0:03

Listener supported WNYC

0:06

studios.

0:08

Wait, you're listening. OK.

0:11

All right. OK. You're

0:16

listening to Radio Lab. Radio

0:18

from WNYC. All

0:27

right, we're going to begin today's episode. At

0:30

a golf course wedding venue,

0:33

sort of, with our contributing

0:35

editor and resident ER

0:37

doctor, Avir Mitra. Parsi

0:39

time. Now, one thing you

0:41

need to know at the jump of this story is that Avir

0:44

was raised in part in this

0:46

religion that is mostly practiced in

0:48

South Asia called Zoroastrianism.

0:52

In particular, Indian Zoroastrians

0:55

are called Parsis. It's

0:57

not a big religion, less

0:59

than 200,000 followers. But

1:01

a fair number of them happen to be here

1:04

in South Jersey.

1:05

They

1:09

rent out this space once a month to

1:12

socialize, read scripture, eat tons of homemade Indian

1:14

food. But this time, Avir, we did not

1:16

send him there for that. I'm going to go grab some snackies. Although

1:19

it sounds like he did do some of that. OK. So

1:21

I'll have to be sticking this in your face. I hope you don't mind.

1:24

This time, he was there to talk with his priest.

1:26

My name is Gawas Desai.

1:28

About the mystery of what happens

1:31

after you die. But not

1:34

at all in the way that you think.

1:43

I'm Lulu. And I'm Latif. This

1:45

is Radiolab. And we should mention that

1:47

this episode does deal with death. And there

1:50

are a few brief graphic descriptions

1:53

as well as a couple swear words. Please listen with

1:55

care.

1:56

All right. Here's Avir. Every time I tell

1:58

people about how we. I guess

2:00

our burial. Well, it's not even, I don't know what the word is, not

2:03

burial. It's disposal of the dead. Yeah,

2:06

I get a lot of weird looks. Why?

2:09

I mean... Well,

2:11

maybe you could tell me, what is our

2:13

method of disposal of bodies?

2:16

The method of disposal is exposure.

2:18

Exposure? What

2:20

does that mean? We take our dead

2:23

to this place called the Tower of

2:25

Silence.

2:26

The Tower of Silence? I've

2:28

been to one in Mumbai. It's this hill

2:30

in the middle of this big bustling city,

2:32

but when you get there, it's like just this super

2:35

forested quiet

2:37

area. It almost feels like a jungle. It's

2:39

so dense. And at the top

2:41

of it, there's a flat cement

2:43

slab in

2:45

a circle that's

2:48

open to the sky. And there's

2:51

walls around it, but there's no roof on

2:53

it. And there's

2:55

different layers to it. The adult

2:57

men go on the outer edge of

2:59

this cement slab. Women will

3:02

go in the middle, and children, if

3:04

they die, will go near the center. And

3:07

there's thousands of vultures surrounding

3:10

this place, just

3:11

waiting. Wow. The

3:13

vultures would ring the whole walls

3:16

all the way around, and hundreds

3:18

of them. And then after the body

3:20

was left, the vultures were descended

3:23

there. And

3:25

yeah, the vultures just devour

3:26

the body. And within a few hours, all

3:30

that's left is just a few bones. Whoa.

3:35

Yeah, we call it a sky burial. And I don't know,

3:36

I just think it's incredible. Like in the religion, the

3:39

idea is that the second someone dies, there's

3:43

a corpse demon called Nasu, and

3:45

they believe that that demon is

3:48

what starts to cause the decay of the body. And

3:51

so, you know,

3:52

when the vultures eat the body,

3:54

they're essentially protecting us from this

3:56

demon. So

3:58

that's one thing. There's also one thing, for a more practical

4:00

reason, if you were to bury the body,

4:03

that's sort of polluting the earth, which

4:05

they don't want to do. If they burn the body,

4:07

that's polluting the sky. And

4:09

they felt that if the vultures eat the body,

4:12

it recycles it back into nature. So

4:14

these people were like environmentalists. Yes,

4:17

they were the original environmentalists. That's

4:20

amazing.

4:21

It's pretty metal. It's beautiful. I

4:24

agree. And that's the way

4:26

it is. That's the way it's been for thousands and thousands

4:29

of years up until 2006.

4:34

This one Parsi woman named Dunbaria,

4:38

her mom died. And she had

4:40

this suspicion. Is my

4:42

mom in the clear? Has her body

4:44

been consumed?

4:46

So she sneaks up into the tower, climbs

4:49

up to the top. And what she saw

4:51

there was completely horrendous.

4:54

She felt like she had to tell the world. This

4:56

is

4:57

CNN, I.B.A.

4:59

Ahamarejo bodies, photographs

5:02

from inside the towers of silence where

5:04

the Parsi community in Mumbai disposes

5:06

of its dead. These forbidden photographs

5:09

are creating big ripples in the small

5:11

community.

5:13

There's just bodies,

5:16

bloated, rotting, bodies,

5:18

disfigured bodies. That's horrifying.

5:21

Just kind of plopped around that area.

5:25

And where you'd normally just see hundreds of vultures

5:27

at the tower of silence, you don't see a single one.

5:32

The bodies were left to decompose in the tower of

5:35

silence because there were not enough vultures

5:37

to clean the body, pick the body

5:39

clean. The

5:41

vultures are just gone. At

5:43

the tower? Like everywhere.

5:46

Millions of vultures, all

5:48

over town, all over the state,

5:50

all over India, almost overnight.

5:53

They're all gone. Wow, okay, so the question

5:56

is, where the heck did they all go?

5:58

Yeah, that's the mystery.

6:01

Which brings us... When species

6:03

are in dire straits... ...to this guy. We

6:05

wear our cape, we swing through the jungles and

6:07

the forests, and we... We save the

6:09

day, right? A man by the name of Munir

6:11

Varani. Here we go. He's a Kenyan biologist

6:14

who studies birds. And

6:17

back in the late 90s, he worked for the Peregrine

6:19

Fund, which is this organization that basically

6:22

saves birds of prey. And he

6:24

had just gotten married, so he's at his new home in

6:26

Nairobi, just a couple weeks into

6:28

his marriage.

6:30

The telephone rang. It was Rick. His

6:32

boss at the Peregrine Fund. And he said, well,

6:34

I'm calling you because I wanted to find out, how

6:37

do you feel about going to India?

6:39

So he tells his wife,

6:42

this whole marriage thing's been great. I'm really excited

6:44

about all this stuff. I gotta go.

6:47

So off I went. He flies from Kenya

6:49

to India, gets off the plane at Mumbai, and

6:51

one of the first things he does is he starts walking

6:53

around this park. It's like a tiger reserve.

6:56

Remember distinctly this big banyan

6:58

tree,

6:59

which is a ficus tree. It's a tree of religious

7:01

significance in Hindu culture. It's like

7:03

a tree of life and type thing. And

7:05

what he sees are like at least 17 vultures

7:09

that were lying, sort of, you

7:11

know, stomach down, wings spread out.

7:14

You mean they were dead? They were all dead. They

7:16

were dead. 17 dead

7:18

vultures underneath of it.

7:21

What a stark, like, image. What

7:23

a metaphor. Just the tree of life and then all this death.

7:26

Yeah. And this makes no

7:28

sense to Manir because vultures

7:31

are supposed to be super tough animals. Hmm. Tough

7:33

like how? I mean,

7:36

they literally eat dead things, you

7:38

know? The great thing about living things is

7:41

they're pretty healthy, you know? They're healthy

7:43

enough to be alive. Yeah.

7:45

And so I want to get some of that, you know? Whatever

7:47

you got going on, I want to put in my belly.

7:50

But if you died,

7:52

something went wrong with you. And

7:54

now I'm just going to make you part of

7:56

me, essentially, by eating you. That's a

7:59

bold move. But secondly the second

8:01

you die, you know all these

8:03

bacteria Viruses and fungi that

8:06

you've been keeping at bay by being alive

8:08

and having

8:09

an immune system, you know Now

8:11

all of a sudden they start taking over

8:13

So the way the vultures survive this

8:15

is they have a super acidic stomach

8:18

It's up to a hundred times more acidic

8:20

than our stomachs like battery acid stomach.

8:23

Yeah, exactly like they can eat anything

8:25

and it's just melts away

8:28

Some species also piss and

8:30

shit acid Okay

8:33

on to themselves poop boots Because

8:36

that keeps the bugs away.

8:37

It's a little chemical defense Exactly Wow

8:40

And if someone tries to eat the vulture

8:42

some species have evolved this response

8:45

to just vomit acid on the predator

8:47

That is gnarly

8:51

Yeah, and it turns out that

8:53

all of this is So

8:56

important because if you think

8:58

about it They're basically

9:00

gobbling up all the diseases

9:02

and bacteria rabies anthrax

9:05

all these things

9:06

And it stops with them

9:09

like they're the end of the line They're

9:11

like nature's immune system Yeah,

9:14

that's a superpower and they

9:16

play such an important role that a bird

9:19

just keeps evolving to become

9:21

a vulture Has happened

9:23

four times independently on

9:25

earth that we know like just across the

9:27

world like you know what I mean It's almost

9:30

like if I came out with like Dark

9:32

Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd or like I

9:34

wrote that album and then someone

9:37

else also wrote that album and like four

9:39

People across the country just wrote that same

9:41

album

9:41

And

9:46

So going back to Muneer looking

9:49

at this banyan tree,

9:50

it's super weird that there's all these dead vultures

9:53

underneath it And it gets

9:55

even more puzzling because these vultures

9:57

are not like old decrepit you

10:00

know, vultures. And it doesn't look like someone

10:02

shot them. You know, they didn't like get electrocuted

10:05

in a power line or something like. The birds

10:07

were in great body condition. They had a lot

10:09

of body fat. There's just no reason for these birds

10:11

to be dead. This was like solving

10:14

a, like a murder mystery. So

10:18

Munir's on the case. And what

10:20

he needs is to get some dead vultures over

10:22

to a lab in the US. So

10:25

he goes to India and he's a young

10:27

whippersnapper. And he's like, this is what we need to

10:29

do. We need to get permits to send tissue samples

10:32

so that people around the world can look at them. India's

10:35

like, very fast. No, you

10:37

can't take these tissue samples.

10:39

Why are they worried about that? Yeah. You

10:41

know, it just kind of got tied up in red tape

10:44

because you know, India doesn't want people taking

10:47

their natural products and animals and

10:49

seeds and wildlife and you know, making

10:52

money off of it. Okay. By

10:54

the time he's trying to negotiate with

10:56

the Indian government, the vultures

10:58

have already started dying off at

11:01

a incredibly rapid rate. Like

11:03

in India, 95% of vultures

11:06

are already dead. Oh my God. That

11:08

is, I mean, that is like a just,

11:11

that's insane. It is. And

11:13

so he's like, shit, like what do I do now?

11:16

So he goes to Nepal, tries

11:19

again, same thing. They say no. And

11:22

so he decides he's going to go to

11:24

Pakistan, neighboring country and

11:26

see if he can get some dead vultures there. But

11:29

I look in the skies and there

11:32

are thousands of vultures. And I

11:34

mean thousands. Wow. You

11:36

come across a dead buffalo or a cow and

11:38

there are maybe 200 vultures that are trying to get into it.

11:41

But isn't it bad because the vultures

11:43

don't seem to be dying over there so you

11:45

may miss the problem? There's a twist. We're

11:48

still finding a few dead vultures. Oh. And

11:51

they're showing the exact clinical

11:53

signs. They should not be dead,

11:55

right? He's there right before it happens.

11:57

It's almost like he gets to rewind time just

11:59

a little bit. So he's

12:01

like, oh, this is perfect. Like, okay, this

12:04

is where we should work, right? But

12:06

of course the question lies, are

12:08

we gonna get tissue samples out of that country? He

12:11

goes to the main guy in Pakistan,

12:14

the bureaucrat who's gonna give him permission. And

12:17

he's like, all right, God changed my approach. So how am I

12:20

gonna do this? First of all, the India-Pakistan

12:22

cricket series was going on, right? And as people

12:24

know, there's a big rivalry between India and Pakistan.

12:27

He looks at me and he says, Munir, you want me

12:29

to give you a permit to export tissue samples?

12:33

Give me one reason why I should give you that. And

12:36

I said, Dr. Khalid, if

12:39

you don't give us this permit, then the Indians will beat you

12:41

to it. He bluffs. He

12:43

bluffs. Boom, I just knew I had him. Oh.

12:46

So they gave us permits to export tissue samples. Wow,

12:48

go Munir. Yeah. So off

12:51

we started. They get together a group of

12:53

young research assistants and

12:55

basically had them pick up these dead vultures

12:58

and cut them open.

13:00

And what they see is striking.

13:02

The inner organs were covered with a white

13:05

chalky paste.

13:08

Does that look like toothpaste? Like what does it look

13:10

like? There's like powder, white

13:12

powder all over the liver,

13:15

the heart, the lungs, everywhere.

13:18

Can you wipe it off? Like it's literally

13:21

a substance. Yeah, exactly. Weird. Weird.

13:24

So he goes to his senior colleague, this

13:27

guy, Lindsay Oakes. Oakes

13:29

takes one look and he's like, oh, I know

13:31

what that is. It's kidney

13:33

failure. Huh, what? It

13:36

turns out that if you shut down a vulture's

13:38

kidneys, all this stuff backs up,

13:41

turns into a paste, and

13:43

gets deposited in all the organs. What's

13:46

that? What that stuff is, is uric acid.

13:48

Oh, bird shit. Which is bird

13:50

pee, bird shit. It's the stuff that's making

13:53

their pee and poop so acidic. They can't pee it

13:55

out. So it goes up? It's

13:58

just depositing in their...

13:59

joints in their organs. Oh my God. And

14:02

you die. Wow. So now they know,

14:04

like, what's killing the vultures is kidney failure.

14:07

But no one knows what's causing the kidney failure.

14:11

As this story's progressing, the situation's

14:14

escalating and people are starting to get

14:16

spooked. So it is happening in Pakistan

14:18

too? Yes, it's happening really

14:20

quick. Like when he first got there, there were 3,000 nesting

14:23

vultures. And

14:25

the next year, it was half that.

14:27

And the year after that, it was half

14:29

that again. And four years in,

14:32

they're down to just 400 nesting

14:34

vultures. Yeah. Just like that.

14:36

Yeah.

14:42

So the leading theory at this time is

14:44

that this is a virus. Oh. Right?

14:47

Because look, it started in Southeast Asia. So

14:49

they're thinking, okay, maybe going east to

14:51

west, this virus is spreading. Southeast Asia,

14:54

Nepal, India. And if this virus

14:56

moves further west into Pakistan, Afghanistan,

15:00

into the Middle East, and comes into Africa

15:02

where vultures play such an important role, the

15:05

consequences would be completely

15:08

dire. Remember, these vultures

15:10

are like nature's immune

15:12

system. They perform probably

15:14

the most important role than any other

15:16

animal or groups of animals combined.

15:19

Like if we don't have them digesting

15:21

all this bacteria, diseases,

15:23

and viruses, who knows what's going

15:25

to happen to the entire world? So we're really

15:28

fighting against time.

15:41

Hi, Rebecca Murray here

15:43

from Mount Vernon, Washington. I'm

15:45

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Lulu. Lutte. Radiolab. All right,

17:44

where are we at? Things are looking very grim.

17:46

Yeah. It seems like

17:49

all the vultures are dying, and

17:51

it is up to Munir and his team

17:54

to try to

17:55

stop it? Yeah, exactly. And

17:57

just to step back, we know they're dying

17:59

of cases. Now, what's causing the kidney failure? In

18:02

theory, it could be any number of things.

18:05

It could be a virus. It could be bacteria, fungi.

18:08

It could be environmental changes. It could be toxins.

18:11

And so people are testing for this and

18:13

that, and they're just not finding anything.

18:16

And then in 2001, Munir and

18:19

his colleague, Lindsay Oakes... We were

18:21

in a meeting in Spain. They're at some sort

18:23

of bird conference. VultureCon.

18:26

VultureCon, exactly. They're in their

18:29

head-to-toe vulture costume. I can picture

18:31

it. I can picture it. And you know, this is not

18:33

a great year for VultureCon.

18:35

Everyone's covered in talcum powder.

18:38

And I remember Lindsay and I sitting in the square

18:40

in Sevilla, sipping espressos. So Lindsay's

18:43

like, let's just start from scratch here. You know,

18:45

let's get a piece of paper. They pull out like a napkin

18:48

and just start writing on the napkin. We were

18:50

like kids just putting down these flow diagrams, right?

18:53

Okay. What do we know? Kidney

18:55

failure. What can

18:57

cause kidney failure?

19:00

Toxins. Nothing. Viruses.

19:03

Nothing. And then

19:05

Munir says, Lindsay asks

19:07

this question. He said, okay. That kind

19:09

of cracks the whole thing open. What's going into

19:12

the vultures? So I was like, well,

19:14

food. Generally cattle, right?

19:17

Livestock. And so Lindsay's like,

19:19

we've been focusing so much on what goes

19:21

into the vultures. Have we seen

19:23

what's going into the livestock? So

19:27

they take a new approach. They go back

19:29

to Pakistan and they start going around

19:31

to different villages and just knocking

19:33

on people's doors, being like, hi,

19:36

I have a bunch of questions for you about your cattle, you

19:38

know. And as they're processing

19:41

the surveys, they're noticing like, oh,

19:43

this phrase keeps popping up over and over again.

19:46

It just stood out. We

19:48

give them diclofenac. Diclofenac.

19:52

Yeah. This drug, diclofenac,

19:54

it's actually a painkiller. It's in this class

19:57

of drugs called NSAIDs, non-steroidal anti-molecular

19:59

drugs.

19:59

inflammatory drugs. That includes,

20:02

you know, drugs like Advil, Motrin,

20:04

Aleve, Ibuprofen. And

20:07

these farmers were giving diclofenac

20:09

to cattle because cattle,

20:11

just like people, you know, get old, get aches

20:13

and pains. They wake up one morning

20:16

and their

20:17

knees hurt. If your cow had a limp and

20:19

was unable to carry the produce

20:21

to market, you just pumped it with diclofenac.

20:24

You just did. And even after the cow

20:26

gets like too old to pull your cart or whatever,

20:28

the farmers, a lot of times at least the Hindu

20:31

ones would still give them diclofenac because they're

20:33

seen as sacred animals.

20:35

Half of me is a Rastrian. The other half of me

20:37

is Hindu. So Hindus, you know, they don't

20:39

eat cows. I mean, I do eat

20:42

beef, but don't tell my grandma

20:44

or whatever. I'll

20:46

never forget. I was like in eighth grade and I

20:49

was like telling my grandma who doesn't

20:51

speak much English and I don't speak much Bengali.

20:54

She's like, we don't eat cow. And I was

20:56

like,

20:57

yeah, I do. Because I love burgers and that's made

20:59

of cow. And she's like, no, no, it's

21:02

not. You don't eat cow. So then I called my dad

21:04

into the room. I was like, dad, aren't

21:06

burgers made out of cows? And he just straight

21:08

up was like, no, and just walked out of the room. And

21:12

I was like confused for like five years after the visit.

21:14

So anyway,

21:17

Munir and the team realized that farmers

21:19

are giving their cattle this drug, this painkiller,

21:22

diclofenac.

21:23

So they take some organs, send them to the US

21:25

and test for levels of the drug.

21:27

And sure enough, all the

21:29

vultures that were covered in that chalky white

21:32

paste came back positive. And

21:35

so suddenly a pattern was evolving. But

21:37

that's still not a,

21:40

I feel like we've gotten, you've connected

21:42

the dots, but it's the dot that needs to

21:44

be connected. It's now it's in the vulture, but we

21:46

don't know for sure it's causing the sickness. I

21:49

love that you said that, Letif, because we see diclofenac

21:51

in the vultures that are dead,

21:54

but it's

21:54

not the reason that they're dead. And so now

21:58

we have to show that. So

22:00

this is where things have to get really dark. Oh,

22:03

this story has been just a fun, fatty

22:05

cake until now. Yeah. So

22:08

I told you, you know, vultures dying left and right. Munir

22:11

and his team studying these vultures,

22:14

they see all these poor baby vultures.

22:17

These were birds that fell off the nests

22:20

after their parents died. And so

22:22

they have been over time sort

22:24

of sheltering some of these baby vultures and raising them. And

22:26

giving them

22:27

what? To feed like little dead rats? Yeah,

22:29

little dead rats, a little, you know,

22:31

whatever. Like, bougie

22:33

vultures. These

22:34

vultures are doing

22:37

great. And they realize the only way that

22:39

they can really...

22:42

Don't tell me. Yeah.

22:45

Keep telling me. Say it. I don't

22:47

know where you're going. Where are you going? The

22:49

only way they can really prove

22:52

for sure if diclofenac

22:54

kills vultures is

22:56

to poison their babies.

22:59

Oh, okay. They

23:01

swapped out their perfect whole foods meals

23:05

with some buffalo that had been given

23:07

diclofenac. And

23:12

they died. And

23:17

on top of that, they realized all the vultures

23:19

died in India first because the drug

23:21

was approved there like four years before

23:23

it was approved in Pakistan.

23:25

Whoa.

23:27

So it wasn't an ecological spread.

23:29

It was a market spread that they were seeing like wash

23:31

across the continent.

23:34

That's wild. Yeah.

23:35

It was amazing.

23:38

It just...it felt

23:41

like a huge burden

23:44

had been lifted off my back. And

23:47

so in May 2003, Munir

23:50

and his team go back to Vulturcon,

23:53

and Lindsay Oaks gets up on stage and

23:55

announces it. With his very soft voice, he

23:57

just talks about the meticulous...

23:59

Here's what we studied, here's

24:02

what we found, here's what we did to our pet vultures,

24:04

here's what happened.

24:06

And then there was pin drop silence.

24:13

And then there

24:15

was this applause that just went on and

24:18

didn't stop and people stood up. They

24:21

all realized like, this is it. Wait,

24:29

I guess I'm just wondering, was there any parallel

24:32

where US vultures dying off? Yeah, I think

24:34

the difference is like, we don't care

24:37

as much about cows in the US. Oh,

24:39

so they're not living, oh, so they're not, we're eating

24:41

the meat, so vultures aren't getting it. Right,

24:44

we just eat them when they're like, young and healthy

24:46

before they have any problems. It's so weird

24:48

that this is about like, caring

24:50

for the cow, makes you want to like, make

24:53

the cow not be in pain, which then, surprisingly

24:56

apparently kills all the vultures. Yeah,

24:58

it's weird. And you know, as a doctor, I

25:00

can kind of relate to that. I

25:03

prescribe these NSAID drugs

25:05

like ibuprofen, Motrin, Aleve, Advil,

25:07

you know, I prescribe these all the time.

25:10

And believe

25:12

it or not, one of the most common

25:14

causes of kidney injury in humans is

25:17

also NSAIDs. Really? Yeah,

25:20

which is funny, right? Because like, we were

25:22

looking at these vultures saying like, oh, that's

25:25

so bizarre that the diclofenac is messing

25:27

up their kidneys.

25:28

Meanwhile, in a different parallel universe

25:30

of medicine, we're not talking to each other,

25:32

I don't talk to vulture biologists, they

25:34

don't talk to me, right? Like, we're figuring

25:37

the same thing out in humans.

25:37

Wow. Wait, so when was

25:40

it like, yeah, when did humans become

25:42

aware of this? Yeah, it does.

25:45

There were case studies coming out all

25:47

along the way. But the

25:49

landmark study was in the year 1999. Okay.

25:53

So interesting, right? Because like, the vulture thing is

25:55

happening at the same time. Yeah. And

25:58

we've also learned that they can cause intestinal cancer. general

26:00

bleeding, strokes, heart attacks,

26:03

all these problems trickle down

26:05

from the use of NSAIDs. Whoa, why?

26:09

Yeah, basically, NSAIDs

26:11

are inhibiting this molecule that

26:14

cause pain, and so you

26:16

take them and you don't feel pain, which is great.

26:19

But it turns out that these same molecules

26:22

do a lot of really important stuff in

26:24

the body. And so when you inhibit them,

26:26

you cause all these

26:29

other problems that no one anticipated when we

26:31

made these drugs. Okay, I have a million

26:33

questions, but I'm gonna just cut to the chase.

26:36

We take these drugs all the time, all

26:38

of us. Should we stop taking these drugs?

26:41

No, that's what I want. No,

26:44

I don't want to scare you into thinking these

26:46

are evil drugs. They're great drugs, they

26:48

work really great.

26:50

But they're not candy.

26:53

The way we think about it in the hospital as

26:55

a quick thing is if you're

26:57

over 65 and taking these

26:59

drugs every single day

27:01

for months on end, like see a doctor,

27:03

let's figure something out for you. Oh, interesting,

27:06

okay. If you're young, don't worry about

27:08

this. If you're healthy, don't worry about this. And in general,

27:11

don't freak out about this at all.

27:13

But this is more of a macro

27:16

scale. Like I just

27:18

see there being a

27:21

vulture-faced reaper who's

27:24

like, oh, you're trying to avoid pain?

27:26

Oh, you're trying to avoid death? Like if you

27:30

budget over here, it's

27:33

gonna budge right back over there.

27:37

That's how it feels to me. As a doctor,

27:39

it's very frustrating because what

27:42

am I supposed to do? And I'm

27:44

gonna keep taking these meds, I'm gonna keep giving

27:46

these meds, they work.

27:48

They do help people a lot. But

27:52

yes, like you said, Lut, there's a little

27:54

cost there. I mean, I guess a big

27:56

cost if you're one of those unlucky

27:59

people. who gets sick and dies from

28:01

the drug. Yeah. Or I guess if

28:03

you're a vulture. Well, the vultures are doing

28:06

okay, actually. Scientists found an alternative

28:09

drug for the cows, and India,

28:11

Pakistan, and Nepal, they all got

28:13

together and actually banned diclofenac

28:16

for veterinary use. Wow. Okay.

28:18

And the populations of vultures

28:21

stabilize. Caw!

28:24

So that's that story. Huh. What

28:26

does that mean for the Tower of Silence? Is

28:29

it back? No, not

28:31

exactly, because, you know, these

28:34

vultures

28:35

only have like one offspring

28:37

per year. So it's a slow process,

28:39

you know? Huh. So what is Zoroastrian's

28:42

doing in the meantime when

28:44

they lose somebody? So yeah, for parses,

28:47

it's still rough. They started

28:49

by trying to use chemicals that

28:51

they would put on the bodies to help

28:53

them decompose faster. Another

28:55

thing they considered was putting

28:58

a big

28:59

sun glass, like

29:02

basically think of like a magnifying glass

29:04

where you like, if you're a kid, you like burn

29:06

ants with a magnifying glass. Yeah, this feels dangerous. So

29:09

they're thinking about that.

29:12

We have to sit, dude, sit over here. Eventually,

29:15

I started wondering, well, what about you

29:17

when you die? What do you want to do? What

29:19

does my mom want?

29:20

Well, since there are no vultures anymore,

29:22

which I actually think is a great idea, but since

29:24

there aren't any vultures left, I

29:27

would prefer to be cremated or

29:29

the new green burial

29:31

thing. You know, I wouldn't mind if a tree grew using

29:34

my body.

29:35

But when my mom said that, I kind of thought

29:37

like, wait a minute, like no, like I thought the

29:39

whole point was that the only way to get to heaven

29:41

was to go through the Tower of Silence. Oh

29:43

yeah, the Orthodox believe that they won't go to heaven if their

29:45

bodies is posed rough except in the Tower of Silence.

29:48

But, my priest says, As far as I'm concerned,

29:50

they're daft, they're nuts. There's

29:52

no vultures right now. So the Tower of Silence

29:54

is off the table. My father died in

29:57

hospital in Boston, and we had his body

29:59

cremated.

29:59

He himself had said that, look, if

30:02

I die, don't have my body shipped back to

30:04

India. Have it cremated over here.

30:07

You don't go to heaven or hell depending on how your body

30:09

is disposed of. I mean, who cares? Once you're dead,

30:11

you're dead. I mean, who you're... You're sort

30:13

of a rebellious priest. I'm not

30:15

a rebellious priest. I mean, I just think for myself. He

30:18

says he's just being practical. Which is what Parsis

30:20

do. This is what Parsis do, what they

30:23

should do. The

30:25

whole reason our religion created the Tower of Silence

30:27

in the first place is because it was practical,

30:29

simple, elegant. And

30:32

now it's not. Until

30:35

the vultures come back anyway.

30:38

Cool. Thank you.

30:41

I don't have anything else. You're

30:45

very welcome. I'm glad to have an uncle

30:47

that knows everything about everything. Stop calling

30:49

me uncle for crying out like me. Makes me feel

30:51

old and decrepit.

30:56

Contributing editor, Avere Mitra.

31:01

That's our show for this week. This episode

31:04

was reported by Avere Mitra with help

31:06

from Sindhu Nyanasambandan. It was produced

31:08

by Sindhu Nyanasambandan with music

31:11

and sound design by Jeremy Bloom with mixing

31:13

help by Arianne Whack. It was edited

31:15

by a rebellious editor, Pat

31:18

Walters, who has been known to think for himself

31:21

and to occasionally spit battery acid

31:23

urine when attacked. Watch

31:26

out for that one. Special thanks to Daniel

31:28

Solomon, Heather Natola, and

31:31

the Raptor

31:31

Trust in New Jersey, and Avere's

31:33

uncle, Hashang Mola, who told

31:36

him about this story over Thanksgiving

31:38

dinner. That's how the reporting

31:40

gets done over

31:41

mashed potatoes

31:44

and stuffing and not hamburgers,

31:46

because Avere doesn't eat

31:49

ham burgers. I'm

31:52

Lula Miller. I'm Latif. Let

31:54

us know if you want us to include

31:57

Vulture poop boots in our next

31:59

round.

31:59

of merch. That's it. Thanks

32:02

so much for the- Thank you

32:03

Vulture. Bye bye. Radio

32:09

Lab was created by Jad Abenrock and

32:11

is edited by Sorin Wheeler. Lulu

32:14

Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan

32:17

Keefe is our director of sound design. Our

32:20

staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy

32:22

Bloom, Becka Bresler, Bechu Kusik,

32:24

Beketi Foster-Kees, W. Harry Fortuna,

32:27

David Gable, Maria Pasco-Tierrez, Sindhu

32:30

Nganasanbandan, Matt Cutie, Annie

32:32

McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sarah

32:34

Khari, Anna Rasquette Bass, Sarah

32:36

Sandbach, Ariane Wack, Pat

32:38

Walters, and Molly Webster,

32:40

with help from Andrew Vinales. Our

32:43

fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily

32:45

Krieger, and Natalie Middleton.

32:52

This is Joel Mossbacher calling from New York City.

32:56

Leadership support for Radio Lab's science programming, is

32:59

provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore

33:01

Foundation, Science Sandbox

33:03

Assignments Foundation Initiative, and

33:06

the John Templeton Foundation.

33:08

Foundational support for Radio Lab is provided

33:10

by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.