Speaker 1: Hey, what's up. So it's twenty twenty one, and it's
Speaker 1: a lady from your mom's book club, one who apologizes
Speaker 1: even when she brings cookies and up top, I want
Speaker 1: to tell you that this is an encore of an
Speaker 1: episode that went up in twenty eighteen, and it has
Speaker 1: a ton of never before heard bonus content and asides
Speaker 1: that I cut out from the previous release. So you
Speaker 1: have not heard a lot of this, and I'm giving
Speaker 1: it another spin because many of you have never heard
Speaker 1: oology and 'tis the season to scoop up a lot
Speaker 1: of discount Easter candy at the drugstore, And I'm working
Speaker 1: on a big episode for next week that's going to
Speaker 1: blow your minds, and so I wanted to just take
Speaker 1: a little bit of a breather there. But here is
Speaker 1: Eggs alongside seriously egregious, egg Gregious. I'm so sorry. That
Speaker 1: wasn't even an intentional amount of asides. You may listen
Speaker 1: to these asides and say, boy, howdy, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of asides, But I'm happy to have this info on
Speaker 1: pagan holidays and ostrich nests. Okay, let's dive in. Okay, Hey,
Speaker 1: it's that Hi, Hi, it's a lady from your mom's
Speaker 1: book club. Hi, the one who apologizes even when she
Speaker 1: brings cookies. Yeah, Hi, it's Ali Ward back with another
Speaker 1: episode Amologies. Oh man, I never knew I needed this episode. Like,
Speaker 1: we've had an episode about ornithology birds, but now we're
Speaker 1: gonna get to the heart, the heart of the matter.
Speaker 1: And by heart I mean butt, and by butt I
Speaker 1: mean kloaca. So what is it kloaca? Well, as I've
Speaker 1: said before, it's kind of like the home button on
Speaker 1: an iPhone, like if Steve Jobs had designed an orifice,
Speaker 1: just a multipurpose little boop. It's good for sensual adult times,
Speaker 1: for egg laying and pooh. So today we're gonna be
Speaker 1: cracking wise about eggs. Oh, so many eggs, So many
Speaker 1: glorious eggs. What a wonder? Okay, but first, this podcast
Speaker 1: Really Quick would not exist without patrons. On patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash ologies, you can support for a dollar an
Speaker 1: episode a dollar a month. Patrons get to hear what
Speaker 1: episodes are coming up next and submit questions for theologists.
Speaker 1: And I say, your name is right as my mouth
Speaker 1: possibly can. Also ologiesmerch dot com has backpacks, caps, bikinis, shirts,
Speaker 1: there's totes, gifts, pins all science themed. But if money's
Speaker 1: tight because the world is falling apart and it's on fire,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Rating and subscribing and reviewing keeps ologies up
Speaker 1: in the charts where other people can see it and say,
Speaker 1: what is this podcast that talks about slug Dix? And
Speaker 1: why does this lady call herself my dad? I read
Speaker 1: all of your reviews. I'm upfront about it, all right.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like a concerned parent reading the diary
Speaker 1: that you left open on the counter, and so to
Speaker 1: prove it, just like I do every week, I shout
Speaker 1: out one reviewer, and this week I would like to
Speaker 1: thank Beyonce two three, seven oh six. Maybe that's Beyonce,
Speaker 1: perhaps it's a different Beyonce who says this podcast makes
Speaker 1: me to make the world a better place. I love
Speaker 1: hearing all of these people who I would normally think
Speaker 1: of as existing on another plane and finding out that
Speaker 1: they're just people and I could be one of them too.
Speaker 1: I read that earlier today and literally started crying. So
Speaker 1: thank you Beyonce for that. Okay, let's get that shell
Speaker 1: back to this excellent episode, shall we. By the way,
Speaker 1: that is why I call myself here, dad, Okay, So
Speaker 1: why is it called oology? Why are there so many
Speaker 1: god dang oh's in this word? Okay comes from one, guess, Yes,
Speaker 1: the Greek for ion, meaning egg, and it's a branch
Speaker 1: of ornithology that deals with eggs. I want to think
Speaker 1: that the oo in oology is just because the moos
Speaker 1: look like little eggies, but that's not true. Okay, So
Speaker 1: this interview, what a what a treat? Okay. I was
Speaker 1: in Chicago for a few days and I reached out
Speaker 1: to the wonderland that is the Field Museum via the
Speaker 1: Brain Scoops Emily Grassley, hey girl, and they hooked me up.
Speaker 1: So not only did they give me a quiet room
Speaker 1: to record the epidemiology episode with the errands of this
Speaker 1: podcast will kill You, but they were also like, yo,
Speaker 1: we got an egg dude for you. So Kate Golumbski,
Speaker 1: I owe you like ten puppies. Kate met me at
Speaker 1: the Field and she walked me through the ornithology lab. Whoa, hi,
Speaker 1: so many of you are up some steps.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: What I didn't realize also is that this museum is
Speaker 1: so big that our commute from one office to the other,
Speaker 1: that's a good time.
Speaker 3: In a commute.
Speaker 1: I should have left a trailer breadcrumbs to the office
Speaker 1: of an expert in bird babies, this kind faced, spectacled
Speaker 1: gentleman with thick salt and pepper hair and a desk
Speaker 1: piled with eggbooks and field notes. But it was a
Speaker 1: Friday afternoon at four pm, and I just hated to
Speaker 1: keep him from his weekend. So some of the questions
Speaker 1: and answers are super rapid fire. But then we had
Speaker 1: such a jolly time hanging out that afterwards he offered
Speaker 1: to give me a tour of the egg bunker, and
Speaker 1: hell yes, I took him up on that. So throughout
Speaker 1: the interview there are audio notes from that tour as
Speaker 1: we continued to just gab in the stacks. So this
Speaker 1: episode is just a feast of facts about speckley eggs
Speaker 1: and outlaw burders and falcon mysteries and vaults of delicate
Speaker 1: treasures and can you eat cookie dough? And modern research
Speaker 1: done with old artifacts. And there's some Easter bullshit and
Speaker 1: chicken hatching, even snake trivia. It's got it all. So
Speaker 1: buckle up, all right, let's settle our feathers and ready
Speaker 1: ourselves for the ornithological Treasures of boologists Doctor John Bates. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Ali Warren. Hi, nice to meet you. Thank you
Speaker 1: for talking about eggs with me. Are you technically an oologist?
Speaker 4: No? I am not?
Speaker 1: What not an oologist? He literally edited the book of eggs.
Speaker 1: It's called the Book of Eggs and his name is
Speaker 1: on the cover. Like not an oologist. He studies bird eggs. Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta breathe that. Okay, more on this situation a minute.
Speaker 1: But he is definitely an evolutionary biologist slash ornithologist and
Speaker 1: officially an associated curator of birds and head of the
Speaker 1: Life Sciences Division at the Field Museum in Chicago. Or
Speaker 1: what do you study about birds? Do you study particular
Speaker 1: like eggs of different species, feathers, beaks, like, what's your bag?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm a curator and so we have one of
Speaker 4: the world's greatest collections of birds here in the museum,
Speaker 4: and so one of the things I've been interested in
Speaker 4: over the years is all aspects of av and biology.
Speaker 4: But the egg part actually came about because we have
Speaker 4: an egg collection and I feel like it's my responsibility
Speaker 4: to know something about eggs.
Speaker 1: So after the interview at his desk. John took me
Speaker 1: down this labyrinth into the bowels of the museum, just
Speaker 1: stuffed with millions of scientific artifacts, like for real, actually
Speaker 1: millions of artifacts. What you see on displays at museums
Speaker 1: is this laughably small representation of their actual shit they
Speaker 1: have in files and drawers and boxes behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: So behind these scenes we came upon a room labeled
Speaker 1: egg Collection, to which John had the keys. Wow, what
Speaker 1: this looks like a like a bank bunker.
Speaker 3: They really look like they do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: So how many specimen in.
Speaker 4: This from so probably about one hundred thousand eggs.
Speaker 1: But now, why do you say you're not an oologist
Speaker 1: even though you study bird eggs?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's because basically, I don't know if you could
Speaker 4: find anybody who had described themselves as an oologist anymore.
Speaker 4: It's a field that's it's an extinctology at some level,
Speaker 4: which is too bad. That's actually one of the things
Speaker 4: that we're interested in, some colleagues and I are interested in.
Speaker 4: We're actually working on a paper right now trying to
Speaker 4: encourage people to remember, and that is that there's these
Speaker 4: incredible collections of eggs around the world, and a lot
Speaker 4: of times they're pretty underutilized. People tend to forget they're there.
Speaker 4: So oology was really popular in the eighteen eighties into
Speaker 4: the nineteen twenties or so, and then it died out.
Speaker 4: And some of that was because people were a little
Speaker 4: bit concerned that there might be issues with respect to
Speaker 4: collecting eggs in terms of the population biology affecting the
Speaker 4: population biology of birds and things, and so it was
Speaker 4: kind of fell out of favor with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So, okay, so oology can mean the study of eggs,
Speaker 1: but it can also refer to the hobby of collecting
Speaker 1: wild bird eggs, also called egg in Now, at some
Speaker 1: point these amateur egg scholars stopped egging because it became illegal.
Speaker 1: People were like, well, you are stealing babies now, Wikipedia says,
Speaker 1: and I quote despite this, some of those who engage
Speaker 1: in egg collecting show considerable recidivism. That is legal speak
Speaker 1: for doing bad shit again like chasing the dragon egg.
Speaker 1: Wikipedia continues. One Colin Watson was convicted six times before
Speaker 1: he fell to his death in two thousand and six
Speaker 1: while attempting to climb to a nest high up in
Speaker 1: a tree. Another individual has been convicted nine times and
Speaker 1: imprisoned twice, and a third has been convicted fifty one times,
Speaker 1: imprisoned four times and barred from entering Scotland during the
Speaker 1: breeding season. People are addicted to egg collecting. Also, One
Speaker 1: historical amateur ornithologist, Charles Bendyer, who stash of eight thousand
Speaker 1: formed the base of the Smithsonian's egg collection, climbed a
Speaker 1: tree for some hobbyist egg thievery and was, rightfully, if
Speaker 1: you ask me, shot at and scared away, but escaped
Speaker 1: climbing down the tree with a raptor egg in his mouth.
Speaker 1: And the egg was so big that he had to
Speaker 1: and was willing to rather have his teeth broken to
Speaker 1: get it out of his mouth at like a cloach
Speaker 1: of face. So these were the oologists of your Perhaps
Speaker 1: that's why the term fell out of favor.
Speaker 4: But then the other thing that happened was you had
Speaker 4: the advent of things like cameras, and suddenly you know,
Speaker 4: people you could make an argument that you didn't need
Speaker 4: the specimen per se if you could take a picture
Speaker 4: of the eggs.
Speaker 1: So do you think that if you're not out actively
Speaker 1: collecting and studying eggs, then you're not an oologist?
Speaker 4: Well, I think so I like to describe it actually
Speaker 4: as an interesting way, I think from the perspective of humans,
Speaker 4: which is that in some level it's like pediatrics. Right,
Speaker 4: So here's this field where people study children, and this
Speaker 4: is a field where people studied eggs. But it's a
Speaker 4: specialization within pediatrics, right, a specific thing. And I think
Speaker 4: that in part it was just because collecting eggs kind
Speaker 4: of literally fell out of favor, and so the termoology
Speaker 4: actually fell by the wayside. At some point.
Speaker 1: I think it's time to resurrect it.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's actually I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 4: science that can be done with eggs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So tell me about the collection you have, and
Speaker 1: what do you like about eggs, because I feel like
Speaker 1: you have to be into them in order to study them.
Speaker 1: I think aptitude is backed by passion, I'm guessing. So
Speaker 1: what is it about birds and bird eggs that you
Speaker 1: that you love or that you're drawn to?
Speaker 4: So what I'd say, I think it's interesting to say.
Speaker 4: I mean, eggs themselves are just beautiful things in nature,
Speaker 4: for one thing, But when you look at these collections,
Speaker 4: you start realizing that they're incredibly valuable pieces of our
Speaker 4: understanding of early natural history. So one of the things
Speaker 4: I always like to say to people is that, you know,
Speaker 4: you go back to our collections of bird specimens from
Speaker 4: the eighteen eighties a lot of times and they have
Speaker 4: very little information on them. But with the egg collections,
Speaker 4: it's very common for them to have these detailed nest
Speaker 4: cards which describe exactly when the person found the nest,
Speaker 4: how many eggs were in it, what kind of tree
Speaker 4: it was in, very detailed locality information, and so these
Speaker 4: guys were actually collecting really excellent natural history data, probably
Speaker 4: tend to twenty to thirty years more earlier than a
Speaker 4: lot of the specimen collectors were, so it's a very
Speaker 4: incredible data. As a matter of fact, one of the
Speaker 4: things we're trying to do right now is work on
Speaker 4: various projects where we can use these data to look
Speaker 4: at what's going on today.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like the thank you for the
Speaker 1: nest plundering. Back then you monocled dere liks, But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: we don't do that now. That's out a pastime. Let's
Speaker 1: just play video games or scroll through pictures of other
Speaker 1: people's vacations on a tiny screen. But the dates in
Speaker 1: all of those amateur egg collections are very helpful.
Speaker 4: So, for instance, we can look at nest laying dates
Speaker 4: for birds in the Midwest and ask the question if
Speaker 4: we have data from modern birds on when they were
Speaker 4: at laying and this is based on field observations from
Speaker 4: some of my colleagues. We can look at individual species
Speaker 4: and ask the question, our bird populations in the Chicago
Speaker 4: region laying their eggs at different times than they were historically,
Speaker 4: and it looks like there's the dates of laying have
Speaker 4: advanced actually, which is consistent with some of the potential
Speaker 4: issues that you'd expect due.
Speaker 3: To climate change.
Speaker 1: So climate change is a biggie, as are the effects
Speaker 1: of pesticides and pollutants. So one huge detective story is
Speaker 1: often cited when the topic of vintage eggs comes up.
Speaker 4: You know, when I show this to people and I
Speaker 4: talk about why we have these collections. One of my
Speaker 4: favorite examples is, you know, paragon falcon eggs. So these
Speaker 4: were collected in the eighteen nineties in North Dakota. Wow,
Speaker 4: and paragon falcons in the nineteen sixties, along with ospreys
Speaker 4: and bald eagles, had their populations plummeted, and paragon falcons
Speaker 4: actually went extinct in eastern North America, and what was
Speaker 4: going on is they weren't having any reproductive success. And
Speaker 4: it was because every time females laid eggs, they would
Speaker 4: start sitting on them to incubate them, they would crack,
Speaker 4: and scientists thought that this pesticide DDT was causing the
Speaker 4: egg shell thinning. And one of the big pieces of
Speaker 4: evidence that led them to ban DDT in the US
Speaker 4: was a study by these guys named Hicky and Anderson
Speaker 4: where they went in and they measured pre d d
Speaker 4: tira egg shell thickness in these birds with post egg
Speaker 4: shell post nineteen sixty during the DTI use, and they
Speaker 4: were able to show that they were demonstrably s thinner
Speaker 4: and a bunch of the key areas. And so it
Speaker 4: was a great scientific design that was possible because they
Speaker 4: had access to these collections. Yeah, and what I always
Speaker 4: like to point out is that you know, this guy
Speaker 4: that collected these things, this guy foresight in nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 4: had no idea that forty fifty years later his eggs
Speaker 4: would be used for a study like that.
Speaker 1: And so so it's so cool to see current research
Speaker 1: being done on specimens that have been collected one hundred
Speaker 1: years exactly. So just think some of the science that
Speaker 1: you do today might help future generations to study, like
Speaker 1: which plants existed before the robots that we download our
Speaker 1: consciousness into took over the earth and mined all the
Speaker 1: gold to make toilets and then darken the sky with
Speaker 1: clean coal emissions? Is that too dark? Sorry? When they
Speaker 1: would collect the eggs, would they blow the eggs out
Speaker 1: or would they just rot? What was happening? Would they
Speaker 1: hollow Okay, they'd hollow them out?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So yeah, right, so I yes, they would put
Speaker 4: roll a little hole in them, and it was a
Speaker 4: real art. I mean they were really good at it,
Speaker 4: and they would carefully inject a little bit of air
Speaker 4: and once you do that, you can blow the contents
Speaker 4: out of a very small hole and you're left with
Speaker 4: the egg shell.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to me how an egg is formed?
Speaker 1: Because it is kind of odd to be like, Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm a bird, I'm soft, a fluffy, and then boink,
Speaker 1: there's this hard thing that comes out of your cloaca.
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Basically, the female has this developing ovum and her oviduct
Speaker 4: and it goes down and there's a glands that produce
Speaker 4: the the shell material, and it gradually rotates and forms,
Speaker 4: and you get the production of this perfectly layered, hard
Speaker 4: and yet thin thing covering that developing embryo in an
Speaker 4: incredible way. That and then there are all kinds of
Speaker 4: interesting things that happen after that with respect to making
Speaker 4: the eggs colorful or spotted or things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So is it like layers on a jawbreaker, like layer
Speaker 1: after layer of like this calcium or is it like
Speaker 1: one layer of shell that happens at once.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's my understanding of it is it's a
Speaker 4: layer thing, and they actually is there going down the
Speaker 4: oviduct the shell gland is actually putting it, layingering on
Speaker 4: that material so that when it comes out it's it's
Speaker 4: a perfectly formed egg.
Speaker 1: And then where is the air brushing station in the oviduct?
Speaker 1: Like where are they putting on the speckles? And like
Speaker 1: the robin egg blue colors.
Speaker 4: It's done in the as it's passing along through the
Speaker 4: kloaca and in the overduct. And there are these melonin
Speaker 4: producing glands that are cells that will actually make the color.
Speaker 4: But that's something that actually some of the aspects of
Speaker 4: that are still debated by scientists. We don't know how
Speaker 4: some colors on certain types of eggs are made.
Speaker 1: And I understand, Like, okay, so we're surrounded by these
Speaker 1: beautiful posters of eggs and I understand eggs. It looks
Speaker 1: like granite boom. Is it an egg or a rock?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't tell. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: eat it. I get it. But like a bright blue
Speaker 1: robin's egg in a green tree, what's happening there that
Speaker 1: seems so conspicuous?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so quick answer, We don't know, okay, right, but
Speaker 4: there are these eggs. If I showed you eggs of Tinamus,
Speaker 4: which are these neotropical birds that a bunch of species,
Speaker 4: they look like little chickens that run around in either
Speaker 4: forest or an open country, and they lay these incredibly
Speaker 4: enameled eggs that can be anywhere from blue to brown
Speaker 4: to green, and they're just just incredibly enameled. And we
Speaker 4: don't know why they do that.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And one hypothesis, which is kind of crazy, would be
Speaker 4: just they wanted to look so weird that no predator
Speaker 4: would look at that and go, yeah, that's something we
Speaker 4: should eat.
Speaker 1: And they wanted to look like a weird toy or
Speaker 1: a piece of ceramic or something like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I mean they literally don't look like anything
Speaker 4: you would find in nature.
Speaker 1: So down in the vault, John showed me another egg
Speaker 1: that look like a prop Like, no way did a
Speaker 1: bird button make this? Oh my god, are you kidding me?
Speaker 4: These common muror nests eggs, so this cliff Nester, and
Speaker 4: you can see these are from Ireland, and then they
Speaker 4: would have been laid by different females such that the
Speaker 4: female could actually individually recognize each egg. And you can
Speaker 4: see these things like all these little squiggles come from
Speaker 4: the egg twisting as it's coming down the Wow, the
Speaker 4: overduct and it looks like.
Speaker 1: You just took a sharpie or a marker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to them, it looks.
Speaker 1: Like you you let your like four year old nephew
Speaker 1: color them in, you know what I mean, But like
Speaker 1: or Jackson Pollock. Oh my god, they're gorgeous.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 4: You can see this one sat for a while and.
Speaker 1: Oh inside of the.
Speaker 4: Oviducts, yeah, inside the overduct and so it gets.
Speaker 1: It gets more of that speckl right exactly familiar. Oh,
Speaker 1: from those cells. That's so I never knew that's how
Speaker 1: it happened. I mean, that's so crazy to think of
Speaker 1: it twisting and turning and making those marks. So just
Speaker 1: squiggling down the bird butt canal getting a streaky paint
Speaker 1: job on the way, it's so delicately magic, gross and beautiful.
Speaker 1: And what about egg shape? Why are they the shape
Speaker 1: that they are?
Speaker 4: So that's an interesting question that's been studied and published
Speaker 4: on fairly recently and not one of the hypotheses is
Speaker 4: that it's related to body shape at some point. Eggs
Speaker 4: a lot. I mean, eggs have a fairly defined shape
Speaker 4: for the most part, but they're really interesting aspects of
Speaker 4: certain eggs. So for instance, eggs of some of the
Speaker 4: birds that breed on cliffs, like common mirrors and things,
Speaker 4: are these long pointed have a thick base and then
Speaker 4: a long pointed tip. And one of the hypotheses has
Speaker 4: been that they've evolved that way because they're on a
Speaker 4: cliff face. And if you roll that egg on a
Speaker 4: cliff face, it'll just roll in a tight little circle
Speaker 4: because of its shape. Now, some other people have come
Speaker 4: along and said, now that's not what's going on, but
Speaker 4: that's a plausible explanation for that egg shape.
Speaker 1: And do you eat eggs. I do eat eggs, okay,
Speaker 1: So you're not like you don't have a situation where
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I can't do it right? No, is
Speaker 1: it bad for us to eat chicken eggs?
Speaker 4: So I always like to say that. My pediatrician used
Speaker 4: to flip back and forth. Every year I went to him,
Speaker 4: Oh really, my mom crazy, Like he would come in
Speaker 4: and say eggs are good for your son. Good, Nope,
Speaker 4: next year, eggs are bad for you.
Speaker 1: So side note, I was like, yeah, what's up with
Speaker 1: eggs having this like big reputation. So in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: the American Heart Association advised people not to have more
Speaker 1: than three egg yolks per week. It's like eggs are canceled.
Speaker 1: Unfollow eggs on Twitter, do not invite them to breakfast.
Speaker 1: And then years later some news came out that was like, nah,
Speaker 1: eggs are fine. And then in the last few years,
Speaker 1: this new cholesterol kills campaign came out and that's done
Speaker 1: by an organization called the Truth About Eggs. But that
Speaker 1: turns out to be a vegan advocacy group. So I
Speaker 1: turned to official science papers for some sanity, and there
Speaker 1: was one about how eggs have gotten such a bad
Speaker 1: rap and seriously they are fine. And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: cool science paper, I trust you. And then I scrolled
Speaker 1: down to the author bio of this science paper and
Speaker 1: he worked for the egg industry. Good God, eggs. How
Speaker 1: is your pr more complicated than the JFK assassination? This
Speaker 1: is like of the mobs specialized in brunch scrambles. I
Speaker 1: cannot keep track, So I guess if you're at risk
Speaker 1: for heart disease, consult your physician and read some papers
Speaker 1: and pay attention to who's writing the papers. I may
Speaker 1: be your weird uncle, but I am no doctor. Well,
Speaker 1: John is technically a doctor.
Speaker 4: But I'm not an MD.
Speaker 1: Not that you'll be making a bunch of omelets now,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but if you were, you'd have to break
Speaker 1: some eggs. But what if it's a museum egg and
Speaker 1: you're an oologist. Have you ever broken an egg and
Speaker 1: been like oh shit?
Speaker 4: Well, so the quick answer is no.
Speaker 1: But back in the cool egg dungeon, John withdraws a
Speaker 1: drawer slowly and he tells me a tale of a
Speaker 1: thousand cringes.
Speaker 4: One of the greatest curators of birds at the Field Museum,
Speaker 4: a guy named Mel Trailer, apparently pulled this drawer out
Speaker 4: at one point too far and dropped it. And so
Speaker 4: even the greatest people can make mistakes. Now, the truth
Speaker 4: of the matter is it looks bad, but you're not
Speaker 4: really losing an.
Speaker 3: You're not losing the data. But still, I.
Speaker 4: Can't even imagine what it was like today that that happened.
Speaker 1: What kind of words do you think came out of
Speaker 1: his way?
Speaker 4: He was an incredible gentleman, so I bet he's swore
Speaker 4: quite a bit.
Speaker 3: But that is devastating.
Speaker 1: And so what has been the rarest or most beautiful
Speaker 1: specimen that you've seen?
Speaker 4: So I think some of the coolest eggs in the
Speaker 4: world are belonging to a bird called the Gira cuckoo
Speaker 4: from South America, and they are these incredible eggs that
Speaker 4: they lay in big numbers. They're cooperative breeders, and I'm
Speaker 4: not exactly sure some of their relatives actually have multiple
Speaker 4: females on the same territory and they'll actually throw eggs
Speaker 4: out on that, but they'll end up with a mixed
Speaker 4: nest of multiple eggs of different females. And these guys
Speaker 4: have so they'll have up to ten or twelve eggs
Speaker 4: in the nest and they start off with this white
Speaker 4: powder but around them, but it's a blue egg and
Speaker 4: so over time the blue wears off, and it wears
Speaker 4: off in this kind of patchwork fashion that just gives
Speaker 4: a really beautiful color.
Speaker 3: Oooho.
Speaker 1: So they have almost like an like an opposite pan patina.
Speaker 4: Yes exactly. Oh wow.
Speaker 1: So later on the tour, I got a chance to
Speaker 1: see these bad boys, and they're this lovely minty aqua
Speaker 1: color like a turmaline blue with white patterns overlaid, and
Speaker 1: it was like a gas pathon. They're gorgeous. I mean,
Speaker 1: they look like ceramic because we just don't ever have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to see a lot of these right, you know, ever,
Speaker 1: because when are you going to come across a cliff
Speaker 1: nest or you know, something that's thirty feet off the
Speaker 1: ground hidden behind leaves, So that geara cuckoo with the
Speaker 1: gorgeous eggs is sneaky and she leaves them and nests
Speaker 1: that are not hers. A bunch of cuckoo birds do this,
Speaker 1: and then their babies hatch, and then they bump out
Speaker 1: the other babies and the parents just don't even seem
Speaker 1: to notice that all of their babies are gone, and
Speaker 1: they now have one giant baby that does not look
Speaker 1: like them. Such gossip. And then this bamboozlry happens with
Speaker 1: other species.
Speaker 4: Of course, these are annis, which are these blackbirds from
Speaker 4: the tropics, which are cuckoo relatives, and so they're and
Speaker 4: these are these ones that have these nests that multiple
Speaker 4: females in the group will lay in day care. Yeah,
Speaker 4: with the caveat being that apparently there's a older female
Speaker 4: that'll come along and throw most of the eggs out
Speaker 4: over time and then lay most of hers in there.
Speaker 4: But not anyways, what a bitch?
Speaker 1: Are there any eggs that you know of that are
Speaker 1: like so valuable monetarily wise? Like, are there any that
Speaker 1: are like underglass? And well if I if I told you, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, you would have.
Speaker 4: Actually, we have a of a plaster cast downstairs of
Speaker 4: an elephant bird from Madagascar, which is a bird that
Speaker 4: was these one of these giant flightless things that was
Speaker 4: living in Madagascar up until the time the first humans
Speaker 4: got there. And the beaches in Madagascar some places are
Speaker 4: littered with small pieces of elephant bird eggshell, and there
Speaker 4: are a few elephant bird eggs that have been found
Speaker 4: whole and a lot of those are in museums, and
Speaker 4: my understanding is those are worth sometimes upwards of thirty
Speaker 4: to fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that price checks out. Now, the elephant bird
Speaker 1: went extinct somewhere between the thirteen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows, but it was probably because of humans. I
Speaker 1: think we all pretty much know that. Now. Bigger than
Speaker 1: a basketball, these huge foot long eggs have sold at
Speaker 1: auction for more than one hundred thousand dollars, which is
Speaker 1: pretty eggs expensive. It's a lot of cash to shell out. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop cracking these yolks. Please don't reject me. Okay.
Speaker 1: So these elephant bird eggs, there's a list on Wikipedia
Speaker 1: of the different museums that have them in collections, and
Speaker 1: there are less than forty intact specimens at institutions around
Speaker 1: the world. But recently added to the list just a
Speaker 1: few months ago, the Buffalo Museum of Science. For years,
Speaker 1: they thought that this precious behemoth was just like a
Speaker 1: plaster model, and then they were like, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's get an X rayed. Turns out it's the real deal.
Speaker 5: They were like, oh shit, oh my God, we're rich
Speaker 5: if we decide to sell it, but mostly we're gonna
Speaker 5: hang on to it because it's cool for science and stuff.
Speaker 1: I think that's what they said. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: money for it.
Speaker 4: But I think how many omelets. Those things would have mazed?
Speaker 1: So many omelets, which is probably why they're extinct.
Speaker 4: Exactly right.
Speaker 1: What's the biggest egg you have ever cracked? I once
Speaker 1: tried to eat an emu egg and it required a hack.
Speaker 4: Saw was that any good?
Speaker 1: It was very rich, it was huge, it was overwhelming.
Speaker 1: But we whipped it up and made an omelet and
Speaker 1: it was like the most buttery, kind of fatty, tasty one.
Speaker 1: But it was like huge. It looked like a giant avocado.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I have to admit that most of my
Speaker 4: time has been spent with chicken eggs in terms of
Speaker 4: actually cooking and eating. So I'm trying to think if
Speaker 4: I've ever actually I think I ever have actually eating
Speaker 4: another bird's egg species, not even I have kind a
Speaker 4: duck or Yeah.
Speaker 1: Really, I once had deviled quails eggs, which was weird.
Speaker 1: I just felt like a giant because they're so little.
Speaker 1: But how do you take your eggs over?
Speaker 4: Easy?
Speaker 1: So does that mean runny yolk?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why does that gross me out? But it doesn't gross
Speaker 1: other people out? Should I be grossed out?
Speaker 4: It's supposed to soak up what's what's left in the plate.
Speaker 4: If you've got potatoes in the plate, it like makes
Speaker 4: the potatoes taste better.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I don't know why. There's something
Speaker 1: that grosses me out about it. Okay, So another thing
Speaker 1: that grosses people out the calaisa. Now these two coily
Speaker 1: white threads that are attached to the yolk. What are they?
Speaker 1: What are they? Okay, there's just nothing much, just ropes
Speaker 1: of protein. They're actually markers of a fresh egg since
Speaker 1: they kind of disappear as it ages. But why are
Speaker 1: they there, like tiny slimy party streamers. Well, they suspend
Speaker 1: the yolk in the middle of the egg, kind of
Speaker 1: like the slingshot ride at the County Fair. But depending
Speaker 1: on how you personally feel about egg protein squiggles and
Speaker 1: carnival rides, one may have more screaming than the other.
Speaker 1: Also side note, Oh my god, I just went down
Speaker 1: a hole watching a compilation of like go pro footage
Speaker 1: of couples on the slingshot ride, and it was horrifying
Speaker 1: and so so amusing. And I only know from the
Speaker 1: Gelatology episode that it's funny because we know that like
Speaker 1: everyone is safe in the end. But oh my god,
Speaker 1: watching adults screaming for their moms on carnival rides is
Speaker 1: something else. Wow, oh my god. Also never ever going
Speaker 1: on that ever. Okay, back to egg boogers. I need
Speaker 1: to get over it because other people seem to love it.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, the yolk, the yolk is what
Speaker 1: the chick eats inside the egg. Correct or is the
Speaker 1: yolk the chick.
Speaker 4: The yolk is the is what it's going to eat.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, so that's that would be the baby chick's food.
Speaker 1: So I should be okay with eating that, right, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, except that, of course, that's the stuff that my
Speaker 4: pediatrician was always worried about every other.
Speaker 1: Year, the cholesterol and stuff. When you're cracking hard boiled eggs,
Speaker 1: Do you have a better strategy because you understand the
Speaker 1: mechanics and the anatomy of eggs.
Speaker 4: No, that's one of those things that you just go
Speaker 4: for literally, like I think, and it's a satisfying thing
Speaker 4: because it's in the end you have something like solid
Speaker 4: in your hand that you can eat.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you're like, I'm a grown ass person
Speaker 1: and I can't boil eggs right, well, number one, why
Speaker 1: are you reciting passages from my diary? And two I
Speaker 1: just looked up some tips and apparently here are some pointers.
Speaker 1: According to French chef Jacques Pepin, Okay, take a thumbtach
Speaker 1: if you got one, puncture the egg in the round
Speaker 1: butt end right, and then gently boil them not too high,
Speaker 1: for ten minutes. Drain you kind of very gingerly, crack
Speaker 1: the shells, but keep them on, and then submerge in
Speaker 1: an ice bath for fifteen minutes. If you still think
Speaker 1: that you screwed up because the shells stick to the egg, well,
Speaker 1: who boy, howdy, hot tip from old dad here. The
Speaker 1: older eggs peel better. Fresh eggs terrible appealing. This has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with your performance as an egg boiler.
Speaker 1: This is all about the shell being porous and the
Speaker 1: egg white are also called the albumen getting less acidic. Also,
Speaker 1: egg white will shrink with time, making the whole thing
Speaker 1: easier to peel. That also means that the little air
Speaker 1: pocket at the butt of an egg gets larger as
Speaker 1: it ages, so fresh eggs will sink, older ones will float.
Speaker 1: So boiling an egg, once left only to wizards, you
Speaker 1: now hold the power in your hands.
Speaker 4: I think actually cracking raw eggs is more of an
Speaker 4: artistic technique that I've never fully developed.
Speaker 1: I know the people that can do one in each hand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, those people, It's like, how do you learn that?
Speaker 1: Masters? They should be oologists to be honest, they need
Speaker 1: to take up the term as well. Now, how many
Speaker 1: eggs do you guys have at the Field Museum in collections?
Speaker 4: So the actual number is probably on the order of
Speaker 4: about one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: But see, so the interesting thing about eggs is in
Speaker 4: collections like this is not the number of eggs individually.
Speaker 4: It's a number of sets of eggs. And so we
Speaker 4: have about twenty thousand sets of eggs, which means that
Speaker 4: the eggs are laying by a given female at a
Speaker 4: given time. And there's what's called clutch size, which is
Speaker 4: how many eggs they've laid for that nest. And that's
Speaker 4: actually a truly interesting thing about avian biology because there's
Speaker 4: lots of variations. So we were talking about those elephant
Speaker 4: birds clutch size, and elephant.
Speaker 3: Birds was two right, which is, like you said.
Speaker 4: That's probably why there's no elephant birds left if you
Speaker 4: think about it. Ostriches are another big flightless bird, and
Speaker 4: they have clutch sizes where a single actually multiple females
Speaker 4: lay in the same nest, but they'll be upwards of
Speaker 4: twenty eggs in the nest because these female lays ten
Speaker 4: to eleven and they're basically just hedging their bets with
Speaker 4: respect to producing their young because a lot of them
Speaker 4: are going to get picked off by predators over time.
Speaker 1: Ooh, okay, quick aside, What does an ostrich nest look like?
Speaker 1: I bet it's like an elaborately woven popisan chair, swirl
Speaker 1: of delicate wicker holding all these eggy treasures. Now I
Speaker 1: looked it up and what It's just a sloppy pile
Speaker 1: of eggs on the ground and a communal pile at that.
Speaker 1: There's no weaving, there's no mud structure, no bird spun basket.
Speaker 1: It's just it is the laziest shit you have ever seen.
Speaker 1: Like if you and four of your housemates folded your
Speaker 1: athletic socks into balls and then tossed them all in
Speaker 1: the middle of the room. Only those large socks were
Speaker 1: your children and your roommate's ass was incubating them. Well,
Speaker 1: you're out drinking Margarita's from a bird bath. Ostriches, all
Speaker 1: the other birds look up to you because you were
Speaker 1: literally nine feet tall. Can you get it together? Okay?
Speaker 1: So how do they lay them? And now they also
Speaker 1: have super thick shells because they have to drop like
Speaker 1: twelve feet from an Ostrich's kloaca to the ground. Right,
Speaker 1: not quite twelve feet, but you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: nothing not but.
Speaker 4: The Ostrich actually lays them sitting down. Yeah, for the
Speaker 4: most part. But they are really thick and like they're
Speaker 4: used by bushmen of the Kalahari to store water in.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, what a cool purse. I mean talking
Speaker 1: about a clutch that would be quite an evening clutch.
Speaker 1: So they call little evening handbags. You're like to nah,
Speaker 1: it's an.
Speaker 3: Egg I'd be willing to bet that's been done.
Speaker 1: Just FOI, Yes it has been done. So Etsy, Pinterest,
Speaker 1: eBay all just brimming with Ostrich egg purses, usually starting
Speaker 1: around several thousand dollars. But I did find one woman
Speaker 1: in Hemet, California who has a side hustle called egg
Speaker 1: bags dot Com. She makes them for three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars roughly because she's just really drawn to the
Speaker 1: art of egg decor. It seems so. If you wanted
Speaker 1: to get yourself something very ornately fancy, just to like
Speaker 1: toss in some chapsticks a granola bar, the keys to
Speaker 1: your rental Hyundai egg purses are available. You know what,
Speaker 1: be that person? Why not? We're only here for so long.
Speaker 1: Is there any flim flam about eggs that you'd like
Speaker 1: to debunk, any myths about eggs that you're like, that
Speaker 1: is not how it is.
Speaker 4: Myths about eggs.
Speaker 1: Bunnies don't lay them despite Easter.
Speaker 4: They don't. That's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: Do you love springtime because of the egg imagery or
Speaker 1: are you like, come on, guys, no.
Speaker 4: Because it gets really weird because of the bunny aspect
Speaker 4: of it. I think that confuses the biology. I think.
Speaker 4: I think Easter egg hunting is great. I think Easter
Speaker 4: egg dying is great. The whole buddy aspect of it
Speaker 4: really gets messed up. Right, So I don't know how
Speaker 4: that happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna tell you right now to your faces
Speaker 1: how it happened. So well, it's debated but some historians
Speaker 1: think Easter came from the Germanic mythological goddess of springtime,
Speaker 1: oh Wester, who may have healed a wounded bird that
Speaker 1: she found in the woods by changing it into a bunny,
Speaker 1: and then the bunny was like, dude, thank you and
Speaker 1: laid her an egg because the buddy was like, I
Speaker 1: still have a bird, bud sis. So modern holiday traditions
Speaker 1: for Easter have roots in the Jewish Passover holiday, alongside
Speaker 1: some sprinkles of pagan fun for the Spring equinox, which
Speaker 1: then made me wonder, why is Easter such a floater
Speaker 1: of a holiday? I never know what it is? And
Speaker 1: in Western Christianity it always falls on You're ready for
Speaker 1: this the Sunday between March twenty second and April twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: typically the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring
Speaker 1: on or after the spring equinox. Whatever. You have a
Speaker 1: Google calendar, we can all use it anyway. Bunnies dropping
Speaker 1: eggs brings us to Daynnda, where rabbits are I think invasive,
Speaker 1: and so they celebrate with Easter billaby's which is like
Speaker 1: a shrewd faced marsupial I want to pet on the
Speaker 1: head but how do you feel about platy pie and
Speaker 1: the mammals that lay a ducktle bill?
Speaker 4: See that's cool because they're just trying to be birds, right, Well.
Speaker 1: How did they even how did that even come about?
Speaker 4: That's a good question if from an evolutionary standpoint, it
Speaker 4: would be potentially a really retained characteristic from their ancet with.
Speaker 1: Reptiles, And now reptiles, were they the og when it
Speaker 1: comes to egg laying? And then I mean because birds
Speaker 1: reptiles similar evolutionary pathway dinosaurs.
Speaker 4: I mean birds are dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, birds are dinosaurs.
Speaker 4: So we're looking at just I think birds are just
Speaker 4: better dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean they It's funny because for so
Speaker 1: long it's like dinosaurs are extinct and they're like, no,
Speaker 1: they're not. There's a pigeon done, It's boom. Also, where
Speaker 1: do pigeons have nests?
Speaker 4: They nest on little ledges and stuff. But that's a
Speaker 4: really great observation because as many pigeons as there are
Speaker 4: in like the city of Chicago, I almost never see
Speaker 4: a nest. And then the other thing is that so
Speaker 4: they're that group of birds. So the columbu day, the
Speaker 4: family that they belong to, they lay clutches of two.
Speaker 4: That's the only the total number. And so you would think, like,
Speaker 4: if you're laying two eggs on a ledge, any predator
Speaker 4: could come down and eat those things. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 4: not particularly tough birds. So how to why are there
Speaker 4: so many pigeons?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have a theory that maybe they just asexually bud
Speaker 1: and a feather falls off and then a whole other
Speaker 1: pigeon sprouts around it.
Speaker 4: And the only thing I would say that our argues
Speaker 4: against that is I could show you pigeon eggs in
Speaker 4: our collections.
Speaker 3: So we know they do it.
Speaker 2: Dang it.
Speaker 1: There was once I lived in an apartment building and
Speaker 1: a pigeon got inside, and I did see a pigeon
Speaker 1: build a nest inside on the carpet, and I told
Speaker 1: my landlords. I was like, yo, there's a pigeon like inside,
Speaker 1: like on the carpet, and they're like, leave it alone,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what about bird mites? I feel
Speaker 1: like we need to worry about that, Like can we
Speaker 1: scoot it? So I did see one pigeon nest once,
Speaker 1: but it was like one foot away from my door,
Speaker 1: inside on a carpet, and that it was just all
Speaker 1: kinds of wrong.
Speaker 4: And did you see any pigeon mites?
Speaker 1: No, but I think I moved before. Last thing I
Speaker 1: needed was bird cooties. In case you think I'm five
Speaker 1: and just slandering birds. Bird cooties are an actual thing,
Speaker 1: I promise. So World War One soldiers they took the
Speaker 1: Melee word for lice, which was kutu, and they mashed
Speaker 1: it with this species coot thought to be real dirty birds.
Speaker 1: So bird mites are a real thing, and they can
Speaker 1: infect a house if you have, say, pigeons in the
Speaker 1: attic and they leave the nest, and then the mites
Speaker 1: go downstairs to peek in the fridge for a snack,
Speaker 1: But instead of the fridge, it's your body. You are
Speaker 1: the snack. Now. I've known two separate couples who have
Speaker 1: had bird might infestations, one of them longtime friend, and
Speaker 1: it truly was one of the worst things she's ever
Speaker 1: been through and she was in a body cast during puberty,
Speaker 1: you guys.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The other couple said they would rather have been haunted
Speaker 1: by a dozen poultergeists than contend with invisible biting things.
Speaker 1: So if you see a pigeon in your house, do
Speaker 1: you point to the door or a window because they
Speaker 1: can fly?
Speaker 4: You don't know, that's a whole not you should. You
Speaker 4: can do a whole nother ology on parasitology.
Speaker 1: Because birds have mites.
Speaker 4: Oh, we actually go into the field now and we
Speaker 4: do an active job of trying to collect them because
Speaker 4: they're they're co evolving with the birds essentially, and so
Speaker 4: there's some really interesting questions you can ask with mites.
Speaker 1: Do you get a lot of gifts that have eggs
Speaker 1: on them? To people? Say I saw this and I
Speaker 1: thought of you.
Speaker 4: I do, because we did a book of eggs, and
Speaker 4: so people kind of know that I've worked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how many books about eggs do you own? In reference?
Speaker 4: So I benefit by being in a place that has
Speaker 4: a where our bird library is right down the hall,
Speaker 4: and that means I don't have to buy as many
Speaker 4: books on eggs. I can actually just go down and
Speaker 4: surreptitiously grab them off the shelf and then check them out,
Speaker 4: and then the librarians have to come track me down
Speaker 4: to get them back.
Speaker 1: You're like, you're not too far though, I mean, and
Speaker 1: who's going to make better use of a book about
Speaker 1: eggs than you?
Speaker 4: Well, that's my argument exactly, but when somebody else wants it,
Speaker 4: they need to be able to find me.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have to do the thing in high
Speaker 1: school where they gave you an egg and they're like,
Speaker 1: don't break it. This is what parenthood is like. Do
Speaker 1: they ever make you do that?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: I never did that.
Speaker 1: Yeah they would. I think they used to do that
Speaker 1: to scare to scare teenagers away from like becoming parents
Speaker 1: too early, as they'd be like, you have to take
Speaker 1: care of this egg for a week, and if you
Speaker 1: break it, you fail or whatever. So I just looked
Speaker 1: this up, and in some schools now they give you
Speaker 1: a ten pound sack of flour because it's similar, I guess,
Speaker 1: to carrying around an actual baby, if the baby were
Speaker 1: perfectly still and silent and only emitted soft puffs of
Speaker 1: edible powdered excretions. So other programs, since this is not
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two, will hook you up with a screaming,
Speaker 1: peeing infant doll to contend with, just all as a
Speaker 1: lesson to say, hey, kids, we know having intercourse with
Speaker 1: Bay is on fleek and you want a yolo, but
Speaker 1: consider some bomb ass protections so you don't become a
Speaker 1: teen parent who has to carry around a small, alive,
Speaker 1: screaming person with your face. So I think it used
Speaker 1: to be like a which I feel like taking care
Speaker 1: of an unfertilized chicken egg is a lot easier than
Speaker 1: an infant. But what do I know?
Speaker 4: So know now that you mentioned that, the one thing
Speaker 4: I remember like that was DeCamp and doing egg tosses.
Speaker 3: Oh right, It's.
Speaker 4: Like I was always one of those kids that didn't
Speaker 4: want to break the egg. Did not want to do it.
Speaker 4: Some kids didn't care. I did not want to break
Speaker 4: the egg.
Speaker 1: You had an early appreciation. Now, if you bought a
Speaker 1: fertilized chicken egg, like from Whole Foods because you believed
Speaker 1: that for some reason, fertilized chicken eggs were better, could
Speaker 1: you take it home, put it on a heating blanket,
Speaker 1: and have some chicks in a couple of weeks?
Speaker 4: Good question. I don't know, Yeah, and I wouldn't want
Speaker 4: to find out. Actually, to be honest with you, what
Speaker 4: do you do? Yeah, yeah, exactly if it worked, and
Speaker 4: I wouldn't buy fertilized chicken eggs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is what is the difference of when you're
Speaker 1: eating an egg being fertilized or not.
Speaker 4: It could be taste or something I think, but again
Speaker 4: I don't have any intention of finding out anytimes I.
Speaker 1: Look this up. And apparently you can hatch chickens from
Speaker 1: fertilized eggs from like Trader Joe's, provided they're pretty fresh
Speaker 1: and actually fertilized. So how can you tell? Okay, let's
Speaker 1: get into some super quick egg anatomy. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: egg white or albumen is mostly water and some protein
Speaker 1: and it serves to protect and feed the chicky. Now,
Speaker 1: the yolk is higher in protein and fat and it
Speaker 1: really nourishes the growing baby berb. And the color of
Speaker 1: a yolk can really vary depending on what a bird
Speaker 1: has been eating. So grain diets probably lead to like
Speaker 1: lighter yolks, but backyard hens munching on like table scraps
Speaker 1: and carrot peelings might have like bright orange yolks. So
Speaker 1: we already learned that the calasa are those springy protein
Speaker 1: slingshot rides that keep it all stable inside. Now, to
Speaker 1: see if a yolk is fertilized, you have to break
Speaker 1: the egg. So you get a whole carton and crack
Speaker 1: a few, and then you'll know if the rest are
Speaker 1: like down to hatch. Now, of the ones you test, crack,
Speaker 1: look for a white spot on the yolk. If it's
Speaker 1: small and round, that's called a blastodisc. And that is not,
Speaker 1: in fact fertilized. That is a dud. Now if the
Speaker 1: white spot on the yolk is more of a bullseye pattern,
Speaker 1: then that is a blastoderm and the star a chicken.
Speaker 1: So noe, do not crack the eggs of the ones
Speaker 1: you want to hatch. Just in case that was unclear.
Speaker 1: You just want to test a feut in the cart
Speaker 1: and shed a tiny tear and eat them incubate the others.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of ballute? Hi? Sorry me again, just
Speaker 1: with another quick necessary aside. So ballute? What is it?
Speaker 1: Southeast Asian snack often consumed with beer. It consists of
Speaker 1: a boiled duck egg, so what's the big deal?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Also, the duck egg was fertile and the baby duck
Speaker 1: has been developing for two to three weeks. It has
Speaker 1: like bones and a beak and stuff, just all boiled
Speaker 1: and eaten. But a reminder, lobster was once served as
Speaker 1: prison food because the idea of eating a sea cockroach
Speaker 1: was considered disgusting and punishment. And I don't even know
Speaker 1: what's in nacho cheese, but I could eat it all
Speaker 1: day long. And ballute apparently has its roots in luxury too,
Speaker 1: And I read that it is the street food in
Speaker 1: the fills at night and it's served warm. It has
Speaker 1: kind of an unctious, brothy liquid on top, and the
Speaker 1: yolk is said to be creamy like a custard. And
Speaker 1: I asked a listener who's had it. They say it's
Speaker 1: not too crunchy. Also, you don't have to eat the
Speaker 1: crunchy bits. But it seems like every culture has its
Speaker 1: celebrated foods that are maybe difficult conceptually, from hagis to
Speaker 1: my Italian relatives feasting on pig feet, and it's all
Speaker 1: just a matter of familiarity and perspective. If you offered
Speaker 1: many an American and Intestine stuffed with frapaid pig buttholes,
Speaker 1: they might say, not thank you, but zing that's what
Speaker 1: hot dogs are. Also, I had a really great and
Speaker 1: illuminating conversation with one listener named Jackie in Boston who
Speaker 1: reminded me that our cavalier food fears could sew real
Speaker 1: and harmful xenophobia and also our Asian American friends know
Speaker 1: this all too well right now, So a friendly reminder
Speaker 1: from Jackie to try new foods and to keep your
Speaker 1: brain and your heart's wide open. And to all the
Speaker 1: Asian oligites, we love you and we see you, and
Speaker 1: it's on all of us to stand up for each
Speaker 1: other and to protect each other from the effects of ignorance.
Speaker 1: And to quote the wonderful doctor Merlin Tuttle of the
Speaker 1: Chiropterology episode, people fear most what they understand the least. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have ever eaten a fertilized egg, I will
Speaker 1: say from the grocery store, you've also eaten ballute, just
Speaker 1: very very underripe, if you will. I have some questions
Speaker 1: from listeners, can I ask you?
Speaker 4: Yes, you can?
Speaker 1: Okay, some of them are for my dad. Hi Dad.
Speaker 1: But before we get to your questions, a quick word
Speaker 1: about sponsors of the show, and since this is an
Speaker 1: Encore presentation. Back in twenty eighteen, we didn't have sponsors
Speaker 1: and we weren't able to donate to causes, but now
Speaker 1: we can so in honor of doctor John Bates, we're
Speaker 1: sending some cash to the Field Museum to continue their
Speaker 1: excellent education and outreach and research, and that was made
Speaker 1: possible by some companies that I genuinely like. Okay, Patreon questions.
Speaker 1: But this first question, though, is from Neil Williams, and
Speaker 1: it's a good one that has plagued me ever since
Speaker 1: songwriter Joe Riposo posed it on Sesame Street.
Speaker 3: As Jumpers.
Speaker 1: The chicken, chicken or the egg? What came first?
Speaker 4: Yeah, good question.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the egg.
Speaker 4: Well, it's just funny because if you look at chicken
Speaker 4: as a common name for Gallus gallas, which is a bird,
Speaker 4: and dinosaurs, the ancestors of chickens, laid eggs, then the
Speaker 4: egg came before the chicken.
Speaker 1: Is we figured it out?
Speaker 3: There we go.
Speaker 1: God, everything in my life is so much easier now.
Speaker 4: I get a lot of letters about that.
Speaker 1: I well, and you know what, I'll be like, why
Speaker 1: don't you console the noologist? I have one. He's right here.
Speaker 1: Jerry Davis wants to know are there any eggs that
Speaker 1: are poisonous to eat?
Speaker 4: Wow, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: I don't know the.
Speaker 4: Quick answer to that's no, not that I can think of.
Speaker 4: We were just talking about some of the today, some
Speaker 4: of the other you know, like there's a bird that
Speaker 4: was found to be poisonous in New Guinea called a
Speaker 4: pit of hooy But it's it's because it eats beetles
Speaker 4: and is able to sequester the poisons. But it's eggs
Speaker 4: I don't think would be poisonous.
Speaker 1: Oh, good to know. Way to go, bibba hooey. Pit
Speaker 1: of hooyes, by the way, look like pretty just russet
Speaker 1: colored songbirds, like ones you'd seen in the garden. But
Speaker 1: they use the same toxin as poisoned dart frogs, so
Speaker 1: they're kind of like if you found out your aunt
Speaker 1: was an assassin. But who are you? Whoey bita hooey
Speaker 1: pit whoy Spencer Tod wants to know is a breakfast
Speaker 1: chicken egg really only one cell?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Really, yep, it's one cell. Where's the nucleus and the
Speaker 1: ribosomes and the organelles and stuff.
Speaker 4: So they're they're there, and I mean this is like the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that makes sense because like any egg
Speaker 1: that a female of any species produces, one.
Speaker 4: Cell is one cell.
Speaker 3: Oh that's weird.
Speaker 1: Oh I've never thought about that. That's awesome. Brooke Boson
Speaker 1: wants to know what's the smallest egg in the world.
Speaker 4: Is it a hummingbird, It'll be one of the hummingbirds,
Speaker 4: and there are enough small hummingbirds that probably have similar
Speaker 4: sized eggs. The smallest hummingbird in the world is a
Speaker 4: bee hummingbird from Cuba. And you know, the amazing thing
Speaker 4: there is they have clutch sizes of two and the
Speaker 4: egg of a bee hummingbird would take up a large
Speaker 4: amount of the you know, as we said, it's one cell,
Speaker 4: and it's a large amount of the internal space in
Speaker 4: a female bee hummingbird.
Speaker 1: So is it just like the size of a tic
Speaker 1: tac bigger than it?
Speaker 4: Actually looks very much like a tictac. That's exactly what
Speaker 4: you think.
Speaker 1: I got a chance to see some on the Vault
Speaker 1: tour and yep, they're just like a scoch, larger than
Speaker 1: a tic tac, but way smaller than a mento. They
Speaker 1: are zero percent refreshing. Do not eat them on a date.
Speaker 4: And so here are the chicklets. That's a black chin
Speaker 4: hummingbird from Arizona.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I'm definitely eaten breath mints larger than
Speaker 1: that exactly. Oh my god, how cute and tiny.
Speaker 4: Which reminds me of an old joke from when I
Speaker 4: was a kid, which was, what did the hummingbirds say
Speaker 4: when he laid an ostrich egg? W late an ostrich egg?
Speaker 3: What out?
Speaker 1: That actually segues perfectly into Katie Copp's question. Here's a
Speaker 1: stupid question. Just laying an egg hurt? Like it hurts
Speaker 1: for a woman human woman to give birth, but we
Speaker 1: don't do it a few times a week.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was actually looking as I prepped for this.
Speaker 4: And you know, our modern chickens we eat five billion
Speaker 4: eggs a year in the US alone. Wow, and the
Speaker 4: average chicken produces like three hundred and sixty or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like almost daily?
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4: Just like it's incredible, and so does it hurt? I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know. It's not the same as childbirth in humans?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: We have in childbirth we have real messed up pelvis
Speaker 1: is like our pelvis is a are not? Are not
Speaker 1: so great? See the Ologies episodes on primatology and Kynecology
Speaker 1: for more on that. Did you ever see the movie
Speaker 1: cool Hand, Luke?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, you know, yeah, yes you did.
Speaker 3: What do you think I like Cool Hand Lukes?
Speaker 1: What about the egg eating part?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It it never bothered me.
Speaker 3: Really, nobody ever eats fifty eggs. Hey, baby luguts, we
Speaker 3: got a bed here. My boss said he can make
Speaker 3: fifty eggs. He ate fifty eggs.
Speaker 1: Just thinking about that sometimes when I make like a
Speaker 1: lot of like a clutch if you will, of hard
Speaker 1: boiled eggs, sometimes I think about that and I think, oh.
Speaker 4: God, see I think Rocky's the same way where he
Speaker 4: comes in after the run, and just like so, I
Speaker 4: would never do that.
Speaker 1: The funny thing is, if you asked me to eat
Speaker 1: an undercooked egg, a raw egg, I'd be like, absolutely no,
Speaker 1: get out of my face. But if you ask me
Speaker 1: to eat cookie dough which contains them, I'm like, sign
Speaker 1: me up. I'm there right, what's the deal.
Speaker 4: It's completely illogical, mind never mattered.
Speaker 1: Todd McLaren actually asks what's your favorite egg art? Ukrainian
Speaker 1: Easter egg, Madieira lace egg, faberge egg.
Speaker 4: Oh. I think those Ukrainian eggs are like incredible, really beautiful,
Speaker 4: really amazing pieces of artwork.
Speaker 1: So these Ukrainian eggs or psunka are ornately detailed using
Speaker 1: melted beeswax, and they just keep dunking them and die
Speaker 1: over and over again. And yes, there is a museum
Speaker 1: to Pazanka eggs in Eastern Europe in case you're into that.
Speaker 1: Now onto a very special question from someone who is
Speaker 1: technically your grandpod Larry Ward aka my Pops. He wants
Speaker 1: to know how are snake eggs incubated? Does the mom
Speaker 1: or dad snakes sit on them?
Speaker 4: Yeah? They do. Actually the yeah, they provide some bit.
Speaker 4: But it's funny because that's a good question. Actually we
Speaker 4: need a herpetologist. Yeah, in the sense that because they're
Speaker 4: ecto terms.
Speaker 1: So for this I brought out the big guns and
Speaker 1: buy guns, I mean snakes, and I reached out to
Speaker 1: doctor David Stein of the herpetology episode aka Alongside Wild
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and he responded swiftly and with informational precision.
Speaker 1: He said, not all snakes lay eggs, but of those two,
Speaker 1: the vast majority lay them and leave. They just incubate
Speaker 1: on their own. Pythons are a notable exception. They coil
Speaker 1: around the eggs and they can use muscle contractions to
Speaker 1: generate heat. So I like to think of pythons doing
Speaker 1: like a twitchy dance, like let's hatch these dang babies.
Speaker 1: So thanks for the question, Pops. Alicia Mansfield asked what
Speaker 1: causes color variations and eggs of the same species, for example,
Speaker 1: chicken eggs coming in brown, white, or blue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a I mean, some of it's just individual variation.
Speaker 4: And so there's some kind of genetic variation in the DNA. Well,
Speaker 4: I guess the DNA that's producing the compounds that are
Speaker 4: being deposited on the shells eventually. But there are these birds,
Speaker 4: like these common mirrors, where they've actually evolved the capacity.
Speaker 4: It's of their nesting on colonies on these cliffs and
Speaker 4: everybody looks alike, and so the females have the ability
Speaker 4: to lay unique looking eggs that can be completely different
Speaker 4: looking from the bird right next to them, and that
Speaker 4: allows them to imprint on those eggs and then find
Speaker 4: them when they fly to and from the colony to EA.
Speaker 4: It's an incredibly cool thing.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And they're still trying to do the research. So they're
Speaker 4: trying to figure out whether females lay the same kind
Speaker 4: of eggs from year to year. Oh so whether that's
Speaker 4: a genetically encoded pattern. And those are really interesting questions.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 1: I never even thought about that. When you see speckled
Speaker 1: eggs that maybe look like granite, Yeah, are those carbon
Speaker 1: copies of each other every time, or are the speckles
Speaker 1: in different places.
Speaker 4: I used to think that it probably was. There was
Speaker 4: probably a lot of variation that was genetically based. It
Speaker 4: may very well be that most of it's just randomly
Speaker 4: involved with how fast they're passing through the kloaca at
Speaker 4: the time, and you know when they come out. It's
Speaker 4: literally just something different every time, and the birds can
Speaker 4: imprint on it and then find it the next time.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's so fascinating. Also fascinating, of course how people
Speaker 1: treat and eat their eggs all over the globe. I'm
Speaker 1: told that also you don't have to refrigerate eggs in Europe.
Speaker 1: You just leave your eggs on the counter. Those Europeans,
Speaker 1: I know, they leave their butter on the counter. They
Speaker 1: have healthcare. They're crazy. Egg suppliers. In the US and
Speaker 1: Australia and Japan and Scandinavia, they give their eggs a
Speaker 1: little rub, a dub dub bath with some soap and water,
Speaker 1: and then that removes this protective cuticle that prevents bacteria
Speaker 1: from getting into any hairline cracks. But in other parts
Speaker 1: of the world, eggs are not washed and the chickens
Speaker 1: are just vaccinated for salmonella. So sure there might be
Speaker 1: some poop on them, but you don't need an eggshelf
Speaker 1: in your fridge.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, I bet I. When I was working
Speaker 4: in Brazil the first time, people used to leave mayonnaise
Speaker 4: and refrigerated out in the forest.
Speaker 1: Oh hell no.
Speaker 4: And after a while I started eating it. It was fine.
Speaker 1: Did you lose a lot of weight just because you
Speaker 1: were constantly sick?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Really? Now, speaking of salmonilla, is that something that you
Speaker 1: worry about?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: Is that now?
Speaker 1: Salmonilla it comes maybe from an infected bird, It comes
Speaker 1: right down down the old poop shoot, and then you
Speaker 1: need to wash the eggs to avoid the salmonilla, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 4: Think that that That's one thing that's kind of amazing
Speaker 4: about industry is how well they're able to actually keep
Speaker 4: those things from being issues, because they really I mean,
Speaker 4: when there's a salmonilla outbreak these days, it's kind of
Speaker 4: stunning how quickly we know about it, and how quickly
Speaker 4: in most cases they figure out exactly where they come from.
Speaker 1: I know, isn't it crazy? Yes, salmonilla I just found
Speaker 1: this out. Is the same genus and bacteria that causes
Speaker 1: typhoid fever, and of course just a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: food poisoning. Now it can get on the eggs when
Speaker 1: it passes through the oviduct of a chicken, or in
Speaker 1: the egg as it's forming. Now, not all chickens have salmonilla,
Speaker 1: and some will show signs like lethargy if they do
Speaker 1: have it. Now, before you go hatching a crate of
Speaker 1: fertilized eggs, do know. It turns out the backyard chickens,
Speaker 1: if they have salmonilla, can pass it along, especially as
Speaker 1: the CDC warns if there has been snuggling of the
Speaker 1: chicken and salmonilla poisoning does land folks in the hospital
Speaker 1: or a can be fatal. So don't go licking a
Speaker 1: bunch of chickens or eating raw eggs or poultry. Ironically,
Speaker 1: eating raw salmon seems to be fine, but that's because
Speaker 1: the name salmonilla was derived from one doctor Edgar Elmer Salmon,
Speaker 1: a veterinary surgeon for whom it was named.
Speaker 2: Here, doctor Salmon, we have bestowed you with a legacy
Speaker 2: for generations. A very confusing fish sounding disease of the
Speaker 2: chicken butt that scares people away from cookie dough also
Speaker 2: if you're like a real cookie dough trollop like myself,
Speaker 2: just go ahead and make it with pasteurized eggs. Feel
Speaker 2: free to eat the whole bowl. Does anything in John's
Speaker 2: work cause him to eat entire salad bowls filled with
Speaker 2: raw cookies?
Speaker 3: What is the.
Speaker 1: Most annoying thing about eggs or your job?
Speaker 4: Well, with eggs, I would say it's, uh, keeping track
Speaker 4: of them. So so you have a clutch, but you
Speaker 4: have four or five eggs in that clutch, and so
Speaker 4: you've got to figure out you know, they number them
Speaker 4: all and so you just got to be careful with
Speaker 4: respect to getting things mixed up and things and then
Speaker 4: you don't have anything else to go on if things
Speaker 4: do get mixed up.
Speaker 1: Oof. Yeah, that's true. I mean you can't put a
Speaker 1: little number on them, or they do.
Speaker 4: Put little numbers on them. But let's say there are
Speaker 4: a bunch of little numbers and they were put on
Speaker 4: a one hundred and twenty years ago. It's possible that
Speaker 4: you could have a hard time deciphering what was what
Speaker 4: was done.
Speaker 1: Do you find that the notes are like very poetically
Speaker 1: descriptive more so than they would be these days?
Speaker 2: Not?
Speaker 4: Really, it's the more what's beautiful about them is a
Speaker 4: different handwriting. Oh, people had so much better handwriting.
Speaker 1: I did notice this when I was looking through and
Speaker 1: swooning over some field note calligraphy among the vintage eggstacs.
Speaker 1: I mean that font a good handwriting.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: I wonder what would do you think he was amateur?
Speaker 4: Do you think he was pro he was an amateur?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 4: Yeah, all these guys were amateurs. Almost all the egg
Speaker 4: collecting was done by amateurs. That's really amazing.
Speaker 1: Wow, and they call themselves oologists. Yeah, and yet you've
Speaker 1: edited a book about X yep.
Speaker 4: And I'm not calling myself on the loss.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: It's just pathologically.
Speaker 4: Humble, just beautiful, cursive and things in ways that nobody
Speaker 4: would do today.
Speaker 1: God, we got to get back into that. I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, because those are the original fonts.
Speaker 4: Maybe they'll make some computer programs that'll do it, and
Speaker 4: I can actually effectively do some of that, but it's
Speaker 4: not going to be me by handwriting.
Speaker 1: He's so funny. Field biologists had to take like Fountain
Speaker 1: pen courses, you know, like, we got to keep it up, guys.
Speaker 4: There's no doubt that one of the things we should
Speaker 4: do is take printing courses, and I'm exhibit a of
Speaker 4: somebody who is not good at that. And I have
Speaker 4: a immense amount of respect for my colleagues that actually write
Speaker 4: impeccable scientific field notes and labels and things.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at some handwriting you have over here.
Speaker 4: No, I got not bad. I could tell you stories.
Speaker 4: Let us write this for you.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's one way to get out of doing work.
Speaker 1: That's like someone asked you to do the dishes, so
Speaker 1: you break a dish. You never get asked to do
Speaker 1: the dishes again.
Speaker 4: Except in this case. It's like, I really wish I.
Speaker 3: Could do it.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't type, So you can learn to print,
Speaker 1: and I'll learn how to type. What do you love
Speaker 1: the most about eggs?
Speaker 4: I mean just that there's such an important part of
Speaker 4: the biology of birds. I think that's the most interesting
Speaker 4: thing to me. And the other thing is that, actually,
Speaker 4: with all the birds in this world, and there are
Speaker 4: some ten thousand, eight hundred species, we probably don't know
Speaker 4: anything about the eggs of upwards of thirty to forty
Speaker 4: percent of the species. Maybe that's crazy, It is kind
Speaker 4: of interesting. So there's a lot we don't know about eggs.
Speaker 1: There's so many mysteries. And what about your job. What's
Speaker 1: your favorite thing about your job?
Speaker 4: Well, my favorite thing about my job is learning new
Speaker 4: things and getting to work with a group of organisms
Speaker 4: that I love and really kind of getting paid for
Speaker 4: my to do my avocation.
Speaker 1: So you're a professional bird nerd.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the dream for a burder is to
Speaker 1: be like you get that's like making the major leagues.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you know what I mean. I tell I
Speaker 4: tell students that that I you know, I started out
Speaker 4: wanting to be a I was a pre med and
Speaker 4: I took a cell biology course and I realized, really,
Speaker 4: somebody might pay me to actually study birds the rest
Speaker 4: of my life.
Speaker 1: So you're like veering off.
Speaker 4: It was it was an easy veer.
Speaker 1: Now, if you would have told yourself a young birder
Speaker 1: that you would get to do this for a living,
Speaker 1: would you have just been so stoked?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I grew up my dad was a birdwatcher
Speaker 4: and a very active birdwatcher, and I actually started burning
Speaker 4: because my brother was four years older, and I realized,
Speaker 4: if I wanted to spend any time with the two
Speaker 4: of them, I've better learned something about birds.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 4: So That's how I got interested in it, and I
Speaker 4: just even back then, I fell in love with the
Speaker 4: idea of being able to study birds up close and
Speaker 4: in those you know, in that kind of way.
Speaker 1: And now you get to study them every day yep,
Speaker 1: and things that come out of them yep, inside him, yeah,
Speaker 1: and things that you know that last like that. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that your only job left is to come
Speaker 1: to terms with the fact that you're an oologist. I
Speaker 1: think you need to accept that.
Speaker 4: To see I could put that on my door and
Speaker 4: on my cards and stuff. That's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1: There's imposter syndrome is everywhere. I like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I know enough. And you're like, you wrote a
Speaker 1: book about eggs, what more do you want? You manage
Speaker 1: collection of one hundred thousand eggs?
Speaker 4: But I think that that the notion of yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: how many ologists can you actually be? So, so at
Speaker 4: what point in time will you answer? You know, because
Speaker 4: I want to be an ornithologist. I like the fact
Speaker 4: that I study birds, right, you.
Speaker 1: Can be more than one. I'm Italian, I'm also English,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And you could be all
Speaker 1: kinds of things. So you I mean I live in
Speaker 1: La everyone's a hyphenate yoga instructor, actor, life coach, so
Speaker 1: I hereby proclaimed that you're an oologist.
Speaker 4: Fair enough.
Speaker 1: Yay, thank you so much for doing this was so fun,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. I could ask you a million egg questions
Speaker 1: all day.
Speaker 4: You'll have to come back and taculate.
Speaker 3: Hologya which is you?
Speaker 1: So once again, doctor John Bates of the wonderful Field
Speaker 1: Museum of Chicago. Now, if you like this podcast and
Speaker 1: the Field Museum, you should definitely check out if you
Speaker 1: haven't already, the Brain Scoop, which is the Field Museum's
Speaker 1: web series hosted by the amazing Emily Grasley. She is
Speaker 1: a wonderful person and a great science communicator, so you
Speaker 1: might enjoy those. Also, those videos are family friendly, so
Speaker 1: you can watch those with your kids all you want.
Speaker 1: Now again, John was an editor alongside Barbara Becker, of
Speaker 1: the Book of Eggs, a life sized guide to the
Speaker 1: eggs of six hundred of the world's bird species, written
Speaker 1: by Mark E. Hauber and available through Chicago University Press.
Speaker 1: Now warning, do you want to say this book is
Speaker 1: gorgeous and if you see it you will want to
Speaker 1: purchase it. Treat you out now. While you're at it,
Speaker 1: ologiesmerch dot Com has you covered in terms of hats
Speaker 1: and backpacks and tots and sweatshirts, baby onesies. Thank you
Speaker 1: Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Feltis for managing that. Also, thank
Speaker 1: you to the patrons who support the podcast for as
Speaker 1: little as twenty five cents an episode for making this happen.
Speaker 1: Thanks Aaron Talbert for keeping the Facebook group the Ologies
Speaker 1: podcast group fun and cool, full of curious non jerks.
Speaker 1: And thanks as always to Dinosaur egg Baby Stephen Ray
Speaker 1: Morris for editing Ologies all together every week. The theme
Speaker 1: song was written and performed by Nick Thorburn and at
Speaker 1: the end of the episode, after the credits, you know,
Speaker 1: I tell a secret, and this week my secret is.
Speaker 1: These asides aren't that long, but it has taken me
Speaker 1: almost double the amount of time to record them because
Speaker 1: I keep starting one and then messing up a word
Speaker 1: and having to start over. And I think it's because
Speaker 1: I'm recording this in my closet and it's a thousand degrees.
Speaker 1: But this has been the one of probably the most
Speaker 1: tongue tied episode I've ever had. I cannot figure it out.
Speaker 1: I'm just like I have the thank you for making
Speaker 1: it this far. I am about to collapse from heat
Speaker 1: on my computer. Oh my god, Bree, bye pacadermantology, hommeiology
Speaker 1: or do zoology, lithology, yeah, technology, meteorology, paratology, apology, seriologyology.
Speaker 4: Hey, maybe I hear the blues and call in toss
Speaker 4: salads and scrambled eggs, and maybe I seem have been confused.
Speaker 4: Yeah maybe, but I got you fagged. But I don't
Speaker 4: know what isn't with the tot nalads and scramble a