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- [00:00]
Podcast Host/Advertiser
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:05]
Karen Kilgariff or Georgia Hardstark
I turned off news altogether.
- [00:08]
Erin Menke
I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In 1917, a young woman named Molly Maggia strolled into a factory in New Jersey for her first day of work. Two of her sisters worked in the same factory, and as she looked around the room, she saw them sitting together at a workbench. Molly smiled and waved, excited to join them. A supervisor walked Molly through the long rows of workbenches where more than a hundred young women were hunched over with paintbrushes in their hands. Their job was to paint the numbers onto the dials of watch faces with a special luminous paint called Undark. Molly sat down at her seat and gazed into the small bowl of yellowish paint, which glimmered and glowed like a magical potion. Molly had never seen anything like it. Her supervisor showed her the proper technique, lip dip paint. She was supposed to shape the brush into a fine point with her lips, dip it in the paint, and then paint the numbers on the watch dial. Molly frowned and asked if the paint was safe to consume, and the supervisor said yes, it was all natural and completely harmless. During their lunch break, Molly sat with her sisters, who were painting each other's nails with the Undark paint to make them glow. Across the room, she saw other workers painting designs onto their faces and clothing. They were laughing and smiling and shimmering like they were lit from within. Molly decided that the hesitation she had felt was unnecessary. A substance this beautiful and popular couldn't be dangerous. But after working at the factory for a few years, Molly woke up one morning with a terrible toothache. She called in sick to work and went to the dentist. He pulled out one of her teeth and sent her away, but the pain didn't go away. Over the next few months, Molly went back to the dentist again and again. Her teeth were rotting and falling out one by one, and even more alarmingly, the empty sockets weren't healing. After the teeth were Removed, they were turning into painful, bleeding ulcers. And then one day, when the dentist lightly pried open Molly's jaw to get a better look at her teeth, her entire jawbone crumbled and broke off into his hand. The dentist was aghast. He had no idea what was wrong with Molly. And there was nothing he could do to help her pain. Molly spent the next few months bedridden, barely able to eat or speak. Her sisters brought her word that other workers at the factory were falling ill as well. Their jaws were rotting, their spines collapsed. Their pregnancies ended in miscarriage. No one knew what was happening. The factory owners insisted that it was just a coincidence and that it had nothing to do with the Undark paint. But the workers were starting to doubt the paint was really as safe as they claimed. That fall, Molly died of a hemorrhage at the age of 25. Over the coming years, dozens of other dial painters became sick, including Molly's sisters, who joined with other workers to file a lawsuit against the factory. As part of the lawsuit, the Molly's body was exhumed for an autopsy. And what it revealed was that Molly's bones were radioactive. You see, the Undark paint glowed because it contained radium, a radioactive substance that's highly toxic to human beings. The owners of the dial factory had tried to cover up the harmful effects of radium, even as their healthy young workers dropped dead from it. Over time, the workers became known as the Radium Girls. And although there was nothing that could be done to save them, their deaths led to the creation of several new health and safety regulations for workers, including the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, otherwise known to us today as osha. This show is sponsored by American Public University. The future won't wait. And neither should you. That's why American Public University offers master's programs designed for momentum, affordable, high quality and flexible. Yet so you keep moving forward with career relevant programs in business, healthcare, education, IT and more. You can gain skills you can use right away and the confidence to power your next move. American Public University made for what's next. Learn more at apu. Apus. Edu.
- [05:30]
Karen Kilgariff or Georgia Hardstark
Hi, it's Karen and Georgia from My favorite Murder. We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Want the full story? Take a listen, Hetty. She starts dating Howard Hughes, the aviation tycoon. Do you know a lot about him? I mean, I watch the Aviator, so I know everything. Leonardo DiCaprio has allowed me to know about him, but incredible innovator, right? She says he's a, quote, very strange man, but they do get along really well.
- [05:58]
Erin Menke
Give us examples.
- [05:59]
Karen Kilgariff or Georgia Hardstark
I know they do get along intellectually. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane. She takes a look at what he's designed. It's got these square wings. And she's like, that doesn't make sense. And. And so she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of, like, what the two would look like as a plane, and that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy and Lamar and Billie Jean King. Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Goodbye.
- [06:38]
Erin Menke
You see them in every grocery store produce aisle today. The humble banana. The Cavendish banana, to be more precise. But if you were to get into a time machine and go back to the late 19th century, that is not the banana that you would find at the market. And the reason why is a curious tale. Back then, the banana that everyone bought was the Gros Michel. It had been introduced to the Americas in the late 19th century, and due to its flavor, thick skin, and resilience when being shipped, it quickly became top banana. It fueled the growth of many Central American countries and grew the profits of the massive fruit corporations, including United Fruit Company, which led to the rise of the concept that we know today as the banana republic. It's a phrase that we often hear. An unstable country whose economy rests on a single resource, which then gets exploited by powerful foreign agents. In this case, those foreign agents were United Fruit and its competitors. You see, the Gros Michel needed land in the tropics and lots of it. And not just for the massive banana plantations where the fruit would be grown, but also for railways and ports so that the perishable Gros Michel could get to market as quickly as possible. United Fruit was able to secure land grants in exchange for building its own railways, but only those that would serve its own interests. Locals were frequently left out in the cold. And as more and more of the country's resources were sucked up by the company, there would be, in turn, more political unrest. And to protect United Fruit's business, the United States government would help topple governments who pushed back, installing corrupt military dictatorships that were much more friendly to American interests, all to sell a banana. Very quickly, the health of a nation's economy became entirely reliant on the health of the banana plantations, which left local populations vulnerable to markets that had little to do with themselves. And United Fruit's focus on growing the Gros Michel above all other varieties would eventually lead to disaster. You see, in order to have consistent quality of seedless fruit, the bananas weren't grown from seed, but instead cloned. And because every cloned plant was identical, every Gros Michel had the exact same vulnerabilities. And so when a soil borne fungus exploded onto the scene in the 1920s and 30s, it tore through the tropics, massacring the Gros Michel as it went. How? Well, this fungus caused Panama Disease, which blocked the plant's ability to absorb and distribute water. And so entire plantations became rotting banana graveyards. And by the 1950s, the Gros Michel was unable to continue as the corporate crop that it had been for so long. After some search, the industry found a new champion, the Cavendish, which had a natural resistance to the fungus. And so farmers pivoted quickly to the new variety, which proved incredibly successful. Just like the Gros Michel before it, it was a resilient breed, and it could make that long journey from the farm to the grocer with minimal damage. But most importantly, it could grow in the same soil that had become toxic for its predecessor. And along the way, it's become the banana that we all recognize today. And it accounts for 99% of the banana trade, which, as you can probably guess, is a major problem. You see, the industry didn't solve its fungus problem by replacing one monoculture with another. It's only really putting off the inevitable, because just like the Gros Michel, the Cavendish is a clone. Every single one of the bananas on the market shelves today share the exact same genesis. And so all it would take is a single disease to wipe out the Cavendish. And that disease has already appeared in the form of Tropical Race 4, which is a particularly nasty form of the same fungus that took down the Gros Michel. It's more aggressive and it can live in the soil far longer, lasting even decades. And since it's appeared, it has spread like wildfire through Asia and Australia. In 2019, it finally made it to the Americas, the heart of the banana export industry. And it's proving nearly impossible to contain naturally. The industry is trying to fight back. Using genetic engineering, it's attempting to take resistant genes from wild bananas and insert them into the Cavendish genome, offering a glimmer of hope. There's also the possibility of other varieties hitting store shelves, although many aren't as hardy or as flavorful as the Cavendish. And so the new fungus continues its relentless spread, leaving our familiar bananas fate hanging in the balance. Twice now we've been shown the dangers of monoculture. We can meet it in the moment through diversification or science, or face losing one of our everyday staples. And as far as I'm concerned, only one of those options sounds appealing. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosity. This show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and Mild team and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people who make it over@grimandmild.com curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosities hardcover book available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon and it's all the same stories but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over@patreon.com grimandmild and until next time, stay curious.
- [12:28]
Podcast Host/Advertiser
A Better Help Ad Summer can be a mix of things. For some, it's about travel, adventure and making memories. For others, juggling everything can feel overwhelming. Kids at home, packed schedules, shifting routines. It's easy to slip into survival mode and wonder where the days are going. Taking time for yourself can make a difference, and therapy can support that, helping you feel more confident setting boundaries and making space to recharge so that summer feels more balanced and enjoyable. With BetterHelp, you can connect with a licensed therapist online. You'll be matched based on your needs and can switch anytime. It's not the right fit. With over 30,000 therapists and millions of clients worldwide, people are finding the support they need. With BetterHelp. You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find guidance in therapy. Visit betterhelp.com to get started. That's betterhelp.com this is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.