Favorite Superstitions Explained & Weird Science Quirks – SYSK Choice

Summary

Podcast Summary: Something You Should Know

Episode: Favorite Superstitions Explained & Weird Science Quirks – SYSK Choice
Host: Mike Carruthers
Guests: Heather Alexander (Author, "Good Luck"), Chris Balakrishnan (Co-founder, NerdNight; Author, "How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi")
Date: April 4, 2026

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Main Theme

In this engaging, curiosity-driven episode, host Mike Carruthers explores humanity’s deep-rooted connection to superstitions with author Heather Alexander, followed by a lively discussion with Chris Balakrishnan about unusual scientific phenomena—from maggot therapy to the infamous “hangover cure.” Throughout, the show delivers practical wisdom, fun facts, and historical insights as promised by its title, offering actionable takeaways and intriguing trivia to enrich listeners’ daily lives.

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Section 1: Why Apologies Are Hard [03:02]

• Key Insight: Research shows why saying “I’m sorry” can be more difficult than we think.
• Findings:
  • People often feel more empowered and in control when refusing to apologize, even for legitimate wrongs.
  • Voluntary apologies (rather than coerced ones) are more effective and emotionally satisfying.
• Speaker Quote:
  "The group who refused to apologize felt more empowered and had a greater sense of self worth." — Mike Carruthers [03:02]

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Section 2: The Origins and Persistence of Superstitions

Guest: Heather Alexander, Author of Good Luck
Main Discussion: [05:11–27:17]

What Are Superstitions? [05:13]

• Definition:
  "It's an irrational belief. So it's a belief that's not based in knowledge or fact. Doesn't mean we still don't have them." — Heather Alexander [05:17]

• Universality:
  Superstitions exist in all cultures, often adapted to local beliefs.

Why Superstitions Exist [05:45]

• Evolutionary Role:
  Early humans sought explanations for unexplainable phenomena, filling the gaps with stories that provided comfort and a perceived sense of control.

• Persistence Despite Science:
  Even with scientific explanations, superstitions linger due to tradition and emotional comfort.

• Quote:
  "Some things we don't even realize are a superstition... they're just so ingrained in us that we never take a moment to stop and think why not." — Heather Alexander [06:39]

Superstitions vs. Rituals [07:14]

• Rituals often originate in superstition.
• Example: Blowing out birthday candles began as a superstition for securing longevity [07:30]
• Many “rituals” (e.g. covering your mouth when you yawn) started with superstitious reasoning.

Strange & Fascinating Superstitions

Carrots and Night Vision [08:47]

• WWII British propaganda claimed carrots inspired superior night vision to conceal radar technology from Germans. The myth persisted and influenced generations.
  "And that's actually how a lot of superstitions get their start. Two different things that have nothing to do with each other, you put together." — Heather Alexander [09:42]

Black Cats [10:44]

• Origin: Medieval Europe linked black cats to witches; a black cat crossing your path foretold misfortune.
• In contrast, in Japan and the UK, black cats are lucky.
• Real-world effects: Lower black cat adoption rates in the US due to this superstition.
• "Black cats actually are not unlucky in other countries... but as a result [because of superstition], black cats are not adopted as much from shelters." — Heather Alexander [11:58]

Broken Mirror — Seven Years Bad Luck [12:39]

• Mirrors were once believed to be a portal to the soul (Ancient cultures).
• Seven years relates to Roman belief in bodily renewal cycles.
• Practicality: Mirrors were expensive; the superstition discouraged breakage.

Wishbone at Thanksgiving [21:40]

• Origin: Etruscans believed chickens could predict the future; their wishbones were considered magical.
• The tradition evolved through Roman, British, and colonial American cultures, adapting chickens to turkeys.

Walking Under Ladders [23:56]

• Possible Origins:
  • Egyptian: The ladder formed a sacred triangle; walking through it disturbed spirits.
  • Christian: The triangle signified the Holy Trinity; walking through it was sacrilege.
• Practical wisdom also a factor (it’s dangerous!).
• "A lot of superstitions really are warnings of what not to do." — Heather Alexander [24:25]

Good Luck vs. Bad Luck Superstitions [17:00]

• More superstitions are about good luck than bad, especially good luck charms (horsehoes, four-leaf clovers, rabbit’s feet).
• Many good luck charms have unfortunate consequences for animals (e.g., rabbit's feet, anteater).

The Psychology of Good Luck Charms [18:03]

• Charms and rituals offer confidence in uncertain or high-stakes moments (sports, performances).
• The belief, not the object, often produces the desired effect (Pele’s "lucky" jersey story).
  • "The belief that he was wearing the lucky jersey was enough..." — Heather Alexander [19:23]

Celebrity Superstitions [26:00]

• "Taylor Swift finds the number 13 lucky and does a lot of things on the number 13. Opera singer Luciano Pavarotti insisted that he could only perform with a bent nail in his pocket... opera houses all over the world would have assistants drop a few bent nails on the path to the stage." — Heather Alexander [26:00]

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Section 3: Science Quirks & Weird Medical Wisdom

Guest: Chris Balakrishnan, Author, How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi
Segment: [29:15–48:00]

Hangover Cures [30:06]

• Best prevention? Don’t drink.

• Only proven “cure”: More ethanol (alcohol)—because it prevents toxic methanol byproducts from forming.

• In hospitals, IV alcohol is sometimes administered for methanol poisoning (not your typical hangover!).

• "The only proven treatment that reduces the effects... is drinking more alcohol." — Chris Balakrishnan [31:18]

• Supplements: Glutathione may help but brings unpleasant side effects.

Medical Use of Maggots [35:41]

• Maggot therapy is FDA-approved and highly effective for debriding poorly healing wounds.
• "About 80% of people treated with maggots achieved complete debridement, whereas only 48% of those without maggots did." — Chris Balakrishnan [36:13]
• Medical-grade maggots are sterile and specialized for use in hospitals.
• Grossness deters wider use despite effectiveness.

Misophonia [39:14]

• Recent recognition: Emotional/physiological distress triggered by everyday noises (chewing, snoring).
• Affects roughly 20% of people, but underrecognized.
• Relief among sufferers upon learning it's a real condition.

The “Tea Test” & Statistical Experimentation [41:10]

• Statistician Ronald Fisher’s friendly debate over the order of preparing tea (milk first or tea first) led to the origin of the randomized controlled experiment and the “Fisher’s exact test.”
• Sometimes those small disputes deeply influence science.
• "This little experiment was the foundation of modern statistics..." — Chris Balakrishnan [42:19]

Weird Animal Science

Parasitic Birds (“Brood Parasites”) [43:13]

• Certain birds (e.g., cowbirds, cuckoos) lay eggs in other species’ nests, leaving the parental duties to others.
• Cowbirds are indiscriminate, cuckoos are selective and camouflaged their eggs to match hosts.
• Brood parasitism has evolved independently in many animals, not just birds.

Birdsong Learning [46:39]

• Songbirds, parrots, and humans share the rare ability to learn vocalizations; not even chimpanzees do.
• Songbirds learn songs from parents, not innately.

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Section 4: Quick-Life Facts & Listener Takeaways

What to Do If You Find an Egg on the Ground [48:04]

• Don’t put it back in the nest—the egg is likely damaged or rejected by the mother.
• Unfamiliar eggs may cause mothers to abandon the nest.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Carrots & Night Vision:
  "My grandmother believed that." — Mike Carruthers [09:40]
  “It was actually something that was just put out in the press, but it became a belief.” — Heather Alexander [09:42]

• On Famous Superstitions:
  "Taylor Swift finds the number 13 lucky and does a lot of things on the number 13." — Heather Alexander [26:00]
  "Opera singer Luciano Pavarotti insisted that he could only perform with a bent nail in his pocket." — Heather Alexander [26:00]

• On Maggot Therapy:
  “Maggots are not used nearly as much as they should be, given their effectiveness, just because of the gross out factor.” — Chris Balakrishnan [37:41]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:02] — Why it's hard to apologize
• [05:11] — Introduction to superstitions (with Heather Alexander)
• [07:30] — Rituals with superstitious beginnings (blowing out birthday candles)
• [08:47] — The carrot/night vision myth
• [10:44] — Black cat superstitions and cultural differences
• [12:46] — Broken mirrors, seven years bad luck
• [17:00] — Are superstitions about good or bad luck?
• [19:23] — The psychology behind good luck charms (Pele's jersey)
• [23:56] — The origins of not walking under ladders
• [26:00] — Celebrity superstitions
• [30:06] — Hangover cures, myth vs. science (with Chris Balakrishnan)
• [35:41] — Maggot therapy for wound healing
• [39:14] — Misophonia explained
• [41:10] — The tea test and birth of modern statistics
• [43:13] — Parasitic birds and brood parasitism
• [46:39] — Birds and learned song
• [48:04] — What to do if you find an egg on the ground

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Tone & Style

The episode is practical, witty, and curiosity-driven—packed with surprising facts and insightful stories delivered in a conversational style by both host and guests. Listeners come away feeling smarter, amused, and equipped with conversation starters for any occasion.

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Final Takeaway

Superstitions and quirky science aren’t just relics of a less-enlightened past. They remain vibrant exercises in human creativity, psychology, and cultural tradition, woven throughout the fabric of everyday life—from the sports field to the hospital ward. As Chris Balakrishnan put it, sometimes the “gross out” factor or irrational belief persists—not because of a lack of knowledge, but because beliefs give us comfort, confidence, and even healing.

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If you enjoy fun facts tied to both history and science, this episode delivers an assortment of “things you should know”—guaranteed to spark both wonder and conversation.

Transcript

[A]

This episode of Something youg Should Know is presented by Dutch. If your pet is still scratching and over the counter treatments aren't cutting it, Dutch connects you with a real licensed vet online. No waiting room and get prescription strength flea and tick meds delivered to your door. Use code [e-mail] for $40 off your membership today on something you should know. Why is it sometimes so hard to say I'm sorry then Superstitions? Why do we have them? And we have a lot of them about lucky charms, broken mirrors, black cats.

[B]

Europeans started associating black cats with witches, so that's why black cats at crossing your path was thought to be a sign of bad things to come. As a result, black cats are not adopted as much from shelters.

[A]

Also, what should you do if you see an egg on the ground that fell out of a nest? And fascinating science like the only way to cure a hangover and why we use maggots to heal wounds.

[C]

Unfortunately, the grossness is really what prevents people from using this treatment. Maggots are not used nearly as much as they should given their effectiveness just because of the gross out factor.

[A]

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[C]

something you should know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts and

[A]

practical advice you can use in your life today. Something you should know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, Here we go with another episode of something you should know. And we start today with the topic of apologies. You ever find it difficult to say I'm sorry? It's hard for a lot of people. And there is some research that sheds light on why apologizing is so difficult. And it really comes down to the fact that not apologizing just feels better. Two groups of volunteers agreed to write letters addressing something they had done wrong, while the group who apologized had a better sense of integrity after the fact that the group who refused to apologize felt more empowered and had a greater sense of self worth. The author of the study says that apologies make apologizers feel a little better, but refusing to apologize makes a lot of people feel a lot better and in more control of the situation. It also turns out that a voluntary apology feels a lot better than an apology given because somebody told you to say you're sorry. And that is something you should know. There's a pretty good chance that you engage in some superstitions some of the time. Maybe you have a good luck charm or you walk around a ladder because you don't want to walk under it, or you avoid black cats or you have a lucky number. I mean, there are a lot of superstitions. So where do they come from and why do they persist? Do all cultures have superstitions? Well, here to take a look at the history of superstitions and why we have them is Heather Alexander, who has gone back and researched some of our favorite superstitions as well as some strange ones as well. Heather is author of the Good Luck A Celebration of Global Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore. Hi Heather. Welcome to something you should know.

[B]

Hi, thanks for having me.

[A]

So what is a superstition if you had to define it?

[B]

So the actual definition of the word is it's an irrational belief. So it's a belief that's not based in knowledge or fact. Doesn't mean we still don't have them. But it is not a scientific fact based belief.

[A]

And do you know are superstitions pretty much everywhere, all around the world?

[B]

There are superstitions everywhere. Sometimes they vary from place to place, but there are superstitions everywhere.

[A]

And why is that? Why do human beings cling to what we know are irrational beliefs? And it is universal all over the planet?

[B]

I think in the beginning, way back when our ancestors when we didn't have a lot of knowledge that we do have now about science and how things and the world and how animals and how people work, Humans naturally look for explanations. And so if there wasn't a ready scientific explanation for something that was happening around you, we tend to fill in the gaps with stories, and we connect things that sometimes are not meant to be connected. And that gives us a sense of relief and a sense of comfort to know that there is an explanation.

[A]

But what's so interesting is that now that we have some explanations, we still have the superstitions.

[B]

Exactly. And some of it is passed down. We're taught it at a very young age from our family. Some things we don't even realize are a superstition. For example, blowing up candles on a birthday cake or covering our mouth when we yawn all come from superstitious beliefs. They're just so ingrained in us that we never take a moment to stop and think, why not? And then a lot of other people say they're not superstitious, but they actually do a few little things just to be sure, because you sometimes don't want to tempt the fate.

[A]

So what's the difference between a superstition and a ritual? Because I would think of blowing out birthday candles. I've always thought it's just a ritual that people do. I didn't know it was a superstition, or maybe I don't understand the difference between those two words.

[B]

Right. So there are many, many rituals that are based or born from superstitions. So they've become rituals for us now. For example, blowing out the birthday cake candles. German kids back in the 1700s were giving cakes with candles on it for the first time. And the candles were lit throughout the day of your birthday. And when it was cake time, you blew out the candles and there was a big candle in the middle. And if you blew it out, the superstition was that you would then live to see your next birthday. Granted, these were times where children died young or adults also died young, so it was a big deal to wish for your next birthday. Now we blow out candles and we say we make a wish. We don't necessarily all wish for health and to see our next birthday, we might wish for something else. But that's where the superstition came from. If you blew out the candle and you were able to have enough breath to blow out the candle, you would then get to see your next birthday.

[A]

So from your research, tell me a strange kind of bizarre superstition that you uncovered that I would find fascinating.

[B]

So one of the ones actually That I found an amazing story behind was the idea of. I was always told that eating carrots would give me great nighttime vision. And actually this superstition is traced back to the United Kingdom during World War II. In 1940, a Royal Air Force pilot was the first to shoot down a German plane in the nighttime using what was then secret radar technology. But the British at that time, or the British media, the British military didn't want the Germans to know that they had this technology. So they fed to the media that this pilot's super night vision was the result of eating lots and lots of carrots. And actually, I'm not sure that the German military believed this, but parents believed it.

[A]

Yeah, my grandmother believed that.

[B]

Exactly. And so they decided, well, I'm going to tell my children that. And they started packing carrots for lunch and carrots for here. And it was actually something that was just put out in the press, but it became a belief. And that's actually how a lot of superstitions get their start. Two different things that have nothing to do with each other. You put together. This one was put together for you, but a lot of times you put them together in your mind. So if I wear my lucky red underwear and I get an A on the test, I then start to believe, and it happens a second time, that red underwear equals an A on the test. Sort of forgetting that I did study for this test or I did listen in class.

[A]

There's a lot of superstition. I don't know if there's a lot of. There are several superstitions that come to mind that come from, like, Halloween, dark side, you know, black cats, broken mirrors, that kind of stuff.

[B]

Where did they come from, the black cat superstition? Black. I mean, cats go back to ancient Egypt, ancient China. They were honored as goddesses. Cats were a very good thing. But back in the Middle Ages, Europeans started associating black cats with witches. And they feared that the witches kept the cats as companions or that the witches could then turn into cats. So that's why a black cat crossing your path was thought to be a sign of bad things to come, because witches would either be in your life, would be coming into your life. The Puritans, when they traveled to America, brought this superstition with them. Black cats actually are not unlucky in other countries. Actually, in Japan, the United Kingdom, a black cat crossing your path is considered lucky. The problem with the black cat one is, as a result, black cats are not adopted as much from shelters. So it actually is a problem for the black cat community, as it were.

[A]

That's really interesting that the superstition actually has consequences. Well, as you say, to the black cat community, which.

[B]

Right. There's actually a lot of them. For example, the giant anteater is seen as some as an animal that brings bad luck in south and Central America. And as a result it's been hunted or it's hit by cars. And now the giant anteaters are endangered. And it's a direct relationship between the feeling that this animal in particular is bad luck. So it actually does have. For animals, it does have consequences.

[A]

Isn't that weird?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And what about the broken mirror, seven years bad luck thing? Do we know where that's what that's about?

[B]

The superstition is if you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck. It's believed that it goes back to ancient cultures. Back then, the idea of a person's reflection was not only to show their physical appearance, but it was also a doorway into their soul. So shattering a mirror was like shattering or damaging your soul. As far as the seven year seven is a number that comes up a lot in superstition, both for good luck and bad luck. But as I understand in ancient Romans believe that a person's body renewed itself every seven years. So the idea that the luck would come back if you waited, you had to wait now seven years for your body to renew itself, for your soul to become whole again. Another part of that though is that years ago mirrors were very expensive and fragile and you didn't want to break a mirror because it costs a lot of money and was hard to replace. So a lot of superstitions also are a not so subtle way for parents and others to say, don't mess with the expensive stuff.

[A]

Heather Alexander is my guest. We're talking about superstitions, why we have them and what they do for us. Heather is author of the Good Luck Book. So I started listening to this podcast and I thought it was going to make me feel guilty about existing on the planet, but it didn't. It's called Planet Visionaries. It's hosted by Alex Honnold. You may know him from Free Solo and more recently Skyscraper Live, where he climbed Taipei 101, 101 story building. It's amazing to watch, but here he's talking to people who are actually doing something about the planet. And it's very encouraging. There's an episode with coral restoration pioneer Tituan Bernicott and legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle. And that one really got me because they're talking about what's being done right now to protect and restore ocean ecosystems.

[C]

And.

[A]

And it makes you realize there's more progress happening than you hear about. And that's kind of the point. It's not doom and gloom. It's real people doing real work explained in a way that actually makes sense. So you come away thinking, okay, well, maybe this isn't hopeless. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries Listen or watch on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or. Or where you're listening to this podcast. This time of year, springtime always does this to me. I start looking in my closet thinking, I don't need more clothes, I just need better clothes. Fewer things, but ones I actually want to wear. Which is why I keep going back to Quint's. Their stuff. It just feels easy. The fabrics are great, like their linen pieces, which are perfect for this time of year. Lightweight, breathable, but they still look so put together. I've also been wearing their pants and polos a lot. They've become my default comfortable, good fit. And they hold up. And then you look at the price and it's like, wait, really? Because Quint's cuts out the middleman. So you're getting quality materials without paying for a name brand, which honestly makes getting dressed a lot simpler. And my wife buys almost all of her clothes from Quince too. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to Quince.comSYSK for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Go to Quince.com SYSK for free shipping and 365 Day returns. Quince.comSYSK so Heather, if you had to like divide the world of superstitions between superstitions for good and bad, are there more superstitions about bad things happening or good things happening? Or is it 50, 50?

[B]

I don't know that it can give you a percentage, but there actually are quite a lot of good luck superstitions, especially good luck charms. Things that people either do or physically hold onto to bring good luck, as well as different ways that we make wishes, whether it's wishing upon a star, wishing on finding a four leaf clover, horseshoes hung up in a barn to gather luck. So actually I probably think there is a little bit more good luck than there is bad luck.

[A]

Oh, that's interesting. Well, what's the deal with. I used to have rabbit's feet when I was a kid and I have no idea why that's supp. Be good luck. It's not good luck. For the rabbit?

[B]

No, it's definitely not. And it's another one, though, that has had not good consequences for rabbits.

[A]

What about just the idea of a good luck charm, that having this thing in your hand or in your possession will bring you good luck.

[B]

It comes back to confidence and you will see it, especially in athletes, as well as people going on stage when there is a chance of something going wrong. Or a situation where you're not exactly sure if you're up at bat, at the base, at a baseball game, how it's going to actually play out. As it were certain behaviors or lucky uniforms, or the way you wind up before you hit, or the way you start. For example, certain tennis players bounce the tennis ball five times. If they bounce it six times, they have to start again and bounce it five times. It's more. This superstition is more a way to calm nerves. As a result, sometimes people can't get beyond that superstition. There's actually a story of Pele, the soccer player who had a lucky jersey that he wore. And he once gave the jersey away to a fan. Then after the jersey was given away, he went into a scoring slump. So he decided that he needed to have this jersey back immediately, actually, but didn't. He had given it away to a fan, had no idea where the fan was, actually hired a private detective to track down this fan. Weeks or months later, the private detective comes back, tells Pele, I found the jersey. Here it is. Paley puts the jersey back on. Lo and behold, he scores in the next game and the game after. What Pelle didn't find out till much later was the private detective could not find the fan that the original jersey was given away to. Pulled another jersey out of his kit that Pele had owned, dirtied it up a little bit, gave it to Pele, and the belief that he was wearing the lucky jersey was enough to give him whether it's a confidence or the oomph to score. So that's a lot of these ones.

[A]

Isn't that interesting? Well, see, like the example that you gave of the bouncing the ball five times. To me, I would, if you asked me, I would say that's a ritual. That's not really a superstition. But I guess the line is.

[B]

There's a blur. Look, there is a blurry line between when rituals and superstitions and where you cross that line. But it's an irrational belief that if I do something a certain way, something else will happen. And I mean, there's nas, for example, NASA. There is A lot of rituals and beliefs before space travel that happen. And this is a group of scientists who are doing, for example, astronauts before any launch, no matter what time of day the launch is, they will eat a meal of steak and eggs before the launch. And, and this happened because Alan Shepard, that was his meal before he made that first mission launch in 1961.

[A]

So let me ask you about a couple of, I guess they're superstitions. And one is, you know, at Thanksgiving, the wishbone, the turkey wishbone. And you pull it apart and whoever gets the biggest piece gets their wish to come true. Where did that come from?

[B]

This is actually a story. It goes back to the Etruscans, which were an ancient civilization who lived in what's now Italy. And they believed that chickens had the power to tell the future. I don't know why. So they would actually draw a circle on the ground and divide it into wedges, sort of the way you would cut a pie and write a letter of the Alphabet inside each wedge. And then grain was sprinkled in each wedge and a rooster was placed in the middle. And the local priest would ask the rooster an important question about the city's future and then watch to see which wedge the rooster would eat from. And that's how they got their letters, from those. Their answer from those letters. So then after this fortune telling rooster died. Its bones were left out to dry in the sun, and the V shaped wishbone was used as a lucky charm. And so anybody who would walk by would stroke it while making a wish. So then the Romans came about and they liked this lucky wishbone idea, but there weren't really enough chickens to go around, so they began breaking the bone in two. And so this way there are more bones, more wishes for everyone. And then the Romans introduced the wishbone to Europe, and Germany actually used geese for the wishbone. And in Britain, some people actually, there was a thing way back when where you would try to balance the wishbone on your nose before making a wish. And that leads us again to the pilgrims who left Britain and sailed over to what's now the United States. And there weren't many chickens to be used for wishbones then, but there were turkeys. And so they said, okay, well move it over to the turkey. And they started making the wishes on the wishbone of the turkey. But the word wishbone didn't come into being actually until about the mid-1800s. And that's when, after Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, that the wishbone became associated with Thanksgiving.

[A]

So one of the one really good example of this is the, you know, walk under a ladder. That it's bad luck to walk under a ladder. And everybody, any rational person, will tell you that that just can't possibly be true. And yet people will go out of their way not to walk under a ladder, even though they know, because, I guess you don't want to tempt fate. But we all know that walking under a ladder doesn't do anything.

[B]

It's not 100% sure where it comes from. But ancient Egyptians would place a ladder inside the tombs so that in the afterlife, the dead could climb up to the heavens. And they believe that the triangular space under a ladder was filled with spirits. And essentially the spirits kind of get cranky when they're disturbed by humans. So the fear of walking under the ladder. Others have said that the ladder's triangular shape represents the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity. And so that walking through or essentially breaking the Trinity is showing disrespect. So those are two options as to where it comes from. But then again, a lot of superstitions really are warnings of what not to do. So, no, don't walk under a ladder because it could fall on you or a can of paint could fall on you. So that's how it happens.

[A]

I just find it interesting what you said at the beginning that, you know, superstitions were a way to explain things we didn't know. And now today, we do know the truth about science and whatnot, but we still cling to these superstitions. Superstition has really good pr. It seems that they just keep going in the face of. Of the truth. And I guess it's because we see, like, famous people with their. Their superstitions or their rituals that kind of help perpetuate it all.

[B]

A lot. A lot of famous people or celebrities have superstitions that they do. For example, Taylor Swift finds the number 13 lucky and does a lot of things on the days. Sorry, a lot of things on the number 13, opera singer Luciano Pavarotti insisted that he could only perform with a bent nail in his pocket, because that was his good luck charm. But he had to find the bent nail on his way to the stage, so he had to find it backstage. As a result, in opera houses all over the world, they would have assistants drop a few bent nails on the pathway from the dressing room to the stage. So he would be sure to find one in order for him to be able to go on and perform. So that's a fun one there.

[A]

Yeah. And there's gotta be more to that story, like why a nail? But so many of these superstitions seem so kind of random and weird, but kind of fun to talk about. I've been speaking with Heather Alexander and she's author of the Good Luck A Celebration of Global Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore, and there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on and talking about this, Heather. This was fun.

[B]

Thanks Mike, for having me. It's been wonderful talking to you.

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[A]

One thing that often happens to people such as you who listen to this show is you learn lots of new and interesting things. And in this next segment you are going to learn several new things you probably didn't know from the world of science. And I think you'll find it quite fascinating. My guest is Chris Balakrishnan. He is co founder of something called Nerdnight where for over 20 years, Nerdnight has delivered to live audiences around the world some interesting, fun and informative presentations about science, history, the arts, pop culture, and more. He's also author of a book called how to Win Friends and Influence Fungi. Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from nerdnight. Hey, Chris. Welcome to Something youg Should Know.

[C]

Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me. And good to be here.

[A]

So let's start with the hangover. Because anybody who's had a hangover knows that feeling of wishing there was a cure for it. And over the years, people have come up with various ways, various ideas of how to prevent a hangover, how to cure a hangover. I don't know how successful those are. So what is a hangover? And what's the science about this whole thing?

[C]

A hangover is generally is a combination of symptoms that you feel after drinking too much. This can include things like a headache, nausea, and even worse. It's a really uncomfortable set of symptoms. And these symptoms actually, believe it or not, cause a significant economic cost.

[A]

Well, sure, because you think about all the people who are hungover the next day and don't go to work and add all that up, and the lost productivity itself is pretty substantial. But is there any progress towards a cure for a hangover? And maybe it's hard to do because it's not a thing, it's a group of symptoms. But where are we with that?

[C]

The simplest answer, of course, and the one nobody wants to hear, is that the only sure way to not have a hangover is to not drink. But for many of us, that's not a tenable solution. What other kinds of options are there? Well, unfortunately, the only proven treatment that reduces the effects of. Of the hangover is one that we've all heard about, and that is drinking more alcohol. So why does drinking more alcohol help to understand that, you have to understand how alcohol is metabolized in the body. And basically, when you get a hangover, the reason you have a hangover is because of the toxic metabolites of methanol. And so there are two kinds of alcohol that you might run into in your drinks. Ethanol and methanol. And the majority will be ethanol. But if you drink a lot, the toxic byproducts of methanol build up in the bloodstream. And methanol and ethanol both compete for the same enzymes that process alcohol. And your body preferentially processes the ethanol. And so by drinking more alcohol, you're giving your body the ethanol that prevents these toxic byproducts of methanol from forming. These are things like formaldehyde. And so by giving your body ethanol, these toxic byproducts of methanol just don't form. And those, again, those byproducts like formaldehyde are the things that contribute to the hangover.

[A]

It does seem like a weird solution to the problem because we've heard that alcohol is poison basically to the body if you drink too much of it. And so if you take poison to then take more poison to combat the poison, doesn't seem like it would make much sense.

[C]

This is the context where this really comes up. That is, you're in the hospital, things have gotten so bad that this is a really a good idea. And doctors will prescribe, for example, IV alcohol to. To help with this, with the. With the extreme symptoms that you're suffering.

[A]

Really. So when you have alcohol poisoning in the hospital, they treat you with alcohol?

[C]

Yes. And extra. In extreme. In extreme circumstances, yes.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

When you. When methanol poisoning specifically. Yeah.

[A]

So is there any other treatment, any other cure, any other wives tale about curing a hangover that doesn't involve drinking more alcohol that has any value at all?

[C]

Yeah. So the other possible treatment is a supplement called glutathione. And this, it turns out, is a supplement that you can buy over the counter and has now been even branded as an alcohol, as a hangover cure, glutathione. What it does is, well, first of all, the amount of glutathione in your body is reduced while you're drinking. And so you're, you're reduced, you're depleting your glutathione supply as. As you drink. And it turns out glutathione is a cofactor that helps these enzymes that process alcohol in your body to. To function. And so you've depleted your glutathione by drinking. And so bringing those levels back up can help these alcohol processing enzymes work more effectively. There are here as well a couple of caveats. One is that glutathione itself also has side effects. And these are not enjoyable side effects. They are gastrointestinal side effects. And so you can imagine. So it's really sort of a trade off as to whether the benefits outweigh the cost of the hangover.

[A]

Well, and as you said at the very beginning, you know, the best cure for a hangover is to not drink. And then you can't get a hangover. Let's talk about maggots, because there's some science here. And you know, people are pretty grossed out when they see maggots, but there is some scientific use for them.

[C]

Yeah. So this was a really interesting thing that I just learned, and that is how maggots are used in hospitals and in the context of wound healing. And so it turns out that maggots are actually an approved therapy for treating poorly healing wounds. And there are old anecdotes going back to Napoleon's army and the Civil War that suggested that people who have maggot infested wounds actually healed better than people who don't have maggot infested wounds. This was actually tested by a medical intern at the time named Ron Sherman, who set up an experiment with 103 people with poorly healing wounds. It turns out that about 80% of the people who were treated with maggots achieved complete debridement, Whereas only about 48% of those without maggots had complete debridement. And so in 2004, Ron Sherman applied for FDA approval for maggot therapy. And in 2007, maggots became the first FDA approved animal treatment.

[A]

And the maggots that are used are not like the ones in your garbage. I mean, there's medical maggots, right?

[C]

There are medical maggots. And Ron Sherman has been the key entrepreneur in developing this business. So he basically started a company where maggots can be grown in sterile conditions. They're sent to hospitals on a circular grass gauze type thing as. As eggs, and they can be placed on the wounds and grown in. In sterile, sterile conditions.

[A]

It sounds so gross, and yet it's. Apparently it's very effective.

[C]

It's so effective. And, and unfortunately, the grossness is really what prevents people from using this treatment or even offering this treatment in some cases. So maggots are not used nearly as much as they. As they should be, given their effectiveness, just because of the gross out factor.

[A]

So I'm almost afraid to ask, but what is it that the maggots do that makes it so successful?

[C]

Basically, maggots have evolved prickly spines that they use to basically loosen the dead flesh. And this turns out to be a much gentler way of removing dead tissue than a surgeon's scalpel. They also, like many babies, they can't chew food. And so what maggots do is they basically release their digestive enzymes onto the tissue itself. And that again, helps soften and digest the dead tissue, but it spares the living tissue. And the enzymes involved also have antibiotic properties. And then that's where the infection management comes in. And so that's also a contribution of maggots. Finally, there's a part that no one understands but also appears to be true, is that having treatment with maggot actually improves blood flow to the wound and stimulates blood vessel growth. And this also improves the healing in these poorly healing wounds.

[A]

Misophonia you talk about, and we touched on it before in a previous episode, but I think it's so interesting because people don't know it's a thing and, well, you talk about it.

[C]

Misophonia is a condition that's really only recently come to attention, where the sufferer is extremely sensitive to particular repetitive noises. And by sensitivity, what I mean is that someone with misophonia feels a real emotional threat when they hear these repetitive sounds. These repetitive sounds include things like the sound of chewing, the sound of snoring, the sound of someone blowing their nose. So these are. These are sounds that we hear every day in normal life. And many of us are able to filter these sounds out and not even notice them, and they're just sort of part of the background noise. But someone with misophonia really feels anxious and stressed when they hear such sounds. And it turns out that estimates say that roughly 20% of people suffer from some form of misophonia, but only really, 10% of people or so have actually ever heard of misophonia. And when people hear about misophonia, lots of people are like, oh, I have that. I've always. I've always wondered what was wrong with me. And it turns out that there's lots of other people that. That have this condition.

[A]

Talk about the T test, because this is something I'd never heard before. And it has to do with the beverage tea and how you prepare it. And so I'll let you tell the story.

[C]

So a famous statistician named Ronald Fisher was making tea for his colleague Muriel Bristol, another scientist, and she was unhappy with the tea that was made. And she said it was because of the order that the tea was made. That is, was milk added first to the tea or was the tea added to the milk? Fisher thought this didn't make any sense. You should be able to add things in either direction and have the same outcome. But Fisher played an important role in the origins of statistics and experiments. At this time, there were not standardized methods for experiments. And in the context of this tea experiment, he devised an experiment to really test Muriel as to whether she could distinguish the two types of tea. And so what he did was he made eight cups of tea, four of which were presented milk first, four of which were made tea first. And he randomized the order of presentation and he just simply asked Moriel to identify whether the milk or the tea had been added first. And it turns out that Muriel was able to correctly guess the order of milk adding 100% of the time. And why that was is simply because of the thermodynamics. If when the, when a small amount of milk hits hot tea, that milk becomes a little bit burned and develops a caramelly taste. And she could detect that. But what's really important here is that this little experiment was the foundation of modern statistics and modern experimental design that we use now today. This led to the Fisher's exact test, which is a long standing statistical test used in experiments all around the world.

[A]

So I know your specialty is birds, so tell me something fascinating, interesting that I probably don't know about birds.

[C]

Have you ever heard of parasitic birds?

[A]

No. But do I want to hear about parasitic birds? It sounds a little gross.

[C]

So it turns out there are birds that are parasites, and these are not blood sucking parasites or anything like that, but they are brood parasites. And so what that means is that these are birds that lay their eggs in the nest of a different species and then that species raises these young as their own. And it turns out this, this behavior in birds has evolved independently in seven different groups of birds. That is, these birds don't build their own nests and they don't raise their own young. These are all very birdy things that you assume all birds do, but instead of that, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and pawn off that entire effort of parental care onto a different species.

[A]

And would I know of some of these birds? I mean, are they commonly known birds or are these very weird birds that nobody's ever heard of?

[C]

You might know about them if you follow birds even a little bit. In North America, you've probably heard of one species that is the brown headed cowbird or the cowbird. This is a bird that's known to lay its eggs in over 200 other different species nests and has been implicated in the declines of a subset of those species. So people tend to hate the cowbird because of this brood parasitic behavior and because of this assumption that it's causing problems for other bird species. So that is one famous one. The other famous one is one that I think it's maybe less known that they're parasitic, but they're cuckoos. So like the cuckoo clock, so European cuckoos, which are the species that the cuckoo Clock is designed to reflect is also a brood parasite. Unlike the cowbirds, they are very picky in where they lay their eggs. They lay their eggs in just a typically a single host species. And in fact, in cuckoos, the eggs of the parasite actually match the eggs of the host, so that the host can't tell which eggs are their own versus the parasites. And this is to avoid things like having the host eject those parasitic eggs from the nest.

[A]

Do all birds in that species do it? Or just some birds decide, you know, we're not going to raise our own here, we're just going to have the birds in the other tree do it?

[C]

That's a great question. The birds that I was talking about are species where they do it all the time. 100% of all the birds are parasitic. They do it 100% of the time. On top of that, there are other species of birds that only sometimes lay their eggs parasitically. There are some ducks that do this where they'll just occasionally drop an egg into a different bird's nest. All different versions of this behavior have evolved. And in fact, it isn't just birds that do this. There are fish that are parasitic, there are insects that are parasitic. Basically anything that lays an egg, any group of organisms that lays eggs, there are examples of this type of parasitism evolving.

[A]

Lastly, because I think this is interesting, is the songs that songbirds sing, how they come to sing them talk about that.

[C]

The songs that they sing, which we all hear, all around us, are learned. They learn these songs from their parents. They're not born with them. And so the way that songbirds learn their song is very similar to the way that humans learn to speak. And very few other animals in the animal kingdom have this type of learned communication. So even chimpanzees, their vocalizations are innate and not learned. But songbirds, parrots and humans are examples of learned vocal communication.

[A]

And so, as I promised at the very beginning of this segment, at least I know I've learned several new things I didn't know before. And I imagine most people did too, thanks to you, Chris Balakrishnan. He is co founder of nerdnight that delivers live presentations about science and history and pop culture and things around the world. And he is author of a book called how to Win Friends and Influence Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering and Math from Nerd Night. If you'd like to check that book out, there is a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes for this episode. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate you being here.

[C]

Thank you. Very much.

[A]

In springtime, it's not that uncommon to come across an egg on the ground that has fallen from a nest in the tree above. So the question is, if you come across one of these eggs, should you put it back in the nest? And the answer is probably not. If an egg has fallen out of the nest, it's fallen pretty far and is probably damaged and a damaged egg will not hatch. Also, many bird eggs found on the ground have actually been kicked out of the nest by the mother. Some mother birds can determine whether an egg is viable or not and gets rid of the ones that aren't, and in other cases the egg has been stolen by another critter and dropped. The other problem is if that egg that you find isn't from the nest that you think it is, many mama birds will actually abandon an entire nest if there is an unfamiliar egg placed in there. So it's really best to let fallen eggs be. And that is something you should know. If you enjoy what we do here on this podcast, you should become a follower. That way you get the episodes delivered right to your phone or whatever device you want it sent to, and you never miss a single one. Just hit the Follow button on the app you're listening on and that should take care of it. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.

[B]

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