0:01

It's time for another episode of Unexplainable

0:03

or Not, the game show where we

0:05

finally get some answers. This

0:10

week our guest is Pablo Torre. He's the

0:12

host of Pablo Torre Finds Out, a

0:14

sports and culture and kind of everything

0:16

podcast where Pablo asks the questions I've

0:19

always wanted answered. You might

0:21

also know him from his time at ESPN.

0:23

Welcome Pablo. Thank you so much. That is

0:25

more or less what my show is. I

0:27

appreciate you being even vaguely aware of it, let

0:29

alone kind of liking it. I mean, it's one

0:31

of my favorite shows. It's a great listen. Pablo,

0:34

how are you feeling about answering some science

0:37

mysteries outside of sports? I'm both

0:39

excited and terrified. Wyatt

0:41

Sinek was your previous guest

0:43

in this chair and it's big shoes

0:45

to fill. So I'm excited,

0:47

but trepidatious. All right. I

0:49

think that's a reasonable zone to be in.

0:51

That's right. So Unexplainable or Not, it's

0:53

a game show where you have to guess what we know and

0:56

what we don't. You're going to

0:58

hear three stories about scientific mysteries. You're

1:00

going to hear them from me, from

1:02

Bird Pinkerton. Hello. And from

1:04

Meredith Hodnut. Hey there. Two of

1:06

these mysteries are still unexplainable, but one

1:08

of them has recently been figured

1:11

out. After you hear all of these

1:13

three mysteries, you're going to get a chance to guess

1:15

which one you think scientists have actually

1:17

explained. And this week

1:19

we're doing a whole bunch of mysteries about eggs.

1:24

Oh boy. Pablo, do you have

1:26

a relationship with eggs? You have any egg

1:28

thoughts? I have many egg thoughts.

1:30

I'm Filipino. And so one of the horrifying

1:32

delicacies of the Philippines is something called Balut,

1:35

which is a sort of partially

1:38

embryonic duck egg that

1:41

I encourage all of you after this episode

1:43

is done to Google. It

1:45

is scary. I stand

1:47

by it, but this is a real loaded topic

1:49

for your boy. Culinarily. Culinarily,

1:52

psychologically. I just

1:54

now feel an immense pressure to actually get this right. Okay.

1:57

So we've established your expertise. Well,

2:00

well, Noam, I am here to crack this

2:03

case. So

2:07

let's get to the game. We've got

2:09

three egg mysteries, or I guess three

2:11

potential unexplainable egg mysteries. And

2:14

our senior producer, Bird Pinkerton, is going to go first.

2:16

I'm still recovering from the egg puns. I

2:19

got so many more. All right. My

2:21

egg mystery is about a discovery

2:24

at the bottom of the sea. So,

2:27

Noah, the National Oceanic and

2:29

Atmospheric Administration, they have

2:31

this program where they go and just

2:34

explore the ocean, basically. So I spoke

2:36

to this expedition coordinator, his name's Sam

2:38

Candio, and he basically told me that, like,

2:40

instead of having a hypothesis and going to

2:43

check it out, they basically go out

2:45

to generate hypotheses, to just, like, figure

2:47

out what we don't know. Okay. So

2:49

in this case, they're in this ship. They're

2:52

traveling through the waters off of Alaska. And

2:55

their job was to, like, map the bottom

2:57

of the ocean with sonar and

2:59

then send out a robot that explores and

3:01

can kind of, like, pick up things and

3:03

vacuum up samples. And when

3:05

they have this robot out, they sort of livestream it

3:08

so scientists and the public can watch. And

3:10

so, yeah, it's very compelling.

3:12

I can only imagine the comment section

3:14

on that livestream. But it's, like,

3:16

genuine nerds watching and having, like, a delightful

3:19

time. Oh, I love this. They found, like,

3:21

sponges that they think are new to science,

3:23

the sea star that might be a new,

3:26

not just a new species, but, like, a

3:28

whole new genus. And then, this

3:30

is sort of where we get to the egg bit, one

3:33

day this summer, they have this robot down

3:35

there. It's, like, two miles deep

3:37

streaming video. And Sam and

3:39

two of his colleagues are just talking to each other, watching

3:41

the stream, cameras traveling

3:43

over these, like, gray rocks looking

3:45

at sponges. And then

3:47

they see this thing. Here,

3:50

I'll send you a picture in one sec. Oh,

3:53

my God. So, if

3:56

I may describe this. Yes, please. It

3:58

doesn't look immediately like this. Like

4:00

an egg is yellowish gold is.

4:02

It's hard to tell the consistency

4:04

of the surface, but it's certainly

4:07

like almost pyramid shaped with some

4:09

sort of like wrinkles and pockmarks.

4:11

Yes, Sir some people have been

4:13

crabbing, author was like and or it's

4:16

just like Big Golden Lab. Yes, as

4:18

a better description, the bit of a. Man

4:21

made it's kind of like sleeping. Ah

4:23

yes and see the edges

4:25

guy say why? This is

4:27

already very scary to imagine

4:29

because I imagine a better

4:31

at oceanic explore at Noah.

4:33

The idea that like this

4:35

thing is weird. Everything I've

4:37

seen ever when like does

4:39

google imaging deep sea creatures?

4:41

they're all alien alien. That's

4:43

where the alien ah researchers

4:45

is just yet. But so.

4:47

They are curious about what it is. they they start

4:50

to approach it. Now they're talking to each other while

4:52

they do. So. I'll play that audio

4:54

like the beginning of a horror movie. S.

4:57

S. A service is how the

4:59

first episode. Nfl started and every move and

5:01

they sort of keep things in our minds

5:03

that what it is like first they think

5:06

it's a fun than they're like. No.

5:08

Definitely not Aspirins. Moved on

5:10

to potentially core on. now

5:12

are thinking a case. That

5:14

huddled like weird and cases in the ocean

5:17

so that sort of like by their gravitating

5:19

towards this and they make a mistake that

5:21

perhaps you and I would not make which

5:23

is a decide that they're going to. Not.

5:26

Have witnessed this thing but. Bring it on board.

5:28

Oh no ads. give it a little

5:30

tickle. I think

5:32

maybe escape with the slurped

5:35

although it's Harrys sauce. This.

5:37

Has turned into a very different kind of lost. His

5:41

own is bad for Oceanic a similar

5:43

as much as the center of nozzle

5:45

of a technical term for like a

5:48

vacuum attachment for their robot which doesn't

5:50

sound any better now that I'm thinking

5:52

about it now and let. Live. paths

5:54

or this mysterious thing that seems

5:56

biological but it's you know as

5:59

events and not immediately sortable into

6:01

our book of known things. And

6:04

because it's like weird and gold and seems

6:06

like an alien, right, it kind of blows

6:08

up on the internet. It's spread across Twitter, like

6:10

some pieces were written. Lots

6:13

of people developed very advanced theories

6:15

about it, like Sam's

6:17

five-year-old nephew who

6:19

is pretty convinced that it's a dragon egg. But

6:22

now the egg

6:24

slash orb slash golden object is

6:26

at the Smithsonian, where

6:29

it will have its DNA cataloged

6:31

and researchers can figure out sort

6:33

of what it is. Is

6:35

it a golden goose egg? Is it a weird

6:37

anemone? Like what's happening? Unless

6:42

I am pulling your egg and

6:44

they have already DNA barcoded it

6:47

and they already know. Man, I

6:49

got to say this entire story is shell

6:51

shocking. I

6:54

will say that this feels

6:57

already like another genre of

6:59

scientific cinematic inquiry, I

7:01

believe, when it's sort of like, hey,

7:03

we're going to find out what's in this sarcophagus. And

7:06

everyone's just like, no, we don't need to know

7:09

what's in the sarcophagus. Nothing good

7:11

is in a sarcophagus. But

7:13

I am, of course, morbidly curious.

7:16

So no need to make a firm

7:19

guess now, but what are

7:21

you leaning here? Do you think

7:23

unexplainable solved? I am currently

7:25

leaning towards solved just because I

7:28

don't think my impulse control,

7:30

would I be an oceanic

7:32

explorer, would be so prodigious

7:34

as to just like, we haven't done it yet,

7:37

but we're going to get to it. I probably

7:39

attend to it immediately. Give it a little tickle.

7:41

Just a little tickle. But

7:43

the chest bursting would be a concern.

7:45

Maybe they're just being cautious in that

7:47

way. Something to think about.

7:49

Yeah, maybe for the first time in sci

7:51

fi movies, someone is deciding to not open

7:54

the egg. What a cliffhanger.

7:56

What a cliffhanger. So that's our first egg.

8:00

Mystery. Next up, I've got an egg mystery

8:02

for you and it goes back to one

8:04

of the most important moments in the history

8:06

of life. So. Life

8:08

on Earth started to me ocean and

8:11

then at some point a few hundred

8:13

million years ago the first land vertebrates.

8:15

So our ancestors the ancestors of all

8:17

mammals, reptiles, birds. They somehow made in

8:19

on to land and the question is

8:22

how were they able to do and

8:24

how are they able to get there.

8:26

And. Stay there. Oh. Was

8:28

Does it involve comically tiny arms? Arms

8:31

are are one saying that's obviously a

8:33

requirement. Another one would be lungs. It's

8:35

a good point. By are the things

8:37

that we would assume are necessarily going

8:39

to lands like the breathing, the other

8:42

breathing, the walking right? It's It's useful,

8:44

but the first vertebrates that were able

8:46

to make it on to land amphibians,

8:48

they were still totally tied to water.

8:50

They they had long as they had

8:52

legs, but they still had to levy

8:55

super spicy permeable eggs. In

8:57

the water, and for decades scientists

8:59

have thought that the key to

9:01

this transition to getting on land

9:03

more than lungs, more than legs.

9:05

They thought that the key was

9:07

the hard shelled egg is this

9:09

incredible innovation. It's essentially a portable

9:11

ocean. you don't have to lay

9:13

your eggs and ocean, it packs

9:15

the ocean inside. It's scientists call

9:17

it a private pond. This is

9:19

we need the outset of people

9:21

selling eggs are totally messing up

9:23

how to that brought us by

9:25

your own private pond. precisely. As as

9:28

an added some oh my gosh money

9:30

on the Daves silk, the ideas or

9:32

the the shell prevents the embryo from

9:34

drying out on land. it surrounds it

9:36

with all the nutrients that needs and

9:38

then animals that could get as far

9:40

from water as they needed. They could

9:42

lay eggs farther away from predators. So

9:45

essentially, this has been the accepted wisdom

9:47

for decades. The hard shelled eg. sued

9:49

Revolution, the key that allowed vertebrates to

9:51

make it onto land and stay there.

9:54

But. There's kind of a pretty big

9:56

problem with this neat little story, which

9:58

is that there's no. fossil

10:00

evidence of these first hard eggs.

10:03

There's a really long time when

10:06

the first vertebrates were on land,

10:08

like over a hundred million years,

10:10

that we have no fossil evidence of

10:13

any hard eggs. And

10:15

if the first land vertebrates were

10:17

laying hard eggs, if that was the key,

10:19

we'd assume that we would find some hard

10:21

eggs. But at the

10:24

same time, this is sort of a

10:26

classic trap with paleontology because fossils

10:28

are really hard to find, you know.

10:30

For all we think we know about dinosaurs,

10:32

we've only found something like one

10:35

dinosaur for every like 10,000 years. Wow.

10:38

So yeah, we're left

10:40

with this big question. We still don't

10:42

really know how land vertebrates were able

10:45

to make this huge transition from ocean

10:47

to land, basically changing the history of

10:49

life on Earth. We don't

10:51

know how or whether the eggshell was

10:53

involved. Or

10:56

maybe we do, maybe I've

10:58

been tricking you, maybe scientists

11:00

have found that super ancient

11:02

hard-shelled egg. And actually maybe that

11:04

golden egg orb that bird just showed you,

11:06

like maybe that is actually the

11:10

first hard-shelled egg. I

11:12

love this show because I genuinely, again, keep

11:14

me to my shows title, I find out

11:16

stuff I did not know. One dinosaur for

11:18

10,000 years alone.

11:20

Just like, mmm, mmm. Okay, noted.

11:23

But I'm inclined to think if

11:25

there was an egg in our past, we

11:28

would have found some evidence of it. Okay,

11:30

so we've got mysterious

11:32

golden orb, we've got the

11:34

first hard-shelled egg, and we

11:36

got one last egg mystery

11:38

from our supervising producer Meredith

11:40

Hoddenot. Alright. So

11:43

my mystery is something completely

11:45

different because my mystery is about

11:47

eggs and

11:49

sperm. It's about eggs and sperm.

11:51

So we've all heard the story of the

11:54

race, right? Millions of little sperms swimming as

11:56

fast as their little tails can take them

11:58

hurtling towards the sky. finish line,

12:00

the egg. The winner reaches

12:03

the egg first and together they begin

12:05

a new generation of life. This

12:07

is called random fertilization because there's no

12:10

like genetic rhyme or reason behind which

12:12

sperm makes it to the egg. It's

12:14

just whichever happens to be the fastest

12:16

one. And this

12:18

randomness is like a bedrock

12:20

foundation for our modern understanding

12:22

of genetics and biology. Going

12:24

back to Mendel playing with

12:26

pea shoots in the 1800s.

12:29

Yes. And now scientists

12:31

are starting to question everything.

12:33

So in 2005, a

12:36

geneticist named Joe Nadeau was carefully

12:38

breeding lab mice for a series

12:40

of experiments and he found

12:43

something that should have been impossible based

12:45

on everything that we know about biology.

12:47

Classic rom-com premise by the way.

12:49

Exactly. A meet you. So

12:52

as he bred these mice, there were

12:54

way more babies with healthy gene combinations

12:56

than he was expecting from a random

12:58

race to the finish line. It was

13:01

almost as if something was like tipping

13:03

the scales towards a good

13:05

genetic match between egg and sperm. Other

13:08

scientists had seen these discrepancies

13:10

before but dismissed them as

13:12

like unimportant. But Joe

13:14

was obsessed with controls and he started

13:17

checking and double checking results. And

13:19

the only explanation that made any sense

13:21

to him was that

13:23

this fertilization wasn't random at

13:26

all. What was it Joe? So instead

13:29

of a first to the finish line

13:32

random sperm race, could it be that

13:34

the egg and sperm are choosing

13:36

each other? That's a

13:38

classic rom-com premise. A

13:41

meet cute by any other name. There

13:43

we go. So as far as

13:45

we understand like once egg and sperm

13:47

touch, that's it. There's no going back.

13:49

The embryo either lives or dies from

13:51

there. So how could

13:54

an egg and sperm

13:56

choose a good genetic match without

13:58

touching? Are they exchanging? signals

14:00

somehow? Are they attracted to each

14:02

other chemically? Is there like

14:04

some way that they're testing each other's

14:07

genes from a distance? How

14:09

did they hatch this plant? How

14:12

are they in cahoots without talking to each

14:14

other, right? So any

14:16

way you look at it are assumptions

14:18

of how egg meat sperm are being

14:21

shaken up. Like instead of the egg

14:23

as a receptacle as like a finish

14:25

line for whichever sperm happens to be

14:27

the fastest, there is growing evidence that

14:30

there's something much more unexpected

14:32

and interesting going on here. I

14:34

love that the egg

14:36

in this mystery has agency. We

14:39

have long ignored the eggs ability

14:42

to choose and now we're finally

14:44

getting to that in the discourse.

14:46

You tell them Pablo. I mean yeah

14:48

like so and maybe it's less of a

14:51

race and maybe more of a dance but

14:53

like with profound implications for our

14:56

fundamental understanding of biology and we

14:59

just don't know how it's

15:01

happening. Right. Or do

15:03

we? It's

15:06

enticing and exciting. Hey I'm

15:08

sorry. I feel like you're up to four

15:10

or five. No I had that in the

15:12

chamber as it were. So

15:15

Pablo you got three mysteries

15:18

here. We've got the mystery of

15:20

the golden egg slash orb. We've

15:22

got weather animals used eggshells to

15:25

take over the land and then

15:27

we've got the rom-com of how

15:29

eggs choose sperm. They're

15:31

all unexplainable or at least they all

15:34

were unexplainable at one point. One

15:36

of these mysteries has recently been figured out

15:39

and you'll get a chance to guess after

15:42

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19:27

we're back. It's Unexplainable or not. Pablo, welcome

19:29

back. This has all been very overwhelming. Racking

19:32

your brain during the ad break to figure

19:34

this out. So we've

19:36

got three mysteries to choose from, and

19:38

only one of them has been fully

19:40

explained. Mystery

19:42

one, what is this mysterious golden egg orb thing

19:45

at the bottom of the ocean? Mystery

19:48

two, were hard eggs the biggest

19:50

reason animals took over the land. And

19:54

mystery three, how do

19:56

eggs choose sperm? So

20:01

without making your final guess, just sort of

20:03

tell me how these are all adding up

20:05

for you. Like what are you thinking? What

20:07

are you leaning? Yeah, I noticed that in

20:09

each of these mysteries, there is a search

20:11

for something resembling like documentary proof. And

20:14

in that way, I'm sort of now also

20:16

trying to sort of feel

20:18

out who is the most voracious

20:20

of all of these researchers that might not

20:23

rest until they found the solution. And

20:25

so I gosh, man,

20:30

this has been a heavy yoke to

20:32

bear. Oh, man, it's still happening.

20:34

You're egging him on. Never

20:37

gonna stop guys. I'm

20:39

really coming out of my shell on this. So for me, I am left pondering

20:41

the image. And

20:47

maybe it's now I am just a victim of

20:49

the visual aid that bird

20:51

provided. But I'm I'm I'm

20:54

leaning now. I got all of

20:56

these are all of these change the way I think about myself

20:59

to be clear. You sound a little

21:02

scrambled. No. All

21:04

right. I believe

21:06

that the golden sarcophagus of

21:09

marine life has

21:11

been studied and understood in a

21:13

way that has solved this mystery.

21:15

I'm sticking with my first instinct.

21:17

Final answer. Weirdo golden yellow thing.

21:19

Blob. Okay,

21:22

here is the answer. Pablo,

21:25

which came first is clearly the

21:27

land animal and the hard egg is

21:30

later man. The question was

21:32

how did vertebrates make it onto land permanently?

21:34

And it turns out the hard shelled egg

21:36

was not the magic key egg

21:39

on your face. Pablo. So I talked

21:41

to Mike Benton. He's

21:46

the professor you just heard from. He's a professor

21:48

at the University of Bristol in England. And

21:51

he told me that this gap in the

21:53

fossil record, he thinks that that gap is

21:55

explained by just the fact that there weren't

21:57

hard eggs back then. You expect to find

21:59

them. because they fossilize very easily.

22:02

They're hard, for goodness sake. They're crystalline. You

22:04

find them. And he's pretty sure there were

22:06

no super ancient hard eggs because

22:09

he used a different

22:11

way to get information on

22:13

ancient animals besides fossils.

22:16

Basically, you make this

22:18

super complicated family tree. It's called

22:20

a phylogenetic tree. And

22:23

you arrange it looking for one specific

22:25

trait. You put in as many species

22:27

as you can and their

22:29

trait value, which in this case is hard

22:31

shelled egg. You assemble all the branches of

22:33

the tree. You follow their path to the

22:35

trunk and then down to the root. And

22:38

you can get a pretty good sense of what was

22:40

at that root without finding the

22:42

fossil of that root. So

22:45

in 2023, Mike got together with a bunch of

22:48

paleontologists at the University of Bristol and

22:50

the University of Nanjing in China. And

22:53

they tried to build one of these

22:55

huge family trees. Our question was, how

22:57

did this happen? What was it that

22:59

enabled these first reptiles to truly break

23:02

their reliance on the water? They

23:04

started by adding all the species

23:06

with ancient hard shelled eggs that

23:08

have been found. So we had

23:10

a load of dinosaurs with hard

23:12

shelled eggs. Heart, heart, heart. That's

23:15

one branch. Then they added

23:17

some older dinosaurs that were discovered just a

23:19

couple years ago. That's another

23:21

branch. But these dinosaurs had eggs

23:23

that were pretty different. These earliest

23:25

dinosaurs had soft shelled eggs. And

23:27

then they added a couple of

23:29

recently discovered fossils that pointed even

23:32

earlier to ancestors of dinosaurs

23:34

and crocodiles. So before dinosaurs

23:36

and crocodiles split. And

23:39

they showed that these animals likely could

23:41

give birth to live young. So

23:43

when they put all this together, they followed

23:46

all these branches back to

23:48

what they think was the first land

23:50

vertebrate. And then they project down to

23:52

the root and you say, well, actually,

23:54

there's very little evidence for the hard

23:56

egg at all. Damn. Essentially, this family

23:58

tree that they've made shows. that these oldest

24:00

animals probably gave birth to live young.

24:03

And that might have been the main advantage

24:05

these earliest animals had. Not that they could

24:07

lay hard shelled eggs, but that they could

24:09

hold on to their embryos inside of them.

24:13

And if you hold onto the embryos,

24:15

the whole private pond that nourishes the

24:17

embryo, the private pond is actually

24:19

inside the body of the mother. Like we

24:21

were the private pond the whole time. Damn,

24:23

I knew this whole episode was about my

24:25

mom. The whole thing. Exactly,

24:28

we gotta get down to the root. It always

24:30

ends up being about my mom, damn it.

24:33

And this is basically turning a pretty major

24:35

story we've told about evolution fully on its

24:37

head. Mike actually used to teach this in

24:40

his paleontology classes. We kind of think, yeah,

24:42

yeah, of course, the typical bird egg is

24:44

primitive. But when we looked more closely

24:47

at the question, we discovered that's not the case

24:49

at all. We're not like

24:51

evolutionarily better than ancient reptiles. Like

24:53

we think that humans are, our

24:56

live birth is like the thing that, oh,

24:58

it must've come later because we're humans and we're better

25:01

and we're such hot stuff, but like we're

25:03

not. It's a lot more complicated

25:05

than just like, here is

25:07

the key to having this

25:09

big transition onto land. I gotta call my

25:12

mom, I think. Just

25:14

say thanks. For

25:16

being my private pond. Yeah. But

25:19

there's one more piece of the story here and it

25:21

might be my favorite part because after

25:23

Mike and his team did all this

25:25

research, he kept getting asked the same

25:27

question. Yeah, so people will ask that

25:29

question, which came first, the chicken or

25:31

the egg? Yes. It's not like

25:33

he was trying to answer this, but he likes to say

25:36

that if you go deeper than the chicken, like

25:38

way back in that family tree

25:40

of all vertebrates to the

25:42

most ancient, ancient chicken ancestor, and

25:45

you ask what came first, the

25:47

first land vertebrate or the egg,

25:50

a few years ago, scientists probably would have

25:52

said, well, obviously the egg. And now we've

25:54

got a totally different answer. You could now

25:56

say, yeah, The Ancestral

25:58

Ancient chicken, what.? Every bloody glass

26:00

came before the hard egg wilde. So after

26:02

all of his pablo, what What are you?

26:04

What do you think of eggs are like.

26:07

Existence. I as I

26:09

genuinely you obtain so I will

26:11

forever consider the egg and also

26:14

like how I see myself and

26:16

humanity. I'm I'm not even kidding

26:18

like that. this is it at

26:21

my brains a bit scrambles honestly

26:23

haven't com it's an extreme chance

26:25

that's right now. Agreed to him

26:27

and he loved that. has been

26:30

a dark episode in many ways.

26:33

But you've You've taught me to

26:35

always look at life on the

26:37

sunny side up. Ah well. a

26:39

Matte No Pablo. One less thing

26:41

before you go. Even. Though

26:44

you didn't get the answer right, we

26:46

do have a consolation prize for you.

26:48

Oh right, I forgot I wrote a

26:51

song about eggs, vertebrates, and some super

26:53

ancient chicken ancestors. I

28:07

mean, what a delight

28:10

that was. Thank

28:17

you. Top to bottom. Yeah, I

28:19

was with my family over Thanksgiving and I have

28:21

seven nieces and nephews. And

28:23

I got all of them. There are seven nieces

28:26

and nephews singing on this song. They

28:28

were singing it nonstop for

28:31

days because it was stuck in their head.

28:33

Did you tell them, oh, did

28:36

you think that the egg came before the chicken

28:38

while you're wrong? I got kind

28:40

of an argument with my nephew. He was

28:42

like, the egg definitely came first. I was like, you

28:44

got to listen to this episode. That's

28:49

it for unexplainable or not. Thank you so

28:51

much to Pablo Torre. Yes, thank you for

28:53

helping me resolve some unresolved trauma. Thank

28:56

you to our presenters, Bird Pinkerton and

28:59

Meredith Hodnut. Thank you so much. And thank you

29:01

to our audience for joining us. If you have

29:03

a mystery or a solved mystery you want us

29:05

to tell on an upcoming game show, let

29:07

us know. You can write us at

29:10

unexplainable at vox.com. And that's

29:12

it this week for unexplainable or not. This

29:23

episode was reported by Bird Pinkerton,

29:25

Meredith Hodnut and me, Noam Hasenfeld.

29:28

Brian Resnick handled the editing with help from

29:30

Jorge Just and Meredith, who also manages our

29:33

team. I did the producing and

29:35

the music. Erica Huang was on mixing and sound

29:37

design. Tien Nguyen hit the

29:39

facts. Mandy Nguyen is probably off

29:41

diving into some deep, unexplored

29:44

cave or something. And

29:46

Christian Ayala is getting married. Huge

29:49

congrats to you, Christian. Thanks

29:51

so much to Pablo Torre for playing our game this week.

29:53

Go check out his excellent show, Pablo Torre

29:55

Finds Out. You can learn all about things

29:58

like the history of why everyone who play

30:00

sports seems to say, let's go! Or

30:03

why so many athletes have tattoos of the Joker.

30:06

It's great. Special

30:08

thanks this week to Bao Yu

30:10

Zhang and to my nibblings, Noah

30:13

Hasenfeld, Amal Hasenfeld, Julian Hasenfeld, Hila

30:15

Hasenfeld, Sienna Hasenfeld, Moshe Hasenfeld, and

30:17

Asher Hasenfeld. They're ages 10,

30:20

nine, eight, seven, five, four, and two. And

30:22

they all sang on the song, so thank

30:24

you so much to all of you. Also,

30:27

if you wanna read more about myth busting

30:29

around the sperm and egg narrative, Emily

30:32

Martin's essay, The Sperm and the Egg, is a

30:34

great place to start. There's also

30:36

an excellent Vox video that explores it from

30:38

a different angle, and we'll link to

30:40

both in our transcript. If

30:42

you have thoughts about this episode or ideas for

30:45

the show, please email us. We're at unexplainable at

30:47

vox.com, and as always, we'd love it if you

30:49

wrote us a review or a rating. Unexplainable

30:52

is part of the Vox Media Podcast

30:54

Network, and we'll be back next week.

30:57

Okay, I think I can hear you.

31:00

I don't know if you can hear me. I

31:02

think I can hear you. I

31:05

think I can hear you. Please.

31:10

I think I can hear you. I think I can hear you. Excellent.

31:14

One more time. Thank you.