Listener Mail: The Quickening

of multiple Highlander personality disorder. Oh no, yeah, he was apparently infected by that recent Highlander to the Science sing episode that we did. And so he keeps altering his ego and his character personification from being uh Rami raised to being Connor, to being the Kurgan to being cycling accents. Yeah, like crazy. He was in Michael Ironside mode just a few minutes ago, was really running amuck. Um, he settled down a little bit. He's back in Connor mode right now.

Do you know what he was talking about a few minutes ago when he just kept saying it's pronounced Whovianuvian. Well, he was echoing the sentiments of a number of different listeners who wrote in UH to tell us that fans of the TV series and overall sci fi franchise Doctor who are referred to as Houvian's No, that's incorrect. They're referred to as uvi acts. I don't know, Joe, I don't know if the data really supports this. No, I'll

be proved correct as always. Okay, al right, well, uh anyway, despite his programming issues right now, UH Carney does have quite a number of listener mails for us related to different episodes that we've we've put out over the past month. Now, as always, we don't have time to respond to every bit of listener mail or of social media interaction that comes in, and we don't have time in this episode to read all of the great listener mails that have

come in over the past month or so. But we're gonna try and touch some some of the high points and respond to some of the more conversational bits that have come in. Yeah, But, just as we always say, if if we didn't have time to respond to you and you're not featured on the episode, don't worry. It's not because we didn't like your email. We just don't have have We don't have all the time in the world.

Here be it known that we do appreciate all the correspondence we get, so thank you so much, and please keep it coming. But I think we should go to our first email, Robert. All right, the first couple of listener mails we're gonna read here. I have to deal with our bugs under the Skin episode. So this one is from Dominique, who writes then and says, hey, guys, I was listening to the Bugs under the Skin episode and thought and experience I had would be worth sharing.

One night a few months ago, I was walking around our backyard with a head lamp on, and as sometimes happens with lights at night, it attracted a few different insects that proceeded to fly around my head. It was a little annoying, but no big deal until one of them flew directly into my ear. Didn't hurt or anything, but it was surprisingly loud, like someone aggressively rubbing newspaper

together right by my ear. And by the feel of it, I thought it was a small moth or something, maybe a half or inch show long or so I went inside and had my wife peek in there with an autoscope we have for our kids, and to my surprise, even as I was feeling and hearing this thing, she

said she couldn't see anything at all. Annoyed and somewhat in disbelief, I proceeded to a flush my flush the ear out with some warm water and was surprised when out washed a tiny little white fly, maybe two millimeters in length. Apparently a really tiny set of wings beating directly on your ear drum can both feel and sound deceptively large. I believe it. Though this did not answer my biggest question, which is what were you doing with

the headlamp out in the backyard, Dominique? Were you burying a body? What's happening here? There are a lot of reasons to go into your backyard with a headlamp, but mining for lead sulfide, maybe searching for the source of the nile. I mean, there are a number of reasons to go back there. Anyway, says thanks for the podcast, guys, I love every minute of it. And oh, by the way, he is he is from Florida. Of course, can be

quite buggy, so that also explains it. Now, Robert, you mentioned in that episode that you once when you were a kid had a bug fly into your ear and that it was very allowed. So does this match your experience in newspaper? Absolutely, as he described it it it brought back sort of the sense memory of that that time. All right, we got another one about the bugs under the Skin episode. This one is from our listener. Ming Ming says, Hey, Robert and Joe, just listen to your

episode on bugs under the Skin. And I loved it. Really gross and fascinating at the same time. The copious mentions of centipedes and orifices and bugs and ears reminded me of the duan Wu festival, so I thought i'd write in about it. I grew up in central China, and every duan Wu festival, my grandfather would crush up realger, which is a arsenic sulfide mineral. I actually had to look it up. I didn't know what that was, but so he would crush up realger to make xiong huang ju.

I hope, I said that right. It's a type of yellow wine people drink to ward away evil as well as poisonous creatures. As a child at the time, I was only allowed a tiny bit of the wine to drink, but my grandfather would pour drops of it inside both

my ears. When I would ask why, he would explain that it was to keep centipedes from crawling into my ears, because realgar was a powerful deterrent to the creepy Crawley's This featured heavily in mythology too, where centipede monsters or snake monsters, two of the five poisons in Chinese myth would be undone by realger. It was only with research just now brought on by the episode that I found out that rialgar is an arsenic sulfide mineral. I guess

what keeps people away keeps bugs away too. Thanks as always for the show, my favorite in the Stuff Network. Ming, Well, thank you so much. Ming. We're glad you like it. Yes, indeed, I always love to hear from listeners who have spent time in China. I want to know a little more about this though. What does that feel like in the ear? The arsenic sulfide? Does that burn? What does that do? And is it indeed a preferable to an actual centipede in the ear? I suspect that it probably is. That's

probably that's probably one of the practice emerged. Somebody got a centipede in the ear, and then they said, well this this kind of sucks, but it's still far better than worrying about centipedes in the ear. Okay, this next email concerns both dangerous foods and idiophones. So this is from our listener Joe. She lives in Malaysia, and Joe writes, I discovered your podcast and have been slowly working my

way through all of the episodes. I happened to cross the episodes on dangerous foods and thought it would be fun to tell you about one that I love to eat. I don't think you've mentioned this yet, but I may be mistaken Sauropus, androgynus or andrew gynus. I guess um Here it's known as ken cook, menace, or Manechai. I particularly love when it's stir fried with eggs. It's a

great source of vitamins and proteins. And she attaches a picture. However, when several Taiwanese people juiced and drank it, they ended up with lung failure and then death, and she attaches an article, but she explains the cause of death has been tentatively linked to the high amounts of alkaloids. Papa varying, but the exact mechanism is not yet known. It's proposed that cooking inactivates the deadly poison inside, rendering. It's something that can be that can only be consumed cooked or

in small amounts of raw. Uh. Similar to some other things we looked at in these Dangerous Foods episodes, such as just common beans kidney beans. You know you should not eat them raw. Yeah, Our various culinary practices often are ways to make that which would kill us actually something we can eat be either by transforming it chemically through the process of cooking, or just uh, you know,

regulating the amount of poison that we're taking in right. Uh, So, Joe continues, I usually take all my foreign friends to try it once, and now I have to add a warning to never ever consume it raw or juiced, digressing. I was also listening to the episode on idiophones, and I laughed out loud. When you use kiki as an example of something to mean sharper angular, there is a word in uh oh, and I actually don't know how to pronounce this language. H O k k I E N.

Is that okayen maybe or maybe hokeien? Uh? Anyway, Joe continues in that language kiki pronounced with a hard stop after each syllable. So I guess they'd be key keys or something uh, commonly used to indicate that an edge is jagged or uneven. So if I were to describe someone's haircut as key key, that would mean that their hair was uneven. I also tested out the three Japanese words from the episode on my friends, and they guessed correctly each time. I was quite surprised, as none of

them knew Japanese anyway. Really enjoy your podcast and have recommended it to so many people. Keep up the good work. Joe from Malaysia. Well thank you, Joe. All right, I'm looking over here at at Carney, and Carney has switched personas and now he is drinking Scotch and being fitted for a custom suit. Oh no, yeah, so I think he's in full Connery Ramire's mode. But but it bides us little time. Uh, We're gonna start covering some of

the listener mail that we received concerning lists. This one comes to us from Rachel, Hi, Joe and Robert, a list of hosts. It came to mind that we sometimes create terms or labels for things taxonomically, for instance, which represents a list of traits describing these unique things. The more obvious ones are labels like the word skateboard, which is a board with skate wheels. Less obvious would be a term like bellas parentus the common daisy, which is a label for a list of traits that must be

president in order to qualify for this label. Therefore, by giving something that label, one would be indicating, at least to a botanist, that a certain list of things are true of that object. I've always loved compound words for their descriptive but sometimes easily misunderstood. Nature's take. For instance, the word chainsaw meaning a saw using a chain for cutting. Basically, one could be forgiven for thinking this referred to a saw intended for the use in the cutting of chains.

Don't even get me started on chainsaw car in contest, Wow, Rachel, chainsaw is the best thing to illustrate any concept. Next item on lists came from our listener, Clayton. Clayton says Robert and Joe. I've been listening to the show for four years now, and let's make a list, and then let's make a list. Episode might be your best yet. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and was delighted to become aware of all the various reasons and types of lists

humans have made throughout history. List making is a huge tenant of my life and something that my wife and I love doing together. The feeling of accomplishment when striking through an item on a to do list is so satisfying that often if we have a running list of things like household repairs, and a repair happens that is not on our list, my wife will write it down after the list is complete, then just cross it off the list. Thank you guys for the show. PS. Invention

is also fantastic. Love the theme song and the podcast album artwork from Clayton. Yeah, people love love the theme song for Invention. We keep doing crazy about it, uh and I keep having to reply and tell everybody what it is and where you can find it. Only the finest stock music for our listeners ears, But no, it's it's it's from a stock music database. But you can also purchase it online if you love it that much so and you know who the artist is and stuff.

I think, right, yeah, you know what, I don't have it on hand at the moment. But what I will do is after we we leave this recording session, I will add it to the Invention page. If you go to invention pod dot com, go to the about section and at the bottom, under the stuff about about about who's hosting the show, etcetera, and our beautiful picture, we will put We'll put a little information there about who the artist is and where you can buy the the

the track for yourself, because it's good stuff. We we we we looked at a lot of music that was available to us before we decided on this particular track. And hey, if you're not subscribed to Invention yet, go subscribe right now. Check it out. If you like this show, you'll probably like that one. But anyway, I wanted to read this message from Clayton because I sometimes also do this thing with the with the to do list. I

think it's a G eight idea. When you make it to do list, don't only include what you've got ahead of you also include some things you've already recently gotten done and then crossed them off somehow. To me, this process is really pleasing. It's highly motivating. It's like you get a breath of wind behind you. You know, the mountaintop Bear goddess, just pour strength into your mind and your muscles. It's good. His His email made me think,

what if you took up this task though? To keep an ongoing list of items that you have never included on a list before. You have to maintain this and keep it current, so you're constantly putting new things on and taking old things off. Remember you have to take them off as soon as they've been as soon as they've been listed on the list somewhere. Try it for yourself, right in and let us know how the impossible list. All right, here's another one about list. This one comes

to us from Tony. Hello, gentlemen. As soon as I saw there was an episode on lists, I knew it would be a winner. Several members of my family have actually referred to me as a Mr. List. Over the years, I've made dozens of lists on a variety of topics, from my fifty favorite R. E. M. Songs to the most heartbreaking losses in Chicago Bears history that I have seen.

As an avid movie fan, I have always loved the Academy Awards and found my viewing of the ceremony was more enjoyable when I had seen all the Best Picture nominees beforehand. This triggered an idea that would become my greatest undertaking yet, watching all of the movies that had ever been nominated for Best Picture. WHOA. As of this writing, I have seen three of five hundred and fifty four for a list of glist completion of se which I

think is pretty impressive. That's a lot of movies, Tony. Alas, it was only after I was well into this project that I discovered there is no known surviving copy of The Patriot, one of the nominees from ninety eight. This of course means that no matter what effort I give,

I'll never be able to truly complete the list. I always hope one day I'll be mindlessly clicking around the Internet and run into a quick news blurb that someone found a copy of The Patriot tucked away in a way their chest, in an old producer's addict or something like that. One of the majority of readers would skim right over that news. For me, it would be like locating the Holy Grail. Thanks for your continued offering, which offering switching, enlighten and entertain us all, Tony in Chicago.

Of course, Thus the bears. That makes sense, Well, thank you, Tony. Uh yeah, it sounds like unless somebody finds a copy of The Patriot, your life is a lie. Um I, I know I can understand what he means about, like the desire to find something that you are into and then you set the goal of completing it. Um I. I fall into this trap sometimes, so I discover a new author that I really dig, or a filmmaker, um,

an artist even or want to be a completionist. Yeah, or I've I've also done this with like if I discover like a new say in the past, if I discovered like a new professional wrestler, like some new Japanese professional wrestler that I've never heard of before, and then I'm like, well, I've got to see all their matches now.

And then, of course you always run into the same problem, like either it's an actual incompleteness situation where Okay, this film is not available or this book is is is ass hasn't been published in in ages and now it's too expensive to buy a used copy of or you just run into the fact that if you become a completest on something like sometimes you're that means consuming stuff that's maybe not the primo material, you know, like sometimes it's best just to stick to the top five um uh,

you know, hits from this particular artist rather than dive into their full discography. But still sevent completion rate on on nominees, that's pretty good. Well, I I know, I also see the appeal of just going down the list,

even when there are other things you could be doing, right. Uh. Like I was thinking about when we were getting really into the nineteen eight nine Underwater Peril movies, and it's like, even though you know that like Lords of the Deep is is not going to be good, maybe not even good bad, you're just, uh, you've just got to go down there because you've already started. Yeah, And I did that.

Luckily there was a Mystery Sentence Theater three thousand episode of Lords of the Deep that came out this year or the tail into last year. But I also tried to watch for you get the name of it, Like it's like a German underwater film, not one of the like the top tier either. It was. It was, it was really bad. It was it was unwatched, but I had nothing of I That's why I have nothing to even say about it. Other than it was just complete boredom. But you got to cross it off. That's true. I

did get to cross it off. Okay, Karnie's going gone into Kurgan mode. Oh no, I think he has a correction. We have wrath coming our way. Well, okay, so this is from Duncan. So Duncan begins by saying, hi, guys, a couple of minor corrections, if you will forgive my O C D. I think this might be a little more of a clarification, but we'll take it. Yeah. Yeah, we're in favor of clarity. Yeah. So uh, Duncan says

about gravitational physics. In our Thought Experiment episode, you know, we talked about the idea of um of uh, the the Aristotelian view of gravity versus the Galilean view of gravity, and so what Duncan says is most people get a couple of simple semantic distinctions wrong. When talking about the speed of falling bodies. In the podcast about Thought Experiments, you mentioned that if you drop a heavy object and a light object off a tall building, they will hit

the ground at the same time. This is false. The correct phrasing is the rate of acceleration. Caused by gravity is the same for all objects, regardless of density. You can also say objects in a vacuum fall at the same speed regardless of density. The first distinction is using the words heavy and light as opposed to talking about density. An inflated balloon weighs more than a plastic baby pellet, but the BP pellet will hit the ground first, the

denser object will fall faster. The other important distinction is about acceleration versus speed. Objects accelerate at the same speed, but air resistance builds proportional to their speeds, so all objects have a different terminal velocity based on their density and also their aerodynamic profile. If you drop two objects with different densities off of building and it is high enough for either one of them to reach its terminal velocity,

that object will stop accelerating. The other will continue for a bit longer and therefore fall faster, hitting the ground first. This can be easily demonstrated with a piece of cotton wool and a marble from a height of only a meter or so. And then Duncan also goes on with some other comments about our our previous clarifications on uses of the word billion, like us usage versus non us English usage. But from what I can tell, yeah, I do want to say that Duncan's comments here about the

physics of falling bodies that seems absolutely correct. I think we were speaking in a little bit of shorthand in the episode, but but that is all true. Alright, Carney has calmed down a bit, and now he has he has handed me another listener mail, and this one has to do at least partially with Blobsters. Okay, so this one comes to us from Weldon Weldon Rights, I love

your podcast catching Up. I was listening to the second Blobster episode when you were pointing out that some creationists try to force the timeline to fit what they feel the Earth creation timeline is. I am a person who has convinced that we are far too complex and amazing, even some politicians to be accidental. So I am a creationist, but I believe it is only people's misguided interpretation of multiple layers of language differences that cause so much confusion.

The Earth is four plus billion years old as far as we can tell. The universe is somewhere in the neighborhood of thirteen plus billion years old. How does that not allow for God to work whatever way he chooses. When we try to cubbyhole what was accomplished, we limit his ability to only what we understand, and we aren't

always that bright. Simple facts point to a longer time involved, like a tiny bacterial found miles deep in the Earth's crust Russian drilling expedition, or star starlight itself hitting our eyes at night from who knows how many light years away. So keep up the good work on a great show, and try to remember not everyone who believes in creation thinks it all happened in a few days. Thanks Weldon. Well.

I think we have intentionally pointed out that that distinction before that not all people who believe in a creator of some form whatever religion they are believe in, say like a Young Earth creationist model. In fact, I think we try to be fairly careful about that. Yeah, I mean my take has always been that if we're dealing with a creator God's scenario, and I like to, you know,

look at different scenarios for this sort of thing. You know, if if that's the scenario we're playing with, we shouldn't expect that God to work their craft in a way that fits into human lifetimes and human crafting experience. It's like if if I was a cobbler, you know, uh, and then I end up thinking of God as a

shoemaker like that. That can be insightful, that can put it in terms that I can understand, But then I shouldn't expect, um, you know, everything about the cosmos and the history of the cosmos to be then therefore be you know, completely relatable to say the timeline of making

a pair of shoes, are fixing a pair of shoes, etcetera. Um. Yeah, so I you know, I I I think that, yes, someone can certainly believe in a creator and a divine creator and still believe in evolution and everything that that consensus science tells us about our world and our universe. Well, obviously those beliefs can co exist because they do in

millions and millions of people. Yeah. One thing I do wanna take issue with and what you say, Well, then as though I don't, uh, I mean, I wouldn't try to tell you not to believe in a creator or anything like that, but you say you're convinced in the fact that there's a creator because we're far too complex and amazing to be accidental. The unstated assumption underneath this is that things can only be complex and amazing if they were intended by something. I don't know if that's true.

I think things can be complex and amazing for all kinds of reasons. Well then then if you if you look at that's especially if you look at say Christian theology, right, God is complex in amaze thing, right, and yet that entity was not created by something else. So I mean, I mean, I guess you know, you're giving privileged status to the creator deity, and in this scenario is one

tends to do. But but still like it, even like the basic Christian theology doesn't say that that, uh, that it is impossible for something complex to come into being without the aid of a creator, I guess, I mean you can sort of take that in any number of directions and argue it up a tree. But at any rate, we'll getting back to the principle about accepting science and also having some you know, for various forms of theology.

I mean, most of the scientists in history have had some kind of theology, like a lot of a lot of say, these nineteenth century scientists who were involved in discovering evolution would have thought that probably there was some kind of deistic creator, you know, that there was some force behind the universe. But then they came to believe that well, maybe that God did not in fact set out animal forms or things like that those arose out

of natural physical processes. Yeah. I mean, you will find a lot of atheists scientists, but you have also find a lot of scientists too, uh to varying degrees, to follow different religious worldviews. And I think there is something highly advantageous in being able to to have more than one worldview, to sort of shuffle them around depending on you know, what you're you're dealing with in your life.

You know, you kind of have different It's like playing a video game where you have different power ups, right, you have different armors, different swords, right, and you you put on different power ups depending on what your character

is doing. It's your character crafting something while you're gonna change your build out, you know, as your craft character battling orcs while you're gonna change your build out a little And I feel I feel like I do that a little bit with with worldview, Like what are you doing, well, what are you thinking about? Like, what's the best way to approach uh, you know the current um challenges of of the world or of the mind. Well, yes, and that shuffling can also, I think take place at I

don't know why, you say, just different levels. I mean, for example, you don't have to be at a level where you ever literally believe any stories in the Bible, like literally happened in order to say, read the book with pleasure and understand what it means, or to say, read other religious poetry or here religious music that makes reference to it and try to identify with the author

and like put yourself in that mindset. Alright, On that note, we're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, we're gonna jump back into more listener mail, and eventually we're gonna get to some Highlander two specific email. Carney seems very excited. Oh yes, thank alright, we're back. So yes, Carney is very excited because now we're gonna go ahead and read it a little Highlander two listener mail. Alright, alright,

This first one comes to us from Dan. Dan writes in I'm writing in response to your episode on Highlander two, the Quickening. I'm so glad you finally made good on your promise. Slash threat to do this episode, as it was well worth the wait. We're glad, You're glad. While I've never seen any of the Highlander movies, I've i'd always seemed to be part of the pop culture and media landscape during my teen years in the late nineties.

And indeed, while it was, it was always on either the movies, especially the you know the first, the first one especially to get was on TV constantly. Is it on USA all the time? Probably? I know I was on USA all the time, so it's probably where I watched that or TBS, TNT, those were my hangouts. So anyway, he continues, um, growing up, I watched a lot of USA. The Highlander TV series, both live action and animated, always seem to be on no matter what day or time

it was. Even today, I can still sing home slash home the opening of Princess of the Universe. That's just how ingrained it is in me. I guess you could call it the let it Go of the late nineties cult cinema slash TV For me, I think that's a song from Frozen. I know this from my friends who have little kids. Oh yeah, that's that's definitely from Frozen.

And yeah, Princess of the Universe is kind of our frozen even and though for the TV show the movies they never used the full version, you know, because it gets a little weird later in the in the song, it's still great, but I think it can be surprising if you you expect it to maintain that same um

overtly like epic vibe that it has right at the start. Anyway, he continues, keep up all the great work you do, looking forward to a potential Science of Labyrinth or Dark Crystal episode, and then he included a link to Cisco and Ebert's review of Island or Two The Quickening, which he says Ebert called the worst movie of Cisco called

the worst title of ninety one. Is this one of the ones where they were Sometimes they'd come in and they'd be like, I'm so glad that when people Sometimes people would ask them, have you seen any really bad movies lately? And they'd have to think, like, what was a really bad when I saw recently? But occasionally there'd be one so bad that they wouldn't have to think anymore.

They'd just be like, here's my answer for the time being. Yeah, it's got to be grounding in a way, especially if you're dealing with a lot of you know, of of of sort of higher end indie pieces and artistic works, to to just dig into something that is just, you know, objectively bad. Oh there's nothing I love more than when, you know, when, when I've been deep in some cerebral material, to just back out of this and watch Attack of the Crab Monsters again, or go to some other giant

animal movie. Oh what, Robert, do you hear that? Yeah? Whoa? What is that? It's something kind of cutting in cuttle Cat's cuttlefish to the second oil age and he's kingdom with burl of darkness. I don't dispute the eurostata, but if he's down here, not blood but darkness, the Earth's black riches. No, I could taste it on my lips. Today, I want to talk to you about the science of transgenesis tens Genesis show. No, I guess it's gone now. Maybe it wasn't anything. Yeah, yeah, I just heard like

a high pitched, like like glitchy noise. Robert, you got a bit of blood in the owner of your eye. Oh my goodness, I yeah, I'm I'm bleeding from m I want to get get cleaned up here and we can keep going. I'm good, I'm good, all right. Here's another one about Hollander from Chris. Chris says, I love the Highlander episode. My only experience with Hiler was having a favorite uncle growing up who loved them. How do

you know that about your uncle? Like, your uncle loves it so much he's talking to his nieces and nephews about it. I think if somebody loves Highland or enough, you'll know like that, it will be undeniable. His uncle was Christoph Lambart. By the way, I only had fond memories until your episode kind of pointed out some of the things in my adult brain understands his bonkers. The bit breaking down the actors slash characters slash accents made me do one of those slapped the steering wheel laughs.

I had a suggestion also, with the Dune universe coming back soon in a movie form, I would love my favorite science show to dive into some of the wild sci fi Frank Herbert gave us and maybe shed some light on inspiration or real life echoes. Some episode topics could include shields and engines, sandworms, and of course the spice. Hope you guys are well and love what you do as much as I love listening. Well, Chris, We've got a treat for you because we beat you to it.

That's right. We did a couple of Doune episodes, uh maybe a couple of years ago. Have we rerun those? We have? We rerun them once, Chris, Yes, go into our archive, do a little search, and I'm sure you find a search bar somewhere. Look up Dune Parts one and two. I think those are those are a couple of personal favorites of mine that we've done, and i'd actually, i'd actually love to come back and explore a little

more about the Dune universe. I have a book titled The Philosophy of Dune with it with different essays about you know, phil Philoso, offical treatments of some of the ideas that Herbert uh used in the in the novels. So I I think we could come back and do more done in the future, certainly as we get closer to the release of the next Dune film or films,

which which I'm very excited about. You know, one thing I can say about that upcoming Dune movie, I think they made a good choice casting Paul not as an ultra likable young actor, but as a kind of like maybe kind of a little jerk, kind of torpy guy that that Timothy Challome guy, like the jerk character he plays in Ladybird. I can see it. That's I haven't seen Lady Bird yet. Ladybird is great. Okay, they certainly

nailed some of the other casting. I do like the idea of of Stelen scars Guard as as harconin We'll see how that goes. Yeah, Okay, looks like we got a great one up here from Amelia Amelia Wrightson and says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I'm so happy you finally did a Highlander themed episode. Well, I never had the pleasure of seeing the Quickening. Was tickled to hear you mentioned among

Highlanders various spin off series the two animated films. Now, I don't claim to be a Highlander connoisseur, as I've only seen the original film and one of these animated features, namely Highlander Quest for Vengeance. But although objectively terrible, Highlander Quest for Vengeance was my initial introduction to the series and remains my most supreme guilty pleasure views of all time. It's directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, better recognized for his work

on Ninja Scroll. Yeah, I love Ninja Scroll back in the day. I don't know what Vampire Hunter d blood Lust. I may have seen that. I can't watch some sort of Vampire Hunter anime back in the day and the Animatrix. It's also written by David abrama Witz, who gave us Highlander the Series and Highlander The Raven. It's one of those the cop show The Raven is the Cops. So we may have another listener mail by this, but I think she was technically a thief and she like works

with a cop. It's still it's still a cop show. Um. But anyway, she continues, I won't spoil too much in case other listeners check it out, but we'll say this addition to the Highlander series is absolutely worthwhile for the Celtic and Roman history buffs like myself. It's epic scope, definitely plunges into the ridiculous, and like many of Kawejeri's films, the animation alone makes it worth a watch. It functions well as a standalone film, so even if you haven't

seen other Highlander related material, it's very accessible. I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the original. Well, and now I want to see that too, because I'm you know, I definitely have nostalgia for for the Highlander series, and uh, I have a little bit of I think I'm almost to the point in my life where I can be nostalgic about watching some of these anime films in college. Now, you know what, I think. I didn't

realize this until just now. I think this is not the first time Amelia has gotten in touch with us about Highland. Oh yeah, I think she might be a listener who has written to us multiple times whenever we mentioned Highlander on the show. So we we could be dealing with a with a hardcore super fan here. We've been cultivating, um a subset of our listeners who are hardcore Highlander fans. Okay, this next one is response to Highland. Is a response to Higlander two. And this comes from

our listener, Rami. Ramy says, Hi, guys, I just finished listening to your episode Highlander to the science thing and wanted to provide some additional information on decapitation in the natural world. Yes, this is the right kind of listener mail, Yes, Ramy, so Rami says there is a type of hornet called the Asian giant hornet Vespa mandarinia, which prays on honeybee larvae.

The hornets, which can grow up to two inches in length, would descend on a hive of honey bees in groups and start decapitating them with their huge mandible to get access to the larvae. A single hornet can decapitate as many as twenty bees a minute. A small group of hornets can eliminate an entire colony of thirty thousand or more bees. The honey bee stingers are not strong enough to pierce the hornets thick armor, but they have however

evolved another defense strategy against the hornets. Once a hornet is spotted in the hive, the honey bees form a tight ball around it and start vibrating furiously. This increases the hornet's body temperature, essentially cooking it to death. You can watch these awesome battles taking place by searching giant hornet versus honeybees on Google or YouTube. The giant hornet is an invasive species to Southern Europe, thought to be brought here by cargo ships, and it has decimated honeybee

populations in the region. But it's nice to see the honey bees starting to evolve defenses to a completely foreign predator. Evolution at work right in front of your eyes. Keep up the great work. I listen to your podcast every morning on my way to work, and it certainly makes my one hour commute uh and enjoyable one. I particularly enjoy episodes about the natural world, space or history, but you guys never disappoint Thanks for your time, Rammy, Well,

thank you, Rommy. This is great. I don't know how I couldn't. I never came across this. Yeah, this is a this is a fascinating organism. All right. We have one more, just one more listener male that is directly related to Highlander to this one comes to us from France. Thank you, gentlemen for your varied and always interesting podcast. I'm a newbie with podcast, but I've probably already listened to around a hundred of yours invention stuff to blow

your mind and stuff you should know. I also love the ladies of stuff you missed in history class. Anyway, I'm a diet in the wool Highlander fan, but far more the TV show than the movies. She's a Highlander frand Frank fan fran gotcha anyway. Anyway, she continues, by the way, I agree with you that Highlander to the Quickening is one of the truly bad movies of all time. I would like to hear what MST. Three K could

do with it. Oh, that'd be great. But I own the video tapes of all six seasons of the TV show, as well as the one season of The Raven. I mostly love the show because they found an excuse for Adrian Paul to take off his shirt in almost every episode. I admit it. I can be shallow. That man has a totally ripped body, and as a martial artist, his fights were things of beauty. The Raven and here here we get a further breakdown and what the Raven was really like. The Raven is about an immortal who also

is a quite accomplished thief. Amanda the thief has known Duncan Duncan McLeod, Adrian Paul's character from the TV show for several hundred years, and she's beautiful and very smartass. There were a couple of episodes of Highlander that had Roger Daltrey. Yeah, of the who I remember these now as the guest immortal and they were mostly comedy and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Yeah, I remember seeing Roger Daltrey on there, and now I've got

to look this up. I can't wait to see Roger Dalton. Did they ever have Robert Plant as an immortal? No? No, they lost their heads long ago, sadly, but but Daltry was still still kicking. Uh. She also adds a little bit about invention. She says, you asked an invention a Toilets Part two about any science fiction toilets, and the only one I can remember is from the original four hour long two thousand and one. I don't think it's four four hours. I think she's she's having a little

fun there. I sixteen when it was released. I saw that twice, and then a three hour long version, both in Cinerama. In the long version, Dr Floyd is in the pan Am shuttle heading to the space station. There's a shot of him reading the instructions for the zero gravity toilet. Thank you again for the entertainment and education you've given me. Well, fran Uh. If you want to know more about the zero gravity toilet, I think we talked about it a bit in our episode on two

thousand one of Space obusely from earlier last year. Yeah, we did. We did talk about it just a little bit. That was the one of the one of the the earlier movie episodes that we did. Uh. That scene is great. That's Kubrick the comedian at work. Well, especially because it's immediately preceded by him drinking out of a carton of corn with the straw and then it just cuts to him like staring at the toilet instructions you got to

kind of put things together in your mind. Okay, we got one here from Adam that does involve Highland or two, but it's also about our ninth planet episode. So, Adam says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I'm writing in to help answer some questions posed about various sci fi franchises in the past few episodes. The first is about the planet Mandus, the original home world of Doctor Who's Cybermen. Ah, this must be an email from a huve on Ian. Now I

don't think that's right juvii on Ian. Uh. So, Adam says Manda's is indeed both a parallel planet to Earth as well as the ninth planet in our solar system. However, the serial in which it first appeared was named The Tenth Planet because it was released in nineteen sixty six, forty years before Pluto was reclassified to a dwarf planet.

And I think that would also be about forty years after Pluto was discovered, right, Oh, perfect, Yeah, so Adam continues, the geography of Mandus is very similar to Earth, with the main and only apparent difference being that the continents are upside down. Manda's drifted into deep space long before

humanity existed, possibly because of the Moon's orbit around Earth. Luckily, there's no problem that television sci fi from the nineteen sixties can't solve, because the Cybermen were able to pilot their planet back to Earth, where it was eventually destroyed, which is much less of a problem in the show where the main component is time travel. Also, the term used to describe doctor who fans is Huvian, in case that comes up again, No, I think, yeah, I can't

believe he could be this wrong. I think I think you have to trust Adam here. He seems to know what he's talking about. I don't know how Adam could be a doctor who fan without knowing that they're called Huvedn's. But anyway, the other question I wanted to answer was from the episode about the Silence Science of Highland or two. The question asked was whether or not the Alien franchise had ever had a face burster concerning the pseudaction flies,

because remember the Pseudactian or the Highlander fly. We talked about It decapitates the ant, the larva grows within the ant's head, and then it pops out of the ant's face, and we were saying, was there ever a horror movie or something popped out of someone's face? Specifically, was there ever an alien and the Alien franchise that instead of bursting out of the chest like coming out of John Hurt's es ut, it pops out of somebody's face. I still maintain no, I don't remember ever seeing that. I

think I would know. Well, Adam says the answer is both yes and no. While the official franchise has not had a chest burster burst out of somebody's face. Instead, the nineteen eighty unauthorized sequel Alien to colon on Earth, which I had no idea this even existence. It's a novelization. I don't know. I gotta look this up. Uh, maybe it's a fan of Alien to on Earth did have a scene like this. Whether this was for copyright reasons

or for pure gross out, I do not know. I have included a link to the trailer for the film that includes a very similar scene. Certainly, in the wake of Alien you see a lot of needless scenes where creatures bust out of people. Um uh, you know, specifically, Humanoids from the Deep comes to mind, is a film that, among its various problems, one is that they were like, we got to end it in a chest blair bursting scene, work it into the plot, and they're like, yes, Corman,

we will. I'm only half listening to you because I'm watching this trailer now and uh oh yeah, yeah, I just got to a face bursting scene. This looks to me like a alien Okay, it's called Alien to on Earth nineteen eighty. It looks like a work of sort of cinema italianissimo going on here. Uh, sort of like all the Italian Jaws sequels and whatnot. Exactly. Yeah, I'm getting that vibe. Okay, Well, I'm well, the time frame is right, Uh yeah, I'm on board. I'll watch it. Sure.

If it was made in the eighties by Italians and it has blood in it. Yeah, I'll probably do it. Is that blood orange? I hope? So Okay, Uh, well, maybe we should take another break there and then come back and uh and do a few more and then wrap up. Thank alright, we're back. Uh. I want to make a take a quick moment here to talk a little bit about another sword wielding um warrior and that being uh the legendary Irish hero uh Ko Holland or

Ku Collen or Cocallen. We had a lot of Irish listeners right in about this and uh uh correct us on the pronunciation or give their two cents on the pronunciation. Um. So, first of all, I want to mention that I reached out to my friend Lynus online, who is not a listener to the show because he sucks but he but he is Irish and so he I asked him away, what your how would you say this? And he said he told me that it would be uh Collen. Granted this wasn't much help, as it occurred after we recorded

the episode. We also heard from listener Ben in the discussion module that's our Facebook discussion group stuff to Blow your Mind discussion module, and he said, uh quote their three dialects in Irish donegal, uh, kannamara and munster, and they all vary. I've heard the second see pronounced as a hard see and your pronunciation as well. Irish people always disagree I'm unciation depending on where they're from. You guys did a great job and I love the episode.

And then it was also pointed out that the Popes have a song on the album Rum Saw tom Me in the Lash, which I listened to a lot. Um yeah years back. It just wasn't in my my head to go back and um, you know, I didn't remember uh that there was a poge song that mentioned him. But in that song you hear Shane mcgallen saying more like Kokleen Collen. Uh So if we were to go with Shane McGowan, um, then yeah, we were incorrect in our episode for sure. Well it sounds like they can't

even make up their own minds. Well, my interpretation is that we were probably wrong. But if we really wanted to like dig our heels in and say no, we know what we're talking about with I re pronunciation foolishly, then we would be able to perhaps back up our case by pointing to a particular dialect. But uh, I'm I'm happy to say we probably uh messed up the pronunciation a little bit there, but it seems like everybody really enjoyed the episode regardless, so our apologies. Well, I'll

try to do cuculin from now on. But man, those Irish ones are they're harder than most languages. They're mouthful, all right. Continuing on the subject of pronunciation, we also got quite a few communications about the productive pronunciation of uranus a k a uranus. It's perfectly we're going from cuculin to uranus, right, since that's exactly where the guy bowl go went exactly goes straight into Whereon knows. Apparently

that's another way to do it. So listener Nile writes and says, sorry, but when you went off on your pronunciation of uranus, it reminded me of one of my favorite jokes, which you're welcome to use. I'm sure I heard it from someone somewhere, you know how jokes go. So anyway, why is the Starship Enterprise like a roll of toilet paper? Because they both circle uranus looking for Klingon's. That is that's one of the worst jokes ever. Worse off for having heard that should we cut it out now?

We gotta keep it now sadly? Okay, Albert gets in touch and says, hey, guys, on the topic of pronunciation, I had an observation. I speak Japanese, which uses a phonetic alphabet in Japanese uh uranus or uranus is. And then he uses some Japanese characters which you would write as uranusu, which is pronounced with all short vowels uh short vowels. So I guess that'd be URANUSU like uranusa. Yeah, that sounds good. Or oranassa maybe I don't know. I

guess that would be oranassa maybe I don't know. Anyway, Albert says, this got me thinking that your two ways uranus and urinus might both be wrong. Well, it's acceptable in English, but what does the original Greek sound like? And then he sort of points us to the fact that from what I can tell, it might be that the Greek uranus or oh you are a n u s might be pronounced something kind of like where a no use where. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to

say that for the planet. I think I'm gonna say uranus. Yeah. Well, how about what about the mythological entity. How if the if if Uranus appear to you and you had to to greet them by name, which pronunciation would you use? Again, bearing in mind that you were dealing with an entity from Greek mythology and that they are a a tiresome and spiteful bunch. If I had to do that, I think I go neither of our ways. Uh, it would not be Uranus. It would not be Uranus. It would

be uran Us. Okay, it's probably safe and it does sound regal enough, I think. But you're not gonna get me to call the planet uran us. I'm sorry. Still, we greatly appreciate the thoughts on pronunciation here. Oh, yes, of course. All right, what have we gotten next? Drabberty? Oh let's see. We still we have a plethora of things we could potentially read, but we are beginning to run out of time. All right, here's another bit of listener mail. This one comes to us from Simon. I

believe high stuff to blow your mind. Team. I'm an Australian researcher working in the north of Sweden. I discovered your podcast a few months ago, and in that time I've listened to an embarrassing amount. I've been a fan of the podcast medium for a long time, but your podcast is, without a doubt, the finest I've listened to. Oh that's super nice. Robert and Joe are the perfect host, somehow striking the ideal balance of intelligence, humor, and approachability

no mean feat. The other thing that sets your podcast apart is your diverse choice of topics, which are often surprising and always fascinating. I've been telling everyone I can to give it an invention a listen. Well, you're two kinds, Simon, we appreciate it. This brings me to an idea for a potential episode. Having moved around a lot, I've noticed a peculiar side to many of the cultures I've come across,

the presence of folkloric household spirits. Growing up, my Welsh mother would tell my brothers and I about the boab Buck, a generally benevolent spirit that tended the home while we all slept. If treated with respect and occasionally given a bowl of milk or some bread and honey, the bow would continue its role as a kindly steward of the house. If disrespected or neglected, the Bobbach could take on a more ambivalent or a mischievous role. The archetype can be

found repeated in many cultures. In England and Scotland, it is known as the brownie or the hob in Ireland, the puka in Germany, the cobalt in Denmark, the nie s in Spain, the Duinde in France, the lutin, and here in Sweden the tom tape. It's obviously a Western European bias here, likely stemming from a common ancestor spirit such as the Laures of ancient Rome, but there are

certainly analogs in African and Eastern cultures. There are also a number of great examples of these creatures in literature and films, such as Puck from Amid Some of the Night's Dream and the character of Hinselman from American Gods, and even the Gremlins from the nineteen eighties could be

linked to this concept. Having listened to your previous episodes on folklore, particularly Jenny Green Teeth and The Willow of the Wisp, I believe your team could do an amazing job of dealing with the many facets of these creatures and beliefs. Why do some cultures have them and some not?

Why do they What do they say about is how did some of these pagan concepts survive Christianity and formalized religion and modernization while others were lost though not as immediate as other folk laric entities where wolves, vampires, etcetera. There's something so enigmatic and disturbing about the idea of creatures lurking in the peripheries of our homes. Best regards from Snowy, Sweden, and thanks again for the wonderful podcast. Well, thank you, Simon. I think that's a great idea for

an episode to explore. Yeah, totally, And you know, I'm immediately reminded that there there are variations of this that you see in uh in Chinese mythology. I mean, the most obvious being like that of like of of certainly of of a household spirit or god, you know, the kitchen god. But you do see this kind of thing echoed. I think in a lot of different mythologies and folklore's the idea that there are there are not only the strange entities and spirits of the woods and the waste,

but also of the immediate domicile. I can absolutely see how beliefs like this are especially likely to survive the sort of devastating sweep of an organized religion that conquers Uh So, yeah, you might see, like Christianity conquers Europe and it largely gets rid of organized pagan religion, and yet pagan beliefs that are sort of private and concerned with with the secret parts of life remain. Does that

make sense? Oh? Absolutely, and especially if there's not you know, something in the new religion that really scratches the same itch. You know, that's not going to it's not going to satisfy the you know this particular you know, dark or just unstated corner of everyday experience. In fact, I remember reading stories when I visited Iceland a few years ago.

We were learning about the history of Iceland and they're they're like National Museum and Ricky vic And one of the one of the things I remember reading about there and some of their exhibits was the Christianization of Iceland.

So they I think, I don't remember which they were under, different like imperial powers from northern Europe at different times, under like Denmark or Norway or Sweden, I guess, but at some point the Christianization impulse came from abroad and they were like, Okay, Iceland, you've got to become Christians now. So the leaders of their clans got together and they

essentially negotiated a compromise. And the negotiated compromise was that they would be Christians and do Christian worship in public as long as they could still keep doing their pagan practices in private at home. Interesting, well, that's a great way for the your more minor household spirits to survive the change, all right. So we've got another message here. This comes to us in response to our episode about tunneling underground. This is from our listener Lee. Lee writes,

greetings from Australia. I'm guessing you're going to get a lot of these because we were taught this in school. Just following up regarding your episode about tunnelers in Cooper Petty. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but uh c O O B E R P E d Y, South Australia, about eight hundred kilometers north of the state's capital, Adelaide. People live underground, but it is a fairly recent development. The community did begin as one of the largest opal

mining communities in the world. However, people began living underground in dugouts because the heat and the painted desert can be extreme over thirty degrees celsius and dry for six months of the year and in winter it will usually be in the twenties. They also didn't have to pay or seek permission to extend their houses, and it's relatively cheap and quick to get materials when you are an independent miner to build a house underground. Underground in Cooper Petty,

the temperature is a constant twenty six. I guess that's also celsius, which is quite nice and cool. However, they are not necessarily caves or underground. They also build mounds and live within them like in the picture, and these are the most common and Lee attaches a picture. Noticeably, this town is only about four hundred kilometers north of Woomera, the old rocket base in the middle of nowhere, with air conditioning and modern transport. Uh and uh. Lisa's mail

was delivered by camel to Alice Springs till the nineteen sixties. UH. It is easier to build houses above ground, but these houses are staple and a tourist attraction, particularly when teaching students about using resources for practicality. It's also interesting to hear about Neanderthals going underground. Indigenous Australians of multiple cultures would not, and did not, as a general rule, enter deep caves where it was dark for extended periods of time,

whether lava tubes or limestone. Predominantly we only find geological history or animal remains in these environments, with human artifacts found in shallow caves on or near cave entrances, but it would still be freaky sleeping near a deep cave system when you were unsure what was behind you in the dark. The Iwamian people, for example, at and around the Dara lava tubes in northeast Queensland, refused to enter

the caves or drink water from them. They believe that the caves would curse them and if they didn't die in there, corditya which is a boogeyman think birds in the village style well would come and get them. Scientifically, the caves actually fill with dangerous levels of gas. Can't

remember which one, and this creates an unhealthy environment. The Cutter Cut a limestone caves in Catherine, Northern Territory, whilst seeing an experienced by the jaw Win and mentioned in their dreaming was not widely used as climbing in and out of a dark cave where you can't actually see something would be very annoying and not useful for everyday life.

Kind regards Lee. Oh, excellent, I love hearing about that. Yeah, I remember the this particular Australian town came up in some of our our research, but we ended up not really uh you know, pulling on that thread. So it's it's great to hear it broken down a little bit by a native Australia. All right, here's we're getting down through the end here, but here just a few more.

This one comes to us from Adam. Hey, guys, I'm listening to the episode on the white spotted puffer fish and you men and that other animals like bower birds have elaborate behaviors or physical characteristics purely for fitness demonstration to attract mates. However, there is an emerging hypothesis that these actually evolved because of female esthetic preferences, with no

relationship or even a negative relationship with fitness. This was originally proposed by Charles Darwin, but fell out a favor until recently. It is not the consensus idea for selection of these characteristics, but it is gaining an acceptance. There's also a link to a full text article on pub med Central below. This topic could be worth a mention during listener mail or as an episode keep up the great work, Adam ps all hail the great basilisk just in case, and then he included a link for us

to check out. Well, that's a good point, Adam. I I don't remember us saying that we knew it was purely for fitness demonstration as opposed to so fitness demonstration. I guess would be either way, you are trying to appeal to mates by showing off a particular characteristic. And I guess the debate would be, is the characteristic in in biology what's known as like an on a signal, Does it like actually signal fitness in the way that it might be perceived to versus is it just purely

a decoration? Is it something that serves no actual purpose, doesn't actually show whether or not you're fit in some other way like free of parasites, are healthy or something like that and whatever we actually said in the episode. Yeah, I think Adam's right. We we don't always know the difference there. Sometimes there might be Uh, might be ways in which a signal is useful in ways we don't realize,

or or use less in ways we don't realize. All right, Joe, I think we only have time for one more here, because Carney has has gone full on Highlander three and is now in Mario Van People's mod Oh, so you've gotta you gotta gotta pick one and then and then we're gonna have to call it. Well, it looks like this is from our listener Aaron, regarding the Jumping Fish episode that we re aired recently as a as a Vault episode on Saturday. Aaron says, Howdy, been listening to

the podcast for a month and a half. Now I was listening to one from the vault just now, and you discuss whether or not the Kendru has swam up a person's urethra or remember in the Jumping Fish episode, that's where we talked about this urban legend or possible urban legend, that this Amazonian fish called the Candru can get into men's your e throws by swimming up the stream of a man's urine as he peas into the river. We said that, you know, it might actually be able

to get get in there. We don't know, but it's definitely not going to be swimming up a stream of urine through the air. Continuing with Aaron's email, Aaron says, Jeremy Wade actually interviews a victim and doctor that removed the fish in one episode of River Monsters. I think that's a show about scary fish. It is, Yes, I've seen it before. It pretty good. Uh, there was actual video of them removing the fish. Regardless of whether or not the mode of the fish inserting itself happened, it

appears as though it did happen. Indeed, it is rare, but it can happen if you're to believe the story. If you watch season one, episode fit, episode Fish, episode six, you will see that the canderu is quite a scary little fish. Well, okay, I still don't believe they can swim up through the air through a stream of urine. But I you know, if there's a candio around and you've got to your ether, I'd say, don't put it in there. Don't let it get in there. Always good advice.

All right, Well, it looks like Carney has finally calmed down. It looks like his his his infection has run its course, he has reached the quickening state and is now one again. So we're gonna have close out this episode. We think everybody who wrote in, whether we got to read your email or not, we do try and screen everything ourselves. There is there is no other member of the the Email team. You're you're listening to him right now. Uh So, even if we didn't respond or read your email, here,

you know we we are reading. We are listening. We would love to hear from all of you in the future. In the meantime, if you want to hear more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, check out Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mother ship. That's we will find all the episodes. Will find links out

to our very social media accounts. You'll find you'll find our store tap and that's a fun thing to click on because you can check out of our various bits of merchandise, such as the All Hell the Great Bastilist Basilist T shirt that we put out that will help cover all your options in case, uh uh, some sort of evil AI overlord takes over in the future. Um. But if you want to support the show in a

way that doesn't cost you, a dime. The best thing you can do is, first of all, make sure you have subscribed to Stuff to Bloil your mind and the and invention our other show, and then give us a rate, rating and a review wherever you have the power to do so. Wherever you get your podcasts, give us some stars, give us a review. It helps us in our our battle against the almighty algorithm. Huge thanks as always to

our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tary Harrison. If you would like to get in touch with us directly to let us know feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com They believe I think the big