Pineal Optics: My Third Eye

So I get into that a little bit. You know. I don't want to freak you out or anything of but it it's kind of winking at me right now. Yeah, it's pull sating under there. Oh, that might be a boil. Okay, all right, So obviously we're gonna talk about the pennel

gland and it's also called the third eye. Yes, yeah, so the third eye for for those of you who have not been exposed to it, where we're gonna start out with just a brief discussion about the non scientific idea of the third eye, that being that there is this, uh, we have the two eyes with which we see the world,

but that buried inside us. There's this third eye that if we are too, if we open it, we can see something that isn't there, or something that is hidden from our normal perceptions of the world that we we will be able to see uh, the spiritual aspects of the world around us, or see into the future, or see into the now. Um. It really depends on who's doing the talking as to what a third eye actually consists of. You see, you see various takes on this

in Hinduism. Um. If you've ever looked at any Hindu iconography, then you've you've no doubt seen like the flaming eye of Um, of the of Shiva, that that burns and shoots out flames. You. If you're familiar with with with the yoga, for instance, you probably know of the ana chakra. This is a position supposedly positioned in the main right behind the eyebrows center and this involves you know, future site, clear side presence, or even occult powers depending on who

again is doing the talking. You see, uh. You see the third eye in Kabbalah, in Taoism, in various New Age ideas and uh. And you know even in heavy metal lyrics from time to time as well. Also Gwin Stefanie, well you know she used to wear the Yeah, the bindy is a reference to to the third eye, into the into the chakra and all that. Um. So, yeah, anytime someone's wearing a bindy, they may not know it. They might just be wearing it for purely uh you know,

ornamental reasons. But but there is this idea of the third eye in that. What I think is so fascinating about this topic is that the third eye has been something that has been sabol symbolic to us, right, this idea of seeing and seeing all. But really it does have roots envision and we will talk about that via

the pineal gland. Um. So it's cool about this is that somehow humans had sort of an inkling that this third eye um might have actually been something within their own brains that was giving them some sort of insight or sensorial experience. And we'll talk more about that a bit. Yeah, so first let's uh, let's back up just a little bit about about the pineal gland and its history and its connotations and associations with the idea of a third

eye and spiritual insight and all this. If you go back in time, to around two thousand a d. You had this man by the name of Galen, uh Greek medical doctor philosopher, spent most of his time in Rome, and uh he wrote on a number of things, but he his writings dominated medical thinking like on up until the seventeenth century. And he did discuss the pineal gland in his eighth book UH of his anatomical work on

the usefulness of the parts of the body. And he was really more interested in the pineal gland than than anyone um at that time, or for you know, for years and years afterwards. Now, this was a time when when there there was this idea that the ventricles in the brain flowed with something called psychic numa. And numa is supposedly the breath of life in Stoic philosophy. It's this uh fine vaporous substance that Galen described as the

first instrument of the soul. Okay, So imagine these uh, these these old thinkers and UH philosophers, and you know they're they're trying to understand out how the world works, how the human body works. Um. There working with limited tools, though at their disposal, and and they have only the knowledge that came before them with which to understand it. Right.

So there they have this idea of psychic numa in their mind and they're poking around in um the brain of of a corpse to see what they can find and see what seems to do what. So when when Galen looked at the pennel and uh, and he in his book he describes the penel and talks about its resemblance in shape and size to nuts found in the cones of the stone pine. And that's will we made the name peneal pine. Uh. Think about that next time

you have pine nuts. Yeah. So he's spoking around in the brain, finds a pineal gland, but he doesn't see it as really involving any of this numa, any of this spiritual stuff, because he notices that it is outside. It's something outside of the brain. And he thinks that the part of the brain that's going to be involved in regulating psychic numa is gonna be uh, something that we call the vernis supier of Sarah Belli uh in the Sarahbellum Uh. And then he figured that was much

more proper to play, to play that role. But okay, so after his death again, his his work continues to remain important. Uh. In medieval texts, it is misinterpreted a few times, and it eventually the idea that the pineal gland is involved with the human spirit um and in our spiritual essence resurfaces. And and that's a long run, by the way, right up to the seventeenth century. Yeah, indeed, I mean, you know, and certainly these classical thinkers, I mean many of them are still we still hold them

up high today. They were, they were groundbreakers. So the seventeenth century rolls around and we have a guy named reneed to Carts who most people are familiar with, right, because what's his famous quote? I think therefore I am yes, yeah, easy to remember for me because it was there was a money python song about philosophers, the Australian Philosopher's Song. There's a really bad joke too about how a waiter asked him if if he would like dessert and he says,

I think not, and then he kills over. That's pretty good. Um. So reneed to Carts is, you know, primarily known for his contributions to mathematics and philosophy, but he was also really interested in anatomy psycho and in psychology as well, So he ends up doing a lot of thinking about what it is to be human and then the biological aspect of that. And in this book, The Treaties of Man, he describes a conceptual model of a human which consists

of two part body and soul. So the Carts works up this theory that the pineal gland is the seat of the sin. This communists in other words, it's the input. It's where the input of the senses are bound into an understanding of the world. So we see it involved according to the deck Heart's in sensation, imagination, memory, and uh and bodily movement. Now Deckart's theory would would go

on to be very important. A lot of people would really take this and run with it, because it's an important man saying some really awesome things about this little tiny pine nut in our in our heads. However, it's important to note that he was not really he wasn't even really working with the best anatomical and physiological assumptions of the time, so he's he's really kind of going off in his own direction on this, but it continues to be important towards the end of the nineteenth century.

You see Madam Blavatsky, the founder of theosophy, and she really gets into the idea of the third eye um and and and the pennel and compares it to the eye of Shiva, and she really argues that the pennel land is an atrophied organ of spiritual vision. Switch Again, as we've discussed, there's this idea of this third eye hidden inside as that allows us some sort of sight that we have forgotten and that can on some level

be attained again. Okay, so again what I find really interesting about that is that there are seeds of truth to that in terms of the tissues of the pineal gland. And again we'll talk about that more and more scientific terms. But this inkling that this there's this uh sensory perception center in the pineal gland is correct. Yeah, and you can also get behind the idea that there is an ancient form of sight involved in the pineal gland. Some of the theories back that up as well, but it's

not attuned with the spirit per se. By the end of the podcast, will come back around to an inkling of some of those ideas, but but for the most part, from here on in put the spiritual world behind you, because it's all going to be about seeing an evolution. So if we crack open the skull as uh as Galen did uh and we take a look at the pineal, what are we gonna see. We're gonna see a small organ shap like a pine nut, and it's located on the midline attached to the posterior end of the roof

of the third ventricle in the brain. Now, in a human it's roughly a cinamater in length varies, and it is composed of penniless sites and glial cells, and in older animals, the apennial often contains brain sand, which are just calcium deposits. But I do love the idea of

brain sand. Um. Yeah, it is essentially an endocrine organ, right, But I did want to mention that when the human embryo is in the earliest stage of development, the cells that will form the penneil gland have the potential known as the differential excuse me to Frenchian potential to become I cells such as lens, epiphilial layer or retina neuron cells. So in other words, it has all the ingredients to make a brand new eye, but it forms into this

endocrine organ which produces the hormone melatonin. Yeah. Again, and it is cell your level, it is astonishingly similar to the eye um, particularly to the cellular structure of the retina. So it's not just a thing where someone founded they're like, it kind of looks like an eye, because it really doesn't really look like an eye, but but at at a cellular level. And again, uh, in early and it's

into development we see the connections to our actual eyes. Yeah, and there's a great connection to as you say, evolution when we look at the reason for this why this

peneon gland exists. But before we do that, let's talk a little bit more about the melotonin um and its role, because what we have found is that the human peneal gland regulates the rhythm that beats out of the biological clots of ourselves by secreting melotonin according to light stimulus received through the eyes and from the skin as well as other selves. So in the morning, the level of

melotonin secreted is low, in the evening it's high. And then the benefit of exposure to natural light in the morning is that the secretion of melotonin is curbed, enabling the body to keep daily rhythm on track. Now, that seems kind of straightforward and so what, but that's kind of a big uh that's a big deal production going on. Yeah, And we've talked before about the importance of melotonin and

serotonin in the human mind and the human body. I mean, it's it has everything to do with our our biological patterns. It had with our our our level of contentment with the world and uh and certainly has come up in our discussions of various uh um psychedelic properties as well. Yeah, and if you think about the penneal gland too, it's kind of like the control tower of the body, trying to really sense to what degree it needs to secrete

the melotonin. Remember that it's getting these cues from skin cells, other cells in the body um as well as the eye. Yeah, you can think of it as a transducer, Okay. The pennel transduces signals from the sympathetic nerve system into a

hormonal signal. So it's like, uh, you know, if you're assembling the human body, you say, out of an Ikea kit, and you might see the pineal in its own little little plastic bag there, and you might well leave it out during the confusing assembly process, but you would definitely notice that result. That is a that is an important little nut to screw into the finished works. That's right, even with that tiny, little, tiny little uh what is that supposed to be? I guess like a screwdriver, Alan

the Alan rinch looking thin. That's the thing is crazy? Um that that has got to be the most frustrating tool in existence. Um. I wanted to mention that in the animals, the pineal gland is really paramount to reproductive functions since the detection of increased light, let's say in the spring by the peneal gland and just the secretion of melotonin and then that sends this whole symphony of cues to the animal's body to begin preparing for the

breeding season. So if you look at horses and sheep, this involves a hypothalamus secreating the anterior pituitary hormones which then essentially said out, yeah, I'm gonna say it, go now a tropin And this is a hormone aimed at bolstering the animals going ads and getting them ready for breeding. Yeah, yeah, I was. I read a bit which said that when you're breeding sheep, um, sheep, that normally breed only once a year can be induced to into two breeding seasons

if you dose them up with melotona. Yep, exactly. And we've seen this in examples with other animals too as well. UM, So I wanted to mention this because I think this is really interesting. Um, this role of milotonin. Again, we just think of it as well that helps us to sleep, and um, you know, have this wakefulness and not have wakefulness.

But I read this really very interesting study about how malfunctioning circadian rhythm genes could be the basis for bipolar disorder in children, many of whom are plagued with the onset of sleep disorders at an early age. UM. And this is really a big detail that sets bipolar disorder apart from a d h D and kids, Um, this sort of messed up sleep cycle or sleep disorders. R O r N genes are expressed in the eye, brain

and pineal gland in. In a study of one hundred and fifty two bipolar children and one hundred forty children as a control, these children, obviously we're not bipolar or thought to be. Psychiatrist Alexander Nicolausku of Indiana University found four alterations to the r O r B gene that were positively associated with being bipolar. So r O r B expression is known to change as a function of the circadian rhythm in some tissues, and mice without the

gene exhibit circadian rhythm abnormalities. So what they began to see is that this this correlation with melotonum and with disorders like this are hand in hand. And Nicolaski says that every time we investigate some abnormality of molecular machinery linked to the clock genes, we find an association with

bipolar disorder. So obviously there needs to be more research, but it shows promise in the treatment and that researchers have been on the right path and strictly regulating a bipolar patients leap schedule to improve extreme mood cycles that you see in bipolar disorder. Again, here's this pineal gland, the controlled tower, but you know, trying to give out the signals to the body. And it shows that something like this can really sort of go awry if if

it's not all regulated. So I know what you're wondering, where does it come from the pineal gland? How do how do we end up with this this thing that is in many ways and in many interpretations, a kind of primitive eye buried in the center of our skull without any actual um chance to glimpse the light. It ends up being this is mere transducer. Well, it's a good question, and I'm glad you asked it because because

that's what we're going to talk about you. So this really gets down to questions of the evolution of the

human high and the evolution of sight and um. And when you start thinking about ocular evolution, we're talking about really old business here, like really important, like when you're starting a business, like what are some of the first things you have to have, right, You've got to have you gotta have the building you had had the bad room, and the first people you hire maybe you know you you've you've gotta have the key people on staff before

you staff up from there. So when we're talking about the development of the eye, we're talking about some very old business and a lot of stuff ends up built up around it. So it it makes sense when we start talking about the ramifications of of melotonin levels on all these varying levels of of of animal activity, because it's it's route down to the to some of the earliest development. So the eye has been around for a while.

And if you look at the eye of a human the eye of a fish, they're not all that different. So it goes back a long ways in evolution. But if you go back far enough in our development, you find a cyclops, or more specifically, you find something called a lanceolate, and these are primitive creatures. They're still around

today and they have just one eye. Now. A couple of the main theories about the pennial evolution come down to this idea of a developing two eyes from one all right, so back in the day simple organisms, one eye, and then his evolution progresses. This eye divides into left and right. Now this is all predicated on the primordial brain. Like this primitive brain that's just the solid mass, that's a big ball. It hasn't divided yet into the right

and left half spheres. So the brain divides into two and then from one eye we get two eyes now, and then they're there. Even the various takes on which came first, chicken or egg? Does the brain split because the eye splits? Are does does the eye split because the brain splits? Um You can sort of go either ways on that too. Particularly interesting theories that stem from that.

First of all, there's one here from Professor Masosuki Iraki of Nara Women's University, and Professor Araki believes that the third eye comes into being during the transition from one eye to two. The position that iraqis describing is that this the single eye pulls to the left and right and uh and divided. Uh. An eye remains in the spot where the single eye had originally been. So the third eye then is not the third to be created,

but the first, the original. Okay, so it's uh so we what we think of is the third eye is essentially the tissue, the prime big primordial tissue, primordial I really very simple. I right, that had that was able to then sort of secrete itself back into our brains a bit. Yeah, because we discussed with the way the human body works. It's something doesn't just become useless overnight

and fall off of us. You know, it's stuff gets sometimes sometimes well sometimes but but but but for for the most part, things get tucked away, Things get to get to get hidden in case they're used later. Our body can be sort of a hoarder in that example. Another theory comes to us from David Klein, PhD. And he and he works for the Nationalist Suit of help Um. He has this theory that it all comes down to UM to melatonin again in the in the head, in

the brain. And then the idea here is that rough five million years ago, the ancestors of today's animals became dependent on melotonin as a signal of darkness, and is the need for more and more melotonin grows, the peneal gland develops as a structure separate from the eyes to keep the toxic substances UM needed to make melotonin away

from sensitive eye tissue. That's because this whole process of red option and all other chemical sort of interacting with one another, right, and the more distance you have, the better UM in this making of melotonin. So if you have that distance, then you are making sure that your eyes are not going to be affected by the chemical. That's sort of like the really very shallow dive on that.

But I kind of feel like booths of them are correct because if you have this you know, primitive brain that's just a ball that then uh evolved into this right and left hemisphere and then you've got the tissue well, as you say, the body is really good at saying okay, hey, you're sitting around, why don't you do something dumping some some toxic stuff in there and some meloton and we're not using that room for anything. And so we see the same thing with our office here. We only have

so much room to work with. And then of an office goes empty for too long, the video department will move some stuff in there and start filming some some skits and segments. The void gets filled. Yeah, um, and then they all that you know, of course, then someone is the control tower of the light source in all the offices, the gland, controlling to what degree we are exposed to um. So yeah, I think that was our earth. I think it's so fascinating to to see how the

human body can adapt like that. Um. And not just the human body, but if you look at the lancelot, this is really primitive creature. How the beginnings of that show, how this this evolvement of our eye systems and our penny all gland all sort of came together. Yeah. Now, when I was describing Iraqi's theory and you're imagining this one eye in the middle of a head, I ended up imagining a human face. Uh, well, actually your face,

since it's the one I'm looking at. Imagine an eye in the center of your head, and then the two eyes coming out, and then this, uh, this primordial eye receding. So you're you may be wondering, was there ever a time when you have three eyes? Three or at least three ocular units on the face. And yes, we're gonna We're glad you asked, because we're going to discuss after

this quick break. There are plenty of animals around today which which do have they're two highly evolved eyes, and then also this remnant eye, this uh, parietal eye, which is very closely connected to everything we're talking about. Okay, we're back the parietal eye. Now, if we look to some examples in nature, we can get a fine, fine feeling for what this parietal eye does. Yes, now we're not again, we're not talking about You look at the

face and you see three distinct eyeballs. But if you look at the certain lower vertebrates such as fish and lizards, um, you'll actually see this kind of you could almost mistake it for some sort of like gray pimple. Uh, this this kind of gray little dot, gray little slit um around the forehead, and that is this parietal i um.

They typically, like I said, it's a gray oval and the animals don't actually see out of this structure like they can't they can't look out of it like they're they're not right then, since data is not going in it and then forming a picture, that's what the other eyes are doing. This either throattle I is more. It's a it's photosensitive and it does influence circadian rhythm, but

it's unable to capture images. And it's believed that it's sense it's light and regulates body temperature and hormonal balance. So in a way you can think of it, and we'll discuss this a little more here. It is an eye that sees only one thing, and it sees what time it is. It sees where are if you can even apply a concept like time to to an animal, but it can see where it is in the cycle

of night and day. Yeah, And what I think it's really cool about it is that it does have this sense of passing of time through its pridal eye and these two kinds of neurons, So unlike the human eye, which makes use of five different kinds of neurons called photoreceptors to analyze light. The parietal eye has only two, as I said, but these two neurons help frogs, fish and lizards figure out what time it is. Um. This is from Seed Magazining the article The secrets in the

third eye. The comparison of the color signals now begin at the photoreceptor rather than in the retinal neurons as in the regular human eye. So when this happens, the photoreceptors in the parietal I are able to give information about the passage of time because, and this is key, the color spectrum changes over time during the day, So the signal that comes out of the photoreceptor is sort of a re eat out of what time it is,

which very cool. I mean, this is sort of a superpower that we don't possess, even if we do have pocket watches. Pocket watches when it's like the nineteenth century. Now, Yeah, and this parridal eyes often retained in burrowing lizards. Uh. And the idea here is that these are animals that are occasionally exposed to light, and the thridle eyes more suitable photo receptor for a burrower. Right, And um, that's why I think is really cool about these parle eyes

is that they do differ. In a paper by Gundy and Works entitled Parietal Eye Penny on Morphology and Lizards and It's physiological implications. Uh, they looked at seventy five species of lizards in their parietal eyes and they found that there were seven different morphological types. Um. Some of these types were the lateral parietal eye, the borrowed die eye as you mentioned, and this is my favorite, a finger like projection that extends towards the parietal eye, so

from inside the head. Yeah. Yeah, and this actually allows for the maximum absorption of light this sort of configuration. Yeah. So it's like the prietal eye and the pineal gland sort of reaching to touch each other, like uh, like Adam and and uh and God on the Sistine Chapel. Right, I hope someone, I really hopes someone paints that would surely that's on the side of a van somewhere or Alex Gray has done it. This seems like a great

Alex Gray topic right there. There's a lot of really cool study, especially in lizards are a great way to study the pridal eye, and they found a lot of interesting stuff about the the evolution of of the parietal eye and the evolutionary conjunction between invertebrate and vertebrate ways of seeing color uh prinstance, John Hopkins University study found two pigments in the pridal eye of the side blotched lizard,

two different structures of protein communication. One of these is a pigment communicated with transducent like protein called gustusin is vertebrates us and other is a pigment that uses GO protein.

It's an invertebrate way of of seeing. So the theory here is that early on this go protein this was the norm, and then his evolution progresses transucent pathway developed, and then as a and as it progresses even further, you move up to the lateral eyes, which are actually very highly specialized structures that are allow us to have depth reception, and then the go pathway is dropped and

we retain only the transucent pathway. So again we see in the parridal eye an ancient form of seeing, an ancient way of just barely peeking out from the darkness of consciousness into the light of the world. That's beautiful. Well all right, so we uh, we couldn't tidy up the rest of this podcast without making a mention of hallucinogens, right,

because if they're really heavy into them as a topic lately. Um, So, what do hallucinogens have to do with the pineal gland in the third eye other than people feeling like they have tapped into them when they're on hallucinogens. Yeah, we have a guy by the name of Rick Strassman in d who researched the hypothetical and as yet unproven connection between the pineal gland and the production of d MT. UH. First he was very interested in the pineal gland, then

he got very interested in d MT. He actually performed the first new human studies with psychedelic drugs in the US and over twenty years back in between nine five when he was he does about sixty volunteers with d MT. Eventually ended up canceling the research because he grew too concerned about the part of the negative effects that some of these individuals were having on these trips, seeing some frightening things, uh, lizardman, godlike beings freaking out as they

dissolve into light. That kind of thing which, as we discussed in our Psychedelic episodes, that can certainly happen, but he he did formulate a number of just kind of really out their ideas. I mean from the side you you you read what the man has written, and he's

not a complete lune or anything. I don't want to paint him like at but he has some very far reaching ideas about what the pineal gland might consists of and what it's doing, and and he gets into some some really interesting territory where he's entertaining the notion that d MT actually affects the brain's ability to receive information, not just interpret and generate it, and that it can potentially allow us to perceive dark matter and parallel universes.

So it's, uh, it's all very theoretical. Um, you know, don't take that to the bank. But but I do find it really really interesting. It is interesting. I mean, it's certainly in an extrapolation on what Nobel laureate Julius axel Rod found is that the brain does have naturally occurring trace amounts um of d m T in the brain. And then some people have taken this to say the peneal brain is is um where it's made, and perhaps there's some sort of um connection connection between psychosis and

even hallucine egens are I should say hallucinations. But again, a lot of this is all unproven at this point. We just all we know for sure is trace amounts that are naturally occurring in the brain of d M t U d MT being this hallucinogen substance. Yeah, to what extent are we coming back around to the same mistake of attributing spiritual importance to this little nut in the brain, or are we coming around to some truth about it that it is? I mean, obviously it has

something that it has. It has stuff to do with the way that we sense and understand the world, But to what degree so exactly? Yeah, you know, we we didn't talk about the third eye is being a Freemason symbol. Oh of course, yes, the what the the name for it at the top of the dollar the triangle with the eye. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the third Eye. But whatever we've we've seen that in It's in the

US Great Seal on the dollar bill. And of course there's a lot of conspiracy theorists who will point that Hollerabilee and say that you know, that's that's that's the work of Freemasons. Um. But from what I understand, Ben Franklin, who was the only Freemason who worked on the currency at that time, proposed a design and it did not have that third eye in it. So also, um, that dollar bill third eye symbol was in use I think, uh far, maybe like a decade or more before the

Freemason's even began to use it. The eye of providence, that's right. Yeah, yeah, And actually, if you want to know more about that, you should totally check out stuff they don't want you to know because they do some deep dives into that territory. And I really need to look it up because I was not familiar with the term I have providence to like, just a couple of weeks ago, I was in yoga, and this is gonna sound hippie dippy, but during Shavasna, I saw this, uh

that's when you're in rest. Yeah, I saw this, this triangle, like a pulsating triangle. It seemed like it might be God or something, you know, Like that was the kind of vibe I was getting off of it. So afterwards, like, hi, I wonder if there are any ideas out there of like that interpret God or a divine being as like a like a triangle, you know, like in a very geometric like stripped down since and that was the closest

thing to find its like Shiva's that call. Yeah, so I don't know, only the yogi you're gonna laugh at. Oh and I should also mention that one of the things that got me into this particular podcast is I was thinking back to the old horror movie Um from Beyond was based on a Lovecraft story, and that has a lot to do with monsters with pineal glands that end up poking out of their head and squirming around like worms. And it's a lot of fun. Do you have a great bog post on that, Yeah, yeah, you

can check it out. I do the Monster of the Week deal when I have one a half time. All right, So, speaking of having time for things, let's call the robot over and do like a quick listener mail here. All right, Hey, Julian Robert, this is from Valerie. I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your shows on mazes and labyrinths. Learning the rual difference between the definitions versus the use of the words was very interesting. I'm a big fan of etymology and love love it when it makes its

way into podcast. I'm equally terrified and enamored by mazes. I have a better understanding of my mixed feelings. Now. During the Labyrinth podcast, you mentioned the the Hopie Native American tribe. I believe the name is pronounced Hopie, and I think, guess maybe I said Hoppy or something I think I did well, or I imagine we both did. I'm gonna at the same time. Yes, I'm going to share the blame. Um, And she says, says Hopie like the garden tool and the sling for urine. Just noticed

it and thought you might want to note. I have very much enjoyed your podcast of late. I've been trying to do more wonder woman poses when I am not feeling tiptop about myself. I haven't noticed if it works just yet, but maybe I will end up with a bit better posture valory. Alright, cool, And she's referring again to the podcast that we did about life hacks and how we can game your biochemistry through assuming certain postures. Yeah, walks, labyrinths.

Get yourself in the right power pose and it can have a phenomenal effect on your life. All right, Well, um, that's all we're gonna do for this episode. If you would like to write an if you have any anything to share about the pineal gland, about the privle eye, about the third eye, uh in pine nuts, stop pine nuts in the munching of them, let us know we'd love to hear from you. You can find us on tumbling,

you can find us on Facebook. On both of those, she'll find us under the name stuff to Blow Your Mind. And on Twitter, our handle is blow the Mind and you can drop us a line at blow the Mind at discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works dot com