Boob Backwash, Nighttime Radio Secrets, 10 Toes Down on Tommy

Sarah Dern and Emma Gommetz join Rachel this week to talk a trio of extra weird things. We've got babies spitting backwash into the boob, radio's biggest op being literal "night", and a gender-bending squirrel beloved by military veterans named Tommy Tucker. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thanks to our Sponsors Listeners of our show get an additional 35% discount when they go to https://SMILESET.com/weirdest Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at https://MINTMOBILE.com/weirdest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Rachel Feltman?

  At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week from the editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feltman.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  And I'm Emma Gomez.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  And I'm Sarah Dern.

• 0:27Rachel Feltman?

  Sarah and Emma, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you both.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having us. I'm so excited.

• 0:34Rachel Feltman?

  Me too. So it's been a while since we had two people who are separate individuals, not here, together as a pair, who are both having their first appearance ever on Weirdest Thing, which is very exciting. Emma, why don't we start with a little bit about who you are, what your deal is? You do some really cool stuff that I would love our listeners to know about.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Wow, yeah, well, thank you. Yeah, I'm a newsletter editor at Scientific American. Before that, I was a digital producer at the show Science Friday. And I also love to do experimental theater in the city.

• 1:10Rachel Feltman?

  We haven't talked about that yet, and we must, so.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, those tend to be like my three things, like on my website and whatever.

• 1:19Rachel Feltman?

  Well, something for a later date. And yeah, listeners, this is your periodic reminder. I also host Science Quickly at Scientific American, and you should check it out. It's great. Speaking of other shows you should check out, Sarah, welcome. Would you tell our listeners about you?

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Sarah Dern. I'm an editor at Popular Science, where I edit our Ask Us Anything column, which is basically exactly what it sounds like. Readers send us their weirdest, most wonderfully random questions, and then we track down the answers. So things like, how do airplane toilets work? Why are most people right-handed? Were there ever venomous dinosaurs? I also get to host Popular Science's Ask Us Anything podcast, where we spend about 15 minutes obsessing over one gloriously weird question from the week with scientists and experts. So yeah, essentially, I get paid to fall down internet rabbit holes.

• 2:17Rachel Feltman?

  Yes, that is, that is the job that I'm here to do.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Aren't we all? Hopefully, we all.

• 2:25Rachel Feltman?

  I loved Ask Us Anything, you know, back when it was started a few years ago. And listeners, you might remember, I did a few episodes. I think we even dropped some episodes in the feed, which hopefully we'll do again sometime soon. But yeah, I'm really psyched that it's back up. And it's definitely another great spot to hear weird, interesting things if you're a weird, curious person, which of course, all of our listeners are. So I hope everybody will go reimmerse themselves and ask us anything.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Yes, please, please go listen. It's a fun, kind of shorter format than this, and it's a fun ride.

• 3:02Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, absolutely. So let's dive into this rabbit hole today. On The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week, we start by each offering up a tease about some kind of fact or story that we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then, once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was, except there's no winner anymore. Haven't been for a long time. We don't do that anymore. It's fine. Should I rewrite the whole intro? No, because at this point, it's a bit.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  The listeners can decide who their personal winner was and then not tell us.

• 3:41Rachel Feltman?

  Exactly. Leave it in the comments. Feel free to scream within your heart, inside your heart, about who the winner is. Emma, would you share your tease for your story this episode?

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, my tease is that eclipses affect radio communication. What? Eclipses affect radio communication? What's going on with that?

• 4:02Rachel Feltman?

  The moon. She crazy. Respect her. Sarah, what's your tease?

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Okay, so my tease is that during World War II, the US government enlisted the help of a dress-wearing squirrel. His name was Tommy Tucker, and he even did radio appearances with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

• 4:23Rachel Feltman?

  Wow. Tommy. I love it.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Tommy.

• 4:29Rachel Feltman?

  I know we've, like, now, we've done a couple of things about weird squirrels and presidents on this show.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Really?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Is there more than one?

• 4:38Rachel Feltman?

  Oh.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  I only know Tommy.

• 4:43Rachel Feltman?

  There was a, there was a, some, there was like a pet squirrel situation. I had a whole episode with Grant O'Brien and Willie Do from Dropout, where I ended up just doing a weird quiz for them about, I guess it was, the idea was that it was all like historical gossip, but I ended up having a lot of stuff about weird presidential pets. There were some squirrels there. So anyway, I'm like, maybe Tommy's briefly appeared on the show before, but I'm excited to hear more about him.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  He's definitely deserving of a full episode.

• 5:16Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, for sure. My tease is that I want to talk about why breastfeeding babies literally shoot their saliva back into your boobs.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Hey, that's crazy. That's just, just calling that out. What?

• 5:33Rachel Feltman?

  Emma, I was thinking about the video you did for Mother's Day about this horrifying mom facts when I was doing this one.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  I would say they were scary baby facts. I knew moms as superheroes, and babies as very terrifying.

• 5:51Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, no, that is, that is valid. So I'll jump in with this. This fact is the first one in a while that's come from my husband, Oliver. And he sent me this, and I was like, I already know this, obviously. You know me, when I found out I was having a child and was going to be trying to breastfeed them, I obviously read all the literature. But he keeps being like, this is such a good fact, you have to share it. And I'm like, you're not wrong. I just don't want like every episode to be about, oh, I have a new baby. But he's right. It's a really good fact. So thank you, Oliver. So I will say, I know lately I've had a bad habit of doing a fact and being like, besides this fact, here's everything interesting I learned about this subject today.

• 6:34Rachel Feltman?

  I am going to start with a little breakdown of human breast milk, because it really is a very weird thing, and it really is a superfood. But then, before I get into that, I need a brief aside, because I'm going to say that, yes, there's a lot of research on the incredible benefits of breast milk. And it's great to have as much of a baby's early food be breast milk as possible. However, health and wellness are extremely multifactorial. And for babies who are, you know, generally in good situations with caregivers who are doing their best, we're not talking about massive margins of difference in outcome. And then even when we're talking about that, we're talking about averages across a population. So yes, it's true that any amount of breastfeeding or donor breast milk you can manage for a kid is worth pursuing.

• 7:19Rachel Feltman?

  But if no amount of that is possible, because like no one in your family lactates, or your kid is allergic to human breast milk, which is extremely rare, but possible, much more common is that your kid's body decides you shouldn't be eating dairy for some reason, which is what happened to me. But again, this can happen. You may need to stop for the sake of your physical or mental health. That is really fine, and potentially even the best choice for the baby, not just, you know, for you. Breast milk is amazing, but it's hard to say what, you know, sort of magical incremental improvement in your child's life might have occurred if they got a few more months of antibodies and fats and whatnot from breast milk as opposed to formula. And it's a lot easier to say what is going wrong,

• 8:02Rachel Feltman?

  because you are a miserable, self-flagellating, sleep-deprived, bleeding-nippled zombie? So like, breast milk is a superfood, but so is kale. And I'm currently avoiding that due to the exploding poop parasite. So, you know, be kind to yourself. Formula is an incredible innovation, and if you're feeding your kid, you're doing great. So with all of that said, yeah, it's good. Now, keeping that front of mind, I am going to say, breast milk, incredible. 10 out of 10. In a world of very unintelligent designs that evolution has given us, like, oh, boy, great work here. Except for the whole me not being allowed to eat cheese for like an indefinite period of time, and no one can tell me when that's going to be over.

• 8:44Rachel Feltman?

  I do have complaints about that being a thing that can happen, but otherwise, it's really cool. So how does it work? Inside the breast, there are these lobes made up of alveoli, which sounds too much like ravioli, but it's a bunch of, they look like a bunch of grapes, and they're full of these specialized cells called lactocytes. And they're surrounded by blood capillaries. And everything that goes into breast milk diffuses from the blood right into the lactocytes, and then they secrete it out into those lobes that I talked about. And then there are the milk ducts, which are these really teeny-tiny pathways that the milk travels down. And when the nerves in the areola, which is the dark circle around the nipple,

• 9:26Rachel Feltman?

  get stimulated, then the 20 or so pores in the nipple secrete milk. It's a really cool system, and it's all triggered by this very complex hormone, you know, ebb and flow. The composition of milk actually changes in the hours and days and weeks after giving birth to continue being functionally a perfect food for the baby in question. Though caveat, you need to have enough vitamins and calories and water, so much water, more water than you ever thought you would need for your body to have the stuff it needs to make that. So feed yourself. Drink so much water. Other cool things about breast milk, your diet. It is a myth that like eating farty foods makes your baby fart.

• 10:13Rachel Feltman?

  Justice for girls who eat cabbage, okay? But diet does impact the taste of breast milk, and research suggests that it helps babies develop their palate, which is cool.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Did researchers have to taste a bunch of breast milk?

• 10:25Rachel Feltman?

  There was at least one study in the 70s where they did like have a tasting panel, you know, examine some breast milk. There is also a dropout.tv video where Jordan blind taste tests some breast milk and correctly identifies which of her friends produced each one, which, you know, very impressive.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  The human body is so incredible.

• 10:49Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, the human body is incredible. But yeah, no, it's giving this baby information about sort of the world they're coming up into, which is very cool. And, you know, speaking of sharing that information, breast milk also carries a lot of microbes and even antibodies for stuff that a baby has recently encountered. Research shows that immune factors in breast milk go up when a baby is sick, even if the person feeding them is not sick themselves. So the big question is, how does the boob know?

• 11:21Rachel Feltman?

  It keeps the hot stuff hot and the cold stuff cold. How does it know? Enter this thing called retrograde duct flow, AKA baby backwash. It's really funny. I've seen several articles about this and discussions about it on like Reddit and stuff where they're like, "Oh, my gosh, once you learn it, you can't unknow it. Yikes." And I'm like, it's really, sorry, in the world of like gross body stuff that happens when you get pregnant and give birth to a child and then like take care of that child and all of their inputs and outputs, like I don't, this doesn't freak me out too much. If it does, that's valid. If it freaks you out, that's okay, but it is happening.

• 12:04Rachel Feltman?

  We do know that this happens. So when an infant suckles, they're using their tongue to create a vacuum to just like hoover milk out of the ducts. But that suckling also creates negative pressure that like pulls some milk and saliva back into the nipple. We first saw this on ultrasound and then it was confirmed in MRI studies. And actually, side note, I will link on pops.com/Weird to a 2020 study with a really adorable image of a baby getting their hearing protection like swaddled onto their head before a real time MRI. Probably the coziest MRI in existence since they were nursing through it.

• 12:44Rachel Feltman?

  But they did have to protect those, those baby ears. And we know that this results in an exchange of microbes because that's how thrush happens. Thrush is one of the sort of like horrifying complaints that a breastfeeding person can have. And it happens because a baby has yeast overgrowth in their mouth and then that infects the breast. Thankfully, very treatable, but like a very unpleasant situation. And apparently, this was a thing back when, back in the day when syphilis was rampant in Europe. This was a big problem for wet nurses because like they nursed some rich lady's baby and the baby would have congenital syphilis. And then the, the wet nurse would get sick, which could send us down a whole sidebar

• 13:29Rachel Feltman?

  about the use of animal wet nurses for human babies, but I will show restraint for today. That's going to be a different episode.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 13:38Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 13:38Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  I've just, so many boxes have been unopened so far.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  I have so many questions. I've like not turned one to talk.

• 13:50Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, I mean, please, wow, jump in. Do you have questions? I am happy to try to answer them.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Sorry. So you can't eat cheese because of breast?

• 13:58Rachel Feltman?

  I was about to ask, like, why? Yeah. So there's a thing where a lot of babies have basically a reaction to cow milk proteins or soy or egg white are also ones that come up. So the, the breast milk doesn't like directly transfer your food to the baby, which is why eating farty foods doesn't make your baby farty. And in fact, there, there is like a protective mechanism where the way the milk is structured, it keeps certain proteins that the baby might react to from like actually coming into contact with their gut during the digestion process. But it's not perfect. And sometimes a baby will react to some of those

• 14:42Rachel Feltman?

  food proteins that are in the mom's milk that have made their way into the milk by way of the mom's blood from what the mom has been eating. And my kid, it's not a dire situation. It's not like a serious allergic reaction. That can happen, is, is way less common, but can happen and is, you know, a very serious issue. In my case, it just, you know, turns my kid into even more of a, a little upchuck machine than, than baseline. And it was unpleasant enough for him and for us that it was worth it for me to try eliminating dairy. And unfortunately, that does have an impact. So yeah, you know, at some point, we will reintroduce it, but for now,

• 15:24Rachel Feltman?

  that's just my, my cross to bear is that I am avoiding most dairy so that my, my kid will be less puky. Letting a, letting a man tell me what to eat. Never thought I'd see the day, but here we are.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Wow. I didn't even know that was a thing. And I'm hope you get to eat so much cheese when it's, when it's done. Hope you gorge on dairy when the time.

• 15:51Rachel Feltman?

  You know, and it was kind of good because as somebody with a chronic illness and a lot of sort of vague problems, eliminating dairy is one of those things that people periodically suggest is maybe it's going to fix your entire life. And I'm here to report it didn't. So.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  So I've got to feel good. Hey.

• 16:10Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Yeah. So would have, would have loved it if finally being forced to give up cheese had, had made my body just be right, but no. So looking forward to, to getting back into butter one day in the future. But yeah, no, there are, and like I said, it's very, very rare, but there are babies who just have an allergic reaction to breast milk itself. So, you know, they have to be on formula. I think there is some debate about, you know, how often things that are sort of diagnosed as and treated as the baby reacting to the breast milk are actually, you know, there's something that the breastfeeding parent is eating.

• 16:52Rachel Feltman?

  But elimination diets are hard and, you know, potentially triggering, triggering and potentially bad for your health in any circumstance. You know, least of all when you have to ingest a bunch of extra calories to be nursing. So it's just not always feasible. And sometimes switching to a formula that the baby, you know, tolerates well is just a, a good solution. In my case, we actually figured out that this was happening when we tried to start incorporating some formula because he was just such a hungry, hungry hippo. But unfortunately, the level of dairy in the formula then like made him so puky that we were like, uh-oh,

• 17:36Rachel Feltman?

  maybe we need to investigate this. And, you know, we, here we are, but.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Wow. What a journey.

• 17:44Rachel Feltman?

  It is. It's a journey.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  It's a journey. It's a journey. Okay. But okay. You're going to tell us more about a spit up into the boob.

• 17:54Rachel Feltman?

  Yes.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Which is spit up makes it sound like throat. I'm, we're talking about too many different kinds of bodily functions.

• 18:00Rachel Feltman?

  That's what happens when you have a baby. It's all just, all.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  It's all everywhere, all the time.

• 18:05Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. So there, there was this study on mice to sort of look into whether this baby backwash is what is giving the breastfeeding parent's body information about what antibodies to produce. Fortunately, mouse pups also backwash while nursing. So that, you know, facilitates these studies. And they basically exposed mice to a couple of different viruses and did a bunch of different configurations of like switching pups and moms around and other stuff to eliminate various means by which antibodies could be getting introduced into a mama mouse's body. And they were able to show that

• 18:44Rachel Feltman?

  the backwash saliva during nursing was the mechanism by which this was happening, that was leading to this uptick in the, the antibodies in the milk that was being produced. Now, there's also this pathway that scientists study where the breastfeeding parent's gut is creating, you know, all of the antibodies it tends to create and that it's reacting to fluids from the baby that don't necessarily come in during breastfeeding, that, you know, the babies produce a lot of fluids and you get exposed to them. Obviously, there's communication happening between the lactating person's body and the baby's body

• 19:24Rachel Feltman?

  in more ways than one, you know, probably both of these pathways are, are happening and are important. However, there is evidence that breast milk, straight from the breast, as opposed to pumped, has the most diverse microbiome. So that, you know, does kind of suggest that there's some, you know, important sort of cellular communication happening here. Now, to be clear, not only do I now pump because I have to work, gross, but we, I actually exclusively pumped for the first few weeks of my kid's life and then have always primarily pumped since then. I had an emergency C-section. It was a whole doozy. And then my kid got really spoiled in the NICU. And so he was like an adorable little idiot about latching for a long time, despite

• 20:10Rachel Feltman?

  grueling effort and a lot of outside intervention. So if you're listening to this and feeling bad about yourself because you pump, are you saying I should feel bad about myself? No, I don't think you want me to feel bad. So

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Hold on, hold on.

• 20:21Rachel Feltman?

  Be nice to yourself.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  We should all feel bad about ourselves. Okay. That's something that, that's really important. We know.

• 20:28Rachel Feltman?

  It's true. I have other things to feel bad about myself though.

• 20:32Rachel Feltman?

  But yeah, that's what we know right now about this sort of baby backwash thing. It's crazy. It's just sort of another example of how wild the human body is. And I'm, I think this was under research for a long time, and now there are researchers who are looking much more closely. And so I'm excited to see what more that will learn. But yeah, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot personally because we are currently on the daycare speedrun of childhood illnesses. And yeah, I will say, even as somebody who, you know, had to pump instead of physically breastfeeding, I have always tried to like,

• 21:16Rachel Feltman?

  get in as much as I can. And, you know, now even more so. And I'm sort of, I sort of treat it as like, you know, letting him get his notes into the kitchen. Like, like I, you know, I would like him to be able to request his, his menu for, for the day. And yeah, I think it's like, it's as much as I think it's so important to, that people understand that fed is best and that like, parents need to be healthy and well and like, well rested in order for kids to be good and all set, you know? I also think it's, it's great to sort of reframe these discussions of like, how amazingly

• 21:59Rachel Feltman?

  beneficial, you know, X, Y, or Z is, as being like, okay, so then what support can people get to incorporate some of that, you know, doesn't have to be all or nothing. I think a lot of things when we talk about parenting and especially giving birth to a child and, you know, being that caregiver role, I think there's a lot of like, all or nothing conversations and people get very dogmatic and, and very like, defensive. And maybe we should just all revel in how amazing it is that this baby backwash exists.

• 22:36Rachel Feltman?

  Think about what we can learn from the fact that this mechanism exists and like, how scientists can harness that to like, benefit babies that aren't on the boob all the time. You know, that's just what I think. I don't know. But yeah, that's my fact about the backwash. I've been so sick.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Wait, I have a question about the backwash.

• 22:56Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, please.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Not to like, immediately play, about, put a value judgment on anything, but I'm worried I missed something about it. Is the backwash like, considered good or bad? Or is the fact that it simply exists?

• 23:07Rachel Feltman?

  So it, it is almost certainly good.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 23:11Rachel Feltman?

  The mouse study was basically, you know, trying to show that this sort of uptick in antibodies we see that is definitely good. Cause that's like, when people talk about breast milk, having all these antibodies and it like, protecting a baby while their immune system is still on the come up, that we're like, how does the body know? We know where those antibodies come from. They come from the body making the milk. But like, you know, like I said, it can also be a, a transfer pathway for pathogens. But so can everything else. You're, you're cleaning this baby's poop. So yeah, I think I would say that it seems to be a net good.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  That's so cool. That reminds me of like, how the taste testers were able to correctly identify whose breast milk it was. It's like, I feel like there are so many senses that consciously you don't pick up on that you have. And I think it's so neat that like, your breast and the baby's mouth are like, having their own separate conversation, like, without either knowing about it.

• 24:08Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. No, I read this, when I was researching for this, I read this essay in The Stranger that I'll link to you in our, in our article for the episode on pops.com/ weird, where she said like, it's my, the, the milk is, is like, telling my baby a story about the world that the baby has come into and like, what it, what it needs to be in that world, you know? This is a world where we eat kimchi and that's good. And this is a world where people get the flu. And that's, that is what it is. And there was something, oh, there was another aspect in there that I'm just remembering now. I think there's research

• 24:46Rachel Feltman?

  showing that if you eat animal protein at any time in your life, and then become vegetarian, there's research that there are still like, particular amino acids or some other cellular aspect. But I will link to this essay, that will show up in, in your breast milk. So it's like, it's, there's, there's stuff from your deep past, deep in the lore, that your breast milk is communicating to the baby, which again, just so wild. And I'm like, I don't know, my lore is not all good. But, but we'll do what we can.

• 25:25Rachel Feltman?

  All right, we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back with some more facts.

• 25:38Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, we're back. And Emma, let's talk about eclipses. What's the moon up to? What does she do?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I found out, so I was doing some reporting on the 2024 eclipse. I was like, doing a newsletter for it. I was excited. And I go to NASA's website to look into like, oh, like, maybe there's some eclipse-related citizen science. And I saw that there was this project about ham radio and like, ham radio operators. And I was like, what are you, what? What, what do you mean by that? Like, what would ham radio operators have to do with?

• 26:10Rachel Feltman?

  Other than chit chat about the eclipse?

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, with like, the behaviors of the moon, like, that confused me. So I looked into it and I discovered that like, NASA, as well as like, other, you know, universities and organizations are looking into how eclipses affect radio because eclipses affect this layer of the atmosphere called the ionosphere irregularly. And the best way to figure out how is by testing how radio signals, maybe not the best way, but one way to figure out how is that to test how radio signals bounce off of the ionosphere. And so the kind of intro to this, which I also didn't know, which is crazy, is that nighttime affects radio signals.

• 26:57Rachel Feltman?

  Just the night.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Yes, the night.

• 27:00Rachel Feltman?

  I don't know why like, Batman came into my brain. I'm just like, Batman's around and the radio is weird.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Exactly. Well, okay. So turns out that AM radio, it operates on a specific frequency, a medium frequency, I think is what it is, where at night it travels much farther. And so it, it's a local radio situation during the day, but then at night, when the ionosphere is diminished, and we'll talk about what that means in a second, those radio waves can travel significantly farther. And so at night, if you're careful, you can tune in and listen to like, AM radio stations from across the country. Like, nighttime does have this special feeling where like, you're driving in a car and you turn on a radio station, you're like, why have I never heard this before? Like, where am I right

• 27:45Speaker 01

  now? That's real. That is because of physics. Um, yeah. And so they actually, AM radio stations, most of them have agreed to not broadcast at night. And only some of them can broadcast at night so that they don't like, jam each other's signals because there's so many signals coming from so many places at night. So the question-

• 28:03Rachel Feltman?

  What is the ionosphere?

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Yes. Um, the question is, what is the ionosphere?

• 28:08Rachel Feltman?

  Amazing. Look at that.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Is a layer of charged particles in our atmosphere. Well, they're charged during the day because the sun's radiation, it's like blasting radiation at the atmosphere and knocking electrons off of particles, causing these charged ions to be floating around in the atmosphere, which is what radio signals either bounce off of, depending on the type of frequency, or are absorbed by. So the, the lowermost layer of the ionosphere, it's called the D layer, absorbs a lot of radio waves getting hit at it. And so at night, some of, at night, the D layer is diminished because the sun is no longer broad,

• 28:55Speaker 01

  like, charging the, this layer by like, throwing radiation at it. And so it just sort of disappears and it's not very charged. And then the radio waves will not be absorbed, but rather bounced off of upper layers of the ionosphere and then travel farther. So now you must be wondering, well, if an eclipse shows up, like, wouldn't that cause radio to be more active and not less? Um, this is the thing that scientists are trying to understand because they did a study in 2017 from that total solar eclipse over the United States, trying to understand this. And they found that when the eclipse goes over, the D layer

• 29:39Speaker 01

  is kind of more dissipated. And radio waves at the frequency of seven megahertz were actually much more powerful during totality, while 14 megahertz at the totality of the eclipse were significantly less powerful. And normally they totally work at that time. So it's kind of not as simple as like, oh yeah, like, during eclipses, radio waves are more active, just like at night. Like, no, like, the ionosphere has like, multiple layers.

• 30:12Rachel Feltman?

  She's mysterious.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  So mysterious. I've used the, I've heard the word bumpy used by some scientists about this because it's not like you're, it's this like, smooth, consistent layer, like you're bumping something up against like, a glass dome. It, it has like, some texture to it that is especially accentuated during a solar eclipse.

• 30:32Rachel Feltman?

  Imagine like, the earth's like, cool scarf. The moon is none of our business. I don't mean that seriously, listeners. Obviously, I really want us to do science about the moon. But from like, you know, a girly perspective, none of our business.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  The moon is so spiritual and causes so much beautiful chaos. Yeah, so basically, this citizen science project is getting, like, there are these rare opportunities where a total eclipse will pass over the United States. And we get all the fun ham radio people from all over the country. And they try to receive signals and send signals out from all over the country. And then they collect all of that data and then put it in a paper and say like, okay, this is, these were the frequencies that were working. These were the frequencies that were kind of out at the time. Like, and then from there, you can say like, okay, I think this is kind of about the behavior, this is what's going on with the behavior of the ionosphere. Also, solar flares can affect the ionosphere. And so like, there's all of these different

• 31:32Speaker 01

  factors, space wise, that affect this thing. And I think the craziest part of it is that, like, we need radio. We're using it all the time. And I think it's crazy that this piece of infrastructure that's used for like, both entertainment, but also like, signaling to like, prevent ships from crashing into like, shore and stuff, is sorta kind of dependent on like, what the sun is up to that day. Like, I, I think that that's shocking to me.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. And in ways that we like, sorry. No, no, I'm just thinking about Sweden, like, you know, where like, in winter, it's night all the time. Like, yeah, do they not, like, like, what happens then? Like, all the AM radio channels, it's like, in the summer, they have like, 60, and in winter, they have like, two? Because they can't compete?

• 32:26Speaker 01

  That's a really good question. Maybe they have fewer, or they have like, a stronger coordination. This is what the International Telecommunications Union does. I'm so obsessed with them. Like, I, I continue to be so shocked at how like, systems that I really thought we could put on autopilot are like, not on autopilot at all. Like, a little sneak peek to like, a story I've been working on for months for SIAM, but like, we low key don't know what time it is. What? Time is the average of like, hundreds of clocks across the earth that all like, work together to stay coordinated. But like, all machines, like, clocks will slowly,

• 33:11Speaker 01

  like, kind of break down or become less accurate over time, just like your clock at home, even like, the fancy laser clocks do this. And so like, we have to be so vigilant and like, on these clocks, about like, whether or not they're coordinated, what do the, like, what does the ITU think about this? Like, what does the, it's like, the, it's called the BIPM, but they're basically the people that are like, the time lords internationally. Like, they're the ones who tell us what time it was. And that helps us coordinate our clocks for later. Sorry, I'm just talking about time now. But this reminds me of that.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Wow. I just, I don't, do you guys watch the Low Key TV show? Because it's literally about like, the timekeepers and stuff. And now I'm just thinking, that's the real people.

• 33:56Rachel Feltman?

  Low Key? Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's all real.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  We also have the radio people who are like, hey, like, let's see what's going on with radio today. And then from there, figure out what's going on in the atmosphere. And geographically, as you were just saying, Sarah, like, this matters so much. Like, where you are, when there's a solar storm, where you are when there's an eclipse, where you are, like, latitude wise, will be affecting it. Like, it's, it's crazy that we're like, harnessing such a chaotic system for our communication.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. What does the ionosphere do? Like, what does it, what purpose does it serve? Do we know?

• 34:36Speaker 01

  You know, I don't want to speak on that because I haven't looked it up. So I'm not going to make something up. But

• 34:41Speaker 02

  I've just decided you're the expert on all things, atmosphere, radio.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  It's a part of the atmosphere. Hey.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Great, love it, love it.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  I feel like this way, like, being a science journalist who is very, a very curious person, but there is a limit to my understanding of like, like, there's just pieces of physics that I'll just never really be able to write about. Because I'm just like, what? I don't under, what does it mean?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love asking physicists questions that are just like, so, before you get into the details, like, what is, like, if I were, if somebody from the street asked you what it was?

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Imagine I'm a five-year-old.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  I read the paper. Just summarize it for me if you could.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  If you were in front of a high school classroom, how would you go about talking?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  It's also wild, because some scientists really can't turn off science speak. Some are really good at it. But some, I'm just like, I'll have asked those questions, and I'm still like, whoa, we are so far gone from what a five-year-old could understand.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  I, I live for that because I feel like, I, I really love seeing an interview subject who's like, a button-up scientist, like, like, when it reaches them, that like, I truly don't know. Like, I, I feel like I see them, like, their gears change. And I, it's fun, because I think it makes them reconsider, like, like broadly, like, what it is they're doing, and what the mission is. And it's, it's kind of fun to talk about that.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. I've, I've seen that moment too, where you're like, just clearly still lost, asking more questions that are just the same question. And they're just sort of like, oh, she doesn't know.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you Google this, like, you are going to find like, a lot of numbers, a lot of different types of radio waves, a lot of like, megahertz, like, what's the difference between ham radio and FM radio and AM radio and all this? Like, there's a lot, a lot of jargon in here that blessedly, Nathaniel Frizzell, who is a scientist studying this, helped me through. He has this PowerPoint that's like, specifically for journalists who ask.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  And he was like, so here's the picture. Like, and he was describing it. You got it? And I was like, thank you, Kate. Like, very nice.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Wow, bless him. What a name, too.

• 37:10Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, yeah, that's a really good name.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  I hope I pronounce it correctly. If you're listening, Nathaniel, I'm sorry.

• 37:16Rachel Feltman?

  All right, we're going to take one more quick break, and then we'll be back with one more fact.

• 37:30Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, we're back. And Sarah, let's, let's talk about a very special little squirrel.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, please, Tommy. I'm obsessed with him so much. It's not healthy. But yeah, okay, so we were doing this Ask Us Anything episode about squirrels, specifically about how they're somehow able to find thousands, yes, thousands of nuts they've buried months later. I would be so bad as a squirrel. Can't find my keys most of the time. But anyways, so yeah, it turns out squirrels are like, way smarter than we give them credit for. They use memory, smell, they use visual landmarks, they'll even like, steal each other's food. Scientists like to call it pilfering. So if you want the full story on squirrels stealing nuts from other squirrels, and their little nut-horning strategies, definitely go listen

• 38:19Speaker 02

  to the Ask Us Anything episode, all about it. But while I was researching for that episode, I accidentally stumbled across what I think is perhaps the greatest squirrel story maybe ever told? I don't know. There's apparently a lot of animals that have come on the show. So here's, here's my entry for the category. May I introduce a real American hero, the eastern gray squirrel, Tommy Tucker. So, Tommy's story begins just a few months after the US entered World War II in 1941. A little girl found him as a baby after he had fallen out of a hickory tree on her walk to school. And so she takes him home and feeds him warm

• 39:00Speaker 02

  milk. And she even made him a little bed inside of this red wool hat. Because what else do you do with a squirrel, I guess? And eventually, her family moves away. So she gives Tommy to her neighbor, Zadie Bullis. And Zadie apparently looked at the squirrel and was like, I'm gonna make you a star, kid. So she starts making Tommy tiny little outfits. And not just one, like, Tommy has hundreds of handmade costumes. There was a coat and hat for going to the market. He had fancy dresses for company, a red cross nurse uniform for visiting hospitals, little tiny hats, pearls, the whole thing. And one of my favorite

• 39:44Speaker 02

  details is that Life magazine actually addressed Tommy's fashion choices in a 1944 profile. They did a whole profile, all about Tommy. In the story, they wrote, though Tommy is a male squirrel, he has to wear feminine clothes because his tail interferes with his wearing of pants. Which I just, you know, boys can absolutely wear dresses. But just love that they had to explain to their readers, like, before anyone writes us a letter, here, here's the deal. So yes, he wore dresses, even though he was a man. So anyway,

• 40:20Speaker 01

  They had to address the gender warriors in 1947. They had to address people on the front lines of the gender wars.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  It was early days, you know?

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, but Tommy, so Tommy like, quickly becomes a sort of local celebrity. He's a celebrity around Washington. Everyone knows of this squirrel, because Zadie would take him everywhere. She would carry him on her arm while running errands. He'd visit grocery stores, bakeries, florists, hospitals, schools. He, he did it all. He was a very man-about-town squirrel. He even

• 40:55Rachel Feltman?

  Emotional support squirrel.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, he was, he was her emotional support squirrel. Yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  I had a friend in acting school who had an emotional support bearded dragon. And I wish I was making that up. But that is

• 41:07Rachel Feltman?

  I believe it 100%.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:09Rachel Feltman?

  Was it Chris Fleming? Did you go to

• 41:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  It was another fabulous friend, but that is very Chris Fleming behavior. You're right.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Who is, who is Chris?

• 41:21Rachel Feltman?

  Just a comedian who does, makes a lot of jokes about.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Google Chris Fleming immediately after we record this.

• 41:28Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, really? Not just a comedian, like really important to me, but.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  A genius, a genius our age in terms of comedy.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  Does he have a bearded dragon?

• 41:39Rachel Feltman?

  I don't know that he actually owns any lizards, but he, he jokes a lot about how his comedy is very popular with women who own lizards.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  He was trying to describe like what his vibe was. He was like, yeah, like my comedy is popular among women who own lizards.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  And when he had.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  I feel like Zady and him would definitely, I mean, like squirrel is different to lizard, but I feel like energetically there is some synergy there.

• 42:05Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Oh, for sure. And when Chris Fleming had a fantastic cameo on the wonderful show, Widows Bay, which is one of my favorite shows in recent memory, there was a lizard present.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Cool, cool, cool. They, did they do that before he gave this interview or after?

• 42:24Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, after.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Like, was it a reaction?

• 42:26Rachel Feltman?

  I sincerely hope that it was a reference to his demographic, but.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Amazing. That's, that's crucial. Yeah. Okay. But we'll definitely Google Chris. Thank you for the rec. Back in 1944 though. So yeah. So Tommy even wrote, I'm using like air quotes here because he was, you know, a squirrel, his own autobiography. It was called The True Story of Tommy Tucker, which was supposedly dictated to Zady, which is amazing. But anyways, so pretty soon Tommy is, you know, this bona fide celebrity with around 30,000 members

• 43:11Speaker 02

  in his official fan club that would get like mailed newsletters. So Emma, if you were back in the forties, maybe, maybe this could be your gig.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  That would have been what I was doing for sure.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  I would have really loved to join you. Just like be around. Yeah. Um, yeah, but Tommy basically decides he's gonna do his part for the war effort, you know, being the good American squirrel that he is. And the US Treasury Department actually builds him a tiny custom booth where Tommy, dressed in red, white and blue satin, promotes the sale of war bonds. He travels around the country by train. He appears on national radio broadcasts alongside President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He poses for Life Magazine in all of his many outfits. These photos exist. They're in, we did a story

• 44:08Speaker 02

  about Tommy Tucker on Popular Science. So definitely you need to see the photos. It's, he's in a pink dress. It's, it's incredible. Treasury officials are writing Tommy fan mail, telling him he's become a very famous squirrel indeed. That's a direct quote, um, which is just such a wonderfully bizarre sentence that someone genuinely typed in a government office. That's, love it. Incredible. So Tommy's archives also include letters from little kids and even soldiers that fought overseas during World War II. One Army Air Force Sergeant wrote that his bomber crew carried Tommy's photograph with them on missions. He wrote, "When we look at your picture, it gives us so much more confidence

• 44:53Speaker 02

  so we can do the job we have to do," which is like, okay. It's like, it's like very sweet. I just love the idea that these men were like, you know, flying in these little cold planes and had a photo of Tommy Tucker, the squirrel, in a pink dress on their dashboard.

• 45:15Rachel Feltman?

  Now I'm wondering if he did any like pinup.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  I'm just blown away. Like, like, American soldiers in World War II were like, I love this gender bending squirrel. I love him. Like, that's so awesome.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  I know. It's so great. They're just like, oh, it just like warms my heart because it's like such a ridiculous story, but this part of it actually like makes me really like, so it's just so sweet. It's like, these young guys who just wanted to look at this cute photo of a squirrel while they're like dropping bombs. It's crazy. It's such a crazy thing. Okay. Okay. So yes, like it's ridiculous squirrel wearing tiny dresses, but people living through World War II, like Tommy became this reminder of home and, you know, just like, he made everyone smile because like, how could he not?

• 46:07Rachel Feltman?

  They didn't have the internet for memes. They needed, they needed to get them mailed.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Mailed and printed in Life Magazine. The memes though, if like Tommy was around today would be incredible. Like, I feel like, yeah. And we do think like, I don't know, when we were researching this story a bit, there is like, you know, like, in general, don't adopt a wild squirrel, like bad idea. Like, let's just say that for everyone. But it seemed like Tommy had, you know, because he, of the circumstances of he was abandoned by his family, basically, his options, he was probably gonna perish if left. So instead he, he had this kind of wonderfully weird life as a public figure. So after the war,

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Tommy retired from public life and traveled around the country with the bullises until he died during a sightseeing trip to the Grand Canyon in 1949.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Did he die because something happened to him?

• 47:11Speaker 02

  No, no. He just like natural causes.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, he's okay. Like, I mean, he wasn't okay.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  In the past 10 minutes, like when you said that he died, like my heart actually dropped. I was like, oh my God, what happened to him?

• 47:27Speaker 02

  But he got America through World War II, which was his purpose, you know?

• 47:32Speaker 02

  But yeah, so the bullises actually had him taxidermied with his little arms stretched out in front of him so he could still continue to change his outfits because she made so many.

• 47:44Rachel Feltman?

  I don't know how I feel about that.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it gets weird. It gets weird. Um, and his wardrobe, letters and all the press clippings and Tommy, the taxidermied squirrel are all living today in the Smithsonian archives. And today he's typically wearing his tiny pink satin dress and a little pearl necklace. If you look at the story on PopSci, it's the, it's the main lead image of him. That's, that's his kind of, his, his look. But yeah, that's, that's kind of, that's Tommy. And shout out to Amy Crawford, who is the journalist who wrote up the, the story on our site about

• 48:26Speaker 02

  this that I edited. It's, it was incredible. I'm, I love him. This was like months ago. This was, oh my God, it was in December that we published it. So I still, I still think about Tommy.

• 48:43Rachel Feltman?

  Wow. That's wholesome. We used to, we used to have wholesome things that we shared as a nation, you know?

• 48:53Speaker 01

  I started this story being like, okay, like whatever, a cute squirrel, who cares? Like now I'm really in, like I'm 10 toes down on Tommy at the moment. So thank you, Sarah.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm so glad. I'm, I'd love to introduce him to you guys. There's a photo of him like at, at the hospital because he would like, Zady would bring him to the hospital to like visit sick children and he would like make sick children like happy because he was a squirrel in a dress, all dressed up.

• 49:21Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. That's just nice. It's nice.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  It's just nice.

• 49:26Rachel Feltman?

  To have a friendly squirrel in a dress.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Don't we all just want nice things, guys?

• 49:31Speaker 01

  I feel like esoteric experiences are so important when you're going through something hard.

• 49:37Rachel Feltman?

  Like the real experience of a squirrel entering your hospital room.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, I'm thinking like some of those people are probably still alive. Like, like there are grandpas and great grandpas right now being like, "When I was young and I was sick in the hospital, I had a squirrel come visit me. He was a real star," you know?

• 49:59Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Apologies for doing like a weird mid Atlantic accent for grandpa.

• 50:07Rachel Feltman?

  Never apologize for doing a weird mid Atlantic accent on this show.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  Great.

• 50:11Rachel Feltman?

  Um, wow. Wonderful story. Both incredible segments. Thank you both so much for coming on. This was so much fun.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  Yes. Thank you. This was so fun.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, Rachel.

• 50:24Rachel Feltman?

  And listeners, don't forget to check out Ask Us Anything and of course my show at Scientific American, Science Quickly and.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Don't forget to sign up for Scientific American's newsletter.

• 50:36Rachel Feltman?

  Yay. Woohoo.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Feltman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for listening, weirdos.

• 51:10Speaker 04

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