Flakes Company, which eventually became Kellogg's Accidental series. Whenever
6:37
Speaker 1: he came up with the Battle Creak Toasted corn Flakes
6:40
Speaker 1: Company name, you know he's wearing spats that that name
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Speaker 1: just like scream spat. What are spats of those the
6:47
Speaker 1: little white covers that go over your shoes like Mr
6:50
Speaker 1: Monopoly orbs are still learning that terrible movie as Yeah, Oscar,
6:55
Speaker 1: I thought spats might have been the little sock leggings
6:59
Speaker 1: but those are probably just eld soccer looking. I think
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Speaker 1: those are called sends or garters. We should bring that back. No, No,
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Speaker 1: let's die out for a good reason, all right, moving on?
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Speaker 1: Or do you have any other Kellogg's facts. I have
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Speaker 1: neither Kellogg's facts nor any more spats jokes, So I
7:18
Speaker 1: think we should go on because this next one is
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Speaker 1: dyno might damn names for the Greek Greek route meaning
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Speaker 1: connected with power. Um. Alfred Nobel, Swedish scientists, accidentally discovered dynamite.
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Speaker 1: Uh when he was working on basically with nitroglycer and
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Speaker 1: he's working on explosives trying to make it stable. Well,
7:41
Speaker 1: his father built mines. Oh is that how that started?
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Speaker 1: And you built minds using explosives, specifically nitroglycer But back
7:48
Speaker 1: then it was kind of like, okay, eighty people died
7:51
Speaker 1: because this nitroglycerin just exploded because someone looked at it wrong. Yeah. Well,
7:54
Speaker 1: because we have it in a jar in the back
7:56
Speaker 1: of a horse guard, right, that's part of the problem too.
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Speaker 1: But um, he law the brother and three other people
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Speaker 1: UM at his lab in Stockholm when he was trying
8:04
Speaker 1: to figure out how to stabilize it. Um. But he
8:08
Speaker 1: kept with it, uh, And so in the article it
8:12
Speaker 1: says that he was transporting it and saw it packed
8:14
Speaker 1: in the stuff this mud that we like to call
8:18
Speaker 1: keisel ger, right, but I read it elsewhere that it
8:23
Speaker 1: wasn't that. Ultimately, he came up with using Keiselger that
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Speaker 1: he dropped it and sawdust. He thought he was going
8:31
Speaker 1: to die as he watched this vile fall nitroglyists and
8:35
Speaker 1: fall out of his hand, but it landed on sawdustin
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Speaker 1: was absorbed and he went hot. That's weird. So then
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Speaker 1: he started if you mixed it within a nert material um,
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Speaker 1: you could conceivably blast it by adding a fuse to it.
8:51
Speaker 1: He finally came up with keisel Ger, which is like
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Speaker 1: this kind of it's like sedimentary mud, right, yeah, it's
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Speaker 1: like it's real powdery. It's a domination of crust, fossil,
9:01
Speaker 1: crushed fossil and marine life. Gotch like. It's what they use. Actually,
9:06
Speaker 1: you'll probably see that it's what they use on film
9:07
Speaker 1: sets when they want to make stuff look dirty, because
9:11
Speaker 1: it's just like super light and powdery and makes it
9:13
Speaker 1: look really super dirty. Kilger. Ye. Well, he also that
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Speaker 1: would be something he figured out how to stabilize nitroglycering
9:21
Speaker 1: and created a stable explosive. UM. But he he combined
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Speaker 1: it with another previous invention of his based on the
9:30
Speaker 1: initial ignition principle, which is not just using a fuse,
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Speaker 1: but having a fuse go to a blasting cap and
9:37
Speaker 1: having a smaller explosive blow up your bigger explosive. He
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Speaker 1: put all that together and that was dynamite. Truly dynamite
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Speaker 1: it was. And um he again he was doing this
9:48
Speaker 1: to build mines, but in his lifetime he saw his
9:51
Speaker 1: invention used to like destroy human lives. He blew up
9:55
Speaker 1: a lot of things himself by accident, a lot of
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Speaker 1: his factories. It wasn't just that one time. They basically
10:01
Speaker 1: said you can't do this anymore on the mainland. So
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Speaker 1: he started work on a barge, and I think the
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Speaker 1: barge amount of even blown up. I'm sure everything blew up.
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Speaker 1: He was like King Midas, but everything exploded, that's right.
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Speaker 1: But um So, as part of his legacy, he created
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Speaker 1: the Nobel Peace Prize UM two. Well, I guess he
10:21
Speaker 1: bequeathed it to basically say, hey, I a lot of
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Speaker 1: people have died because of my invention, so um, let's
10:29
Speaker 1: let's promote safety and harmony and peace and then later
10:33
Speaker 1: the ig Noo bells, Yeah, which kind of brought it
10:36
Speaker 1: full circle in a way. Uh. He first named it
10:39
Speaker 1: no Nobel's blasting powder, and then eventually it became dynamite. Um.
10:44
Speaker 1: Not to be confused with T and T. It's different.
10:48
Speaker 1: So A C. D C was wrong, T and T
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Speaker 1: I'm dynamite. It's not true. I know what you're saying.
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Speaker 1: What they should have said was T N T I'm
10:58
Speaker 1: not quite dynamite. I'm less effective than dynamite. That should
11:03
Speaker 1: have been the song. So what is T and T is?
11:07
Speaker 1: Um is dynamite is sixty greater energy than TNT. Wow.
11:12
Speaker 1: That's so it's two totally different things. It's not just
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Speaker 1: like a lesser degraded vernon. They're both high explosives, meaning
11:21
Speaker 1: they detonate instead of like burning. But um, yeah, two
11:25
Speaker 1: different things. So Scott was he was on the drink,
11:30
Speaker 1: as we all find out, really like died because of
11:34
Speaker 1: the drink. The dude with the hat, now that's that's
11:38
Speaker 1: the second guy. Brian Johnson, the first lead singer UH
11:41
Speaker 1: for the first however many albums, died in his car.
11:44
Speaker 1: He passed out after a night drinking and did the
11:48
Speaker 1: old choke on the vomit thing. But he was the
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Speaker 1: one that saying t NT yeah, Dynamite. I thought those
11:56
Speaker 1: two guys were like what I thought T and T
11:58
Speaker 1: and Dynamite wear up until then ago Now. Brian Johnson
12:02
Speaker 1: came along later with Back in Black was his first album,
12:06
Speaker 1: It's All That Good Early a c D sponsor. Gott
12:10
Speaker 1: what do you think about? Sammy Hagar? So saccharin is
12:15
Speaker 1: up next, Chuck, I feel like we should talk about sacharin.
12:18
Speaker 1: Let's do it? Well, weird just really going down the
12:21
Speaker 1: line here, aren't we It's an extradental invention number seven? Okay? Well, um,
12:26
Speaker 1: so there's a guy who is named Constantine Fallberg. He
12:31
Speaker 1: was working he was a chemist working in the labs
12:35
Speaker 1: at Johns Hopkins under a guy named Ira Remsen. Yeah,
12:39
Speaker 1: I recalls Constantine a jerk. He does, but not quite
12:43
Speaker 1: for the reasons that are displayed here. Um so, uh,
12:48
Speaker 1: Fallberg and Remsen are working on apparently substitute for coal tar.
12:54
Speaker 1: That's all I could come across his quote. He was saying, like,
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Speaker 1: I've made many discoveries in my search for coal tars,
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Speaker 1: one of them accidental and here's one. But he doesn't say, like,
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Speaker 1: what I was doing was synthesizing chemicals in a search
13:06
Speaker 1: for substitute for coal tarts. So I'm not going to
13:07
Speaker 1: stand in a hundred percent behind it. But that's what
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Speaker 1: I think, right, okay? He uh. He said he was
13:14
Speaker 1: in a great hurry and left the lab without washing
13:16
Speaker 1: his hands. Apparently he wasn't wearing gloves or anything either
13:19
Speaker 1: while he was working in the lab with these chemicals
13:21
Speaker 1: that he didn't know what they were. Any Way, home
13:24
Speaker 1: and he ate dinner and he was eating a piece
13:28
Speaker 1: of bread and his bread was like really sweet, and
13:31
Speaker 1: he realized that that was weird, so he put the
13:33
Speaker 1: bread down and wiped his hands in his mouth and
13:35
Speaker 1: his beard with the napkin kin. Yeah, he thought the
13:38
Speaker 1: napkin was super sweet. He's like, okay, there's something we're
13:41
Speaker 1: going on. He put two and two together and realized
13:42
Speaker 1: it must have been that powder that he had on
13:44
Speaker 1: his hands from the chemical that he spilled on it
13:48
Speaker 1: that he didn't think to wash off before he ate
13:49
Speaker 1: with his hands exactly, and it turned out to be sacharan.
13:53
Speaker 1: So what does he do well? He he says, I
13:56
Speaker 1: can probably make some money off this, and I'm of
14:00
Speaker 1: the impression that he he shut out Remsen. So what
14:03
Speaker 1: he did was Remsen was a total research He was
14:07
Speaker 1: a total labrat. He didn't care a thing about patents,
14:11
Speaker 1: and he was apparently fine with the idea that Fauberg
14:13
Speaker 1: went off and independently patented this until it started making money, No,
14:17
Speaker 1: until he started telling people that he was the one
14:19
Speaker 1: that created this thing, but he was the senior researcher.
14:23
Speaker 1: Then now he's screwing with Remsen's like lab rats status.
14:27
Speaker 1: That's when Remsen was like, shut your mouth. So it
14:31
Speaker 1: didn't have as much to do with money. His rep
14:33
Speaker 1: exactly interesting. Yeah, So um Falberg ended up with the
14:37
Speaker 1: patent for sacharn, and uh, years and years and years later,
14:40
Speaker 1: the eighties happened. People are all cooked up, they're looking
14:43
Speaker 1: for ways to like lose some weight, and sweet and
14:46
Speaker 1: low comes along. It's sacharn and it has so few
14:50
Speaker 1: calories and it apparently five calories a graham that it's
14:54
Speaker 1: just listed a zero calories because you know that those
14:56
Speaker 1: packets are a lot less than a graham. Um And
15:00
Speaker 1: reason why it's non colork is because it's never metabolized.
15:03
Speaker 1: By the body. It just goes out the way in
15:06
Speaker 1: the same form it came in. Yeah, has zero food
15:08
Speaker 1: energy value. Um. It's like if you were trapped freezing
15:12
Speaker 1: in the woods and you had a big bucket of
15:14
Speaker 1: sweet and low, it wouldn't be the same as if
15:16
Speaker 1: you had a big bucket of sugar. Yeah, you'd want
15:20
Speaker 1: the big bucket of sugar trapped in the woods. With
15:22
Speaker 1: a big bucket of sugar. Huh, Well you got food
15:24
Speaker 1: energy trapped in the woods of the big bucket of
15:27
Speaker 1: sweet and low, You're screwed. Yeah. Can you imagine like
15:30
Speaker 1: the fuzzy jackets on your teeth after eating a bucket
15:33
Speaker 1: of sugar in the woods? Uh. Since it was brought
15:38
Speaker 1: on the scene, it's kind of been added and removed
15:41
Speaker 1: quite a few times too. The you can eat this,
15:44
Speaker 1: it's fine, and it's probably not great for you list,
15:47
Speaker 1: but right now it's in good standing. It is. It is,
15:51
Speaker 1: you know, approved, because I remember in the late eighties
15:53
Speaker 1: early nineties, like after everybody'd been drinking it for a while,
15:56
Speaker 1: they took like a hard look at sacharin and we're like,
15:58
Speaker 1: well it may cause cancer, and labrand I put it
16:00
Speaker 1: in my unsweet iced tea I've seen, because that's the
16:04
Speaker 1: only thing I can find that. You know, you put
16:06
Speaker 1: sugar in there and it just sinks to the bottom.
16:07
Speaker 1: What what Yeah, well that's why you have to use
16:10
Speaker 1: the simple syrup. Yeah. Or put this sugar in the
16:14
Speaker 1: hot brewed tea where it will melt. But you're not
16:16
Speaker 1: going to do that. The new simple syrup is fine,
16:18
Speaker 1: it works really well. Or just drink unsweet tea, for
16:21
Speaker 1: God's sake. I'm on an unsweet tea kick right now.
16:23
Speaker 1: A little lemon, yeah, see, I like the sweet tea,
16:26
Speaker 1: or or if I drink green tea obviously that's just
16:28
Speaker 1: straight up yeah, not the same. Have you ever had
16:31
Speaker 1: this long tea? Yeah? Sure, yeah, that is something la la.
16:36
Speaker 1: It's crazy, all right, josh, Um, I didn't think the microwave.
16:42
Speaker 1: I feel like we've talked about that before. We have. Yeah,
16:45
Speaker 1: so let's skip it, okay. Viagra, Yeah, I hadn't heard
16:49
Speaker 1: of this one. I didn't realize it was accidental. You
16:52
Speaker 1: haven't heard of viagra? Please? I've heard of yes, but
16:56
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of the story behind it. When oh,
16:59
Speaker 1: I see you're insinuate um. Simon Campbell and David Roberts
17:04
Speaker 1: were researching proviser trying to develop some blood pressure and
17:11
Speaker 1: heart medication for angina, and they tested it on people
17:15
Speaker 1: doing some trials, and these guys were all like, I
17:18
Speaker 1: still have some angina and I have a massive erection,
17:22
Speaker 1: which is a weird side effect. You might want to
17:24
Speaker 1: look into this, Yeah, And they did, and they went, Wow,
17:29
Speaker 1: this could pay dividends in the infelis. Yeah. They basically said, Okay,
17:33
Speaker 1: if d A forget everything we said, forget the angina,
17:36
Speaker 1: where the nitrate um. Instead, we're gonna we're gonna just
17:42
Speaker 1: start over do more clinical trials, but we're gonna needs
17:45
Speaker 1: to treat e D. And we're going to target um handsome,
17:49
Speaker 1: salt and pepper haired men of a certain age, um
17:53
Speaker 1: who like to bathe and bathtubs outdoors next to their
17:56
Speaker 1: partners who are also in bathtubs watching sunrise. It is
18:00
Speaker 1: our target market, that wasn't. Yeah, it's all the same, though,
18:04
Speaker 1: I wonder if it is all the same, you probably
18:05
Speaker 1: just got us suit by the pharmacis. Actually they're not
18:08
Speaker 1: all the same. They have each one has a different
18:11
Speaker 1: um covalent bond. I'll bet it's covalent bond. Well, they
18:14
Speaker 1: just have different properties. Some some work for like twenty
18:16
Speaker 1: four hours, some work for like two hours. Some you
18:19
Speaker 1: take every day just in case you happened to run
18:22
Speaker 1: into someone and need to have sex. Yeah, yeah, but
18:26
Speaker 1: all of them, all of them. Noism is not funny.
18:31
Speaker 1: So I don't think it's funny because it's not. No
18:34
Speaker 1: of course not. Okay, it's not. But it was popular.
18:38
Speaker 1: Um sales peaked I think in two thousand eight at
18:41
Speaker 1: one point nine billion dollars and new US alone, and
18:45
Speaker 1: since then, obviously Vigor was the first on the scene,
18:47
Speaker 1: but it has been chipped away at by its competitors.
18:51
Speaker 1: But uh see Alis and uh what's the other one,
18:56
Speaker 1: the vitra or is that heart medication? I can't keep track.
18:59
Speaker 1: I think we found all. Yeah. Anyway, I mean that's
19:03
Speaker 1: this was this was for originally for the treatment of Evangelina,
19:06
Speaker 1: and it works some I think that that happens quite
19:08
Speaker 1: a bit. Actually, well, it's all about blood flow, so
19:11
Speaker 1: oh yes, it makes sense that it had that side effect.
19:14
Speaker 1: I guess it's all about blood flow and self confidence.
19:19
Speaker 1: That's right, pacemaker. I thought this one like, my eyes
19:24
Speaker 1: started bleeding during this one. All right, we can skip
19:26
Speaker 1: it because, as people know, when we do our top tens,
19:29
Speaker 1: we generally do like six or seven of them. We
19:31
Speaker 1: like to drive traffic to the site. That's right, Velcrow,
19:35
Speaker 1: this one I have to give a shout out. I
19:37
Speaker 1: wanted to. I want to tell everybody this is so amazing.
19:41
Speaker 1: So I first heard the story of Velcrow when I
19:43
Speaker 1: was just a young young pop. The story of Elcrow.
19:47
Speaker 1: Yeah you're aware, right, the real story, yeah, okay, not
19:50
Speaker 1: the fake in a s A story. No, not the
19:53
Speaker 1: NASA story that George de Mostral story. He was a
19:57
Speaker 1: Swiss Swiss um, I don't remember what he was, but
20:00
Speaker 1: he turned out to be a Swiss inventor, electrical engineer, okay.
20:03
Speaker 1: And he was hiking the Alps with his dog one
20:05
Speaker 1: day and came home and there were birds attacher's dog
20:08
Speaker 1: and he he said, that is ghastly. He said, um,
20:13
Speaker 1: he what what's going on here? Why are these birds
20:16
Speaker 1: attached to my dog? I'm going to take a closer look.
20:18
Speaker 1: And he realized that the birds were composed of little
20:21
Speaker 1: hooks and that his dog fur were acting as little loops,
20:25
Speaker 1: and the hooks went into the loops and stuck and attached.
20:29
Speaker 1: And he said, I can recreate this. You know what
20:31
Speaker 1: I recreated with nylon, and that's what he did, and
20:34
Speaker 1: that's what all velcro is is a system of hooks
20:36
Speaker 1: and loops made of nylon. Now, I first learned that
20:40
Speaker 1: story when I was probably like seriously eleven or twelve,
20:43
Speaker 1: and I read it in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. And
20:46
Speaker 1: every Christmas I would get in a bathroom reader, and
20:49
Speaker 1: every every like December twenty nine, i'd be done with
20:52
Speaker 1: like the five page bathroom Reader and wait like another year. Yeah,
20:56
Speaker 1: like a lot, just for this reason, and I would
20:59
Speaker 1: be reading this this book like over and over, like
21:02
Speaker 1: just constantly, and so like one of the reasons that
21:05
Speaker 1: we're here today. One of the reasons I'm here today
21:10
Speaker 1: is because my curiosity was developed in hone through Uncle
21:13
Speaker 1: John's Bathroom Readers. Yes, and it's been good in bath
21:18
Speaker 1: like they were. They were also where I learned that
21:20
Speaker 1: Genghis consumposedly killed like one point eight seven million people
21:23
Speaker 1: in one hour, which kind of led to that article
21:25
Speaker 1: and all that. Um, but my eyes were open. We
21:29
Speaker 1: shouted out to them like recently, and they tweeted that
21:32
Speaker 1: we shouted out to him, and I realized that they
21:35
Speaker 1: listened to this podcast. So It's like the highest honor
21:39
Speaker 1: I I have ever enjoyed as far as my career goes.
21:43
Speaker 1: Like that, was it like this group that like made
21:47
Speaker 1: me in part, in large part who I am today
21:50
Speaker 1: is a fan of what we're doing. Yeah, I imagine
21:53
Speaker 1: Mad Magazine could only come close if they got in
21:55
Speaker 1: touch with you. Yeah, they would definitely be out there
21:57
Speaker 1: as well. That's awesome. Okay, So that's yeah. And um,
22:01
Speaker 1: a couple of more little factoids. It's a combination of
22:03
Speaker 1: two French words, the lures, which you means velbot and
22:07
Speaker 1: crochet which is hook yea and valor does not breathe
22:10
Speaker 1: very well as a fabric. That's right. Nylon was very
22:12
Speaker 1: new at the time, so he had a hard time
22:14
Speaker 1: with it. And this is a lesson for all you
22:16
Speaker 1: kids out there who fashion yourselves as or fancy yourselves
22:19
Speaker 1: excuse me as the libenters. Don't give up. It took
22:23
Speaker 1: him ten years from the moment he discovered what bell
22:28
Speaker 1: Crow could be until the time that he could manufacture
22:31
Speaker 1: it successfully. And he worked and he worked and he worked,
22:34
Speaker 1: and ten years later he marketed it as the zipper
22:38
Speaker 1: Less Zipper and the rest is history. And don't get
22:41
Speaker 1: cheap velcro because you can tell the difference. Oh man,
22:43
Speaker 1: you really can't same as cheap duck tape. Yeah, you
22:46
Speaker 1: really get what you pay for. Yeah, that's definitely true
22:49
Speaker 1: with duct tape. You don't want duct tape that doesn't
22:51
Speaker 1: have the threads clearly visible. Yes, that form like kind
22:54
Speaker 1: of the almost the rebar of it. It's exactly what
22:57
Speaker 1: if you can't if you can't see it clearly like
22:59
Speaker 1: in the old and just keep on moving. A little
23:02
Speaker 1: advice from your uncle Josh. But that stick to it advice. Yeah,
23:06
Speaker 1: not the duct tape. Stick to it decade appearance. That
23:10
Speaker 1: was good advice. A decade of work. Uh. Penicillan, Yeah,
23:14
Speaker 1: this one is. I don't think I realized penicillin was
23:17
Speaker 1: an accident. Um Alexander Fleming. He was a bacteriologist in Scotland.
23:22
Speaker 1: He um decided to get a little lazy and go
23:24
Speaker 1: on vacation for two weeks. Luckily for us. In camp
23:29
Speaker 1: comes home, sees a petri dish with this weird mold
23:33
Speaker 1: that he hadn't seen before growing in it, and he noticed, like,
23:36
Speaker 1: there's no bacteria around this mold. Right. It was like
23:39
Speaker 1: hugging the side of the beach. Just like, get it
23:41
Speaker 1: away from me. I know this stuff is killing me.
23:44
Speaker 1: And he went, wow, I might be on something here, right,
23:47
Speaker 1: But the problem was the strain of penicillin mold that
23:50
Speaker 1: he discovered. He left his window open. The guy was
23:53
Speaker 1: about slogist in the twentieth century. He left his window open,
23:59
Speaker 1: right anyway, Um, the mold, the strain he found was
24:04
Speaker 1: he couldn't reproduce it mass quantity. So there for you know,
24:08
Speaker 1: by definition, it was useless as medicine. Uh. And then
24:12
Speaker 1: like thirteen years later, a trio of guys Floory, Heatley
24:15
Speaker 1: and Mowyer um found a strain of penicillin that they
24:18
Speaker 1: could just grow very quickly in large amounts. BAM antibiotics
24:25
Speaker 1: millions and millions possibly billion lives safe, but don't take
24:31
Speaker 1: too much of it. No, And I think I think
24:35
Speaker 1: these days, but you should always know your limits. Now
24:38
Speaker 1: I'm just saying back, I think penicilla is one of
24:40
Speaker 1: these days people get thrown up penicilla into moxicilla, like
24:44
Speaker 1: for everything these days. Right. Well, the other part of
24:46
Speaker 1: the problem, supposedly, UM, is that they if you don't
24:50
Speaker 1: finish your course, that makes it that much easier for
24:53
Speaker 1: UM bacteria. Yeah, that's what I hear. Microbes to evolve immunity. Yeah,
24:59
Speaker 1: I almost never finish my course though, because you're part
25:02
Speaker 1: of the problem. Gives me bad, bad, bad diarrhea. Well
25:06
Speaker 1: you need to ride it out, as they say, get
25:08
Speaker 1: yourself an Uncle John's bathroom reader. In fact, when I'm
25:11
Speaker 1: on penicillin for one reason or another, I call them
25:13
Speaker 1: diarrhea bills. I have to take my diarrhea bill because
25:16
Speaker 1: I take it, and and they say, you know, that's
25:19
Speaker 1: a possible side effect, but of course with me, it's
25:23
Speaker 1: a certain side effect. At least you don't get a
25:25
Speaker 1: pre epism from it, all right, Number one, Josh our
25:29
Speaker 1: last one. I thought this was pretty interesting because going
25:34
Speaker 1: back all the way to the eighteen hundreds, we used
25:36
Speaker 1: to think people are all stuffy, didn't know how to
25:38
Speaker 1: have a good time. All they did was just go
25:41
Speaker 1: to school, go to church, walk to work, and study hard.
25:46
Speaker 1: Turns out that they were having laughing gas parties and
25:50
Speaker 1: ether frolics ether frolics where they would sit around and
25:53
Speaker 1: suck on laughing gas and just laugh the night away,
25:57
Speaker 1: which is where the phrase it's a gas comes from.
26:00
Speaker 1: Oh that's nice, that makes sense, sure, you're a big
26:04
Speaker 1: time in entomology, aren't and entomopagy. Yeah, that's right. Uh.
26:10
Speaker 1: So what happened was anesthesia was accidentally discovered by It
26:15
Speaker 1: seems like a few different people realized about the same
26:18
Speaker 1: time from those parties. Yeah. Crawford Long, he's been Atlanta,
26:21
Speaker 1: got right, Yeah, he's somewhere around Atlanta. Yeah. William Morton
26:26
Speaker 1: and Charles Jackson and Horace Wells, um, they had all
26:30
Speaker 1: experiment experimented with nitrous ox side um. Maybe maybe not
26:35
Speaker 1: went to some of these parties. I don't know if
26:37
Speaker 1: we can verify that. I I have seen that they
26:40
Speaker 1: were at these parties. I went back in time and
26:43
Speaker 1: looked in the way back machine. At some point someone said, Hey,
26:47
Speaker 1: I just whacked my legoral hard and it didn't hurt
26:49
Speaker 1: at all and it was bleeding. Yeah, and there was
26:52
Speaker 1: no pain experience from it. And I think it was
26:54
Speaker 1: Crawford Long that was like, what do you mean you're
26:56
Speaker 1: not experiencing any pain? Do it again? Yeah, and let
27:00
Speaker 1: me hold your ether for a minute exactly. Uh. And
27:02
Speaker 1: then they started experimenting with it um and I think
27:06
Speaker 1: Horace Wells used it for dentistry um and uh, it
27:11
Speaker 1: comfered long. I was using it for surgery, Yeah, for
27:14
Speaker 1: minor surgery, copper long like amputations and stuff like that,
27:18
Speaker 1: because this is at a time when it was like
27:19
Speaker 1: here's your broomstick, there's your bottle of whiskey, your leg off,
27:24
Speaker 1: and like the a skilled surgeon was quick. That was
27:30
Speaker 1: the that was the definition of skilled surgeon. Somebody you
27:32
Speaker 1: could take your leg off in less than a minute. Well,
27:34
Speaker 1: I think with you your best case scenarios that you'll
27:36
Speaker 1: pass out from the pain, right, But they also loaded
27:39
Speaker 1: you up on like booze and drugs, like you'd smoke
27:42
Speaker 1: a lot of opium first or take a lot of
27:44
Speaker 1: opium somehow, right, so you just wouldn't really care. You
27:48
Speaker 1: Have you heard about the flesh eating bacteria that's going
27:50
Speaker 1: around right now? Yeah, it's crazy watching out with the
27:54
Speaker 1: netty pots, dude. Yeah, I actually I haven't netted in
27:58
Speaker 1: a little while. Just remember bill water and then maybe
28:01
Speaker 1: boil it already more boil it anyway. Yeah. Well, at
28:05
Speaker 1: the very least, I do a lot of camping and
28:07
Speaker 1: fishing and rivers. I'm not getting in with any open
28:09
Speaker 1: sore anytime soon. No, But that that girl in Georgia, Um,
28:14
Speaker 1: she was on the zip line, she fell and created
28:17
Speaker 1: an open sore, and um, it got in there pretty
28:21
Speaker 1: good apparently. Yeah, Emily, and I've been following that story closely.
28:24
Speaker 1: That's like, but she's got a great attitude apparently about it.
28:29
Speaker 1: And oh really yeah, like she you know, her dad
28:32
Speaker 1: went in said, you know, finally told her we're gonna
28:34
Speaker 1: have to amptate your hands your other foot after her
28:36
Speaker 1: leg was already gone. She was like, let's do it.
28:39
Speaker 1: So you have been telling me about this and she
28:41
Speaker 1: was saying, like they just got her fingers that her
28:43
Speaker 1: hands are intact right now. I don't think so. Are
28:46
Speaker 1: her hands gone? I think so? Um. Wow, Yeah, it's
28:50
Speaker 1: very sad. This one ended on a strange twist. Have
28:54
Speaker 1: any more accidental inventions? I know you do, but don't
28:57
Speaker 1: say them. Nope, there's a few more. Go to the
28:59
Speaker 1: web site and read all about it. Yeah, type accidental
29:03
Speaker 1: inventions in the search bar at how stuff works dot
29:05
Speaker 1: com and it will bring up this fine article. There's
29:08
Speaker 1: actually a few articles, um that I have similar ones,
29:11
Speaker 1: but different ones too. You'll just read them all you
29:13
Speaker 1: love them? Um, I said search bar at how stuff
29:16
Speaker 1: works dot com again, which means it's time for listener
29:19
Speaker 1: to mail. Actually wait, wait, we can't do listen to
29:24
Speaker 1: Melia this again. Yeah, okay, it's plug fast time. Um so, Chuck,
29:29
Speaker 1: we have a horror fiction contest going on, don't we
29:31
Speaker 1: That's right, real quick, give them the broad stroke. Well,
29:34
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with our Halloween episodes the past two years,
29:37
Speaker 1: we do readings right from u PO last year and
29:40
Speaker 1: uh what's his Face? The year before that, HP love
29:45
Speaker 1: love Craft and this year we want to read a
29:47
Speaker 1: story written by you someone out there. So we are
29:51
Speaker 1: throwing a contest, and Josh wrote a great blog post
29:55
Speaker 1: outlining the details. You can find a how stuff works. Yeah,
29:58
Speaker 1: you can go to blogs that how stuff works and
30:00
Speaker 1: it's called um the Stuff you should knows Horror fiction contests.
30:06
Speaker 1: Get your official rules right here. It's got everything you
30:08
Speaker 1: need to know on there. Everything. What's the highlight? Well,
30:10
Speaker 1: the highlights are that it started on June eighteenth and
30:13
Speaker 1: it runs until July twenty. Uh you it has to
30:19
Speaker 1: have been previously unpublished and includes websites. If you put
30:22
Speaker 1: it up on your own blog, I think it's okay,
30:24
Speaker 1: But like if you gave you to somebody else and
30:25
Speaker 1: they published it sorry. Um, and uh, it needs to
30:29
Speaker 1: be between three thousand and four thousand words, no more,
30:31
Speaker 1: no less. And this is really really, really really important
30:35
Speaker 1: your stay. When in the email that you send this in,
30:38
Speaker 1: you send it by the way to how stuff works
30:41
Speaker 1: Underscore contests at Discovery dot Com. In that email when
30:46
Speaker 1: you enter your submission, Um, you need to write the words.
30:50
Speaker 1: By entering this contest, I agree to abide by the
30:54
Speaker 1: contest rules. Without that, it's it's we have to disqualify.
30:59
Speaker 1: So that space sically, you're signing off that you understand
31:02
Speaker 1: the rules by by acknowledging that statement. Right, Okay, go
31:05
Speaker 1: to the blogs and read the rules first. Take a
31:08
Speaker 1: quick glance at them. There's if you have a question,
31:10
Speaker 1: it's probably answered there. Yeah, and sadly we know and
31:13
Speaker 1: we understand that this is only for residents in the
31:15
Speaker 1: United States, and we're sorry, but that's just how it goes.
31:18
Speaker 1: I've said it a million times. We can't win your
31:21
Speaker 1: country's contest either. It's just our contest work. Yes, pick
31:25
Speaker 1: it up with the contest Gods. If you're seventeen, even
31:28
Speaker 1: if you're going to turn eight team within the contest,
31:31
Speaker 1: you're out of luck. Here to be eighteen as of
31:34
Speaker 1: Monday July or June eighteen. People don't like rules, No,
31:37
Speaker 1: they don't, but we're not making them. Gotta have them. Yeah,
31:40
Speaker 1: so it send it off us and maybe a couple
31:43
Speaker 1: of other writers or editors will judge these things. We're
31:46
Speaker 1: gonna select the top sixteen and then enter him into
31:48
Speaker 1: a bracket contest, then let the people vote, and then
31:51
Speaker 1: we picked the and then the winner has chosen and
31:54
Speaker 1: we read it on hearticle. Yeah, alright, what else? We're
31:56
Speaker 1: going to Comic Con in San Diego for the first
31:59
Speaker 1: time ever and Thursday we don't have the time yet,
32:02
Speaker 1: but Thursday July, well, well, we will be doing a
32:08
Speaker 1: live podcast panel with special guests. Yeah, what are we
32:12
Speaker 1: doing it on? You want to say? Do you want
32:13
Speaker 1: to keep it a suppris, Let's keep it a surprise
32:15
Speaker 1: for now, all right, So comm Con, if you're gonna
32:18
Speaker 1: be there, come see us Thursday, I think, right, yeah,
32:21
Speaker 1: you'll be able to find out. Well, we'll post it
32:23
Speaker 1: once we can reveal all the story details. Very cool.
32:26
Speaker 1: So um, there you go. That's plug fest and now
32:29
Speaker 1: it's time for listening. Now, right, Josh, I'm gonna call
32:31
Speaker 1: this what we're gonna call medical marijuana. Uh. Um. And
32:37
Speaker 1: by the way, on email, I've been answering more and
32:39
Speaker 1: more lately because I've had more time. UM. But still,
32:43
Speaker 1: if you write in and I don't answer, we have
32:45
Speaker 1: read it, I promise. And if you have sent in
32:48
Speaker 1: just a simple suggestion for a show, we log those. Um.
32:53
Speaker 1: But you may not get the email back on something
32:54
Speaker 1: like that. So just I don't want anyone to feel
32:57
Speaker 1: bad if think emailed like we didn't respond. You're a valued,
33:01
Speaker 1: valued member of our fan base. Okay, medical marijuana. Uh.
33:06
Speaker 1: Your show on m m J is what some people
33:10
Speaker 1: have been calling at. Realize that I always think it's
33:13
Speaker 1: like Key Martin and you or something like and John. Uh.
33:19
Speaker 1: It reminded me of a funny story I can share.
33:21
Speaker 1: During the early eighties, my father had a rare cancer. Um.
33:24
Speaker 1: It's even rare these days from the surprise my doctors
33:27
Speaker 1: have when I give my medical history. At one point,
33:30
Speaker 1: my dad's doctor suggested he tried marijuana to help with
33:33
Speaker 1: the chemo sickness. Um. Of course, there was no way
33:36
Speaker 1: to prescribe it back then. You had to get it
33:38
Speaker 1: on your own. My parents started asking around to see
33:40
Speaker 1: whose kids could get some trustworthy stuff. With no luck
33:45
Speaker 1: where we lived, my mom turned to a relative who
33:47
Speaker 1: lived in another state. So clearly like the stoner cousin,
33:51
Speaker 1: like two states over, Um, she could get it, but
33:54
Speaker 1: I don't know the details how. Yeah. The next problem
33:58
Speaker 1: was how to get it to us. Um. She often
34:01
Speaker 1: flew to visit every few months, but it was a
34:03
Speaker 1: pray to putting it in her luggage or mailing it,
34:05
Speaker 1: even though everybody used to do that back then. I
34:08
Speaker 1: bet um. So one of her co workers had an idea.
34:11
Speaker 1: They worked in a doctor's office and decided she would
34:13
Speaker 1: hide it between her breasts and bandage her as if
34:17
Speaker 1: she had recently had breast surgery. She was sent with
34:21
Speaker 1: the note saying under no circumstances, with the bandages to
34:24
Speaker 1: be removed. They thought that if she was hassled the airport,
34:27
Speaker 1: a note would get her out of trouble. They did
34:29
Speaker 1: this actually a few times. It never got caught. Oh
34:31
Speaker 1: my god, I an't that crazy. As it turns out,
34:34
Speaker 1: my father couldn't smoke the stuff. It made him sicker. Um,
34:37
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I know. So he decided to brew
34:40
Speaker 1: it in tea, and I'm sure there was a little
34:44
Speaker 1: h baked snack put in his lunch bag every now
34:47
Speaker 1: and then. Unfortunately, my father passed away in when I
34:51
Speaker 1: was sixteen. I wasn't completely involved in all this other stuff.
34:55
Speaker 1: The stories were retold later, but there are a lot
34:57
Speaker 1: of hijinks going on in the house over those years,
35:00
Speaker 1: so this is totally plausible. I remember vividly the little
35:03
Speaker 1: t ball sitting in the sink when I washed the
35:05
Speaker 1: dishes every night, asking can I clean the thing? And
35:08
Speaker 1: I would get a resounding no from about five people
35:11
Speaker 1: in the house at the same time. So that is
35:13
Speaker 1: from Cindy, and uh no, that's anybody. But she asked
35:19
Speaker 1: her if I could read this, and she said yes,
35:21
Speaker 1: and then she wrote me back and said, you know,
35:23
Speaker 1: I ended up talking to my mom about this and
35:25
Speaker 1: we all had a good laugh all over again, you know,
35:27
Speaker 1: and remember my father Blondly she said her mom ended
35:31
Speaker 1: up smoking some for her anxiety. So you should probably
35:35
Speaker 1: wipe your hard drive clean of that email lest somebody
35:40
Speaker 1: sure the FEDS come in a compassed at your computer. Yeah,
35:44
Speaker 1: it's it's serious though. Um. Yeah, if you have like
35:48
Speaker 1: a wacky family history story, those are awesome, don't we all?
35:52
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty wacky though, man. Yeah, It's like little
35:55
Speaker 1: Miss Sunshine wacky. I haven't seen it, I just know
35:59
Speaker 1: of it. It's funny. Um, we want to hear it,
36:02
Speaker 1: so tweet to us at s y s K podcast,
36:05
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know, or email
36:08
Speaker 1: at Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on
36:17
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff works
36:20
Speaker 1: dot com. H brought to you by the reinvented two
36:29
Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you