100th Episode Extravaganza!

Down the Wormhole

Episode 100

Episode number 100! Can you believe it?! It seems like only yesterday, we were nervously launching this podcast, wondering if anyone would listen, and here we are with 51,000 downloads, dozens of incredible guests, and so much more planned for 2022 and beyond. Thank you all for your incredible support. You are truly the best community on the internet. To celebrate this momentous occasion, we took some time to share our favorite recent facts, stories, and learnings. So if you want to learn about forests in the sky, insect superhighways, Olympic achievements, heartfelt wisdom, how to forgive, the clams who control Warsaw's water supply, and that time that Pepsi briefly became the 6th biggest military in the world, then you're in the right place.

Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast

More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/

produced by Zack Jackson
music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.

Zack Jackson 00:05
You are listening to the Down the wormhole podcast, exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This is our 100th episode. Oh Ray, which is why we're doing it live and not pre recorded. I mean, it's always done live. But you know what I mean, that clip of me at the beginning, which is why it's so unpolished here at the beginning, but it's our 100th episode, and we're super excited. And we're doing something totally different today. So everyone, just say your name as fast as possible at the same time, okay. Hurray, well, so after 100 episodes, hopefully you know who we are at this point. Today is going to be totally different instead of taking a topic and going into it, we are all coming here today with a fun fact or story or something that has filled our hearts with joy or wonder in the past. I don't know, I was gonna say in the past couple of months, but time makes no sense. In the world of COVID We have all been living in a wormhole for the past two years or maybe 12 years or who knows. So. So does anybody want to start? Or? Or do you want me to start?

Ian Binns 01:27
Kendra razor

01:28
Andrew wants to start,

Kendra Holt-Moore 01:28
I can start. But if you want to start back then No, go ahead. Just anything.

Zack Jackson 01:35
Tell me go ahead

Rachael Jackson 01:37
and wait, go ahead needles here.

Zack Jackson 01:40
What happens when we don't schedule,

Kendra Holt-Moore 01:43
I am really excited to share this because I I love Radiolab it's my other one of my favorite podcasts. And I recently learned on one of their recent episodes, that a scientist for years have been, you know, in the forest, they pay a lot of attention to like what's happening on the forest floor. And for many years, scientists didn't like put in a lot of effort, or they just didn't think that it was as important to be observing, studying what's happening up in the canopy of the trees. And, you know, in in recent years, like, there's a lot more stuff that you can like, read about and, you know, we know more about the canopy of trees, but scientists were like, you know, we were we're on the ground, we're closer to the dirt and the roots and the trunks. And so that's where a lot of that like early work was taking place. But I learned in this episode that there is a scientist, I can't remember her name, but she basically was one of the first people to discover that there is there are trees that grow in the canopy of trees. It's not turtles all the way down, it's trees all the way up.

Zack Jackson 03:08
There are trees growing in.

Kendra Holt-Moore 03:11
And, and that's how Radiolab put it up, not turtles all the way down, but trees all the way up. And I really love that I was thinking it's also kind of like the men and black conclusion of the world inside of a marble, or the Dr. Seuss story of a dandelion that has like a world living inside of the dandelion. Like we're just, you know, it's it's a great alternative of like the multiple worlds hypothesis. There's just trees living in their own ecosystem in the canopy of the forest, because there's dirt that gets trapped up in the canopy, like in between, like tree branches. And so one of the scientists she had proposed, I think it was for her dissertation to, to do work until like study the canopy. And her advisors were like, Okay, if you want to do that fine, but they weren't like super excited about it. And so she started, you know, doing her fieldwork and would climb up into the trees. And the first time that she noticed this, like other ecosystem in the canopy, she like was able to reach her hand into dirt up in the canopy, like she's up off the ground, but putting her hand in dirt. That was like putting your hand in dirt that's down on the literal ground. And I just think that is so cool. I didn't know that maybe maybe y'all are more informed about tree canopies than I am but I just found that to be a really cool thing because especially if you think about like really dense, dense like tropical forests where you you can't actually see what's going on up at the canopy like you have to, you have to go up in it to get perspective So it makes sense why we would not be super aware of the the canopy ecosystem or like the canopy soil. But it it's a somehow dirt. I mean, it makes sense to some degree like the way that wind, wind blowing through the forest and the density of the canopy, like trapping a lot of stuff. But dirt is one of those things. And so there's stuff that grows up there. And we just don't even know

Zack Jackson 05:34
I have that happening in my front yard, we're just noticing that there's a, there's a tree, and like the branches come out. And there's like a little, I don't know, pocket area where they're their branch away, and that the ants had eaten away in that little spot there. And so all like the decomposed ant poop or whatever, had made just like little thing of dirt. And there was a tiny sapling growing out of there. And I pulled it out, because I was like, that's gonna kill my tree. But I'm just I didn't realize that was happening, like

Ian Binns 06:05
another tree to save a tree.

Kendra Holt-Moore 06:09
Way to go, wow,

Zack Jackson 06:11
there's some ethical implications there.

Kendra Holt-Moore 06:14
Wow, that's cool, though.

Zack Jackson 06:16
That's pretty amazing.

Ian Binns 06:18
Tree murder.

Zack Jackson 06:19
Hey, Kendra, that reminds me of the do you know about the like the insect jet stream? That's up there. Like, very far

Rachael Jackson 06:30
up. I do love the bug.

Kendra Holt-Moore 06:32
I think I do know about

Zack Jackson 06:34
I do love books. It's true.

Kendra Holt-Moore 06:37
It's not well, like, oh, go ahead,

Zack Jackson 06:40
be flying airplanes in the early days of aviation. And they're like, why are there bugs on our windshield? Aren't we very hot 1000s of feet up in the air? Like, I mean, like 5000 feet up in the air and there's insects. I saw what estimate that like, How much was it, like somewhere between three to 6 billion insects are flying over your head up in like the jet stream all summer. They'll they'll get like caught up in updrafts. And then the wind is just blowing constantly up there. And so they'll just like travel. And they'll just fly around up there. Until they get they fall down to earth. And they're so light that, you know, it doesn't hurt them. And these aren't just like flying insects, you'll have like ants and stuff thrown around.

Kendra Holt-Moore 07:25
That's really cool. I wonder if it's the same path, or like trajectory that other things will get like caught up in those high air streams to like sand. Like I think this is like part of how the dirt gets in the cannabis. There's sand from, you know, deserts that will kick up and travel from, you know, like Africa to the Brazilian rainforest. And the tiny organisms that live on those pieces of sand, nourish the soil, and nourish the ocean, like provide sustenance, like in places that you wouldn't expect that sand to end up. Like, you might not even think that sand travels. But I wonder if it's a shared sort of trajectory of the insects and sand. It's just like, it's crazy. It's in the world. unaccessible inaccessible to our everyday experiences, but it's just one big one big ecosystem.

Zack Jackson 08:26
Yeah, every time I'm up there, there, the windows are closed. So I don't

Ian Binns 08:33
you don't know if the sands gonna pull you in the face and

Zack Jackson 08:36
Nope, never done it. So my story I wanted to share. Well, first of all, I'm six foot three. How tall is everyone else?

Ian Binns 08:45
5656 511 and three quarters.

Zack Jackson 08:52
Okay, so all of you are children.

Adam Pryor 08:56
But I'm five, nine.

Zack Jackson 08:59
Girl about to do with five inches tall on my screen. Well, did you know that that on average, we in our generation are three inches taller than people were 100 years ago. might have heard that. It's true. And one of the reasons is because of German submarines.

Rachael Jackson 09:21
Okay, that's gonna need some explanation. Yeah,

Kendra Holt-Moore 09:25
I'm so glad. So technically, she didn't ask she's like demanded mark that

Zack Jackson 09:36
I'm into it either way. So in the early 19 hundred's, people didn't eat a whole lot of meat. Right, because they didn't have modern refrigeration, meats expensive. It's expensive to raise them to all of that stuff. And so when people did eat meat, it was usually like canned sardines. That was the most commonly used meat in those days, at right, awful, most of the good sardines came from off the coast of France, and then off the coast of New England. So it's Atlantic based sardines were the best ones. And then suddenly, during World War One, there are German U boats in the Atlantic. And we didn't have the ability to know where they were all the time. And so people kind of freaked out and they were like, I'm not gonna fish anymore. I'm gonna get blown up. So they stopped fishing sardines, and there were no more sardines, and Americans loved sardines. So, overnight, almost this giant new industry started in Monterey, California, fishing for sardines out in the Pacific. And the reason why people don't normally eat Pacific, sardines is because they're awful. They're like, gross, and massive, and, and oily and disgusting. And if given the choice, Atlantic ones are always going to win. But then we didn't have a choice anymore. So this whole industry boomed in Monterey. And all these new fisheries went up, and they were taking in tons and tons and tons. And then the war ended. And then boom, the whole industry collapsed. They had all these new fisheries, they had all these new processing plants they had, they had all this new stuff that nobody wanted to buy anymore. And so nobody quite knew what to do until this industrious young man and Max Schaefer showed up with a novel idea. And he took these sardines and instead of canning them for human consumption, mashed them all up into a nasty fish paste, and then mix it with grain, and marketed it to farmers as cheap chicken food.

Ian Binns 11:40
Sounds so good.

Zack Jackson 11:43
And it was cheap. And it was so full of nutrients, because it was fish that the chickens all grew really big. This led to really fat chickens, which led to tender delicious chickens, which led to the chicken of tomorrow breeding competition in 1948, in which farmers around the country were invited to breed the chicken of tomorrow. And the chicken that one that is basically the modern roasting chicken, the one that can't really fly that has whose like skin is is like light colored and is easily plucked, and has large.

Adam Pryor 12:27
The chicken with boobs so big, they can't fly.

Zack Jackson 12:29
Exactly. Yeah, the chicken that we know and love and eat today came from that. So the consumption of chicken then skyrocketed and became a part of American culture, fried chicken and chicken breasts and all of that. We started eating more meat. And then we grew. And so the reason why modern Americans are three inches taller than their counterparts is because of German U boats in the Atlantic in the early 19 hundred's

Rachael Jackson 13:01
that's pretty cool. Right? Because you're asking how tall we were? Years ago, I was obsessed with just records for no reason. Like, I would read the Guinness Book of World Records for fun.

Kendra Holt-Moore 13:17
You know, that's not what I thought you were talking about there, but I like this better.

Rachael Jackson 13:22
Okay, yeah. Now, I meant so five foot two was the average heights for women in about 100 years ago, right. Nowadays, it's five foot five. So it's so if we say older people are so short, that's true. They really are that much shorter than we are and has nothing to do with like osteoarthritis or because the you know, the discs between their vertebrae are thinning or anything like that they they literally are just shorter than we are

Zack Jackson 14:04
should have eaten more chicken.

Rachael Jackson 14:05
And so now what are How tall are people going to get 100 years from now Zack? Like if

Zack Jackson 14:14
massive hundreds of feet, I think will be a race of monsters. And then the Lord will have to flood the earth in order to read us

Rachael Jackson 14:23
only that's at least what we try to have a ladder and build a tower. Because

Zack Jackson 14:30
know the people who made the ark. Who are those people who built the life sized Ark Ken Ham in them? They're building a tower of Babel. I know. That's literally the point of the story is you're not supposed to build it.

Adam Pryor 14:46
You're building a tower of Babel that's the plan is it is it like a like you know, like a twilight zone like tower terror drop, like wow, like you get to go up and

Kendra Holt-Moore 14:56
really miss the

Ian Binns 14:58
levels. Yeah,

Zack Jackson 15:01
I feel like if they complete it, I want to they've they've missed the point. But if they like leave the top intentionally undone, then perhaps I'm like, that might be fun.

Rachael Jackson 15:12
You know, you sit down in a way that

Ian Binns 15:14
I definitely want to share this episode with him.

Rachael Jackson 15:16
Yeah, you you share it. You said that no way, like, the same way that Robin Williams did in one of his stand up comedies, by the way from like, 20 years ago, where he talked about, you know, touching the nipples of gorillas

Zack Jackson 15:34
I think that's on par. Right? Tempting God and touching the nipples of gorillas,

Rachael Jackson 15:40
you know, he had got to know what's gonna happen

Adam Pryor 15:45
might be like a good activity for the top of the tower. Good. Wow. So that to Kenny, I will. Well,

Zack Jackson 15:55
yeah, what if you weren't blocked?

Ian Binns 15:56
I'm gonna do it from our purse or?

Zack Jackson 16:00
Oh, yeah. Ian's personal account got blocked by Ken Ham. So last time, he wanted to share one of our episodes, he had to use the down the wormhole Twitter handle, because he's trying to get us blocked in him too. So thank you. It was a really

Rachael Jackson 16:14
good Astronics were taken

Ian Binns 16:17
at Jennifer Wiseman, are there poking fun at the you know, the new telescope up there. And so I felt like you know, help him out a little bit. And say, if you want to be really cool about it, listen to this episode.

Zack Jackson 16:30
That's right. That's right. Well, Ken Ham, you're welcome on this show, at any point,

Adam Pryor 16:36
oh, Gorilla nipples,

Ian Binns 16:39
on the top of the new tower of tower that you're building. I'm still trying to figure out what it is I've learned that I want to share.

Rachael Jackson 16:51
I don't I don't have anything that that fun. Um, I've just taken some time away from the worlds and just delved into my hobbies. And so I think at this point, y'all know that I like to cross stitch. So I cross stitch, like so many different space things, I can certainly share a picture of it, it was really awesome, especially brain freeze black holes, and different nebulae, and it was just really fun.

Zack Jackson 17:30
But, oh, the Pillars of Creation orgeous

Rachael Jackson 17:33
I really enjoy the Pillars of Creation. I have been like, desperately following what's going on with web. And so it's just so unbelievably exciting to witness this thing that costs so many more dollars than than anyone ever thought it was possible. And that gives me hope for humanity. Right. So and, and being Jewish, and living in a place where Christianity dominates and not just your run of the mill Christianity, but like, you will believe kind of Christianity and to see that. Yeah, exactly. To to watch that.

Adam Pryor 18:19
It's gonna be what, Zack?

Zack Jackson 18:22
I'm offended. Do you imagine that? I'm like storebrand Christianity?

Rachael Jackson 18:30
Not at all. Not at all.

Adam Pryor 18:32
Okay, good. But I think you could use that in a scary way.

Rachael Jackson 18:35
Yeah, Tower of Babel. Go on. It got pushed back. So for anyone that wasn't really following the it was supposed to launch on the 22nd. I mean, it was supposed to launch at various times. And then they were smart, and they didn't make it launch. And then they they decided to launch it on December 25. I was like Merry Christmas Jews, like, cuz the Jewish Christmas is fast food and movie. Things open. But it's like, Yes, I can watch this. Like, that's the best, it was the best. So watching that, and then having it unfold a couple of weeks, like it made it. And now knowing that somebody did really good math and made sure that there was extras, right. So if any of you have ever gone on a road trip, I was certainly thinking about this. Because we're looking at electrical cars. It's like, well, how far can we really go and since there's no no stations where you could like fuel up your your electrical car, you can really only go a very short distance in most parts of the country. So you then say, Okay, well, how far can I go? And then you give yourself a little bit of buffer room because you don't want to be stuck there. Well, someone over at NASA and when I say someone, I'm sure that it was many, many teams of people said well, we want to make sure that it's kind of get there, right, it's going to get to L two. We don't really need it to stop and so they just put extra fuel But they did a really great job. And instead of it possibly lasting for 10 years, they think they now have so much fuel it might last for 20 years. And that's just I didn't hear that far out. And it's just really exciting that they have so much that it was good fuel usage on the way there, that they have almost doubled the ability to live and send better. So and

Zack Jackson 20:23
so it would only be able to live for 20 years, or could it Outlast that? Does it have the power? No,

Rachael Jackson 20:28
I think it's probably going to depend on what signals they send it, and what technology we come up with. But it looks like probably only only in air quotes, you know, 20 years. And you know,

Zack Jackson 20:43
it's Hubble's going all

Rachael Jackson 20:44
right, but Hubble, especially if you have read the book handprints on Hubble, you'll know, fascinating book, by the way. Hubble is so different than Webb, and pretty much everything else that came before it. The concept with Hubble is that it could be repairable in space. But that's what made it so unique and so challenging to build is that they had to constantly go over and over and say like, Can an astronaut actually attach themselves to this, right? Like, where do you put the foothold because there's no torque, if you're not holding on to anything, you're just like, off into space with no gravity, you can't actually use a wrench. So what do you do. And because they made the concept of this being repairable in space, they could make it so much better than it is, well, web is not going to be repairable in space, because it's a little far. So whatever it is, is what it is. So everyone was holding their collective breath for all of everything to unfurl, and then it did beautifully. And they're still calibrating it. So it's still gonna be like another 10 ish weeks until things are fully calibrated, and really sending pictures. But that that's just sort of my, it's not really a story. It's just I think that one of the things that I look at here is all of these, let's go and preach your style here. All of these extras that they put into it, the buffers that they build in, like, we can totally do that in our lives. Like we can build in buffer for times, we can build in buffer for gas, we can build in buffer for crying. Not that I've been doing that at all. Like we can just build in these buffers for each other and ourselves. And I think it's beautiful. And we decided, like it took so many governments to put web up there and we worked together and I am so a utopian universe kind of person. Right? Star Trek and Marvel all the way. Screw you DC and Star Wars. Oh, I know that. But this

Ian Binns 22:49
DC thing you didn't have to throw both of you did?

Rachael Jackson 22:51
We did. It has that that that nugget of hope and humanity and we put so much money into it. It's insane. And if we can do that, nothing functional. That's Darn it. I thought

Ian Binns 23:11
the force.

Rachael Jackson 23:14
Okay, I'm just gonna sit here and wait. And I don't know if any of this gets recorded.

Zack Jackson 23:18
Oh, you're moving against the freezer. Oh, there she is.

Rachael Jackson 23:22
Oh, you're moving again. Okay, she

Zack Jackson 23:25
froze during her idea. Thank

Rachael Jackson 23:26
you. So anyway, yay, us. And perhaps we could use all of that money to give stable Internet to Podunk places like where I live, that'd be great.

Zack Jackson 23:41
Well, I did hear that some solar flare interference, sort of a deal knocked out like a couple dozen Starlink satellites recently.

Rachael Jackson 23:49
Is that a problem? Is that really the problem?

Zack Jackson 23:54
I mean, I don't think Starlink internet it's very expensive right now.

Rachael Jackson 23:59
I think it's that we just live in the middle of nowhere and have bad internet today. So that's, that's, that's that's my story.

Ian Binns 24:06
I feel like Adam should follow up with something.

Rachael Jackson 24:09
I think so too, because he has to bring it down. Like I've got all this like ideal. I gotta be Ben. So Adam.

Zack Jackson 24:17
Already reboot. Kendra,

Kendra Holt-Moore 24:19
Adam, are you going to talk about web because I almost shared a story that I thought maybe you would talk about but it's actually something that I learned indirectly. From you through Chad. I love this. Oh, you're not going to talk about that. Then I want to say that you should say you can

Adam Pryor 24:35
you can say it. Go ahead. I

Zack Jackson 24:36
have a story about clams that I can share too.

Kendra Holt-Moore 24:40
So web then clans then Adam. Wrapping us up. Great. Ian still has listening.

Zack Jackson 24:47
We've got time. We're only halfway through. We've got time.

Kendra Holt-Moore 24:51
Um, okay. Well, two things I want to share. The first thing is I I'm really happy that we're talking about web because the other day I brought up The Webb telescope in my class, and all my students were like, Oh, is that? And I was like, Are you kidding me right now? No NASA nerds. And they were all like, like, everyone shaking their heads. And I was like, this is this is this is unacceptable. And so I sent them an email later that was completely, like, unrelated, you know, it was about class. And then the end of my email was like, also, just for fun, please go read about the Gobi school. But I, I have been so inspired by keeping up with this, that I put a little like anecdote about it in one of my dissertation chapters, because I'm writing about off. But I think what's really interesting about the kind of all and like, inspiration and energy that people feel around the Webb telescope, is that it's not just what it could do for us. It's not just that, like, How amazing would it be, if we learn all this stuff, by, you know, being able to see the infrared light and knowing about black holes and exploring other planets, like, there's a lot of potential that's amazing and inspiring of like, all these people working together to such a precise degree that we've had this, like international success. So that's like, on the one hand, but on the other hand, I feel like it's also really easy to get caught up in the story and want to follow it so closely, because there's so much at stake because if it fails, right, that's also a pretty major, like, we're either going to see human achievement, you know, at its pinnacle, or we're going to watch $10 billion, just flushed down the drain. And either way, it's kind of on spiraling. But the other thing I wanted to share, which is again, me stealing something that Adam actually learned recently, I don't know where you learn this, so you can share that. But apparently, like the Collaborate, like everyone knows the collaboration of the telescope team, like it was a, you know, a lot of people involved. But one of the people who contributed to the design of the telescope was an origami artist who worked with scientist to come up with the the design and the folding, you know, technique of the telescope to get it to fit inside of the rocket, so that it could be compact enough, and go far enough. And then only once it was outside of the rocket unfold the way that it did in, you know, with all its like, single point failure, possibilities that it overcame. But it was an origami artist who, like inspired scientists, by just like looking at how, you know, you fold up paper origami. And I just think that's so cool. And what a what an interesting what an inspiring testament to interdisciplinary work, which is why I think Adam was talking about this to chat, but for those of us in academia, who are all about interdisciplinary Ness. This is a perfect example because it's the humanities, the the artists, working together with the scientists to make something beautiful, functional, and you know, hopefully not disastrous, but something amazing.

Rachael Jackson 28:37
It did unfold that I have to say, awesome, and I'm going to add that if anyone actually does origami, you can download the origami Webb telescope itself. Like they created the Webb telescope origami pattern. That's awesome. So just want to add that. Did they really? Yes. Would you like the links, John?

Ian Binns 29:00
Yes, I do. Because John loves to do origami stuff. Yeah, I think I need that thing.

Rachael Jackson 29:08
It's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing.

Ian Binns 29:15
Alright, Adam, what are you gonna do to bring us down?

Adam Pryor 29:18
I thought Zack, I wanted to talk about

Rachael Jackson 29:20
clam also Zack, are you gonna talk about other NASA thing?

Ian Binns 29:24
I mean, I thought why more NASA stuff.

Zack Jackson 29:26
I feel like I feel like several people are are hinting something to me and I'm not getting most of them. I know, my fun fact about clams was just that the water supply of Warsaw Poland is controlled by eight clams. What? Yo, yeah, no, it's true. They are the people. Okay. The people in charge of the Water Department found that clams were better at detecting pollution than any of their their artificial sensors. So they took eight clams. And they are in a tank, that the water comes from the treatment plant and it goes into the tank before it goes out to the people. And on top of the clams, they have basically hot glue to spring and put that in front of a sensor. So when the water gets too polluted, the clams close. And then the thing at the end of the spring touches the sensor and it's it turns off the water to Warsaw. And when the water is clean, they open back up again and the water turns on. And those clams are replaced every three months. And then they're put back in the pond. And they're given their March so that they don't get used again. And they have to go through a period of training in order to be to make sure that their senses are that's what I want to know

Ian Binns 30:50
is the trainer. Eight clan

Zack Jackson 30:53
clan Waterson Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Pryor 30:57
I mean, essentially worse. I made clam thermostats. That's really what happened here.

Zack Jackson 31:01
Yeah. And they work that they call it like there's a fancy word for bio monitoring. Huh?

Adam Pryor 31:10
Yeah, that's just an easy way to say clam thermos.

Zack Jackson 31:13
Yeah. I mean, it's a canary in the coal mine. But, but it controls the whole water supply.

Adam Pryor 31:17
Yeah. Do they have like, like, does it can it like, Shut partway off? Like, you know, for clams today, we're close to your own rescue

Zack Jackson 31:25
boil wars, like Minority Report. Right?

Adam Pryor 31:29
But not when the clams are in the tank.

Zack Jackson 31:31
Right? Don't do that. Don't do that.

Adam Pryor 31:36
Because then train more.

Zack Jackson 31:39
So what do you got? Adam?

Adam Pryor 31:40
I want to make sure I understood the

Zack Jackson 31:45
so this would be this would be like, textbook vintage, Adam, for you to come on and be like, Look, I got your question, but I did not. Well, and I would like to restate this in a way.

Adam Pryor 31:56
Nine times out of 10. That's true. But so I'm supposed to come up with a story that has been inspiring to know how I learned

Kendra Holt-Moore 32:06
just recently

Zack Jackson 32:08
learned anything

Adam Pryor 32:10
interesting. Just finding anything interesting or fun that I learned?

Zack Jackson 32:14
Or inspirational or tragic? Or like or, or or? Okay. Well, I mean, the Sixers just got James Harden. You could we could talk about that. I talked

Adam Pryor 32:27
about that. No, um, well, I guess.

Zack Jackson 32:36
Are you looking around the room for inspiration?

Kendra Holt-Moore 32:39
Do you mean something to you to talk about? No,

Adam Pryor 32:42
no, I'm thinking like, cuz I I'm trying to say what to choose. Like. I mean, I could choose any number of depressing items. But that feels a little on the nose. Because a lot of what I've been learning is about the Kansas legislature right now. And that Oh, terrible. I don't think anyone should be subjected to that. Although I'm pretty sure it should be disbanded because they're useless. Coal coal. I've been Reading a lot about gerrymandering, but that also feels pretty, pretty dark. Even for me, that feels kind of dark, especially which state are living in Kansas is trying to put Lawrence inside the big first. If you don't know what the big first is, it's all of Western Kansas. And let me just say Lawrence is not in western Kansas. Right. So it makes this big U shaped come down and get Lawrence and put them into the big first. It's not political way. Yeah, these are the things I'm Reading about. Yeah, no, no, um, oh, wait, no, I have a heavy one. Hold on. Wait. Well, I mean, it's not happy. You happy, happy, happiest everything? I think it's happy. Um, hang on, man. I'm pulling it out to a low bar. So I was Reading this morning. This made me legitimately happy this morning. So I'm, in the times, there was this piece by Rabbi Lauren Holtz Blatt from Agoudas Israel congregation in Washington, DC. And she was writing about the whole debacle. Hmm. Feels like the correct term.

Rachael Jackson 34:28
The misses with Whoopi Goldberg one, okay.

Adam Pryor 34:31
Oh, yes. Yeah, right. Um, and, you know, if you're not aware of like, you know, Google it, you can find that, um, I was a little depressed the number of people who didn't know that that occurred, and I'm like, that says something about, you know, how Zack might haunt people. But what she wrote about in her piece, which I thought was really, really beautiful, and I'm going to do butcher the pronunciation and then you correct Rachel. So she wrote about tshuva should I get my accent right? Oh, yes. And as a process of Reading, renouncing, confessing reconciling and making amends right. And then she talks about to Shiva Shalimar complete Yep. Right this idea of complete to Shiva right where like, when you come into the same situation you act differently, right as knowing that this is like actually come to its peace. And then she makes this nice reference to tikun olam at the end of the article that like unless you're Jewish, you probably don't catch. I thought it was really brilliant. But I what, what I found, like, deeply hopeful about this idea is how generous a way of responding to that situation. That is, and that doesn't happen anymore. No one is that generous with other people today. And I kinda like that. At heart, I think there's something really beautiful about being able to write in the face of all horrible racism, that this is the kind of response we should be offering to one another. And it makes me more patient, generally, not specifically towards them. But generally, I like the idea of it. And what was the article? It's her opinion piece she wrote. It's called in the Jewish tradition, the words we choose matter. I just thought it was. It was really beautifully. I mean, it's beautifully written, like a whole wholesale, but I just the fact that that was how she decided to wrap this up and suggest people might engage. What has been a really, in some ways, underreported, in my opinion, and also poorly reported. Event. Is, is, I think, really helpful.

Rachael Jackson 37:27
That's lovely. And I appreciate that you, you also brought it up. Yeah, it's definitely one of those things. Right? In Judaism, there is definitely that idea of if we believe that each person has the ability to mess up, and then fix their mess ups. How much more? How much more can we really ask of a person? And should we not then treat each other with that ability? So it's, I mean, she's she's farmer, erudite and Better Spoken than I also she's, she was writing instead of speaking, so she had the gift of editing. But no, it's really, it's wonderful. Right. And I think one of the challenges that we have, especially as Jews as like, Well, that was under reported. What about mouse? And what about, right, the synagogue shooting and in Texas, like, or hostage holding, not shooting, right? Like, how many of these things do we really want to be like, Hey, you didn't say that enough. So I like that there's this positive that you that Adam, you picked up this like, really good way of looking at this story. Thanks. Also to really great story.

Adam Pryor 38:43
Yeah. Off to read that. There, I did something hopeful.

Rachael Jackson 38:48
You shared 100 episode, you're like doing something different.

Adam Pryor 38:55
I gotta flip things around.

Zack Jackson 38:58
Keep it fresh. Just take us another three years to get through another positive.

Adam Pryor 39:02
I mean, seems highly likely.

Zack Jackson 39:06
Maybe the birth of your fourth child will springs there and into your life. Just,

Adam Pryor 39:10
I mean, I probably won't be there. Let's just be real. 75% That's not Yeah.

Ian Binns 39:21
If you're a professional athlete, maybe you make a lot of money.

Adam Pryor 39:27
That's correct. C is for degree. So you tell your students. Yeah, I get degrees. They're struggling in my class. And they're like, 68. I'm like, Hey, you only got to get a degree. Well, sometimes I say that to majors, too. Not too many recently. Just a while. There. There were a couple.

Ian Binns 39:54
I think the thing I want to talk about is I always appreciate The excitement around seen people on athletes at the Olympics. You know, there's always the, there's always issues with, you know how the Olympics are chosen. And you know, I'm not dismissing any of that what I like to see and I love to have the Olympics on is to just see their excitement that they have while they're doing something that they've spent an incredibly long time preparing for, right? And then even the the, like, good sportsmanship they tend to have for the most part, I mean, there's always issues but just how much they still celebrate each other because they realize that they're seeing something great. Like, it's really I just, it's very inspiring for me to see that to see people who are able to do some of these things that after they've done an event, you're just like, I don't understand how that just happened. Like how did that person just do that? You know, tricks, when you especially right now is skiing, you know, the aerials that they do, and stuff like that freestyle skiing, or whatever it's called. But even watching, like the level of excitement that occurs with cross country skiing, and biathlon, I'm not allowed to watch that. That's fun, curly, curly. It's fun, because they'll do things and everyone just be like, how did that just happen? Yeah, man. It's just it's so amazing to me that they're that far from the end. And they're able to like thread it between two of the rocks to hit this exact spot that they need to hit. It's just really cool. So that's kind of what's been going on in our house lately.

Zack Jackson 41:32
And watch what was impossible, just like a decade ago, right? Someone would land like, like when Tony Hawk hit the like the 900. Right? Or whatever it was back in don't 20 years ago. That was that was mind blowing X Games explode. That and because there's nothing now it's like, oh, we figured it out. And now we can do it. We've progressed. Humans are amazing. Yeah.

Rachael Jackson 41:54
What we asked him to do is really impressive.

Ian Binns 41:58
Yeah, it's very, it's very interesting just to kind of watch these athletes who, as I said, that have dedicated their lives to perfecting what it is that they do. But to build on the Olympic theme, how about this? I was the first I now don't remember her name. But it was the first woman figure skater to land a quad. The Quad jump

Kendra Holt-Moore 42:24
in the donation.

Adam Pryor 42:26
Players that say you mean the dough for Oh, no.

Ian Binns 42:28
Was she a doper? Yep. Did she test positive for doping? Yep. Oh. Does she really

Rachael Jackson 42:39
do with extra hormones? Yeah, I mean,

Adam Pryor 42:44
well, that's, I gotta say, right? Like, as you are seeing all this, I can't stop myself now. Now. We're gonna go for it right like Hopi and they like each other in this kind of thing. And I'm like, Yeah, you know what I see the instrumentalisation of 15 year olds by countries for profit.

Ian Binns 43:00
See, this is the reason why I just get rid of that part.

Kendra Holt-Moore 43:05
And I appreciate it because it parties. I love watching the clips. I watched the snowboarders yesterday and was like, Yeah, I'm gonna do that. I'm not, I'll never do anything remotely close to that. But it does. It makes you feel like you know, just before before Adam just ruins it. I just want to affirm your love of watching Olympic athletes.

Rachael Jackson 43:28
Well, I'm I'm going to like switch teams here a little bit. And I'm totally with Adam. I can't stand

Kendra Holt-Moore 43:37
I mean, you're you're not saying I just want it took them a while to think of something to share. have let them have this.

Ian Binns 43:47
I'm not at all just dismissing the fact that you know, these that people are taking advantage of or anything like that. What I'm saying is that when you do see an athlete, excel at something that's exciting from even like, the NFL, right?

Rachael Jackson 44:00
We'll never refuse. 100% Refuse to watch the NFL. It's just gladiators in the 20th century, and it's abusive in so many different ways and racist in unbelievable magnitudes. I watch the football.

Ian Binns 44:15
A couple years ago, there was a marathoner who broke the two hour barrier. Are you gonna rain on that parade too? For me? Are we gonna be okay with that? Well, being

Adam Pryor 44:23
surrounded by a whole team of people, was that really a good way to run a marathon fastest your hours?

Ian Binns 44:31
It just could happen.

Zack Jackson 44:34
The marathon is my favorite. Because like to home without why? Because the guy ran 26 miles from Marathon to Athens fell dead. And then we were like, We're gonna flex on this guy. And now we do it all the time. And we're just like, hey, one guy died doing this. Let's do it. And like, the net Great. That's Got it. Also, fun fact, the president of the Olympics for life for all time is King Herod the Great. Did you know that

Ian Binns 45:13
I did not. The Olympics

Zack Jackson 45:14
had fallen under disrepair. There was no money for it. They did. They barely happened. And Herod was travelling through the Greek area in 12 BC. Yeah, he was there in 12 BC. And he went, and he was like, Wow, this sucks. And he's like, here, if I give you tons of talents, are you going to be able to make this great? And they were like, Yeah, and he's like, then go zoos. Here you go, here's a ton of money. And they revitalize the Olympics. And it became a big thing again, and he was named president of the Olympics for life in perpetuity. And so his statue was there. And he is for all eternity. The president of the Olympics. I mean, it does make a lot of sense. I know Christians love to hate the guy, but

Rachael Jackson 45:59
it does make a lot of sense, right? Like, he's this is how messed up the Olympics are. Right? He's the guy that decides to kill his whole family. So it

Adam Pryor 46:10
I think they should start leading the Parade of Nations with a sketch. point home.

Zack Jackson 46:16
I mean, do it. You know, one time Cleopatra came to visit, and she was like, showing them up. And he was like, he went to his guy. And he's like, can we kill her right now? And he's like, You can't kill Cleopatra. And he's like, but she's here. We can kill her now. Right? And they're like, You can't kill Cleopatra. And he almost did it. Because he's nuts. Right, but he loved the Olympics. Yeah.

Rachael Jackson 46:39
It could have just been the metaphor. We ran on.

Ian Binns 46:41
We're gonna go watch the Olympics. Fun. Let's go watch the bath one because I'm certain on the next lap, they're gonna all turn the rifles on each other. Like Adam and Rachel want

Adam Pryor 47:06
to take solace in the fact that you got Rachel and I think that's the takeaway.

Ian Binns 47:12
Oh, that person's head fell off when they land. There. Oh, no, that guy's a racist.

Rachael Jackson 47:20
You know, it's just trauma. It's when I see the skiers. I can't see this gear. So no. Oh, yeah, I broke my body. I broke my brain. Oh, I totally, totally broke my brain

Zack Jackson 47:31
that was in a previous episode. Everything.

Ian Binns 47:34
We'll talk more about, like, you know, running not doing no, they cheat too. So no, javelin maybe someone hasn't been pierced lately.

Kendra Holt-Moore 47:45
Well, setting aside just like the terribleness of human nature. Yeah, I, I wanted to also add, um, so like, I haven't really watched the Olympics flick very carefully. This year. I usually don't, I usually just like watch clips of things. So the stuff that I've seen is like ice skating clips, and like snowboarder clips. But I've been I was just thinking, the last couple of days about Simone Biles, and just the whole phenomenon of the twisties. Because a lot of the stuff that I'm looking at for like the snowboarders and ice skaters, you know, it's like a lot of tricks, a lot of jumping, and flipping and all of that. And I just, it is really amazing, especially knowing my own very limited abilities. It's like not an athlete person, but who has worked so hard to have, like very basic snowboarding skills, that it's, it feels so good when you can get to a point where your body just does. And that's kind of what you have to do to like, do it. Well, it's like the whole problem of the twisties. And like, when you start to think about what you are trying to do athletically, it messes with you and so it's just really interesting, like giving in to just your body. And I it's it's really like a very meditative experience and you have to be skilled, of course, but it's just such a such an interesting part of living in a body when we are so easily like distracted in our heads. So to separate those experiences,

Ian Binns 49:19
you bring it up smoking balls, you know, the last Olympics, the Summer Olympics watching, especially being that your daughter Ellie is a gymnast, right? It's an even recently talking about you know, and so, I've always been impressed and admired have always admired Simone Biles, I think you know her what she embraced her struggles with her own. Her mental health journey I thought made her even more impressive. But when you talk again about someone who's become like an expert at what it is they do, like the things that she can do, is just mind boggling to me like what she is capable of as an athlete. Just her athletic ability, right? But even talking with Ellie Avella explaining to me that we talked about, you know, the other day that Ellie had a competition last week and met. Mary Lou Retton. Right, honey, who did le meet last week, Mary Lou Retton. Yeah, so she met Mary Lou retina at a competition last week. And it was really cool to hear about it. And I was kind of saying like, Oh be, you know, someone else get a 10 good Simone get a 10. And her response was, is that she her strength and power is so great, that the skills that she does that gets her such high scores would not wouldn't make it I think, very challenging forever to get a perfect score. Because you know, the way the score is done, that level is very different than the standard level, but that her power that Simone Biles has is just that much better than most anyone else in the world. That that's why be challenging for her become to get a perfect score because she challenges herself to that level. Does that make sense? Like she could land thing if she did

Rachael Jackson 50:59
what other competitors did or if she did what other competitors did, she would get a perfect score, but because she pushes herself to make it harder.

Ian Binns 51:07
And that's what raises like her ability to get even higher scores those because they realize that we have to change the scoring because of the tricks and the things that she's able to do the skills that she's able to do me that we have that scoring has changed, Miss fascinate, right.

Zack Jackson 51:23
They had to outlaw some moves that she did, because no one else could do it.

Ian Binns 51:28
They call it the Biles. I mean, she's got several moves on several different apparatus apparatus that are named after her, which is also on the land it

Kendra Holt-Moore 51:37
just let her do it and let her just went all the time. Because yeah, pretty cool.

Ian Binns 51:41
Right? Thank you, Kendra for bringing that one up. Because now I feel better again.

Rachael Jackson 51:46
And I don't want to I don't want to poopoo the athletes themselves. They're doing amazing things, just the institutions they're in. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So just just to clarify, I don't mean to make any athletes upset. I think that what they're doing is truly incredible. Because I

Ian Binns 52:01
would love to get Simone on here.

Zack Jackson 52:05
Yeah, yeah. And if any Olympic athletes or regular listeners of the podcast I'd love to have you on to have you on Jake's, especially if you're in the by athalon would love to learn more about how that Aikido? Yes, that's one of my absolute favorite and

Ian Binns 52:17
ensures my favorite winter sport to watch is potentially bad. Yeah. Or I

Rachael Jackson 52:22
love calm you go. I'm your heart rate slow enough after doing this incredible thing that you can shoot steady.

Ian Binns 52:30
That's impressive. So I'm

Rachael Jackson 52:33
so American.

Zack Jackson 52:34
They're like, yeah, here's a cool sport. How can we make it better? aren't that good at it? Yeah. What we're not good at a gun sport. And

Ian Binns 52:43
we're not nearly as good as the countries, then the Canadians think they beat us every time

Zack Jackson 52:50
unacceptable. So we're nearing the end here, buddy. And we're nearing the end here. And I love I want to, there we go. I want to say thank you to all of you, all the four of you. And thank you to myself as well. Because you all are incredible. And it has been a minute since we've had all of us here. And it has felt so good. Just to be here. For this time. I want to thank everyone at home or in the car or in the gym or wherever it is that you're listening. Now, those of you who have listened to all 100 episodes, and those of you who this might be your first You are wonderful people as well. I would invite you to check out the down the wormhole conversations group on facebook and join us there. We've got some. It's really fun to be able to talk with folks on there. And yeah, you can check us out on Patreon as well if you'd like to support the show. Does anybody have any closing stories or thoughts or fun facts you want to share before we call it a day?

Rachael Jackson 53:52
I think Zack you should share the story of the person that works at NASA. It's a quick little

Zack Jackson 54:00
it is a quick little story NASA has let me let me pull up the

Kendra Holt-Moore 54:08
while Zack is looking that up, I'd encourage everyone to go look up whales, bubble netting to catch their fish. Because that's,

54:18
that's amazing.

Zack Jackson 54:20
I'd also encourage people to look up the story of how Pepsi briefly in the 80s became the sixth largest military in the world.

Ian Binns 54:29
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Zack Jackson 54:31
That's a fun story as well, right?

Rachael Jackson 54:33
That's homework, Pepsi military in the 80s.

Zack Jackson 54:39
Basically, and here we go. In the 50s. They were trying to make peace between the Soviet Union and America. And so Eisenhower put together this American National Exhibition in Moscow, and he sent Nixon over there and Nixon is not a nice person. And so Nixon and Khrushchev are talking and then they start fighting about capitalism and communism. And so the CEO of Pepsi sees them fighting and steps in there. And he's like, Here you go. And it gives Khrushchev, a Pepsi, and he drinks it and he goes, damn, or whatever the equivalent Russian is, this is amazing. We have to have this. The problem was there was all of these, you know, trade issues. And not everyone accepted Soviet currency. And so Pepsi didn't want to do this transaction. So they signed a deal in which the Soviet Union would purchase Pepsi with vodka. And that was their agreement for like, 30 years. So then in the late 80s, the agreement was expiring. And Pepsi was like, we don't want to get paid in vodka anymore, what else you got? And they were like, well, you still don't want to take our money. So here's what we have. And Pepsi in exchange for $3 billion dollars worth of Pepsi products, gave the Pepsi corporation 17 submarines, a cruiser a frigate and a destroyer. Which then for that amount of time made them the sixth largest military in the world. Pepsi then flipped all of that to a Swedish scrap recycling company and made back the money. But for that period of time, Pepsi was the sixth largest military in the world. So that's my fun Pepsi fact. But anyway, every single thing that goes up into space that goes up into a habitable space, so anything that goes up into the, into the space station or in a in a ship that has humans in it has to pass the sniff test, literally, from a man called George Aldrich is the chief sniffer of NASA. And anything that goes up there has to be smelled by him. And then he has to approve it or not, because they they need somebody with a very sensitive nose to smell if like, is this going to be awful to be locked in a room with this? So if you want to get something sent to space, it's got to be sniffed by nostril Damas. So if that column

Adam Pryor 57:03
I hope they quarantined him for a long time, so I didn't get COVID

Zack Jackson 57:06
right how awful would that

Kendra Holt-Moore 57:08
would that's a client he

Rachael Jackson 57:09
needs to have insurance on his You had one

Adam Pryor 57:11
job. I seems like you could train clamps to do this.

Zack Jackson 57:19
I don't know if you know how smell works. But

Ian Binns 57:23
I just looked that up, you know, nostril Damas because I saw that you put in my chat, Rachel. And I saw I typed that into Google and now that now that does come up as the second story. Second thing don't click on the first one with the Urban Dictionary and

Rachael Jackson 57:43
you're not that is not this is not safe for work portion. Do not don't talk about that. Click

Ian Binns 57:50
on that link. It is definitely NSFW. Not Safe For Work if you don't know.

Rachael Jackson 57:56
Yeah, and that's dw.com like

Ian Binns 58:00
Well, the thing is, is that I started looking at it. While right before Zacks are talking, I thought myself

Adam Pryor 58:07
Where the heck is this story?

58:09
Like they have nothing to do with each other. Like oh my gosh, this is so funny.

Ian Binns 58:14
Kendra, are you looking it up right now?

Rachael Jackson 58:17
No, don't don't

Zack Jackson 58:19
just dear listener, don't don't worry about urban dictionary and teenagers putting crazy in there that they have nobody's gonna want to look at this. Don't worry about it. Instead, you can search for George Ulrich Aldrich, NASA employee g4.

Rachael Jackson 58:37
If you're that, you know you can go back and listen to the rest of our other podcasts either for the first time or another time.

Zack Jackson 58:45
Literally 99 other episodes you can listen to.

Rachael Jackson 58:48
Did exactly do not go to Urban Dictionary go to D TW.

Zack Jackson 58:52
Hey go that's a great closer, Greg sign off