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Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
0:08
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com? Yeah, wait your house
0:24
Speaker 1: it's a good y Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:57
Speaker 1: This is Josh. That's Chuck. This is Stuffy should know.
1:00
Speaker 1: How do you smell? Chuck? Was that at the other
1:03
Speaker 1: room this morning? So? How how are you holding up? Well?
1:07
Speaker 1: This is we got a good three and a half
1:10
Speaker 1: beat between us. Fine, um, you heard this is a
1:15
Speaker 1: non usual opening for this podcast. You didn't hear, but
1:21
Speaker 1: I heard you did. Okay, Okay, So that's the that's
1:25
Speaker 1: the last few seconds. I guess of the Fly, the
1:30
Speaker 1: original nineteen fifty eight version starring Vincent Price, and that
1:34
Speaker 1: is the the inventor named Seth Brendle, who um brindle fly, Yeah,
1:40
Speaker 1: who has converted himself into a fly. Well switched heads
1:43
Speaker 1: with the fly, right, switched bodies, I guess. And now
1:47
Speaker 1: he's a tiny little fly man who's being attacked by
1:50
Speaker 1: a spider on the spider web. You know, I just
1:52
Speaker 1: saw the Cromeberg version a couple of months ago. I
1:56
Speaker 1: think I told you that. Yeah, it holds up the
1:58
Speaker 1: first time. Yeah, it's that I don't understand why um oh,
2:03
Speaker 1: what is his name, the main guy, gold bloom. I
2:07
Speaker 1: don't understand why Jeff Goldbloom um decided to add I
2:13
Speaker 1: guess it's a kind of like sexy arrogance to his
2:17
Speaker 1: character because it came off weird. That's just the gold
2:21
Speaker 1: he can do, I guess. So, man, the he brings
2:24
Speaker 1: that to everything he does. He's tripping with it. So chuck,
2:28
Speaker 1: we uh. We played that part of the fly not
2:31
Speaker 1: so much because we could, although that was a large
2:33
Speaker 1: part of it, but because we can explain what is
2:38
Speaker 1: on that little fly body. Now, that's right. We've read
2:41
Speaker 1: how flies work, and specifically how house flies work by
2:45
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. Robert Lamb's been popping up
2:49
Speaker 1: a lot lately, hasn't he? Who Robert's work? Yeah? Yeah,
2:52
Speaker 1: good stuff, And he just kind of pops into the
2:55
Speaker 1: cubicles and says, hey, how's it going a lot lately? Yeah? Yeah.
3:00
Speaker 1: The housefly josh, um, if you're if you live in
3:03
Speaker 1: a house and you're flies flying around, you got about
3:06
Speaker 1: a nine chance that that is an actual Musca domestica. Yeah,
3:12
Speaker 1: that's the that's the houseflies name. That's right. There's not
3:15
Speaker 1: some other more exotic name. It is on all um
3:19
Speaker 1: initial appearances, one of the more mundane bugs ever. But
3:22
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty interesting if you ask me, and disgusting
3:26
Speaker 1: because they carry lots of diseases like typhoid, fever and
3:30
Speaker 1: sam and ella and leprosy and cholera. Isn't that crazy?
3:34
Speaker 1: They carry leprosy and testinal worms. Well, I knew that
3:38
Speaker 1: bacteria that can lead to dysentery. I didn't know that
3:40
Speaker 1: they could, Uh, they could carry leprosy, though I didn't either.
3:44
Speaker 1: You know, I always equate leprosy with nudism because they
3:48
Speaker 1: both they both live in colonies. Yeah, I always think
3:52
Speaker 1: of leprosy when I think of lepricy. I think of
3:54
Speaker 1: the Bible, because growing up in churches where I heard
3:57
Speaker 1: about lepro colonies and leprosy and leprity being healed and
4:00
Speaker 1: all that. Exactly have you ever seen the fog the
4:03
Speaker 1: second one? I guess for the fog too? Was there
4:10
Speaker 1: a fog too? I don't know. I mean John Carpenter
4:12
Speaker 1: the original fog, I think, right, this is the remake
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Speaker 1: where the people attacking were lepers who were turned away
4:19
Speaker 1: and now their ghosts have come back for Vengeance. I
4:21
Speaker 1: think that was the original as well. It wasn't. I
4:23
Speaker 1: didn't realize there were lepers. I thought they were like
4:25
Speaker 1: pirates that have been across or something. Cheez. We need
4:27
Speaker 1: to get her act together. And that's such a good movie,
4:29
Speaker 1: the first one. Yeah, I'll check it out. I just
4:31
Speaker 1: watched the thing last night. Oh that's a great one too. Yeah.
4:35
Speaker 1: And I had a fairly voracious Alien versus the Thing
4:39
Speaker 1: comments on I saw people get into that. I definitely
4:44
Speaker 1: say Alien is bad or but the thing is more disgusting,
4:48
Speaker 1: a little more twisted. Yeah, alright, this has been a
4:51
Speaker 1: long setup. Flies huh so chuck, um, We've we've got
4:55
Speaker 1: down that they spread disease, right potentially. Um. One of
5:01
Speaker 1: the things that kind of cropped up while I was
5:03
Speaker 1: reading this is it was kind of an expansion of
5:07
Speaker 1: everything I'd always knew about flies. Yeah, we all know
5:10
Speaker 1: a little bit, which I find very reassuring. You know,
5:13
Speaker 1: it's not like quantum suicide, where it's like everything you
5:16
Speaker 1: think you know is just completely unreal and just go
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Speaker 1: ahead and stop thinking. Now. This is like, yes, you
5:22
Speaker 1: understand house flies, and here is some more information about them.
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Speaker 1: So I guess kind of this is almost like an
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Speaker 1: elementary school episode, which I find I find comforting and
5:34
Speaker 1: reassuring to let's talk about fly anatomy, house fly anatomy,
5:38
Speaker 1: and if I accidentally say fly, if you accidentally say fly,
5:41
Speaker 1: we mean house fly specifically, right, that's right, Oh, And
5:43
Speaker 1: dispersed throughout the podcast, we'll have fly facts that sounds
5:47
Speaker 1: like this, So when you hear that, it's gonna be
5:51
Speaker 1: a new fly fact. So, Josh, if you're talking a
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Speaker 1: housefly body, it's like a lot of insects. It's got
5:58
Speaker 1: an exo skeleton made of kitan, and it's got three
6:01
Speaker 1: sections to the body. You got the head, you got
6:03
Speaker 1: the thorax, you got the abdomen. And as everyone knows,
6:08
Speaker 1: this is the this is actually isn't a fly fact,
6:10
Speaker 1: so no buzz, but it is effect, but it's not
6:13
Speaker 1: one of our fly facts. So every jingle, no jingle.
6:16
Speaker 1: Everyone knows that the fly has all those tiny, little
6:18
Speaker 1: bitty eyes, and like you said, it's reassuring to know
6:21
Speaker 1: that's exactly what they are. There two common eyes divided
6:24
Speaker 1: up into three to six thousand simple eze yes, and
6:28
Speaker 1: it's like a bunch of little video monitors because they
6:30
Speaker 1: can't focus on one little thing in particular. It's like
6:35
Speaker 1: a mosaic, right, but I also got the impression that
6:39
Speaker 1: it's like a mosaic. But each little eye is kind
6:43
Speaker 1: of its own. It's representative of the physical grid. It
6:47
Speaker 1: makes a grid of its physical environment. Right. So I
6:51
Speaker 1: wonder if the flies like, oh, there's a movement in sector,
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Speaker 1: what I wonder and like, I go focus on that
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Speaker 1: one simple eye to see that, you know a piece
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Speaker 1: of poo on the ground that I need to go,
7:01
Speaker 1: you know, wattle through, or there's a human um who's
7:05
Speaker 1: coming towards me or something. And of course by sector
7:07
Speaker 1: ninety G, I meant sector three thousand to six thousand G. Yeah.
7:12
Speaker 1: So those are the eyes, and they are also a
7:15
Speaker 1: couple of little um I think three ocel eyes or
7:20
Speaker 1: if you're in Itali in Italy, and they are between
7:26
Speaker 1: the two compound eyes. And that's sort of like a
7:27
Speaker 1: compass that keep the fly oriented and ideally flying towards
7:32
Speaker 1: the sun. Okay, So I think that this should be
7:35
Speaker 1: the first fly fact. All right, let's do it, okay,
7:41
Speaker 1: uh chuck. The reason house flies are commonly found kind
7:45
Speaker 1: of flittering against a window because they're stupid, No, that's
7:50
Speaker 1: a fly myth. The fly fact is that they're oh
7:54
Speaker 1: ocelli or ocelli. The to simplize the act as a
7:58
Speaker 1: compass orient themselves upward by finding the sunlight. They're all
8:02
Speaker 1: constantly searching for sunlight, which is why they always go
8:05
Speaker 1: to a window or a bugs ever. That was fly
8:08
Speaker 1: back number one, all right, I like it on the head, Josh,
8:12
Speaker 1: which is where a lot of the action takes place
8:14
Speaker 1: with a fly. Um. They get their sense of smell
8:17
Speaker 1: from their antennae right there. For tasting and eating. They
8:22
Speaker 1: have a probiscus, which is a little plunger like thing
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Speaker 1: that sticks out from the bottom of its mouth and
8:29
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the bottom of the head um. They have
8:31
Speaker 1: little feelers, two of these, and their max maxillary palps.
8:36
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and then they are the tasters. And at
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Speaker 1: the end of the probiscus you have the labellum, which
8:43
Speaker 1: is um. Is that the mouth, the little spongey part. Yeah,
8:47
Speaker 1: it's it's like a sponge mouth like it's not like
8:50
Speaker 1: an open mouth that you think of. It's like a
8:53
Speaker 1: sponge on the end of the pro proboscis where you
8:56
Speaker 1: just suck. That's a probiscus didn't they it's close proboscus.
9:01
Speaker 1: Sorry about that. No, it goes either way, and that
9:04
Speaker 1: always makes me think of adaptation. Chris Cooper's character talks
9:09
Speaker 1: about the probiscus of the orchid. Oh yeah, Jerry's and
9:12
Speaker 1: they're just saying, yes, it's really weird. Apparently she's um
9:16
Speaker 1: guest starring in this episode. She's paying attention for the
9:19
Speaker 1: first time in weeks. So, um, chuck, there's a huge,
9:23
Speaker 1: huge little thing that you You pointed out that um uh,
9:27
Speaker 1: the labellum. Yes, the spongy mouth doesn't allow solid food
9:32
Speaker 1: in and we're gonna get to that in a minute,
9:34
Speaker 1: but just keep that in mind. That's fly foreshadowing, not
9:36
Speaker 1: a fly fact. But we've come to what I think
9:39
Speaker 1: is fly fact number two. Don't you are you going
9:41
Speaker 1: with the biting? Yeah, the biting, Okay, fly fact number two.
9:48
Speaker 1: Houseflies do not bite. If you get bitten by a fly,
9:51
Speaker 1: it was not a houseflowd on housewives. Might be a
9:53
Speaker 1: horse fly, and you know those in the summertime when
9:55
Speaker 1: you're in the pool, the land on your head and
9:58
Speaker 1: bite the tar out of you. Or it might have
10:00
Speaker 1: been your little sibling, brothers, sister. That's true and what
10:03
Speaker 1: other list another one stable flies, which are yeah, yeah,
10:07
Speaker 1: horseflies there there. They kind of take care of all
10:11
Speaker 1: the horses at once, where a horse flies just like
10:13
Speaker 1: I just want this one horse. That's my take on it,
10:16
Speaker 1: all right, So that's fly fact too, So chuck, Um,
10:20
Speaker 1: we are onto wings now, which isn't necessarily a fly
10:22
Speaker 1: fact because it's so essential. Right back in ancient times,
10:26
Speaker 1: which was up to sixty million years ago, as I understand, Um,
10:30
Speaker 1: that's how long houseflies have been around. Um, they had
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Speaker 1: two sets, two full sets of wings, and nowadays in
10:38
Speaker 1: our modern times, it looks like flies have houseflies have
10:41
Speaker 1: one set. That's not necessarily true. Yeah, if you're a
10:45
Speaker 1: little jerky kid, a little myoclonic jerk, and you pull
10:47
Speaker 1: the wings off of a fly, you probably think you're
10:50
Speaker 1: just pulling off too. Yeah, and you may be, because
10:54
Speaker 1: those are the large ones. But there's little tiny guys
10:56
Speaker 1: under there, and they're called halters, right, and the halters
11:00
Speaker 1: where actually if you if you pull the halter off,
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Speaker 1: these little tiny wings um that are underneath or above
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Speaker 1: I think they're underneath. They're underneath the big wings um.
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Speaker 1: They allow they basically allow the fly to move quickly
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Speaker 1: in the air right to um to maintain balance a
11:19
Speaker 1: direct direction hover, yes, um. And so if you remove
11:23
Speaker 1: one of these, it can only go in circles. If
11:25
Speaker 1: you remove both of the halters to fly, can't get
11:28
Speaker 1: is an airborne at all? Yeah, with those two big wings,
11:30
Speaker 1: it still can't fly without his little halters. Ye, it's
11:33
Speaker 1: pretty good, but not a fly fact. No, very interesting nonetheless,
11:37
Speaker 1: But the the big wings, the large wings that you
11:40
Speaker 1: see when you look at a fly, are the ones
11:42
Speaker 1: that do the real heavy lifting, right. Yeah, We're talking
11:44
Speaker 1: two hundred to three hundred flaps per second, and they
11:49
Speaker 1: can go about four and a half miles an hour,
11:51
Speaker 1: which I would have assumed they could go faster than
11:54
Speaker 1: I can run four and a half miles an hour.
11:56
Speaker 1: And it's and I've seen flies zipping by me when
11:59
Speaker 1: I'm running. So chuck first, I don't know if you
12:02
Speaker 1: said the all of the moving parts, the wings, the legs,
12:05
Speaker 1: all this stuff, um, are located in the thorax, right,
12:08
Speaker 1: So you get the two sets of wings up top,
12:10
Speaker 1: and then below that you have the different legs. And
12:14
Speaker 1: the legs are well, they're they're standard legs. They're segmented
12:18
Speaker 1: and joined. But the most interesting part for me about
12:21
Speaker 1: the fly legs the house fly legs are the tarsi, right, yes,
12:25
Speaker 1: which are little tiny hairs on the end of the
12:27
Speaker 1: legs that act as pretty much the same thing as
12:31
Speaker 1: taste buds do for us. So that's why a fly um,
12:36
Speaker 1: that's why it'll land on food. It's not just landing,
12:39
Speaker 1: it's tasting to say do I want some of this?
12:43
Speaker 1: And most of the time the answers yes yes. And
12:45
Speaker 1: we'll get to the gruesome truth of that in a
12:48
Speaker 1: moment as well. Right, My favorite part of the legs
12:50
Speaker 1: is the pole vili. They are a little moist suction
12:53
Speaker 1: pads and they are the little grippers. So that's why
12:56
Speaker 1: when you see a fly, uh, jump on a wall,
13:00
Speaker 1: fly into a wall, and just all of a sudden
13:02
Speaker 1: they're like Spider Man right walking up the wall, little grippers.
13:06
Speaker 1: Or that's how Jeff Goldblum did it, with some swad
13:11
Speaker 1: of viv as well thrown in there. Uh. And then
13:14
Speaker 1: the abdomen they have the key organs which are the
13:17
Speaker 1: reproductive organs, and the female the oviposter, and the male
13:21
Speaker 1: has the ideas and I actually look at that one
13:25
Speaker 1: up nice and that's not how it would have pronounced it.
13:28
Speaker 1: But these little uh, little things retract when they're not
13:32
Speaker 1: in use, on both the male and the female, so
13:33
Speaker 1: they'll stay protected there. That's very aerodynamic. It would be
13:36
Speaker 1: very unerodynamic to have the adegus just kind of laughing
13:40
Speaker 1: in the wind flies a thing around the house. It's
13:43
Speaker 1: like putting the landing gear down a little too soon.
13:45
Speaker 1: Write exactly, um, so chuck you you we already foreshadowed
13:51
Speaker 1: what's going on with them. The mouth, the sponge mouth,
13:55
Speaker 1: the labellum. Yes, um, that it can only up liquids. Well,
14:01
Speaker 1: not everything a fly eats is liquid, right, No, not
14:04
Speaker 1: if they want to jump on that steak or that
14:07
Speaker 1: dog crap or dry blood yea. Um. When a fly
14:11
Speaker 1: encounters something, well, first of all, part when when the
14:14
Speaker 1: it accepts food into the bellum, it basically sucks it
14:18
Speaker 1: straight into the stomach. If it's liquid, it's good to go.
14:20
Speaker 1: So when it lands on the food and it finds
14:23
Speaker 1: that it can't um, it can't just suck it up, um,
14:28
Speaker 1: it basically tries to crumble it with the end of
14:31
Speaker 1: its proboscus. Right at that point, it's got tiny little
14:35
Speaker 1: it's it's smaller, it's more manageable, and then it pukes
14:39
Speaker 1: on it. Yea, that's step two. Everything you've ever heard
14:42
Speaker 1: about flies vomiting on you um or your food or
14:46
Speaker 1: whatever when they land is absolutely true. Yeah. I thought
14:48
Speaker 1: I might have thought that was an old wives talle
14:50
Speaker 1: in this article. No, it is true. Um. What the
14:52
Speaker 1: fly does is basically spit up saliva and digestive juice
14:55
Speaker 1: is onto the little crumbs that it's made using its proboscus, right, um,
15:00
Speaker 1: and it sits there for a couple of seconds thinking,
15:07
Speaker 1: and then it it tries to slurp it up. Um.
15:09
Speaker 1: And Robert makes a really good point in the article
15:12
Speaker 1: this sounds extremely disgusting to us, right, sure, but the
15:16
Speaker 1: fly isn't doing anything we don't do. When we take
15:20
Speaker 1: food into our mouth, we chew it, we masticate it. Right.
15:23
Speaker 1: Saliva is attacking it, starting to break it down, and
15:26
Speaker 1: then it goes through our esophagus into our stomachs and
15:30
Speaker 1: it becomes digested by juices. The flyes just doing the
15:34
Speaker 1: same thing, but on the outside of its body because
15:37
Speaker 1: it doesn't have teeth, and we have the decency to
15:39
Speaker 1: keep it all internal. Right, We don't go into restaurants
15:41
Speaker 1: and puke up onto our plate. That just would that
15:44
Speaker 1: would be untoward. So if there if the um, if
15:48
Speaker 1: this food is kind of in an in between state, um,
15:53
Speaker 1: and it's been spent on, vomited on left and it's
15:55
Speaker 1: still not quite right, it gets moved to the crop. Right, Yeah,
15:59
Speaker 1: I see the what should we call this fly fact? Okay?
16:02
Speaker 1: Fly fact? Was this three? Yeah, there's a crop, like
16:08
Speaker 1: you said, and instead of just um saying, oh, well
16:12
Speaker 1: this this little bit of crumb isn't quite liquid enough,
16:15
Speaker 1: let me just go fly to another one, the fly
16:18
Speaker 1: is pretty efficient, so they say, actually, let me save
16:19
Speaker 1: this for later, stick it down another hole into the crop,
16:23
Speaker 1: and in the crop it waits, and then they'll pass
16:27
Speaker 1: it back and forth, maybe add a little more digestive juices,
16:31
Speaker 1: throw up on it a bit more, and they do
16:33
Speaker 1: this until it's ready to be you know, until it's
16:36
Speaker 1: liquid ready to go down the shoot. It doesn't waste
16:38
Speaker 1: its food. That was fly fact three. Right, Yes, there
16:41
Speaker 1: is one thing you know we said that the fly
16:45
Speaker 1: is not really doing anything differently than we do to
16:47
Speaker 1: our food, is just doing it on the outside. That's
16:50
Speaker 1: still horrific and disgusting, because um, not only is the
16:56
Speaker 1: the fly carrying possibly leprosy to your sandwich. When it
17:01
Speaker 1: throws up on it, it's probably throwing up something at
17:04
Speaker 1: just eight which, as you pointed out, could be dog poop,
17:07
Speaker 1: could be blood. Uh, could be the you know, poop
17:11
Speaker 1: from a leprous dog, something like that. So when you
17:15
Speaker 1: you're at a picnic or something and you see that
17:18
Speaker 1: fly on your sandy, it's probably and if you see
17:21
Speaker 1: it moving his little hands around, it's vomiting disease on
17:25
Speaker 1: your food. It's what it's doing, right, exactly, Potentially disease,
17:28
Speaker 1: not always no. And plus you don't underestimate the human
17:32
Speaker 1: immune system. I mean, we all have white blood cells,
17:34
Speaker 1: you know, we all, we all can mount a pretty
17:36
Speaker 1: decent defense unless we have some sort of immuno deficiency.
17:39
Speaker 1: And if we do have that, then they were probably
17:41
Speaker 1: in some sort of treatment for it. So for the
17:44
Speaker 1: most part, I mean, it is gross. But you know,
17:47
Speaker 1: I think in in modern times where we got the
17:49
Speaker 1: flies under control at least you know here in the West. Yes, Um,
17:53
Speaker 1: for now, until the apocalypse comes the Rise of the
17:57
Speaker 1: fly right, Um, do you remember of that part in
18:00
Speaker 1: Amityville Horror The priest is like he's covered in flies
18:05
Speaker 1: and starts sweating and was that Rod Starker Huh yeah,
18:09
Speaker 1: nice good. I would have been so out of there,
18:13
Speaker 1: um chuck. Yes, we talked about their sexy bits already.
18:17
Speaker 1: What do they do with them? What's the fly family?
18:19
Speaker 1: Like a fly family? Josh is like many insect families.
18:23
Speaker 1: They man will chase down a female and impregnate her
18:27
Speaker 1: and it happens really quick. She's ready to lay her eggs.
18:31
Speaker 1: Toot sweet and uh, they don't stick together after they mate,
18:35
Speaker 1: they separate and the and the mother doesn't even guard
18:38
Speaker 1: the eggs like a lot of species do. One night
18:42
Speaker 1: love affair. Yeah, and she basically dumps the eggs and
18:44
Speaker 1: what she deems to be a safe place and she's like,
18:46
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. It's one night stand followed in
18:49
Speaker 1: child abandonment. And how many eggs is it? Later time?
18:51
Speaker 1: Did we get that up to nine? Over the life
18:54
Speaker 1: cycle of a fly? Okay, in a life cycle, I
18:57
Speaker 1: think they said the average lifesman is about three weeks,
18:59
Speaker 1: but it could be three months. Yeah. I don't think
19:02
Speaker 1: a fly can live physically beyond three months. But yeah,
19:05
Speaker 1: the average lifespan and reality because of fly swatters and
19:08
Speaker 1: things like that. Um is like twenty one days. I
19:12
Speaker 1: think he said. Yeah. So the life cycle um is
19:15
Speaker 1: a lot like most insects. It's got the egg and
19:18
Speaker 1: then the larva, then the pupa, then the adult. Warm
19:22
Speaker 1: summertime is optimal. It takes about seven to ten days
19:25
Speaker 1: to go from egg to adult. And they go through
19:28
Speaker 1: I think three molten stages. Uh, the little maggot student,
19:31
Speaker 1: they see, you know this, you know all this. You
19:33
Speaker 1: learn this in school. Didn't it nice to know this? Yeah?
19:38
Speaker 1: Very nice? So chuck um with the maggots. The first
19:41
Speaker 1: stage of the most interesting stage. We've arrived at a
19:43
Speaker 1: story that I have. Oh boy, when I was in college, Um,
19:49
Speaker 1: cooked steak through cooked steak and really actually, now they
19:54
Speaker 1: think about it, I guess I've probably trimmed some raw
19:56
Speaker 1: meat off and put it in the guard bridge can,
20:00
Speaker 1: as is normal, a garbage bag in a garbage can,
20:03
Speaker 1: the kitchen garbage can. Okay, And I get up the
20:06
Speaker 1: next so I'm a normal person. I'm not stick away
20:10
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. Um. So I get up the next morning
20:15
Speaker 1: and I go into the kitchen and I wonder, why
20:17
Speaker 1: is the kitchen floor moving like that? Oh man? And
20:21
Speaker 1: I kind of followed the floor as it went up
20:23
Speaker 1: the garbage can and into it, and I realized that
20:27
Speaker 1: my kitchen floor, it's a small kitchen, granted, but my
20:30
Speaker 1: kitchen floor was covered in a living layer of maggots
20:34
Speaker 1: the whole thing, the whole thing. So I'm like, I've
20:38
Speaker 1: got to get rid of these. What how do you
20:39
Speaker 1: take care of a maggot infestation? And I tried bleach first,
20:45
Speaker 1: did nothing to him, didn't even slow down one of them. Really,
20:49
Speaker 1: I ended up having to walk all over them. Well that, yeah,
20:54
Speaker 1: that's the old fashioned way. That's that's what I had
20:57
Speaker 1: to do. And for I did not actually have a
20:59
Speaker 1: floor infestation after that, so I guess I got them all.
21:03
Speaker 1: But they make a horrific little popping sound. Did you
21:07
Speaker 1: have have like snow shoes or something at least no,
21:10
Speaker 1: probably like hiking boots or something. It was an athen
21:13
Speaker 1: Why were they all over the floor? Was it from
21:15
Speaker 1: the steak it out of the garbage can overnight? Like
21:19
Speaker 1: like that? That's frightening, But that I mean that follows
21:22
Speaker 1: with um what we know about the housefly life cycle.
21:25
Speaker 1: That Larva's hatch um within a day, right, and and
21:29
Speaker 1: don't forget Larva and by Larva's I met larva with
21:33
Speaker 1: an E on the end um equals maggots breathe out
21:37
Speaker 1: of their butt, right, didn't we learn that somewhere else?
21:40
Speaker 1: So they never have to stop eating exactly. So they're
21:42
Speaker 1: just like this little fleshy worm like thing with the
21:46
Speaker 1: hooked mouth that just does nothing but eat. And yeah,
21:51
Speaker 1: because they breathe out of their butts and molt like
21:54
Speaker 1: I said, three stages, and then the third molten stage,
21:56
Speaker 1: you know, it goes uh, it gets a little darker
21:59
Speaker 1: and enters the pupa stage and that's the larger protective shell.
22:03
Speaker 1: Then it fully develops and outcomes a beautiful butterfly or
22:07
Speaker 1: a disgusting house fly like barton the Simpsons. Yeah, and
22:12
Speaker 1: how to like what Barton the senses. There's a treehouse
22:15
Speaker 1: of Horror where they redid the fly where he's like
22:18
Speaker 1: that mindless like the fly with Bart's bodies it's mindless eating. Yeah,
22:22
Speaker 1: that was one of the earlier ones. That's a good one. Uh.
22:24
Speaker 1: And then they get out of their little shell there
22:27
Speaker 1: with a temporary swollen bump because they can't chew to
22:31
Speaker 1: get out of an egg or the shell, so they
22:34
Speaker 1: they literally use this bump on their head to crack
22:37
Speaker 1: their way out, and then after they get out, that
22:39
Speaker 1: bump deflates and it just becomes part of the head again.
22:42
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's unique to each fly, like they
22:45
Speaker 1: can recognize one another from the bump on the head, Like,
22:48
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I didn't There wasn't a name
22:50
Speaker 1: for that in here either. No, it's just the swollen
22:52
Speaker 1: bump alright. Fly fact number four. Yes, so we talked
22:58
Speaker 1: about a fly. It can't live longer than three months,
23:02
Speaker 1: that's right, That is if it's existing outside of diapause, right,
23:07
Speaker 1: Totally fascinating to me. Yes, So diapause is basically like
23:11
Speaker 1: suspended animation or hibernation for the fly. Basically, if there's
23:16
Speaker 1: no food around um, and there's no predators either, and
23:21
Speaker 1: the flies like I'm gonna see what's going on a
23:23
Speaker 1: few months from now, the fly can basically shut down
23:27
Speaker 1: it's it's life processes to the state where it can
23:31
Speaker 1: just exist without moving. It's like a state between life
23:34
Speaker 1: and death for a few months, right, and then wake
23:38
Speaker 1: back up and be like it's the future or it's
23:41
Speaker 1: winter and I'm dead soon. That's another part, because don't
23:46
Speaker 1: they only live during the warmer months or do they
23:48
Speaker 1: don't live all year around. They they thrive in the
23:51
Speaker 1: in the warmer, warm, muggy areas. So Josh, surely these
23:56
Speaker 1: things add nothing to the world aside from being discussing
24:00
Speaker 1: little creeps. Agreed? Not true? You don't want them in
24:04
Speaker 1: your house? Well, remember, Chuck, these are one of the one,
24:07
Speaker 1: one of like three bugs that you and I agreed
24:11
Speaker 1: are are fine to kill. Yeah, what else did we say?
24:14
Speaker 1: Mosquitoes and mosquitoes, ticks and this is the only non
24:17
Speaker 1: blood sucker. Interesting. It's a poop Peter though, and that's
24:21
Speaker 1: why I don't want in your house. But they are
24:23
Speaker 1: good um, like all flies in the world at large,
24:26
Speaker 1: great source of protein. They break things down in in
24:30
Speaker 1: into smaller bits for other bacteria and life forms to
24:33
Speaker 1: feed on. They are an important part of any ecosystem
24:36
Speaker 1: that they live in. I mean, there's nothing here that's useless, right,
24:40
Speaker 1: That's right? Okay. I think they even found a use
24:43
Speaker 1: for the old appendix, didn't they they did? Doesn't it
24:45
Speaker 1: like um combat cancerous growth? I can't remember, I believe
24:48
Speaker 1: so uh, And I think they even use maggots and
24:54
Speaker 1: uh freshwater fishing raising commercial fish like to lapia. Yeah
25:00
Speaker 1: to life, you love them. They use pupa. The pupa
25:03
Speaker 1: is high in protein. Okay, so that's what they feed them,
25:06
Speaker 1: a little freeze dripe pupa m And you know, if
25:09
Speaker 1: you're if you're a survivalist, or you're in a bad
25:12
Speaker 1: situation out in the woods and you need to survive, maggots.
25:15
Speaker 1: If you get like a rotted uh rotted tree on
25:18
Speaker 1: the ground, you want to eat those maggots. You'll eat it.
25:22
Speaker 1: You'll eat it and you'll like it. I would do it.
25:25
Speaker 1: And I'm not down with that stuff at all, but
25:27
Speaker 1: I would do that, of course, to save myself. Full
25:29
Speaker 1: circle and Tom Fagy, oh yeah, nice job, thank you.
25:34
Speaker 1: Do we have time for one more fly fact? I?
25:37
Speaker 1: I think so, I think, yes, we do alright. Fly
25:40
Speaker 1: fact number six, No. Five five. Ancient civilizations actually made
25:49
Speaker 1: regular sacrifices to the fly gods to keep the swarms
25:53
Speaker 1: out of their houses and temples because they thought they
25:56
Speaker 1: were harbingers of harbingers of sickness and death, even though
25:59
Speaker 1: they didn't know the science behind it. Right. The flies
26:03
Speaker 1: are just there's something about them. They are um, They're
26:07
Speaker 1: disgusting there, unwholesome. That's the word I'm looking for. They
26:12
Speaker 1: are inherently unwholesome. Yeah. So if you want to keep
26:16
Speaker 1: flies out of your temple, right, you have several options
26:19
Speaker 1: available to you. Right, keep a clean house, that's number one.
26:23
Speaker 1: That's the smartest thing to do. Don't don't don't leave
26:27
Speaker 1: like your carton of milk open and just sitting on
26:29
Speaker 1: the counter when you're doing it, all right, Or the
26:33
Speaker 1: steak in the trash. Yeah, Emily makes me throw away food. Uh, Like,
26:37
Speaker 1: I put it in a bag and take it out
26:38
Speaker 1: to the garbage. So what we do too, that's what
26:40
Speaker 1: you do with adults in college, I think so. Yeah,
26:42
Speaker 1: it's like scrape in the trash. It was in a
26:44
Speaker 1: kitchen garbage can with the top. I mean in college,
26:47
Speaker 1: I would have left that plate out in the living
26:50
Speaker 1: room on the couch. I've always been fairly clean. Yeah,
26:52
Speaker 1: me too. What else can you do fairly biological control?
26:57
Speaker 1: You've got the old venus fly trap, which you know,
27:00
Speaker 1: if you can keep them healthy either kind of tough.
27:02
Speaker 1: Not just that. At the end of the um at
27:05
Speaker 1: the end of the fly that was at the beginning
27:07
Speaker 1: of this podcast, it's taught in a spider web, which
27:10
Speaker 1: happens quite a bit, so us. As long as the
27:13
Speaker 1: spider is not going to kill you and your family
27:15
Speaker 1: while you're sleeping, just leave it along because it's going
27:17
Speaker 1: to control the fly population tremendously. That's right. And farmers
27:21
Speaker 1: even there's some commercial farms that actually buy uh parasitic
27:26
Speaker 1: wasps too, you know, eat larvae right and take care
27:30
Speaker 1: of flies for their crops. The Tarot melody wasp, that's right,
27:36
Speaker 1: Tara Melody. Uh, keep your windows and door shut. That's
27:39
Speaker 1: kind of obvious. If you're gonna keep your door open
27:42
Speaker 1: in the middle summertime, you're gonna have a lot of flies.
27:43
Speaker 1: I think that's funny that even warranted its own bullet point. Yeah,
27:47
Speaker 1: and the flyswatter did too. Actually physical control and fly
27:51
Speaker 1: paper which is disgusting. Yeah, it's it's gross too, I
27:54
Speaker 1: mean especially around food, like if you see that in
27:57
Speaker 1: the kitchen at camp. Yeah, you know when you went
27:59
Speaker 1: to camp and you walk past of kids and there
28:02
Speaker 1: like flies there. It's like, get some glass glazies windows,
28:05
Speaker 1: what is wrong? Or at least changed the fly paper
28:08
Speaker 1: every day. That's something too. There's bugs appers and then
28:11
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even endorse pesticides for house flies. You don't
28:15
Speaker 1: want to be sprayed that stuff in your house, But
28:17
Speaker 1: that is an option for some people and it's just
28:19
Speaker 1: not for me. They can be very dangerous and has
28:23
Speaker 1: anybody who's ever seen a bug's life knows the bugs
28:26
Speaker 1: appers actually get bugs high. It's kind of like a
28:29
Speaker 1: hallucinogen to him. Oh was that what happened in that? Yeah,
28:32
Speaker 1: I remember the guy that's got zapp, the bug got zapp.
28:34
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, that was far out something along those lines. Yeah,
28:39
Speaker 1: bug zappers are fun. So chuck, you got any more
28:41
Speaker 1: fly fax or anything? I know? So we're done with
28:45
Speaker 1: house flies. I'm done forever. House Flies just just as
28:51
Speaker 1: disgusting as you always thought. That's right, and you already
28:53
Speaker 1: knew everything about him. So everybody yourself a pat on
28:57
Speaker 1: the back of this one. Right. Yeah, we should mention
28:59
Speaker 1: if you use a fly swatter, it's a lot of
29:00
Speaker 1: fun to smash a house fly, but you leave behind
29:03
Speaker 1: quite a disgusting mess. You will not allow house or
29:07
Speaker 1: fly swatters in the house. Now, we don't. We haven't
29:09
Speaker 1: owned up. They're they're really kind of gross. That's only
29:12
Speaker 1: second to the Pooper Scooper for the kiddie lettering devices.
29:17
Speaker 1: Or the toilet scrubber next to the toilet, or the plunger.
29:21
Speaker 1: So that's it. Now you know what chuck's in my
29:24
Speaker 1: houses look like. Right. If you want to know more
29:28
Speaker 1: about flies and you want to see these fly facts
29:31
Speaker 1: in text, even you can type in house flies uh
29:35
Speaker 1: in the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com,
29:38
Speaker 1: which of course brings up listener mail Uh funny or
29:43
Speaker 1: sad funny. Okay, I'm gonna read the Hodgman exchange. Oh
29:49
Speaker 1: oh really, I was thinking we wouldn't do that and
29:52
Speaker 1: end up on Judge John Hodgman. Maybe he'll litigate this
29:55
Speaker 1: if we just pretendally can he doesn't exist. We'll see.
29:58
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read this though, all buddy, Uh Johnny Rocket
30:03
Speaker 1: Hodgeman John Kellogg Hodgman. Rocket is his maiden name. He
30:08
Speaker 1: has a podcast he does through Jesse Thorn's Maximum Fun
30:12
Speaker 1: Sound of Young America, called Judge John Hodgman. We plugged
30:15
Speaker 1: it before he settles minor disputes between friends, lovers, husbands
30:20
Speaker 1: and wives. It's very funny. So John writes this last week,
30:25
Speaker 1: and there is a fan that said I wish to
30:27
Speaker 1: file suit against the stuff. You should know podcasts and
30:30
Speaker 1: this guy. It's complaining about the fact that we said
30:33
Speaker 1: in the Scooby Doo show that there were the Boston
30:36
Speaker 1: area campuses. Yeah, the five the five colleges that were
30:41
Speaker 1: represented by the characters. Supposedly it was one of the
30:43
Speaker 1: Scooby Doo myths, and we said that they're all Boston
30:45
Speaker 1: area colleges. Like, what ones Amherst, you, mass Holyoke? Yeah,
30:53
Speaker 1: Mount Holyoke's North Northampton And all right, that's the ones
30:57
Speaker 1: we'll get too. So March eighteen eight their nine Am,
31:00
Speaker 1: Judge John Hydman writes to the stuff you should know. Seriously, guys,
31:05
Speaker 1: see this Hello, The five colleges are in the Connecticut
31:09
Speaker 1: River or Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, specifically Amherst, Northampton
31:14
Speaker 1: in Holyoke, Massachusetts. This is painful to me, not only
31:17
Speaker 1: because this is Hodgman country, but it was which is
31:21
Speaker 1: mainlier than Marble Country. Actually it also has more argyle.
31:26
Speaker 1: That's right. It was indeed while driving up and down
31:30
Speaker 1: the tobacco fields along the Connecticut River that I first
31:32
Speaker 1: came to enjoy your podcasts and to admire your great knowledgeability.
31:36
Speaker 1: Wait you say tobacco fields, that is right. The Connecticut
31:39
Speaker 1: River Valley produces what is historically the most prize shade
31:42
Speaker 1: tobacco in the United States, and Massachusetts tobacco is still
31:46
Speaker 1: dried and used as rappers for fine cigars. Were you
31:49
Speaker 1: aware of this? In all caps? He he loves all cats,
31:53
Speaker 1: and he's very intimidating. Sunday, even hope to show this
31:56
Speaker 1: fine country to you, my semi hometown, in my total
32:01
Speaker 1: home state, and to remind you of the great motto
32:04
Speaker 1: of Hampshire College. To know is not enough. I look
32:07
Speaker 1: forward to hearing this letter read in its entirety on
32:10
Speaker 1: your podcast before you forced me to humiliate you on mine.
32:13
Speaker 1: That is all. Chuck Bryant writes, back, boy, John, did
32:18
Speaker 1: we hear about this one? It made it abundantly clear
32:21
Speaker 1: that the fine people of Massachusetts need to get right
32:23
Speaker 1: with one another and cease to throw up walls between themselves.
32:26
Speaker 1: There's enough segregation in the world. At ten o four,
32:30
Speaker 1: Judge John Hodgman writes, so you have already run a correction,
32:33
Speaker 1: then I must have missed it. Sarcasm uh. Ten o six,
32:38
Speaker 1: Chuck writes, we have not and shall not take part
32:41
Speaker 1: in the continued segregation of the fine people of Massachusetts.
32:44
Speaker 1: That is all. At ten oh eight, John writes, you
32:49
Speaker 1: leave me no choice but to mention this on my
32:51
Speaker 1: own podcast, And I respond to him, and you leave
32:54
Speaker 1: me no choice but to scoff at it publicly on
32:57
Speaker 1: our podcast. This is like a nerd battle at this point.
33:00
Speaker 1: It Yeah, And then John writes, very seriously, you don't
33:04
Speaker 1: want to go down this road, Chuck, just read my
33:07
Speaker 1: letter on the air before this gets ugly. I finally responded,
33:11
Speaker 1: if anything gets read, it shall be the entire exchange, John,
33:14
Speaker 1: complete with your threatening words from the alleged judge. And
33:19
Speaker 1: then he writes back, finally, you are a monster. And
33:23
Speaker 1: that is the end of the exchange. That was a
33:25
Speaker 1: great gramantic reading. Man. Thank you, thank you, and thank
33:28
Speaker 1: you John. Beep beep beep and uh sorry. I guess
33:33
Speaker 1: to everybody who was offended by that, which was a
33:36
Speaker 1: substantial amount of people who wrote in, I guess in Massachusetts,
33:39
Speaker 1: that'd be like saying equating making with Atlanta or something,
33:42
Speaker 1: and we would say, no, no, no, no, Makan's not
33:45
Speaker 1: even close to Atlanta. Yeah, but I don't know if
33:47
Speaker 1: I would um point out the difference angrily. Well, Plus
33:51
Speaker 1: they were disassociating from Boston. Usually you glom onto the
33:54
Speaker 1: big city and they were like, no, no, no, no, no,
33:56
Speaker 1: We're not Boston this one. Yeah, so I don't know.
34:00
Speaker 1: If I don't get it, I don't either. But um
34:02
Speaker 1: to each his own, as we always say, right, that's right.
34:06
Speaker 1: If you want to litigate us somehow via email, maybe
34:09
Speaker 1: you can contact John Hodgman. Um, we should probably give
34:13
Speaker 1: us personal email out huh see it's so kind to
34:16
Speaker 1: copy ours. Yeah. Um, well, you can contact us first
34:20
Speaker 1: and we'll see if we can put you in touch
34:21
Speaker 1: with John. Um. You can reach us via Facebook at
34:25
Speaker 1: uh facebook dot com. Slash stuff you should know. You
34:28
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s y s K podcast right, um,
34:33
Speaker 1: and then you can always send us a good old
34:35
Speaker 1: fashioned email, which we're always appreciative of, although no longer
34:39
Speaker 1: respond to every single one. Be aware. Um that's stuff
34:43
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
34:51
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
34:54
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34:57
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34:59
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