Killer Earth
Killer Earth
Deadly Static Electricity
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Hey everybody!
On this episode of Killer Earth, Kat and Vanessa delve into the confusing and scary world of something we all live with - static electricity.
That thing that shocks you when you least expect it can actually be deadly - Killer Earth-level deadly (survival tip - never EVER get on a blimp).
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Thank you for listening and we love you all so much!
Earthquakes, lightning, pouring rain, tornadoes, Nobbies in a hurricane.
unknownKiller Earth.
SPEAKER_01And we are live. Woohoo! Hello, welcome to Killer Earth. Welcome to Killer Earth. We've got our cocktails.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't, but Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01I do. I took some mitol.
SPEAKER_00I just popped it at uh Tylenol PM. We're popping pills over here. We both have headaches.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you just took a PM?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I took one.
SPEAKER_01How when are you gonna get drowsy? Like in uh it takes like two hours for me. Yeah. I was saying before we started recording that I am too afraid to take Tylenol PM for some reason. I'm I'm afraid of taking any like sleep suppressant, um, not suppressants, like sleeping aids. Really? It just freaks me out. I don't know. Yeah, I love it. I know, I know.
SPEAKER_00It makes me kind of like high. It's like right, well, only when I'm getting drowsy, not really even high is the right word, but I just feel so relaxed, and then I have like really amazing, crazy dreams. I mean, they're not all amazing, but they're wild, and I kind of like that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, that's cool.
SPEAKER_00Keeps me entertained.
SPEAKER_01I like this type of sleep where you don't remember anything in between. You oh really, yeah. Like you just wake up, you like I don't really love dreaming. Oh, I love because usually I have a dream where like I meet a guy that is cool and likes me, and that never happens in real life. So whatever. So I always wake up, I always wake up so depressed.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, I've had those dreams too, like for sure. And it's like the it's like it actually happened, and it feels like it actually happened, and then it didn't.
SPEAKER_01It's like, oh I know, it's so sad. So sad. So um, yeah, I have a little bit of a hangover because um I went to a birthday dinner last night, and then I came home, and my mom had my daughter for their weekly sleepover. So I had some drinks by myself last night.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's nice. Yeah. So I'm just getting older and have arthritis. So that's why I'm that's the why I'm taking Tylenol. But yeah, it's just like, oh, I can't get over my knee issues and just annoying.
SPEAKER_01So I spent my whole day having an argument. I hate I hate to be this person, but I spent my entire day having an argument on Facebook on my town's like community forum group. Yeah. There is a drag queen story hour coming to our little town's library tomorrow. That's so fun. It's so fun. I couldn't believe it when I saw it on Facebook. I think my aunt actually sent me the link. I was just so excited. I chose to leave Portland, Maine, with, you know, and raise my daughter here in Vermont. It's a very different place, but I wanted to be close to my parents. And, you know, my my older brother has children. Yeah. And I miss the diversity, first of all, of the city. And I miss everything that comes with living in a bigger area. But one of the things that I like mourn that I don't have here for Lola is stuff like this. Totally. Yeah. You know. So I just was thrilled when I saw that it was coming here. You know, I couldn't believe it. And there's this guy in town that I have mutual friends with. I've I've been at parties that he's been at. We've never had a conversation, but I know him. He is campaigning to have this shutdown. That's so stupid. Yeah. And has emailed the library, the librarian posted on Facebook that he's like angrily emailed them several times, or you know, maybe it wasn't several times, but it might have been a back and forth. You should see his posts in in the group, the town group. It's he's nuts. He's a crazy person. And I just can't do it. I was like, I never comment on this community forum. I think like once I have. Yeah. I lit him the fuck up last night and today. I'm getting private messages from people I've never met in my community that are like, thank you, that don't want to be that don't want to publicly express their necessarily like their issue, but they're like, Thank you for speaking out. This guy's crazy. I mean, this is a young guy with like a a family. They're not taking their kids to it, him and his wife. Yeah. But he's still trying to get it shut down. Like he he it's it's nuts.
SPEAKER_00It's it's actually disgusting. It is like it's just like you don't uh people like that and just shouldn't be in society.
SPEAKER_01This is the this is the kicker, though. This is the kicker. His wife uh is a photographer, a big part of her business is doing sexy boudoir photos. I've seen many of them from girls that have gone to her. So and we have a mutual friend who's a burlesque dancer who posts about it all the time on Facebook. So I'm I'm failing to see how this guy has a problem with drag queens, but his wife in their home is taking pictures of naked women for a business, making money off of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, it's just strong. So hypocritical. I'm glad you heard the voice for your community.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, I just it's again, it's like stuff like that that I knew would happen moving back here to this, you know, less progressive area than you know, say a bigger city. But um, yeah, that's how that's what I spent my day doing. And I it's like that weird Facebook keyboard guilt you feel when you're talking to someone in a certain way. Some like there were, I made several comments. There were a few where I was like, oh, maybe I was being a bitch. But then it's like, but I'm standing up for something I believe in. I don't know. It's like it's like that mixed bag of like post-argument anxiety.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But you know, sometimes like you really have to stand up for what's right because a lot of people don't have the courage to do that. And so, like, props to you for you know having a voice. And you know, it's just this guy clearly doesn't have any time on his hand or he has time on his hands. Like, I just don't get it, you know. It's just stupid.
SPEAKER_01He I he's one of the last people, considering what his wife does for a living, that I would expect would have such a an aggressive moral stance on this issue. Um, it's baffling, it really is. But yeah, you know, as I as I said to one of my good friends today, um, I just I didn't go through what I went through in life to like not say what I want when it's appropriate. Yeah, you know, absolutely, it's just like we, you know, and he can say what he wants to say. He's more than you know justified in exercising his first amendment right too.
SPEAKER_00But yeah. Well, I hope you have the best time. I know I'm so excited at the story time drag. I it's gonna be amazing.
SPEAKER_01So excited. None of my friends here will go with me. Um, oh, I would totally go. I know you would love it. I think I'm gonna invite um some more people.
SPEAKER_00Also, fun fact for you listeners who don't know, Vanessa and I used to take burlesque. And Vanessa actually like was in shows, like you were really good at it.
SPEAKER_01I was, I performed in four shows.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you were so amazing.
SPEAKER_01I loved it, it was so fun. I have a little bit of like an acting ability, like a a little bit, like I could probably act if I needed to, and burlesque is a part kind of acting, so it because I I can't like dance or anything, but I yes, you can. You were amazing. Thank you. I you you sat front row at one of the seats and you got pulled up on stage.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. What was my game?
SPEAKER_01Didn't you have to like give a hand job to something that was like supposed to explode? It was like a handloon, yeah. It like pumped up the balloon and it was the first person that burst the balloon won.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and okay, so I hate balloon popping. So I was terrified, but I I don't I don't think I won or something, I don't know, but it was really fun, yeah. That was a great show, but yeah, it was um we used to go. I mean, you you did it like almost not professionally is the word, but you kind of did like you went into it and like did it like um and then I like took classes with you, and I remember we'd like go after work and it was so fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we I remember we went to our first class with our friend Kate. My mom was in town helping me with Lola, who is a baby, and or maybe she might have been one. She just yelled, I'm not a baby. Um and I remember remember I like made you guys come with me. I'm like, I found because we all wanted to take a dance class, and I was like, wait, there's like a stripper burlesque dance studio. We are going and you guys it was so fun, and then we went and yeah, it was like the best time ever. And I miss that studio so much.
SPEAKER_00Shout out to Miss E if you're listening. We love you. I know I'd like to go back if you're ever, you know, in town and want to do that.
SPEAKER_01I've never been able to go back when I was and it makes me too sad.
SPEAKER_00That's true, but we also did a hip hop hip hop class, which was like a disaster. I can't, I can't. I'm I'm horrible. It was so fun, but like we also made like a ton of drinks, like to go, and so like we because you could bring your drinks there, they encourage drinking there, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Especially if you're just taking a class for fun. Even when we were I was doing performance classes for the shows, you could drink. Like Missy didn't give a shit. You just couldn't be like you had to be sober enough to be able to dance.
SPEAKER_00That's when you would probably have an issue with she she was so she's like the coolest, like yeah, I mean it like I think Matt and I are gonna go to hip hop again. You should. Um, and I think, but I'm I'm not gonna bring a drink this time. I like I actually like really wanna like try, but I'm like the terror worst like dancer, so it'll be so fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Anyway, so you have a little bit of a a story before we get into the topic that you wanted to talk about.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, I so I shared this with you um, I think today or yesterday, I can't remember now, but um, I guess like, and it was on the news, so maybe some of you listeners have already seen like heard about it, but there were two kids like uh digging. So it was like it was like a sand dune on the beach, not really a sand dune, but it was like a mound of sand that was already there. And these like two like teenagers, I think um one was like 13 years old. I don't know how old the other one was, but they were like digging a 10-foot hole in like a tunnel in the sand dune, and they were doing what they were like using a frisbee to like dig it, and so they made it like really long, and then like they got like it collapsed on them, and they got trapped, and um horrible. I know, and then so I guess like it was at um let's see, it was in New Jersey, yeah. Yeah, it was in New Jersey, and one of them died, they couldn't get him out. Oh um, so awful, yeah. So actually, you know what? This is so weird. It said okay, so it said New Jersey Beach. Oh, okay. So that happened at New Jersey Beach, and then it said three days after in Utah, um, a 13-year-old boy was tunneling into a sand dune and killed. So this is like two incidences this week in Utah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Huh. Okay, yeah. I had I I only heard about the teenage boys on the beach.
SPEAKER_00I for some reason I thought it happened in Florida, but um Yeah, this was this article I have pulled up the Washington Post. It says um Levy was 18 and his sister was 17. They were from Maine, actually, Union Maine, and they were visiting Toms River, New Jersey with their family. Oh, right, and then they were digging that 10-foot hole using frisbees, and at some point the hole collapsed. And then um, I guess the sister was rescued and treated at the scene, but um Caverly, uh, which is the last name, uh Ian. Uh, I think that's his first name. I this is not my research topic, so yeah, yeah. Um, Levy was the one who died, I guess. Um that's his first name, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Levi.
SPEAKER_00Levi.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's so awful. That poor family. And to go to, I mean, so he basically just suffocated in the dark. I know that's what that would be like.
SPEAKER_00Oh, so terrible. So, like, please don't like dig tunnels in the sand.
SPEAKER_01I saw something earlier today where I think a woman who was right there, but she didn't know them, but she was on the beach. She like wanted to say something to them about how dangerous that was, but she like didn't want to be a Karen, is what she said. She didn't want to like, she didn't want them to like be like think she was, you know, being a know it all, obnoxious asshole. So she didn't say anything. And I I swear I saw something like that. Maybe it was on TikTok.
SPEAKER_00She, I mean, that's so sad because you know she has guilt over that. It's like no one wants to be a Karen.
SPEAKER_01They shouldn't have been doing that, and it's pretty much common knowledge that you don't dig in sand because it will collapse. So yeah, I don't know what they were thinking. I mean, I know they're kids, but it's like one of those things where I don't know. It's it's yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_00I mean, uh, maybe a lot of people just aren't they just don't know. I don't know because this one, okay. So the it's on the same article. This is why I was getting confused. So that happened in New Jersey, and then it said, like the same week, it said on Saturday, 13-year-old Ian Spenlove from Santa Clara, Utah, died after becoming trapped in a tunnel. He was digging in the site of a sand dude at Coral Pink Sand Dune State Park in southwestern Utah. And it said after the sand collapsed, a family member um who was with the boy got help from the other visitors and law enforcement officers who immediately started digging to find him. And then after about a half hour later, he was found more than six feet beneath the sand.
SPEAKER_01Oh God.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01I saw a video years ago where these kids were digging like a system of tunnels in on a beach and it collapsed. And it took them forever to dig this kid out, this teenager, and they I mean, he might have been even in his early 20s, and they got him out. But I mean, he was he was minutes away from dying. Like, but it it was, I think, oh, they had to bring like a um an excavator in.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01It's so much sand, you don't realize how much sand, you know, six feet of sand in like a you know 10, 20 foot area. It's yeah, you can't just like dig someone out, it's you don't have time.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Do you want to do a uh would you rather? Yeah, yeah. Vanessa and I have been talking about this, by the way. I think we're gonna start doing like would you rather segments, but we didn't plan for this. But would you rather be buried under sand like that or drowned? Oh my god. Or sorry, not that's not even fair because it's the worst would you rather ever. I know. Would you rather be trapped under sand like that or be stuck in quicksand with the tide coming up?
SPEAKER_01Quicksand with a tide coming up because now I know what to do. Yeah, you in you enlightened all of us with how you get out. Yes. Which I don't remember, but I would I would double check again.
SPEAKER_00Remember, you would like you would go on, you would uh go on your back, you would try to lean back.
SPEAKER_01You have to right, okay. Yeah, got it. You lean back on your back to like um equalize the pressure on the sand, so it'll your legs because you're if you're trying to kick your legs like up to get out, you're actually just sinking yourself even more.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you lean back to get out.
SPEAKER_01It's just it all of it is so terrifying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, tell us what you'd rather do.
SPEAKER_01Can I let's do one more would you rather? Okay. We're gonna get better at this, but so I used to play this all the time with um my brother Owen and my best friend Hannah. And like after I would do the would you rather, they would choose Owen would always get so mad at me because I would I would add something in and he'd be like, you can't change it after we decide. And I was like, Yes, you can. Okay, so okay. Would you rather actually this is a non, this is my favorite. Would you rather? It doesn't have anything to do with natural disasters, but I ask everybody this. Okay, do it. Okay. Would you rather I can't, I'm laughing because oh my god, what I torture Owen with this. Okay, would you rather two minutes before a really important job interview, you pee your pants and you have no time to change, so you show up with a huge wet spot in your crotch and down your legs, and you smell like urine. Okay. And there's absolutely you cannot be late for this job interview. You have to show up. Did you eat asparagus the night before? No, but like it smells like urine. It's not as it's like regular urine, but it's like clearly you have pissed yourself. Okay. Would you rather and this is a this is your dream job that you have you want to get? Uh-huh. Or at the beginning of a 10-hour flight, you shit yourself and you don't have another pair of underwear or leggings for the rest of the flight.
SPEAKER_00What uh what do you have?
SPEAKER_01Nothing. You don't have anything in your bag, in your carry-on.
SPEAKER_00So you smell like shit the whole flight for a 10-hour flight.
SPEAKER_02Or you show up at your dream interview and you're covered in piss and you smell horrible. Okay, I would, and they're sitting there being like, why is this person smelling here at the job interview?
SPEAKER_00Okay, I would show up in my own pee because I would say, Oh my god, you'll never believe what happened. Like a cat like jumped on me and peed all over me.
SPEAKER_02Like, I'd like I'd come up with something a dog is way more believable than a cat.
SPEAKER_00Well, a cat smells like really bad urine. So, like, you know, not to say that mine like really smells, maybe it does, I don't know. Um, but like I would like make up some excuse of like why I'm wet and why I smell like a car like drove by me and like splashed me with this sewage. And like, I'm so sorry, I didn't have time to change.
SPEAKER_01Okay, it's not sewage though, it's urine, and it clearly came from your body because of the pattern on you. It doesn't look like you were splashed, it clearly looks like you peed your pants.
SPEAKER_00I would like make up some story about how like I was so scared and like I got like kidnapped and I peed myself and I'm really scared. Can we reschedule?
unknownKidnapped.
SPEAKER_01What would you do? I would I would um yeah, probably the interview because on the plane you're just in your own. You don't want to sit in that, even well, no, I'm you would go to the bathroom and like clean yourself up, but like you're it's still dirty. Yeah. Okay, wait, okay, I have one more. One more before we start. This is the other one that I always ask people. Okay, okay. This is actually a better one. Would you rather have to wear for a full year a pair of cutoff jorts? Okay. Like like Daisy Dukes to literally every function you go to for one year. I'm talking holidays, middle of winter. And they're jorts. They're cut off almost with your ass cheeks hanging out.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's fine. Okay, bring it to me. Okay. Would you and unplug it? Okay, so would you rather have to for one calendar year, 365 days, you have to wear cutoff denim shorts every single day, wherever you go, whatever you do. Okay. So you're gonna look ridiculous. It's several things. Or for one calendar year, would you rather wear a full face of clown makeup every single day, no matter what?
SPEAKER_00I would wear the shorts a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02So you're gonna be hell yeah.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna be in negative 10 degree main winters going to the store. I already kind of do that anyway. You wear short shorts in the middle of winter?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I go to like spinner yoga every like like day almost. And like I wear like really short biker shorts because I cannot be like the other girls in my class and wear leggings. It is too hot. I get overheated like so bad that I like I refuse to wear like leggings during any of those classes. So I'm already wearing them. So I would totally wear that because clown makeup is like very terrifying.
SPEAKER_01I think I think that that actually is a better one for a guy. Yeah. The idea of like a dude wearing jorts.
SPEAKER_02What did Owen say he would do? He was like so annoyed.
SPEAKER_01It's when I play this game with him, he acts like it's really gonna happen and he gets pissed at me. I'm like, this is not this, these are hypotheticals. We're just playing a game, like relax.
SPEAKER_00I love it. We're gonna play this every episode going forward, whether it's like killer earth related or not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just wanted to get those I wanted to get those non-killer earth ones off my chest because those are legit the ones we always talk about, like me and him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_01So that was a fun game. That was fun. We'll think of more in the future.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think this is not official, but I think it is.
SPEAKER_01I think we're gonna start having like guests, like friends of the podcast, come on, and um my brother definitely wants to be on, and he's hilarious.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and they're not gonna do any topics, but they're gonna like be a part of it, like they can like chime in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, we're not gonna make our guests like do a topic, yeah. Unless like one of them really, really wanted to one day. But oh my god, yeah. So anyway, fun things to come. So should we get into it? Yeah, let's do it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, oh, okay. So I am covering my like biggest nemesis of all time. Static electricity.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I'm still confused how this is going to be a topic. I you told me about this ahead of time, which we sometimes do. Sometimes we do. Well, we didn't want to overlap topics. But this, I mean, I'm when you told me, I was like, How? What? Okay, I trust you. Yeah, okay. So why is it I also didn't know it was your biggest nemesis. You've never told me that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I guess I have static electricity, like what like when you get shocked when you touch them? Yeah, you know how bad it is, remember? Like, I like or maybe you don't, I don't know. I thought I've told I can see bolts of lightning from my finger to the door. I've never the worst static electricity of known to man.
SPEAKER_01I I have never heard this. I swear to god, I had no idea this bothered you.
SPEAKER_00I literally shock people and shock myself more than I think I know of anybody else. I don't know why.
SPEAKER_01I can't even remember the last time I got shocked by anything. It never happens to me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, mine. Okay, so I this is how bad I am. Like literally, you guys probably won't believe me, but I know some of you will because I know you've seen it before with your own eyes. But I can if I'm charged enough and like touch something metal, I have seen the literal light of electricity go from my fingers to the the metal.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Not joking. So it's so bad for me in the winter. Obviously, like that's when it is bad, and I'll explain why. Um, but I I have a tradition, I actually still do it in the summer because I'm so terrified that when I get out of my car to get gas, I immediately while I'm still sitting, I open the door and I immediately touch the metal on the outside of the car with one hand as I get out so that I'm I'm holding on to metal. And I I hold on to that car until I um reach for the handle and get the gas situated. Like I never let my hand off the metal, and that prevents uh a shock.
SPEAKER_01It prevents the shock. I was thinking maybe you were worried about like shocking the gas.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah. Yeah, but it the gas is all protected by like it is, but there's been instances like where you know, if you have the um the handle up and it's you know ready to go and there's like gas going, and you like you can easily in the winter like charge and create a spark of electricity. And I just I just have it so bad that like I'm paranoid and I used to shock, I used to get shocked all the time getting out of the car because there's like something from the friction, and this only happens in the winter, really. But I'm I'm so scared that I do it in the summer. But the friction from like sitting and getting up. Um, I always used to like get shocked.
SPEAKER_01This is so bizarre. I I can't believe this happens to you that much. Yeah, okay, wild. All right, let's talk about static electricity.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So my sources are chemistryworld.com, 64parishes.org, Nola.com, um, Wikipedia, dailyco.uk, science.org, cron2.com, which is a Hawaiian news station, um, CEN.acs.org, which is chemical and engineering news, um, PBS.org, live science, Britannica, and Kennedyelectricfl.com.
SPEAKER_01Wow, you have a lot of sources.
SPEAKER_00Thanks. And I have a ton of like cool videos to post when we do our posts. So okay, what is static electricity? Um, so everybody's experienced that before, I'm sure. Um, it's static electricity is an electric phenomenon that happens. Um, sorry, in which charged particles are transferred from one body to another. For example, if two objects are rubbed together, especially if the objects are insulators and the surrounding air is dry, the objects acquire equal and opposite charges. Um, small electric shock caused by static electricity um usually happens during the cold or in dry weather. So that's why, like in the winter it's like worse. Yeah. Um, so this is just um how like it was accidentally uh discovered. Like, well, so the Leiden jar is a device that holds or or like stores static electricity, and it was like accidentally discovered um by Dutch physicist Pieter van Muschenbrock of the University of Leiden in 1746, and then it was independently like studied um by German inventor Ewald George von Kleist in 1745. Um so in the earliest form, the Leiden jar was a glass vial and it was partly filled with water. Um, the orifice of the jar um was closed by a cork pierced with a wire or a nail that like dipped into the water. And um, to charge the jar, the exposed end of the wire was brought into contact with a friction device that produced static electricity. So when the contact was broken, a charge could be demonstrated by touching the wire with the hand and receiving a shock. Um, so that's just kind of like what it is, or how it that's how they figured out yeah, and how it happens. Yeah, and so um the light and jar is really important because it's a it's a prototype of capacitors. Um, and I'll explain more of that later. But basically, to a capacitor is where you have two plates, you have a top and a bottom plate, and then you have you know a jar in between that like stores the energy. And um a capacitor is widely used in radios, television sets, and electric and electronic equipment. And I'll get more into how that works later. Um, it's pretty interesting. So here are a few simple tips to get rid of static electricity. Um, one is to get a humidifier, and um, so dry air is among the leading cause of static electricity. Um, it's especially prominent in the winter um due to the due to the intense use of heating units. Um so that's one way to help. Um another way is to wear low static shoes and fabrics. Um, so one of the most common culprits of static electricity buildup is in clothing. Um, in particular, rubber soled shoes are excellent insulators that build up static on people's body. Um, an insulator meaning like you're like charging up for it. Okay, so okay. But like coupled with wool socks or sweaters, they all provide the ingredients for getting zapped.
SPEAKER_01So it that's interesting because don't they say like rubber is a good thing to be around if there's lightning? Yeah, it's like exactly. But like or is that a myth? Maybe that's a myth.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no. Um, rubber tire, like if you're in your car, you're like way safer than being out of your car because of the rubber. But the the thing is, is that um the the tires, there's a whole uh it's really hard to explain, but like when lightning hits, um the rubber stops it so it can't flow anymore. Um like I'm not explaining this right.
SPEAKER_01So so in the way that uh rubber absorbs lightning, when you're creating static electricity with your rubber soled shoes, it's building up in the rubber.
SPEAKER_00It's yeah, it's building up. So when you touch metal, it's like gotcha. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, exactly. Um, and I'll explain the flow of electricity in like a normal human way because I'm not a scientist. Let's all let's all remind each other of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're unfortunately not scientists. No, I don't have any degrees.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you do, you have like an art degree, yeah, exactly, not a science one. Um, so yeah, coupled with wool socks or sweaters, it's like that makes it you're you're charging yourself, basically. And then the same goes for nylon and polyester. So, like obviously, it's really hard to avoid like these materials, like so you can't like live like that, but you can try other options and um cotton and leather sold shoes are actually better for really preventing um static electricity. Yeah, gotcha. I feel like all shoes have rubber on the bottom.
unknownI know.
SPEAKER_00Like, I don't I don't think I ever have owned a leather sold shoe. Um, you can add baking soda to your laundry. Um, baking soda serves as a barrier barrier between negative and positive charges, keeping them from creating static electricity. Makes sense. Um, yeah. And it says to prevent shocks, add a fourth a cup of baking soda to your regular cycle. Wow. There's a recipe for you. Do you do that? No, I'm gonna I'm gonna start.
SPEAKER_01Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_00I think it would help your clothes smell really good too. Yeah, because it absorbs odor. Yeah. Um, and then obviously you can buy products that are like static electricity, like products that you can spray, but obviously you can use fabric softeners to reduce static presence. It also says another easy solution is to pull your clothing out of the dryer while it's damp and hang it air dry because, like, the friction in the dryer is like another reason you get static electricity.
SPEAKER_01Okay, can I tell you my mom is a psycho with laundry? She forces me. I mean, I only live with her right now. She forces me to hang up everything and let it air dry. She is so crazy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you have literally you're you have the softest clothes. Like I've told you this. Like, I'm like, oh yeah. I hang everything. That's why. That's why.
SPEAKER_01I thought it was, I feel like they're more soft when they come out of the dryer. When they hang them up, they're like stiff.
SPEAKER_00I think their softness lasts longer when you air dry because I am obsessed with like fleece. I like wear it every day of my life. And like, you know, fleece gets like really like not soft after wash it. Like your fleece stays forever.
SPEAKER_01So I we're learning things about each other tonight. I had no idea you have such a like terrible issue with static electricity. And I also didn't know that you feel like my clothes are soft. I don't remember you telling me that. So soft. That's a really compliment.
SPEAKER_00Well, remember we got the same like really, what was it, a fleece like thing on Amazon?
SPEAKER_01It was like those teddy bear jackets that were really trendy like three years ago.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we both got one and mine like went to hell, and yours is like still soft.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, I would never put that in the dryer because Terry, my mother, is ingrained in me what a like terrible human being I would be if I used a dryer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you should do that. And it prevents static electricity, so that's good. Um, and then you can remove it from your carpets and rugs. Um, like a lot of the times you get static electricity from just like walking on rugs um, and you can apply an anti-static spray on the surface to prevent charges from buildup. But in addition, you can add indoor plants to areas with softer floors, as certain plant species can naturally increase humidity levels and lessen static electricity. Wow. And you know what's funny is I don't ever get shocked in my place. I always get shocked like other places, like I can feel it. It's like a feeling I have when I walk in a room, like I immediately can sense it. Um, and I have so yeah, I have so many plants in my apartment that like I was wondering about that when I was doing this research. I was like, oh, that's probably why I never get shocked.
SPEAKER_01Plants just do so much good, you know. Yeah, they do so many amazing things.
SPEAKER_00Um, you can rub upholstery with dryer sheets. Uh, you know, it also helps with the odor. So you're killing two birds with one stone, but um, that reduces static electricity. Um, and you can make use of metal objects, hence why I hold on to the car. And I I didn't even know exactly what I was doing, but I knew it worked. Yeah. Like when I got so it says the easiest fix to static electricity may be to carry a safety pin or a metal key in a pocket, touching it before anything else transfers electron, sorry, transfers electron charges to safeguard against shocks. So when you already have metal on you, it like it like um does something to your because like you're essentially a capacitor, like storing those electrons.
SPEAKER_01Again, like having a a um lightning rod on your house. Yeah. Yeah. It the lightning hitting your home and yeah, starting out fire.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you can also use a metal hanger and gently rub it against clothes before putting them on. Uh, the object will collect any static electricity and allow you to dress comfortably.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Isn't that so cool?
SPEAKER_01It's cool, but I'm it's like I'm sitting here being like, it's weird to me that people have such an issue with this that they have to take these steps, and I feel bad that because being shocked sucks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm deathly afraid of it. And you can ask a lot of my family members, like I shock people all the time. And I I get shocked too in the process, but I'll like barely touch you or like give you a hug and I'll shock you.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, so weird.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like I it's really, really weird. Um okay, so that's just some like info about it. I mean, there's plot probably a lot of other info that I like don't care to get into because it's very scientific and that's just not my bag. So um, I'm gonna get into how static electricity has called has caused problems and death. Wow, I can't believe this. Yeah, okay. It's okay. So um I'm gonna go to New Orleans, um, and I'm gonna go to a town called West Wego. Um, it has about 12,000 people, and it's on the west bank of Jefferson Parish, uh, which is greater New Orleans area. And um it had special, like so this town had specialized in industries taking advantage of the railroad access that was there. And it also had deep draft riverfront, meaning like bigger boats could easily get into it. It was like deep. Um, so like basically they were a big place for like lumber, aluminum, oil refining, seafood processing, um, electric power generation, um, and trans shipment from like the railroad. Um, so West Wago specialized in the business of storage. They just had like a ton of room, and obviously, like they were getting products in and out. Um, so companies stored everything from oil, alcohol, and molasses to corn, wheat, soybeans, and oats, allowing producers to wait out um markets until the price is right to ship the supply chain. So it was a big storage place basically for all these things. Um, grain elevators had a particularly ideal home in West Wego as its riverfront was relatively uncluttered and its land use zoning compatible with their hulking machines and intricate mechanical equipment. Um, so like grain, I had to look up what a grain elevator was. I thought it was like an like an elevator that took grain up.
SPEAKER_01Like a like a like an elevator you would get into in a building.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it's actually um it's a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. Um, and also by the way, this was like one of the like it was like the hugest like port of New Orleans. It was the busiest grain port in the world. So they had a lot of green there, yeah. Um, and this is I'm going to like 1977, by the way, but I'm just kind of describing this area. Um, so the green, you know, green elevator is um they store green there. Um, in the grain trade, the term green elevator also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a conveyor, which scoops up the grain from a lower level and deposit it in a silo. Um silo, thank you, which is a um a tower or pit on a farm used to store grain. So it's like one of those big like towers that you see that's like full of grain.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a circular tower. Yeah. You said silo. Yeah, it's a silo. They're all over. Okay. There's one that's like broken down that I drive by all the time when I go to my dad's.
SPEAKER_02Hmm. Yep.
SPEAKER_01And there is like a um like a conveyor belt. Oh, okay. That brings grain, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Maybe not. Okay. So um the Continental Grain Company was one of nine elevators between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and among the largest in the lower south. Um So it was a hundred million, it was a hundred million dollar complex with 73 silos that were lined up. So it was like this huge place. And it was called the Continental Green Company. Um, you could store six million bushels of soybeans, oats, and wheat, um, and that were like brought to and fro on steel your on steel conveyors, like connecting the barges and cargo ships and all that. So big operation there. Um, so okay, on December 22nd, 1977, um, which was like three days before Christmas at 9:10 a.m., uh, residents of Greater New Orleans heard a loud blast, and those in West Jefferson Parish and the uptown neighborhood felt their houses shake as debris showered onto their roots and streets. Um, one of the witnesses said a tremendous fireball shot a hundred feet above the West Wego River riverfront by a thousand-foot mushroom cloud of grain. Oh my god. Green flying through the air into the river. You could watch the ducks on the river go for the grain.
SPEAKER_01They were they thought they died and went to heaven.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, oh yeah. But a thousand-foot high mushroom cloud of grain. They're like bear dice. Um, the elevators of the Continental Grain Company had exploded. And it happened at the worst possible time. Workers were either clocking in at the facility's two-story cinder block office or were stopping by on their day off to collect their company Christmas turkeys. No.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So wait, so the okay. Go ahead. They what happened to them?
SPEAKER_00Oh, so while they were doing what they were doing, like collecting their turkeys or like working, um, the 250-foot tall main storage tower collapsed and it buried employees beneath a 120-foot pile pile high pile of rubble rubble. I can't speak tonight. Oh my god. So they're like buried, yeah. So not good. Um yeah. So as the Times Picuny or Pikayune, I think it's Pi Picayoon. Picayun?
SPEAKER_01Pika Pikayun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. As the Times Pikayun reports, um, I said Picuny. Or is it Pi Picane? It's uh P-I-C-A-Y-U-N. I don't know. I have no idea. Yeah. So as that newspaper reports, the scene of the explosion on December 22nd looked like a block of bombed-out European city at the end of World War II. In addition to the twisting, burning wreckage of the giant elevator, 45 silos had their tops blown off. So it was like a huge explosion. Wow. 45. Mm-hmm. Damn. Um, by noon, the confirmed death toll stood at 10. The next day it rose to 15, including seven uh seven federal inspectors. Then someone remembered a group of construction workers who had entered the elevator early that fateful morning. And when their remains were found, the death toll soared to a 25.
SPEAKER_02Oh no.
SPEAKER_00Excuse me. Horrible. Yeah. Um, on Christmas Day, the headline of the Times Pacoon or whatever it is, uh, read Elevator's ruins yield 33 bodies. Um, as firemen spent the holiday dynamiting their way through the rubble seeking others. By New Year's, the final death toll was confirmed at 36 in all, 11 survived. Wow. So um 48 of the 73 silos holding soybeans, wheat, and oats were destroyed. Most of the 36 people who died were trapped in that two-story cinder block office building that was crushed by the explosion of the 25-story grain elevator. I mean, that's a huge elevator, grain elevator, 25 stories. Oh, yeah. Um, there were tons of rumors as to what caused the blast. Some set a fire, others said a bomb. But the state agricultural commissioner Gil Dozier suggested it may have been caused indirectly by the two-month-old National Longshoresmen's strike that delayed tons of grain shipments along the Mississippi and backed backlogged them in the elevator. So there was like at this point a backlog of combustible material possibly ignited by static electricity. Like, so maybe one of the conveyor belts had static electricity and it ignited the combustible grain dust.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I I don't even I don't get it. Like okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So the strain, okay, so here's the weird part. So the strange part is in this same, this very same week that this happened in New Orleans, um, three other elevator blasts had occurred during December 21st through the 27th, same year, in Wayne City, Illinois, which had one fatality, Talipo, Mississippi, which had two fatalities, and Galveston, Texas, which had 14 fatalities. The frequency and similar explosions suggested a common cause, which was dust particles suspended in oxygen become highly susceptible to ignition, be it by a fire, a spark, friction, or static electricity. As a result, a blast can occur that's so powerful it obliterates all evidence of what went wrong. Oh wow. So there was this strike, and all of this backlog of grain was like held in like all these different cities, and this dust was very flammable. And I can see if there was like a machine issue in like one of the factory or whatever it was, not factory, but whatever it was, the companies. But how does that happen like to four different places and like in the same week? Like that it's just so like mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_01Um at this time they didn't know that the accumulation of too much of the like crop.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So yeah, they didn't they didn't know, but like, so the continental grain colony uh grain elevator explosion ranks among the worst industrial disasters in modern Louisiana history and the deadliest disaster to date in the nation's grain industry. The disaster led to new understandings and safety regulations here, and a worldwide um and worldwide containing and contr about containing and controlling combustible grain dust, which is thought to be a contributing factor in the explosion.
SPEAKER_01This is wild. I've never heard of this. Me either. This is crazy.
SPEAKER_00So it's just to me, it's one thing if like a machine like was messed up and like sparking and it caused like a thing, right? But they're all eluding because it happened in different spots, like in the same week, with this backlog of grain sitting that it was static electricity. Right. Isn't that wild? It is it really is. So now they have like regulations in place because this was 1977. Um, and they have like different protocols to like you know contain the dust. So anyway, I thought that was crazy. Yeah. Um, and so there I have there's this is another story. I have this um video that I'm gonna post. I found it, it's amazing. Um, so it's it you can literally see it go down. It's crazy. So this worker in Southeast China, he was transporting bundles of cotton yarn wrapped in plastic bags, and he's like in the back of his truck, you can see him, and um he gets down from the he's like in the material or whatever, and then he gets down, and you see him step on the metal floor of the lorry in his truck, and it discharged the built-up static electricity and immediately ignited the yarn into balls of flames. Like, so you see this happen on video, which I'll share.
SPEAKER_01I I'm like afraid now to be alive in my house and car.
SPEAKER_00I know this is crazy. I know it's that I'm I'm always afraid of it, and I have I get I actually get hurt when I get shocked. It does not feel good.
SPEAKER_01I'm I'm I'm now afraid like something's gonna burst into flames, yeah, and it's I don't know how to prevent it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, static is a big deal. Like, um, it says it is unclear what type of injuries the man sustained, but he survived. The video was shared by Facebook group 119 Fire Network, a Taiwanese information sharing platform for fire safety and uh for the fire safety industry. And it says experts warned that this similar that similar accidents could be prevented by installing anti-static belts in the lorry and maintaining high humidity levels by installing mist sprayers. So if he had had like mist sprayers in his like truck, it probably wouldn't have happened. Um, it is also recommended that workers wear cotton clothing instead of synthetic ones as natural fibers such as wool, cotton, and linen generally produce less static than synthetic ones, um, such as polyester.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So now they have like certain rules for certain like workers to like because that if you think about like just like imagining like plastic with cotton, like wrapped in cotton and metal, like I instantly get the freaks, like I can't not the freaks, or what do you call I don't even know what I'm trying to say. I get the chills, like I can feel it. What's that? I don't even know what I said.
SPEAKER_02You're like, I get the freaks.
SPEAKER_01That sounds like something someone would say in like the 50s.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's funny. I get the freaks, yeah, cat. Um, okay. So, and then in November 2018, a man living in here we go, Luolang, Hunan province in central China. That sounds good. Oh, thanks, had been transporting a batch of gunpowder on a wheelbarrow at a factory when static electricity ignited the explosive material into a ball of flames. Also on video. So I have these two on video that I'll share. He's just like wheeling it around and then like he like static electricity, like he like caused it to like explode just by like standing next to it. The worker sustained non-life-threatening burns to his body and was immediately taken to the hospital. So I'll share that. Um, there was a Hawaiian lab explosion um in March 2016. Thea Ekins Coward, who was a researcher at the University of Hawaii uh in uh Manoa, um, she was at the law, or I don't know if it was a she. Is a Thea is Thea she?
SPEAKER_01Thea is typically uh a woman, Thea.
SPEAKER_00Or maybe it's they, who knows? Um well, how does it how do you spell it? Um, I mean like they as in like they don't identify. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, like they have gender neutral pronouns, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but as soon as I said that, I was like, oh wait, it does it is spelled like they. It's a T-H-E-A.
SPEAKER_01But if they're saying they in what whatever you read, then you should say they and them and there when you're talking about them. But they didn't say that, no.
SPEAKER_00Oh, oh yeah. Um okay, so uh she was at the lab doing research, and as a part of her research, she was combining hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and oxygen gases from high pressure cylinders into a low pressure tank. Um, so the gas mixture was basically like food for bacteria being used to produce biofuels and bioplastics. This is a little above my head, but it's I'm trying. Yeah, she's basically doing experiments with cool stuff. Yeah. Um, this experiment calls for gases to be plumed through a mixing device called a gas proportioner directly into a bioreactor. So I had to look up what plumed mean means, but it's like putting it through an upright surface. So like she's like basically putting this gas like vertically through.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because like a plume is like like a peacock plume or whatever. Yeah, it's like a tall, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, so the gas gauge being used to identify um sorry, the gas gauge that she was like try supposed to use was like um it was labeled safe. Um, and it was it was designed to prevent ignition, um, ignition essentially. But after um Thea started in the lab last fall, or not last fall, like when she started in the fall of 20 um 15, uh, she had purchased a 49L steel gas tank, which is like a different gauge um that was not like labeled safe essentially. And um basically like she started messing with that to do her experiments, and so she would add the gases to a portable tank, which would be then connected to a bioreactor. She was using a mixture of 70 hydrogen, 25 oxygen, and 5% carbon dioxide in her experiment. Um, the 49L tank exploded when um Thea pressed the off button on the gauge. She did not lose consciousness or hit her head, but she lost her arm. Like her arm exploded off. Um sucks. So after this, she's like in shock and she like can't get the lab door open. So the door is stuck. She has no, she's missing an arm. So like security officers and like they heard everything, like the blast, and they are trying to get in. And um, they had to get like a graduate student, like and the security officer kicked down the door to get her out, and her arm was severed just above her elbow. Um, and because she bought and assembled another pressure gauge that like then the safe one she was supposed to be using that was recommended, um, it caused a static electricity that led to the explosion. Um, so like whatever the this this gauge she was using like wasn't grounded. So like the static electricity like made the whole explosion. Again, this is very scientific, but it's like it's still important to like note if you are out there doing experiments, like be really careful. Um, and the week before the incident, a similar setup with a 3.8 L tank resulted in a small internal explosion. Um, when Thea had pressed the off button on the gauge. So this, like when she pressed the off button on the gauge in the explosion that's where she lost her arm, that's like when it happened, is when she pressed the off button. Um, so this like similar thing happened like a week ago before or a week before this happened to her. So also occasionally experienced static shocks when um, sorry, she also experienced occasionally um static shocks when she touched the tank. So she was already like having static electricity. She was messing with this. Um, and she reported the shocks and possibly the small explosion to Huan Yu, um, which who was like the Hawaiian Natural Energy Institute researcher that she was working with, but he told her not to worry about it. He was like, Oh, don't worry, you know, it'll be fine. Right. Um, so anyway, the what happened is um the technical report from the UC Center for Laboratory Safety said that the main conclusion is that the tank was not grounded, and the digital pressure gauge acted as a path to ground for a static charge that ignited the hydrogen-oxygen mixture um contained with a 13-gallon pressure tank. So basically, it was like a bomb going off. Um, it it's like the when your tank's not grounded, it's like the electricity can flow and just spark it and go, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that that term grounded is um something I've heard many, many times when it comes to electricity. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and this by far to me is the most fascinating of all of it. Um, and you probably know it. Um, the Hindenburg disaster.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, that had to do with static electricity. Holy shit.
SPEAKER_00I and they just figured that out. Did you know that?
SPEAKER_01No, I had no idea. I I've seen footage of it in flames.
SPEAKER_00Oh god, it's so it's like I think even before my like um what's that movie that like ruined flying for me? Final destination. I think I already had a fear of flying, and all of that because of this like blimp disaster.
SPEAKER_01Well, blimps are all they're very they're horrible, they're shady. They're like they're the worst things I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's they're so dumb. Like, who would ever go on that? No, right. Like you you I would okay. Would you rather yeah, would you rather go in a blimp or go in a duck boat? Duckboat, easy, yeah. Same. Absolutely, because you can just get you can you can get it?
SPEAKER_01You can just yeah, you can maybe, maybe people die on duck boats because they don't leave the duck boat when it's sinking, yeah, or they leave too late, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, okay, so one of the most famous disasters of all time is the Hindenburg blimp disaster. You guys have all probably seen it, the giant blimp. If you remember, yeah. Well, no, it was a German blimp, but it was in America, right? Yeah, it was, yeah, yeah. Okay, so there's an excellent, and I recommend it to everybody. And in fact, I like watched this like I think a year ago, and I was like obsessed. And it's so this topic is I've been wanting to do it, but it's a little difficult because it's like, you know, electricity, and that's like again hard for me to understand. But um anyway, the documentary is called Hindenburg The New Evidence, and it's like a Nova documentary, um, which like is like a PBS thing. So you can find it, you can watch it on PBS.org. It's really good.
SPEAKER_01I love Nova.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay, so on May 6, 1937, the German Hindenburg blimp was flying over New Jersey and ignited in seconds before crashing to the ground in front of so many people. Um, on that day in May, the Hindenburg had just arrived in New Jersey after a three-day journey from Frankfurt, Germany. So I didn't know that. Like, I don't I didn't know much about it, but it came from Germany. It like flew across the ocean.
SPEAKER_01I cannot believe that piece of shit came across the Atlantic.
SPEAKER_00That's ridiculous. Like, why? What the hell? Like that thing, it just looks terrifying. It's like, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01I don't get like where do you sit um in it? Is it there, is there like it because there's wasn't there a blimp? Have you seen the movie Up? It's a Pixar movie.
SPEAKER_00No, I haven't.
SPEAKER_01There's a I think there's a blimp in that and there's a whole interior, and I was like, is this just for the movie or okay?
SPEAKER_00So I think I didn't really get too much into like that, but I think like based on what I've like seen in the blueprints, there's a whole like yeah, there's like a whole place for people.
SPEAKER_01There's an interior section, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like a big one, yeah, it's really big, but like the big blown-up part is just hydrogen, it's just like a giant bomb of hydrogen. Oh my god, essentially, yeah, it's like that whole thing is air, and there's like a little, I mean, I'm sure it's big enough to like hold a lot of people and like they could sleep there, but yeah. Um, okay, so the airship they called an airship, by the way. Um, which I thought was interesting because I always called it like a blimp, but it's like the technical term, I guess, is an airship. Really? Sounds like way cooler than a blimp, but a blimp is not a good yeah, a blimp. I know. Um so the airship dropped its landing lines at about seven seven. 17 p.m. So it's still up in the air and it drops drops these giant thick ropes to like get it to land essentially. So four minutes later, the Hindenburg was suddenly engulfed in flames and plummeted to the ground. And if you guys like watch this video, like those videos that they have, it's it only took 32 seconds for this thing to completely incinerate. 32 seconds.
SPEAKER_0132 seconds for real.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh my god and like when you watch the video, you see it just explode, fire crashing down, the thing's like gone. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know it was that quick.
SPEAKER_00Like you can still see some of the metal frames of it, like when it hits, but it's like, yeah, it's crazy. Um, when the smoke cleared, 35 people on the airship and one member of the ground crew were dead. So like they just like died really fast.
SPEAKER_01Um horrible death.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01Like because it's not like you're in a plane crash where you lose consciousness right away, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was just gonna be, I was just gonna ask a would you rather be in a plane crash or a blimp crash?
SPEAKER_01Oh, a plane, because a supposedly when a plane is descending very quickly, you lose consciousness, you have no idea what's gonna happen to you. Yeah, this sounds like it's like being in a um like a hot air balloon where you're dead until you hit the fucking ground.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, like let's do a plane. That's fine.
SPEAKER_01I I just watched a um, there's like a series on YouTube. I think it's like GQ Does It An Insider magazine, uh-huh, where they ask experts to watch like scenes from movies and talk about how accurate or inaccurate it is. And I watched one with a um aircrash investigator. He's been an investigator for like 30 years, and he said, um, when a plane, when there's like some kind of explosion where like people are taken out of the plane, like people fly out of the plane.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01You you get knocked out, but then you will wake up when you're falling through the air because you're you're out of that pressurized situation like um environment.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, because like you're getting closer to ground, so you wake up.
SPEAKER_01Because you're in air, you're in, you're you're descending into like regular air. You're no imagine being blown out of a plane and then waking up and you're falling. I I it's anyway, that's disgusting.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I think we need we need um I don't understand why every seat doesn't have a parachute.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that's I've researched that before. It's obviously like a logistical thing. I I think it's like it just wouldn't work.
SPEAKER_00Okay, fine. Well, then we need to just have a parachute on our back so we can be like, peace out.
SPEAKER_01I don't think that would make it through security, but I agree. Because I have my brother and I have a friend who skydives like all the time, and he showed us his pack where with the with the um parachute, and like you could just if you detonated that in the side of the plane, I absolutely yeah, it would be a really big problem.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, I've like I've seen like these drawings that people are working on, but it's too expensive to do. But I really hope someone does it, is where the actual plane has a parachute, like if something's going wrong, the actual plane has like a parachute that like lift like safely like let's fall to the ground.
SPEAKER_01Like um when the space shifts come when they come through the atmosphere and they land.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, why why die of a parachute on the commercial? Why Elon? I know Bezos, do something, do it okay. Um, so 35 people in the airship die, one's dead from the ground crew. Okay, on the day of the incident, news photographers were already filming the Hindenburg at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey, because like it was coming in, it was a big deal, it had just come from Germany. Um, when they realized the airship was burning, they rushed to record images of it on fire. And like this is some some of the best known images that we have of the disaster. So, like everybody's seen those images. Like, so a bunch of news people were there and just like started recording, and the fire happens, the explosion and fire happened so fast that like they could get, you know, what they could get. Um, but what's so weird is that all of the news people um from the news stations were all kind of in the same place, like the whole crowd was all in the same place. So these these news channels only got footage of the disaster from like a similar angle. Wow. So they were all like no one like really had other angles, so it was like interesting. However, an amateur photographer named Howard Schneck or Schenck, I think it is, um he was also at the scene with a Kodak eight millimeter consumer film camera, but he was at a different spot on the field, like completely away from the news people. He was just like out there checking it out. Um, Schenck realized that the Hindenburg was on fire and became and began filming earlier than the newsreel photographers did. Um, his wide angle lens and side view of the airship captured the Hindenburg's entire length as it burned, offering a perspective that was missing in the news camera coverage.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say he's gotta be the guy that we that we see the footage of now.
SPEAKER_00Uh yes. Like new footage, but it's new because this is so the Hindenburg actually up until very recently was a cold case.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That people couldn't figure it out. So anyway, they were like, we, you know, they had their theories, but they couldn't figure out exactly how. So I'll get into that. Um, so Schenk's view of the burning Hindenburg was really helpful and it revealed what actually happened because he was just like this random guy with a random angle that they can't that the news people didn't have. So airship, uh, sorry, airships um like the Hindenburg were made of metal frame um that was covered by a cotton skin um that was inflated with hydrogen, was which is like extremely flammable. It's that like I said, yeah. So it's like metal frames wrapped with cotton skin, like a cotton fabric. And it was spray painted with this paint called dope, believe it or not. Dope. It was called dope, um, and which gave it its like metallic sheen, so it like kind of looks like metal, but it's really cotton. So metal frame, cotton skin painted, filled with hydrogen, very flammable, right? Right, right. And hydrogen is highly flammable, like I said, and if it's exposed to air and mixes with oxygen, it explodes. Like basically, or no, sorry, it doesn't exp it doesn't explode, it's just it becomes even more flammable flammable when it's exposed to air and mixes with oxygen. That's what I mean. It won't like explode on contact. Okay. Um, okay, so German and American investigators determined at the time that the cause of the disaster was a spark caused by static discharge, which then ignited the hydrogen leak. So they thought they had like a hydrogen leak as well. Um, so there, so here's the thing here there was a thunderstorm that day, which created an electrically charged environment that increased the risk of static discharge. So, like I said, like you know, cold can affect it, dry um air can affect it, but also thunderstorms like naturally like make it really static-y. Um, so the operator also had good reason to believe that hydrogen was escaping near the Hindenburg's tail as there was un as there was an unusual heaviness in that area that could have indicated a leak. So they all had a feeling that there was a leak. Um, given the circumstances with the the thunderstorm and the leak, they should not have attempted what is known as a high landing, in which an airship would drop its landing ropes while still at a high altitude and would then be winched to the ground. So, like they were up really high still, and then like dropped four of their landing ropes around them. Um, and this is a practice that had had had a higher risk of generating sparks than a lower landing would. Um, so Dan Grossman, who was an aviation historian and writer, um, really into like the Hindenburg and stuff, and you know, trying to figure out this like what really happened. Um, he went to the 75th um anniversary memorial service of the Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 2012, when he was approached by Bob Schneck, the nephew of the amateur photographer Howard Schank. I'm not saying that, I think it's Shank. And I said Bob Schneck.
SPEAKER_01I know I was like, what?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sorry. Um, so Bob's a nephew. He's attending this 2012 like memorial, and his uncle was the one who took the the amateur film. Um, and he basically said to Dan, who's that aviation historian, he said, Hey, you know, I have some home movie footage of the accident that had been shot, you know, by my uncle. And at the time of the accident in 1937, none of the investigators were interested in Howard's footage, um, likely because they already had footage from news cameras and didn't care about seeing multiple angles of the event.
SPEAKER_01Which doesn't that like you're an investigator? Like, doesn't that mean you're not investigating by having multiple angles?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it was 1937 too. So they were probably like, hey, you know, I already got some camera footage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm just that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00I was trying to do that, like, hello, my baby.
SPEAKER_01Hello, what did we say earlier that I said it sounded like it was like in the 40s?
SPEAKER_02It gave me the freaks, yeah. Hey, we got the freaks over here.
SPEAKER_00Multiple angles, that gives me the freaks. Yeah, so like, you know, at that time they're probably like, hey, can't we already have some news angles over here? That's true.
SPEAKER_01I I think that happened.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So he's like, Oh my god, like this guy, the aviation person, historian, he's like, Oh my god, like, please give me this footage. I need it. And so he did. And um, he said, like, here's a quote. He said, My reaction was just wow, I cannot believe we have this angle. The footage begins earlier than other film footage, so it shows more of the accident from an earlier point, which was a really important. Yes. Um, Shanks' film camera also captured a full broadside view of the ship from nose to tail, showing the Hindenburg during its final seconds of level flight as it was engulfed in flames until it hit the ground as a flaming shell. So um, yeah, it just like got like a totally bigger view. Um, but because of where the newsreel photographers were, which was very close to the bow or nose of the airship, you just didn't see that. So he got like what the news people didn't see, as we know. Right, right. Um so because Shank started filming earlier than the news cameras, and while it doesn't capture the moment of ignition, it does show the dropping of the ropes. This prompted the PBS documentary investigators to question if the ropes might have conducted enough electricity to spark the fatal fire. So now they know exactly when the ropes went down and they could see it based on this new footage. They realized that the landing of the ropes allowed a spark to happen because they gave electricity a path from the ship to the ground. So I'm gonna get into like layman's terms of how this kind of works because I had to for myself. So when you have like a normal, like let's say you have a lamp and you're plugging it into the wall, when you hold like a cord, there's always two wires. One's going to from the wall to the lamp. Even though it's like one cord, there's two wires in it. One's going from the wall to the lamp, and then it's flowing back to the wall through like through the other direction, through the other wire, essentially. Right. So in a house, when something's plugged in, the electricity electricity goes from one side of the outlet to whatever it's plugged in and goes back to the other side of the outlet. Um, but it only flows when it has a path. So if you take away the path, the flow stops. Um, so the airship was carrying electricity on its skin because it was like traveling, like anytime you have a craft moving in air, it accumulates a charge. So planes have a ton of static on it. Um so as long as the so but as long as the airship or the craft doesn't have an electrical path, it can't flow.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So the weird part is that it, you know, from the minute the ropes hit the ground, it took about four minutes for the fire to spark. So what was the delay? Because if you scientifically the thing should have sparked the moment the ropes hit the ground. Right. So that was like the mystery. And the idea was that the ropes, you know, the first idea was like, okay, well, the ropes um were dry when they were released, and they became more wet as like, you know, within that four minutes, which caused more of an electrical charge. And like in this documentary, you see the guy like he's testing a dry rope, and they're and he has like a thing that tells you like the the charge, the electric charge. And it's interesting because there's still connectivity, there's still like a charge there, um, when it's dry, but as he sprays it, it gets like higher and higher. So there's like a bigger chance, but still that didn't really like solve the issue of why it was like a four-minute delay. Um, so the idea is that the rope was somewhat conductive to begin with, but there was a light rain, which made it more conductive. However, the explosion should have happened as soon as the ropes' ropes hit the ground. So they looked at the paint covering the airship's skin fabric, which I mentioned was called dope, and it gave that airship that metallic sheen color. Um, but like that's not really what um caused it either, because they were thinking, oh, maybe it's the paint that has something to do with it. It didn't. So then they looked at the um um the metal frames of the of the blimp or the airship. So the airship had metal frames, but the fabric never touched the metal. Panels of the fabric were connected by Rommy twine, which doesn't sound very strong, but it was like strong twine. No, I was like twine, yeah. Um fucking that strong, yeah. And of course they tried to tie it tightly, but there was a space between the metal and the fabric. So the fabric and the metal never was touching on on purpose, right? Because you don't want the metal and and the fabric to touch. Because if the metal is electrically charged and it touches the fabric, boom, there's like a you know, you have like a fire. Right, right. Um, so but the twine is like, you know, it's like the gap, basically. Right. Um, and then they also put these wooden pegs between the skin and the metal frames to prevent the charge on the skim from reaching the frame. Um, so this design was to prevent no electric, uh, no electrical connection between the skin and the frame. Like I mentioned, like we didn't want them to touch. Um, so the skin is electrically charged in the air, and the ropes dropping electrically charges the metal frame of the airship. And now there's a powerful charge in the little gap between the metal frame and the skin. Oh no. So the question is, how did the electrical charge jump from the metal frame to the skin and why did it take four minutes? I found this so fascinating. Yeah, yeah. No, it is. Uh, and so they did a test in the lab, and the electrical charge didn't jump over to the skin when it was dry. Um, because they like basically like simulated the same thing, um, with the, you know, the the metal and the uh the the skin of the fabric, and then they had the gap like exactly the way it was, and they had this in the lab. So it was dry, nothing happened, but it was raining that day again, and it also had just crossed the Atlantic Ocean, so it had salt salt particles on it, too. Um, so rain and salt make a conductive mixture, and so in the lab, when they sprayed a salt water mixture um on this thing, there is a giant spark, and the spark moved from the metal to the skin.
SPEAKER_01It it like caused it to jump because water conducts electricity, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that basically that gap that was that was like separating them, it did given the conditions, the electricity jumped from the metal to the skin, and boom, you have a spark. So then it occurs to researchers that when the ropes hit the ground, it made the airship a capacitor, which I had talked about, which is capable of starting more of a charge that was initially existing on the surface of the aircraft. And that means it can take time to charge up. So as soon as those ropes hit, the thing started charging like a like an iPhone, basically. Like God, yeah, started charging like mad, and like he and like like so much that like eventually with some water, that electric charge is gonna jump from the metal to the skin. But they didn't know that, obviously. So a capacitor, again, it's a very simple device that allows you to store energy. Typically, it contains two conductive plates separating are separated by a non-conductive insulator. So charge builds up on the plates, positive and negative, and until it's strong enough to jump across the gap, like so it just charges and then it will jump. Um, if you look at the Hindenburg, the skin represents the top surface of the capacitor, and the metal frame represents the bottom surface of the capacitor. So the charge can jump from one to another. So it's like a giant capacitor, basically, that like yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I'm looking just like I was I just wanted to Google.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's really it's more of a visual thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's funny, I'm now just noticing the surface. I always thought it was like a metal surface, but if you look, it really does look like fabric that's been like spray painted. Exactly. Oh my god, I thought it was solid, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, no, it's good that you looked at that for sure. And like you should try to get like a close-up of or just watch this documentary. It's so good. Like it just like shows you everything. Um, so the positive charge from the air collects on the skin, and the negative charge collects from the ropes on the ground. So it's like the capacitor again, positive, negative. They're all coming from different from the air to the ground, increasing the electric field between skin and frame until finally it's strong enough to jump across the gap. Boom, there's your explosion. So here's the thing. They still were like, okay, four minutes, four minutes. Why? Like they knew it takes time to charge, but like, does it really explain the theory? And so then the scientists in the documentary did the math, and he used how much it would take to charge the surface of the airship and compares it with the rate of the um atmospheric electricity flowing through in the stormy conditions of that specific day. So they like did the math of like exactly. What was going on that day? Um, and so he wrote down the numbers and calculated of how long it would take for everything to charge before it would make that kind of jump, and it was exactly four minutes. Ah, isn't that wild? It is wild, and that is what caused the explosion and the incineration of that blimp.
SPEAKER_01Okay, also 32 seconds. Um, I'm looking at photos. They so they had Nazi signs.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. There's um I have some more, I have some more info about this. Um so this was during World War One. Um, well, like I guess the the rise of airships were so it was a German thing. Um the company was actually called Zeppelin. Um, and they were so confident in their design, and like they were like really proud of their airships. Um, they had over 38 or 37 years of flying these things, so they just were like the expert in these in the airships, and Zeppelin was like a huge company. Um, so basically, uh Germans used airships uh in World War One, and they like had flown over a hundred of them in 37 years, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it is like for massive like like airships, I guess, at that time. So this wasn't so this Hindenburg exact disaster wasn't the first time airships had exploded and burned. Um, there were actually tons of accidents with these things. And because of how many accidents and danger, dangerous, like how dangerous they were to fly, they actually wanted to switch to using helium, which was like much safer. Um, but helium was only an American resource in these days, and the world supply existed in a 250-mile radius of Armorillo, Texas, at the time. It was like the only place you could get it. And the US passed the Helium Control Act in 1927, which forbade foreign countries from buying it. I'm not sure why. Maybe the helium bomb, or was that a thing, or is that a hydrogen bomb? It's hydrogen.
SPEAKER_01Oh, is there a helium bomb? Giant balloon. Like, hey gas, that's a good one. Yeah, exactly. So like um South Park. Oh, yeah, that's true. Character. Um, can I can I just say something? Silent. Yeah. I'm remembering now how Led Zeppelin got their name. Was it from the the blimp? Yeah. Oh, because they were performing, and I guess somebody in the audience, okay. This needs to be Googled, and I'm not gonna Google it right now, but somebody they overheard someone when they were first starting out say, Wow, these guys are gonna go over like a lead balloon. And they were like, We will we will raise your criticism and up you from a you know, a Zeppelin, which is a Zeppelin is an air, it's an airship, yeah. Yeah, like you said, the company was named, and that's why they their name is Led Zeppelin, and you know, that's that's so great.
SPEAKER_00I love that story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, isn't that cool? I just remembered that. I feel like my a teacher in like high school told me that story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's I think you're right, and I think that on one of their album covers they have a picture of it. Ooh, I think so. Of the Hindenburg or just a blimp in general? No, it's uh like I think the blimp going down the blimp going down. I think, yeah, it's uh it's Led Zeppelin one. It's literally like if you Google that, it's like the cover, it's like the blimp on fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's badass. That's really cool. Um, that's why I was like, yeah, like because I remembered that picture on one of their albums.
SPEAKER_02There you go. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So uh basically, like, so yeah, and like in this article, they always referred to it as Zeppelin, like a Zeppelin, but it was like the Hindenburg was like the name of it, yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, but blimp is like the more casual, yeah. Because nobody calls it a Zeppelin, everybody calls it a blimp, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Um, so based on this like Helium Control Act that like you know, America was like, you can't have any, and um yeah, so like they just they the Hindenburg actually was designed to use helium, but they had like stick with hydrogen, so that sucks for them. But um, what was I gonna say? Um basically the the guy who uh Gary Tarpinen, the PBS directory, uh sorry, documentaries executive producer said in a statement, thanks to this stunning new footage, we were able to revive a cold case investigation surrounding one of the most iconic disasters of the 20th century. So if this guy hadn't like have gone and been like, hey, I have a home video, like we would have just never known. Um, and then Dan Grossman said in the documentary, he was like the aviation guy, um, historian who like was approached by um the nephew of that photographer, said, You can never operate a hydrogen airship in complete safety, and you can certainly never operate one in complete safety where there are thunderstorms, but you can operate it in a safer or less safe manner. And they and they chose the less safe manner by choosing a high landing rather than a low landing. In part, the tragedy unfolded as it did because the officers who were flying the airship didn't follow well-established established safety protocols that made airship flight safe, or at least as safe as it could be. It was never going to be safe. You can never safely operate a flying bomb, but the Germans had developed a very deliberate and careful protocol on how to operate airships, and many of these were ignored. Um, and that is the story of static electricity or stories okay.
SPEAKER_01Also, going back to the blimp. Yeah, the Goodyear blimp. Okay, do they actually still have that? I don't know, but I just thought of that. I was like, where when do we ever see blimps again? I don't know anymore, but it was the Goodyear blimp. That was like their thing.
SPEAKER_00And like why are they why is that still happening in life?
SPEAKER_01Well, I okay, so I just go. Yeah, me too. I just I 2017 they got rid of it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, really? The Goodyear blimp. It says I said okay, how many Goodyear blimps are there in the world? In the world, there are about 10 operational blimps. Oh, not Goodyear blimps, but just regular. Oh, okay. Goodyear operates four of those out of the ten.
SPEAKER_01Blimps are a rare site, which means why this says Goodyear's last true blimp, non-rigid airship was retired in 2017, but there is a it looks like a blimp, it's not actually a blimp, it's a semi-rigid airship that's still hanging out.
SPEAKER_00They're so terrifying looking. Like, why would you fly that?
SPEAKER_01I swear I saw one in person one time when I was like in Florida years ago, and it was just there, and it was so dumb.
SPEAKER_00I think they were like so, weren't they so much more common when you and I were like little? Yeah, like I feel like um the it yeah, it it was more prevalent. I can't remember the last time I saw a blimp, but I know I've seen one, like maybe the Goodyear one, probably. But like I don't like I don't like even think like people it said 10 operational blimps in the world now, right? Yeah, like for good reason. Like, why would you ever do that to your life? I'm actually looking at ew, this is so gross. Airbnb Goodyear blimp will let you stay overnight in the airship. No thanks.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's just like grounded and you can stay in it, or it's yeah, it actually looks really nice. Yeah, okay, yeah, this makes sense. They they're like operating out of Florida with these blimps. That's why probably why I saw it in Florida.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, it's just terrifying. I don't, I know, I don't I'm sure they're filled with like helium now or whatever they are, but still like it's like I I just don't trust it. Well, yeah, isn't that crazy? So, like anyway, I just and you know, honestly, I had a hard time finding, I think static like static electricity obviously is very prevalent, it can happen to anybody, everybody's experienced it, but it's very rare to die from it, but you really can, so be careful.
SPEAKER_01I am so relieved because when you told me what your topic was, I was thinking that people were shocked to death. Oh no, yeah, I'm and I'm I'm really sorry about all the people that died from static electricity causing explosions, but like I feel more calm about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. Yeah, wow it's just it's just really fascinating that like these things exist.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like to think that you know this thing that we can't control, you know.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's why we do this podcast.
SPEAKER_01I know we can't control any of this, but like this, this, this little just like you know, chemical exchange or whatever, like you know, ionic exchange happens all the time and it could just explode anything, yeah, conditions.
SPEAKER_00And like already this was like a term paper and a half, like this was a lot, but like there's so much more to it. Like, I would I stumbled upon some like static electricity issues with planes, and I like couldn't go there. I like wanted to, but I was like, Yeah, like apparently it can cause a lot of issues.
SPEAKER_01I was just thinking that flying, like, yeah, do we need to worry about stuff? I think we do, but I but there must they they must have figured it out by now.
SPEAKER_00I think yeah, I again I think because like they're electronically charged on the outside, and I don't think there's a way to ground it. However, it's just like I I I couldn't get into it of how it could happen, so like I don't know, but wow, and I you know, in the past also I've seen other videos of like gas stations like catching like gas station fires from static electricity. That's definitely a thing. I just couldn't find any like valid sources, but I've seen it in my life, like I've seen like videos of it, but I definitely will share those videos that I have of the stories I told. Um, and I'll share the link to the documentary too. It's really good. But you know, like just watching that, it's really scary watching the blimp go down. Like to me, like big machinery and like even standing next to a giant ship or like a plane, like really freaks me out. Me too. Is that like isn't that weird? No, it's just like standing next to it, like gives me the like weird, these weird vibes, yeah, yeah. No, I agree, and like watching something like that explode and and incinerate like in 32 seconds would be like crazy. And imagine how hot like that must have been, like, even as like a bystander, like watching it.
SPEAKER_01I know, I know, scary.
SPEAKER_00Your eyebrows would like burn off, yeah.
SPEAKER_01When you stand next to like a bonfire, it's bad enough.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01You know what happened to me one time at a bonfire? Speaking of being near fires, this idiot that was there. Everybody was sitting around it, it was a huge bonfire. He decided to add a big piece of plywood to the bonfire, yeah. And he stood up and he just dropped it, like like one side of it was sitting on the edge of the fire, and he dropped it, so it like made a spray, like a fan effect, a spray of embers on on me.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's so bad from the air.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and one went in my eye. Yeah, I had to leave.
SPEAKER_00It's horrible.
SPEAKER_01I know. So it's like I can't even imagine that heat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no way from a situation like that. Totally. My god, I know crazy. Well, I hope you enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_01I enjoyed it, I learned so much.
SPEAKER_00Me too. That was a lot. That was great. I kind of stay away from topics like this because I get overwhelmed like with science stuff, but like I tried really hard to break it down as best I could.
SPEAKER_01No, this is amazing. I didn't know what to expect. Like I said, I wasn't sure what this was even gonna entail. So you good job.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. And if you've been shocked by static electricity, write us in at killer earthpodcast at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_01I did.
SPEAKER_00Nothing happened. It's gonna be the most boring email ever. It just sucked. No, none of your emails are boring. We love all of them. Like, please reach out to us if you have a killer earth situation that you'd like to talk about, or if you have a would you rather question, we'd love to answer it. Totally.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I love would you rather? But we're gonna do like more on topic topic, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're just like getting a take, we're just giving you a taste of what's to come. Yeah, this is just a run through. Pooping your pants or peeing your pants, or which one would you choose?
SPEAKER_01Okay, here's one more.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Would you rather the only pet you can have for the rest of your life? Well, you don't have any pets, but your family does. But the only pet you could have for the rest of your life was a bird that had some weird disease where it would just like fall over and go to sleep all the time. Okay. And like had just didn't do anything. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't talk.
SPEAKER_01Doesn't do anything, it just like walks around and falls over. Okay. It's the only pet you can have for the rest of your life. Or you have you get a dog that only lives for a year and dies every year. Oh. So you have like this beautiful year with an amazing dog, but it always dies after a year, or you have this bird for the rest of your life that doesn't that just like falls over and like doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_00I would probably uh I would probably do the dog because I feel like I could give the dog a really good life.
SPEAKER_01I would do the bird. You would that sounded really weird. I would do the bird. Yeah, because I couldn't I couldn't bear only a year with a dog. I would, I would, I like I've had my dog for a long time and he's at the end of his life.
SPEAKER_00And oh yeah, it's it's so tragic.
SPEAKER_01I couldn't imagine losing a dog every single year. Would the bird never die? The bird doesn't the bird outlives you, but it doesn't do anything. It's like so stupid.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I don't know. Like, I believe that a dog has like, I think it has dog ears, so it thinks it's living way longer, so it just has a happy life, and it just needs a family for one year.
SPEAKER_01I don't think dogs have any awareness that they're gonna die.
SPEAKER_00No, I don't they're not aware of that, but I don't want a stupid bird.
SPEAKER_01At least it lives though, and you it's never gonna die, yeah. But it doesn't do anything, yeah. But at least it's like at least at least you don't have to like lose your dog every single year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's so true. That's horrible. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, that that would be terrible. I guess I'll take the dumb bird. Take the bird. I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, uh, all right.
SPEAKER_01All right, well, that was another enthralling episode of Killer Earth. Thanks.
SPEAKER_00We have merch, buy it.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say, I was gonna say, do your merch.
SPEAKER_00We have merch. Um, and please leave us a review if you like us, that would be really helpful. Leave us a review if you hate us, also.
SPEAKER_01We want we want these reviews. Yeah, I'm so excited to get hate.
SPEAKER_00You're not why? Oh because I think it's hilarious. Oh my god, you can take it. What if that guy that you were fighting with about the drug story time like leaves us a bad review?
SPEAKER_01He might. He's crazy. Don't tell him we're on killer earth. He calls libraries and yells at the librarians. I know. Nut.
SPEAKER_00What a loser. Well, awesome. Thank you so much for listening with us, and we'll talk to you later. Bye. Bye.
SPEAKER_02I got a bita on my shoe, and I'm naming it days. Bida days, you bite a face.