SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: What's the deal with blue people?

The famous blue people of Kentucky are no longer blue. But why were they like that in the first place? See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:34Josh Clark?

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• 2:42Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody, winding it down with a couple of more here from me at least with the Stuff You Should Know Gets Weird playlist. Have you ever seen the blue people? There's a thing where, I'm not going to spoil it, but let's just say, there's a thing that happens where people's skin can turn blue. And this is the episode called, "What's the Deal with Blue People?" And no, not David Cross and Arrested Development or the Blue Man Group.

• 3:09Speaker 05

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 3:18Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W., Chuck Bryan over there. And Jerry was just here. She said, "Peace out, suckers." And this is Stuff You Should Know, of course. It was nice of her to log on to say goodbye.

• 3:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:36Josh Clark?

  Now, we're just kidding, Jerry. She's been busy lately.

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:39Josh Clark?

  That happens.

• 3:40Josh Clark?

  It totally happens in this busy-go-go world of 2021, almost 2022, the double deuce.

• 3:47Josh Clark?

  This year has just flown by.

• 3:50Josh Clark?

  It really has. I think mercifully, because this is going to be part of the lost years when we look back, you know?

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it felt like 2020 took 18 years.

• 4:02Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 4:02Josh Clark?

  And somehow 2021 has just been in a snap.

• 4:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Josh Clark?

  I don't know what's going on.

• 4:08Josh Clark?

  I don't think anyone does anymore, Chuck, so don't feel bad.

• 4:12Josh Clark?

  Can we shout out to the people and sources that helped us along for this one?

• 4:18Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:21Josh Clark?

  Well, our buddy Dave Ruse wrote an article for How Stuff Works.

• 4:25Josh Clark?

  Ta-da!

• 4:27Josh Clark?

  And I found a great article from Wired. I forgot how much I love Wired. That's from Mallory Pickett. And BBC News, ABC News, NPR Morning Edition, which is always a fun listen, National Library of Medicine here in the US. And then, as always, I feel like it makes appearance in every episode, jamaicahospital.org.

• 4:45Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 4:47Josh Clark?

  Surprisingly helpful.

• 4:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Josh Clark?

  Maybe not surprisingly.

• 4:51Josh Clark?

  I wonder, is it Jamaica, Queens, or Jamaica, Jamaica?

• 4:55Josh Clark?

  Oh, you know what? I was thinking Jamaica, Jamaica. It may be Jamaica, Queens.

• 4:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Should I Jamaica scene? Jamaica, Queens?

• 5:02Josh Clark?

  My neighbor, across the street neighbor, is from Jamaica, the country. And I feel like a heel now, because I was like, "Hey, that hospital website's great, Pat."

• 5:13Josh Clark?

  She's like, "What are you talking about?"

• 5:14Josh Clark?

  She's like, "Okay, great. Glad you like some random hospital website."

• 5:21Josh Clark?

  Oh, boy. So, we're talking today, you went and found some medical stuff. That's why you went to look at jamaicahospital.org, I'm guessing, because we're talking about a really interesting condition, and actually, a few kinds of conditions that have something unusual in common, and that is that the people who suffer from these conditions have blue skin. Blue skin. You heard it here first, everybody, even though this really first started hitting the presses in 2008.

• 5:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, you didn't hear it here first. I mean, this is all over the internet, but we're talking about not the Blue Man Group, but the Blue People Group of Kentucky. It's a family that is, I guess it's pronounced Fugate? It's not Fugate?

• 6:08Josh Clark?

  No, that's Italian. He was from France.

• 6:11Josh Clark?

  Well, that's a spoiler.

• 6:13Josh Clark?

  Oh, is it? I'm sorry. I take it back, everyone.

• 6:17Josh Clark?

  You know, it's not a spoiler, but for some reason, when I saw that, the original Martin Fugate was from France, from, I'm not sure what part of France, but I was like, huh, that's surprising. It was like, I don't know why it would be.

• 6:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he could have come from anywhere in the world, and he would have been like a completely overlookable person, I think totally lost to history, had it not been for the rare genetic mutation that he happened to carry with him. And even that wouldn't have gotten him into the history books, Chuck. Even that wouldn't have. Instead, it took Martin Fugate to happen upon, against all odds, to have found a wife who he was not related to, who was a total stranger, from a totally different country, who also happened to have that same rare genetic mutation. And when the two get together, kapow, blue kids start popping out.

• 7:15Josh Clark?

  That's right. He came over from France to Kentucky, to the Blue Hills of Kentucky, ironically.

• 7:20Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow, I hadn't thought about that.

• 7:22Josh Clark?

  In 1820. And like I said, he was from France, and he was an orphan, so he didn't know a lot about his family as far as whether or not any of them were blue, I guess.

• 7:33Josh Clark?

  No, or if so, he wasn't piping up about it.

• 7:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, maybe he just kept it quiet. But he did marry a redheaded American named Elizabeth Smith, and they headed on over to Troublesome Creek, near Hazard County in Kentucky, and set up a homestead there. And it is a, I mean, one of the doctors from one of these articles said, you know, it's maybe 1 in 100,000 chance that you even have this genetic mutation. And he said, "But, you know, once you start," I guess there's no other way to say it, "once you start inbreeding," which can happen in the 1800s in the ruralness of Kentucky." He said, "That can go down all the way to like 1 in 8 chance." And that's exactly what happened.

• 8:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was surprised it was even 1 in 8, but there's some little fluke of genetics that you have to, when you're talking about probability in genetics, it's a little more difficult than, you know, half and half.

• 8:32Josh Clark?

  It's not straight math.

• 8:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So, apparently, Martin himself possibly had like a little bit of blue to him. His wife Elizabeth had no blue to her. She apparently had very, very pale skin and bright red hair. But when the two got together, and those two genetic mutations donated their mutations to that specific gene, the kids that they had were like irresistibly blue. Like, there was no confusing. It's not like, yeah, Martin's kind of blue. Have you ever noticed? Maybe he needs to breathe more deeply. This was like straight-up blue kids.

• 9:12Josh Clark?

  I've even seen him described as dark blue, not even a bluish hue or tint or tinge, dark blue-skinned children.

• 9:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, four of seven were blue.

• 9:24Josh Clark?

  And it's funny, you said that she was not, the mother was not blue-tinted. But I imagine like before they knew about genetics and inbreeding, if he would, if she would have been a little blue, that might have been a reason to get together. You know what I mean?

• 9:40Josh Clark?

  No, I don't. Explain.

• 9:42Josh Clark?

  Well, blue man happens to meet blue woman and they're like, geez, there's another one like me. And, you know, we've been sort of, you know, sort of embarrassing and maybe we're cast out a little bit. So let's hitch our wagons together because there's probably nothing wrong with us having kids, right? Because medical science hadn't known that at that point.

• 10:03Josh Clark?

  It's a story as old as time, Chuck.

• 10:05Josh Clark?

  But it was, uh, it was just complete happenstance, though.

• 10:10Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah. So, um, and I wonder also, like, it was significant to me that they pointed out that his wife, Elizabeth Smith Fugate's skin was almost translucent. It was so pale. Because I wonder if she donated that to her children, um, which allowed the blue to really shine through even more.

• 10:29Josh Clark?

  Oh, maybe.

• 10:30Josh Clark?

  It's possible.

• 10:31Josh Clark?

  Like the ultimate recipe for blueness?

• 10:32Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Um, and they actually became known as this blue family and they were not particularly proud of their blue skin. Uh, I think they were a little freaked out about it. I think that their neighbors may not have particularly treated them well. And so they already lived in like a pretty isolated part of Appalachia. But they took pains to actually isolate themselves even further. And one of the, one of the consequences of that was something you touched upon that, that meant that, um, their son married their aunt. And cousins married cousins, even if they were way too close to be marrying. And so one of the, one of the products of these, this inner marriage was an entire

• 11:14Josh Clark?

  small regional population of blue families or families who have blue children or blue family members. Because these neighbor families were still blood relatives of the Fugates who initially settled this area and just started reproducing through inbreeding.

• 11:32Josh Clark?

  That's right. Uh, and the condition that they had is not a skin condition at all. It's actually a blood disorder, like you mentioned. And it's called medema globinemia. Is that pretty good?

• 11:43Josh Clark?

  Wow. You're, so it's not meth?

• 11:47Josh Clark?

  No.

• 11:47Josh Clark?

  Okay. Oh, I'm glad you said it first then.

• 11:50Josh Clark?

  I actually took great pains today to look up, between this and the other episode we're recording.

• 11:55Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:56Josh Clark?

  Pronunciations.

• 11:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Josh Clark?

  And when you look at medema globinemia, that is 17 letters of, of, it's a mouthful of letters.

• 12:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, pure hell.

• 12:06Josh Clark?

  It's really one of those that I looked at over and over and just could not get it right in my head until I, you know, went and looked it up on the internet. And I was like, no, it's not so hard.

• 12:14Josh Clark?

  All right, let me try, let me try. Medema globinemia.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  I think it's more of a T than a D.

• 12:21Josh Clark?

  Uh, okay. What about a B? Do you want me to try that one?

• 12:28Josh Clark?

  This is like the worst acting audition ever.

• 12:34Josh Clark?

  What's my motivation here?

• 12:36Josh Clark?

  Uh, to get through this episode.

• 12:38Josh Clark?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 12:39Josh Clark?

  Uh, so we're going to touch a little bit on melanin throughout this episode. But you remember melanin from our, uh, I think, pretty good episode on sunscreen and suntans, right? Uh, and this is, uh, you know, special cells in the body, uh, in the skin make melanin. And they are, melanin is responsible for coloring your skin. And there are all kinds of different, uh, melanin disorders, whether you have too much or too little. Uh, whether you can, you know, it will make your skin lighter or darker. Or whether or not it happens in patches. Uh, I had a friend in Los Angeles with vitiligo.

• 13:16Josh Clark?

  I have a friend too.

• 13:17Josh Clark?

  Oh, you do? Which, you know, leads to, uh, patches of light skin on the body. Isn't that what Michael Jackson claimed to have had too?

• 13:26Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 13:28Josh Clark?

  Was that verified?

• 13:29Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 13:30Josh Clark?

  I don't know either.

• 13:31Josh Clark?

  I really don't know.

• 13:32Josh Clark?

  Cause I just remember there was a big stink when that came out and everyone was like, yeah, right.

• 13:35Josh Clark?

  The, well, the, the reason why it was like, really, it's, you got vitiligo? Because it's usually, um, patches, like the melanocytes, the melanin producing cells just kind of poop out or crap out in an area. And it, it leaves like patches without pigment, not your entire face, um, without pigment, but who knows?

• 13:55Josh Clark?

  Well, I think his, I think what he said was that he bleached his skin to match the light patches was his reasoning.

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  Oh, well, that's fairly reasonable, you know, if you're self-conscious about vitiligo and you have a ton of money, you could do something like that.

• 14:11Josh Clark?

  Who knows?

• 14:12Josh Clark?

  Who knows?

• 14:13Josh Clark?

  Should we talk about skin color or should we take an awkward Michael Jackson break?

• 14:17Josh Clark?

  Uh, I think we just did, but the, the point is this that I think you're making Chuck is that changes in like your skin color typically have to do with a lack of or an overproduction of melanin, right? And that what we're talking about, uh, metemoglobinemia, right?

• 14:35Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 14:36Josh Clark?

  Is actually a blood disorder. It's, has nothing to do with the skin. It just shines through that super translucent skin that we have.

• 14:45Josh Clark?

  Right. So what's going on here in the body?

• 14:47Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. Okay. So, you know.

• 14:50Josh Clark?

  Are you surprised I'm asking you?

• 14:52Josh Clark?

  I, I'm a little surprised. I thought we maybe tag teamed this one, but okay, okay. So, uh, you have like a, a pinkish hue typically, um, being, being Caucasian. Because you're, you, there's not a ton of melanin that's blocking the blood supply underneath in your tissues. It's kind of shining through and your blood is red. And the reason it's red, Chuck, is because.

• 15:20Josh Clark?

  But the reason why blood is red? Well, remember in school, they teach you that your blood is blue until you get cut and then it hits the air.

• 15:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's not true.

• 15:29Josh Clark?

  And then it turns red. That's what you hear on the playground in elementary school.

• 15:32Josh Clark?

  From dumb kids.

• 15:33Josh Clark?

  But that is not true. And I bet you anything kids are still spreading that mistruth on the playground.

• 15:38Josh Clark?

  Yep. Yeah. It's got some staying power for sure, as far as, as far as rumors go.

• 15:43Josh Clark?

  And you know what? My dad will sue your dad for all the money he's got.

• 15:49Josh Clark?

  Did you guys threaten lawsuits?

• 15:50Josh Clark?

  Sure. We were very litigious.

• 15:53Josh Clark?

  Kids did though. It was very funny.

• 15:55Josh Clark?

  We were like, uh, we were like little Puritans in, in Salem town.

• 15:59Josh Clark?

  That's right. Uh, so blood is red. That was a question, right?

• 16:03Josh Clark?

  Uh, yeah, yeah. Why is blood red?

• 16:05Josh Clark?

  Right. Because, uh, I don't know, we've talked about this before, but it's because our red blood cells have hemoglobin. It's a protein. And it gets its red color from something called heme. It's a, a compound that has an iron atom in there and that iron atom is the key. That's what binds with oxygen. And allows red blood cells to get oxygen all over the body. And that's sort of what makes us tick.

• 16:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it definitely is. I mean, that oxygen is super important, so we want to have super red rich, uh, hemoglobin blood, right? Our bodies also produce something else called, uh, metemoglobins. I guess is how you would pronounce it. That is not how I've been pronouncing it in my head. But these metemoglobins are basically the same thing as hemoglobins, but they have a different kind of iron attached to them. The iron they have is like, there's really no other way to put it. Well, actually, there's plenty of other ways to put it, but one way you could put it is that it's rusted. It's oxidized iron, which means that it's missing an electron that it would need to bind to oxygen, which means it's useless for transporting oxygen through the blood.

• 17:14Josh Clark?

  So if you have a bunch of metemoglobin built up in your blood, your blood can reasonably turn blue. You also may have some problems breathing, um, because you don't have any oxygen in your blood. Although that's not true. I'm sorry. You would be able to breathe, breathe perfectly fine, but it wouldn't clear up necessarily the lack of oxygen in your blood because it's on a, a blood level, um, rather than something to do with your lungs.

• 17:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was my one question because doctor after doctor has confirmed that metemoglobinemia doesn't present any health issues.

• 17:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 17:47Josh Clark?

  But how can that be possible that your blood has, is having trouble carrying oxygen through your body and it doesn't matter?

• 17:54Josh Clark?

  I had a really hard time with that too. And the best I could come up with as far as a, an answer, which is not definitive. But the best I could come up with is that there is a, there's a threshold where your blood will turn blue, where you have enough metemoglobins in there that it's blue. But not so, there's not so many metemoglobins that you're actually having trouble with your oxygen in your body. So it can turn blue long before you actually like suffer from the effects of low oxygen. Um, does that make sense?

• 18:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I guess that makes sense. And isn't the threshold to turn your skin blue like a really low percentage even?

• 18:33Josh Clark?

  Hmm, like 1% of metemoglobins. If your blood is 1% metemoglobins, you can start to turn blue, right? So it doesn't take very much, which means that you have 99% of, of the global, the globins in your blood are, are, um, hemoglobin, which means you're still able to, to get all the oxygen you need. You just have maybe a little less than somebody else. That's my best guess from what I saw. And I, I think at this point in our understanding of metemoglobinemia, uh, it's as good as anybody's.

• 19:04Josh Clark?

  Well, that sounds like a perfect place for a break.

• 19:05Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 19:06Josh Clark?

  And, uh, we'll be right back to talk a little bit more about this and other interesting blood conditions, right after this.

• 19:25Josh Clark?

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• 19:48Josh Clark?

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• 20:04Josh Clark?

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• 20:28Josh Clark?

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• 20:31Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 20:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do or buy or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly, it's usually a new rug.

• 20:42Josh Clark?

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• 20:49Josh Clark?

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• 21:00Josh Clark?

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• 21:26Josh Clark?

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• 21:33Josh Clark?

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• 21:47Josh Clark?

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• 21:52Josh Clark?

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• 22:14Josh Clark?

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• 22:41Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, we were talking about metemoglobinemia. And the reason, like, I think one of us said earlier, that the body naturally produces these things, these metemoglobins. But we also produce an enzyme that can convert excess metemoglobins into hemoglobin. And it's got a doozy of a name, which I just love. May I take this one?

• 23:05Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 23:06Josh Clark?

  This enzyme is called Reduced Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Cytochrome B5 Reductase. One of the great all-time names.

• 23:15Josh Clark?

  What's its nickname? Sparky?

• 23:17Josh Clark?

  It has no nickname. You have to say the entire thing every time.

• 23:21Josh Clark?

  And so this enzyme, Reduced Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Cytochrome B5 Reductase, is actually capable of converting the iron from its feric state in metemoglobins into its ferrous state, which is capable of binding with oxygen, like the kind that's found in hemoglobin. So for all intents and purposes, Reduced Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Cytochrome B5 Reductase is capable of converting metemoglobins into hemoglobin. And most of us are able to do that. But if you're like a fugate and you have that rare genetic condition where both parents donated that mutation to you, and you develop metemoglobinemia, but there's some reduced

• 24:06Josh Clark?

  amount of Reduced Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Cytochrome B5 Reductase, which means that that metemoglobins that you naturally produce are able to build up and accumulate in your blood. And when they do that, and they, that's how you start to turn blue. That's how you cross that 1% threshold.

• 24:25Josh Clark?

  That's right. And this is one of the rare times where you can actually have a genetic condition that's pretty easily solved. And in this case, it's just a pill. And the guy who figured this out has sort of an interesting story in his own right. His name is Madison Coween or Cowine? Coween?

• 24:44Josh Clark?

  I'm going with Cowine.

• 24:46Josh Clark?

  Cowine?

• 24:47Josh Clark?

  Coween. Coween. I'm going with Coween.

• 24:51Josh Clark?

  C A W E I N. Coween.

• 24:54Josh Clark?

  Although I like cow wine. That doesn't sound like it'd be tasty, but I'll bet it gives you a pretty good buzz.

• 25:01Josh Clark?

  He was the, or he was the grandson of a pretty famous at the time poet out of Kentucky. And Madison was the third of, of the Maddisons. And this is just a side note, very sad and interesting. His wife was poisoned and murdered by poison.

• 25:20Josh Clark?

  Oh, no.

• 25:21Josh Clark?

  In the 1960s, and no one was ever caught and charged with a crime. And it kind of remains one of Kentucky's, you know, sort of biggest cold cases.

• 25:29Josh Clark?

  Wow, I did not see that one coming.

• 25:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he and his wife and this other couple were out drinking all night, supposedly, like just got sloshed. And at a, at a, at a country club. He, Madison, didn't even make it home. I think he stayed the night there. But the other man, the, the man from the other couple drove his wife home, apparently just dropped, they had another nightcap and she woke up dead. Well, didn't wake up dead. She died. And they thought it was just, you know, alcohol or some natural cause. But then they found these two like little needle pricks in her.

• 26:04Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 26:05Josh Clark?

  Where they think she was, I guess, given a shot to pass out and then poisoned. And I can't remember the poison. It was some sort of like acid or something.

• 26:15Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 26:15Josh Clark?

  But yeah, really, really interesting. Neither here nor there as far as this goes. But that's the sad story of Dr. Madison Cowine's wife.

• 26:25Josh Clark?

  Was he a suspect? Cause I would have suspected him.

• 26:28Josh Clark?

  I don't think so, because he wasn't even there. That's the first thing I thought. But apparently it was pretty verified that he slept it off at the country club, I guess.

• 26:36Josh Clark?

  Crazy. Because, I mean, one of the things that he became famous for, if not the thing he became famous for, was injecting people with, with some fairly weird stuff.

• 26:47Josh Clark?

  I know. Isn't that weird?

• 26:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah. It is weird.

• 26:50Josh Clark?

  You're not buying it.

• 26:52Josh Clark?

  Nah, I don't want to like cast aspersions on somebody. I don't know enough about the story, but that, it's just very odd, especially.

• 26:58Josh Clark?

  You're like, judging from this 90-second story.

• 27:01Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. I can conclusively solve this case. I've seen enough law and order to know that the husband almost always did it.

• 27:08Josh Clark?

  Well, that is probably true, but probably not in this case. But at any rate, he was a hematologist at U, at University of Kentucky. And he heard about these people throughout the world and really wanted to kind of get to the bottom of this, when a couple of them, well, I don't think these were fugates, but Patrick and Rachel Ritchie, I guess, you know, it happened in some other family, I know that Combs is.

• 27:33Josh Clark?

  We knew a Combs from Kentucky. We, we had a friend that we worked with for a little while.

• 27:38Josh Clark?

  Oh, really?

• 27:39Josh Clark?

  He was never, he never struck me as blue. Yeah.

• 27:42Josh Clark?

  He never struck you as blue?

• 27:43Josh Clark?

  But I wonder if he is related to the Combses.

• 27:46Josh Clark?

  Well, who knows?

• 27:47Josh Clark?

  Which would make them by some, somehow fugate. Because again, these, these families in the fugate area were all, if you went back far enough, fugates.

• 27:56Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. All right. So these people walk into his office and what happened?

• 27:59Josh Clark?

  So here's, here's the thing, like, they didn't walk into his office. He went and found them. I read an article about him and he became maybe a little obsessed with finding these people, wanted to know what the heck was going on. So he actually went out in the woods and would wait for them. And every once in a while, I would see one and he'd chase them, telling them to stop. And of course, they would run off. So he figured out another way to do it. He moved to Hazard County, near Troublesome Creek. And he started asking around at clinics, like, had anybody ever treated a blue patient? And he finally struck gold, blue gold. When he spoke to one nurse at a clinic that said, yeah, this, this one woman came in with blue skin and she was really self-conscious about her skin. She came to the back door, was really just kind of meek and embarrassed.

• 28:44Josh Clark?

  But yeah, we've treated a, a blue person before. So Cowine basically hung around this clinic until more blue people came in. And that, this is where he met the Ritchie siblings.

• 28:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so he started to dig into their family a little bit. It became pretty obvious to him that it was a genetic disorder. And he started digging around other stories around the, the North America and found an Inuit population in Alaska who had, who had the same condition. I'm just going to call it this condition now.

• 29:16Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 29:16Josh Clark?

  I think we said it enough.

• 29:17Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 29:18Josh Clark?

  Or at least I have.

• 29:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 29:19Josh Clark?

  And he said, well, you know, these people were interbreeding a lot because they were very remote as well. And so he said, I think we understand the problem here. How do we fix it?

• 29:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I don't know if he, where he, he got this idea, but he used something called methylene blue, which was already like in wide use. It's used to stain tissue because it affects some cells differently than others. It was a malarial treatment, which malaria can actually produce, uh, matematoglobinemia. I'm suddenly having trouble saying it because we haven't been practicing lately. And, and what it does is it goes in and it interacts with the, um, reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cytochrome B5 reductase,

• 30:11Josh Clark?

  and basically gives it a boost and helps convert all of that excess, um, matematoglobins into hemoglobin in patients with matematoglobinemia. And so I don't know where he got the idea, but he tried it and apparently injected the Richie kids with it. And they, they stopped being blue like almost on the spot.

• 30:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like minutes later, they returned to a, to a, you know, a standard color. And I, I mean, they were overjoyed. Like, could you imagine being like this your whole life? Getting a shot and looking in the mirror a few minutes later? And you're like, oh my gosh, it's like, it's, it's gone.

• 30:50Josh Clark?

  It's actually really sweet because they were very self-conscious, the whole family. I mean, this family like retreated to the woods to, to like, people didn't know where they lived and they lived like five miles away from them and knew that there was this blue family, still had no idea where they lived. It was like, that's how far they retreated from society because they were that self-conscious. So yeah, I'm sure it was a pretty joyous occasion for them.

• 31:12Josh Clark?

  There's gonna be a movie about this at some point, right?

• 31:14Josh Clark?

  I can't believe there's not. There's a very famous interview with Kyle Wayne in a magazine called Science 82. And there's also a really famous painting that somebody did. And it was just kind of lost to history who did it. And I read this article, ah, I can't remember what it was on. But this person tracked down, um, the, the artist, the initial artist, and got to see like the original because it's been scanned so many times. It's really lost a step. But, um, the original is apparently really something to see.

• 31:41Josh Clark?

  Should we say the quote that, uh, Kowain had in that Science 82 article?

• 31:45Josh Clark?

  Totally.

• 31:47Josh Clark?

  He said, he said, and they walked in the office, he said, they were bluer than hell. Very Kentucky.

• 31:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, totally.

• 31:54Josh Clark?

  All right. So over time, uh, fugates started moving away. Like some of the younger population of the family got out of Hazard County. And it's so hard not to make Dukes of Hazard jokes. I've been just sidestepping the whole time.

• 32:08Josh Clark?

  You've been doing really great.

• 32:10Josh Clark?

  Thank you. Uh, but they started to move away over time. And basically, you know, that's going to stop the interbreeding and that's going to make fewer and fewer blue babies. And as of 2012, I think some were still blue, but not today.

• 32:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think now that there's a treatment, an easy treatment, because you, they don't even have to be injected anymore. Like if you're blue and you don't want to be blue, you just take a methylene blue pill once a day. And it goes in, apparently, once you excrete it out, the methylene blue, you go back to being blue. So you have to take it daily. But I'll bet there's members of that family now, and I'm just guessing here, but, um, that are proudly blue. Now that they know that they don't have to be blue, some of them I'll bet make a choice to be blue as kind of like a, like a pride in their family heritage, I'm guessing here.

• 33:00Josh Clark?

  Well, the thing I saw that there was one, and that was the one in 2012 that was still blue.

• 33:05Josh Clark?

  Like by choice?

• 33:07Josh Clark?

  I think so, yeah. Just didn't take the pill.

• 33:09Josh Clark?

  Gotcha. Wow, that's neat.

• 33:11Josh Clark?

  But, uh, but not today anymore. So this is, uh, not the only way you can get bluish or any, you know, I guess silvery skin is another, is another thing that comes into play here with this next, uh, disorder. And this is one called argeria. And some people are bluish, some people are silver. If you've looked up, you know, blue people or silver people online, you've no doubt seen, uh, Paul Karrison. They, they called him Papa Smurf and he is all over the internet as one of the more famous cases of ageria.

• 33:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and he, uh, was, he kind of emerged as, I don't know if a cautionary tale is right, because that was not his purpose. But he, he also, he, he, whether he meant to or not, he served as a cautionary tale about taking colloidal silver. Because that is what turned him blue. And it didn't just turn his skin blue, it turned his mucous membranes blue. So if he like flashed his teeth, his gums were blue, the inside of his mouth was blue, the inside of his nose was blue. He was blue, bluer than hell, as Kyle Wayne would probably put it.

• 34:19Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 34:20Josh Clark?

  And he, he did it because he saw an article about how, um, silver ions basically restored some cut flower back to life again. And he thought, well, that'd be really something to, to, to see what it can do on a human body.

• 34:35Josh Clark?

  I want to be a fresh daisy.

• 34:37Josh Clark?

  Right. And he wasn't the only person at, experimenting at the time. Like apparently for a while it was a over the counter drug. We've been using silver for a very long time. But he was, um, somebody who used it every single day. He was drinking like a 10 ounce drink of colloidal silver. He figured out how to basically make his own colloidal silver potion. And he also rubbed it on his face too. And so in very short order, he started to turn blue because that is definitely a consequence of using silver too much, of overexposure to silver.

• 35:10Josh Clark?

  That's right. Uh, and this can happen if you work in like a silver mine or something.

• 35:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 35:15Josh Clark?

  Like it can be one of the side effects of mining in silver mines.

• 35:18Josh Clark?

  I also saw that in the old time, um, not even that old, but just pre-digital photography processing, photograph processing, you could actually, um,

• 35:27Josh Clark?

  Old timey?

• 35:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you know, the eighties.

• 35:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 35:30Josh Clark?

  You could actually develop argeria from exposure to the, the silver dust that was used to expose, um, photographic plates. I think prior to the eighties, I don't know when they stopped using that.

• 35:43Josh Clark?

  I don't either. I spent a lot of times in dark rooms as a kid because of my dad.

• 35:49Josh Clark?

  Because you were bad?

• 35:51Josh Clark?

  Go in there, turn on that red light and sit there and think about what you've done. Now, my dad was an amateur photographer. Well, I guess semi-professionally sold stuff, but he, he did his own, uh, developing. And, um, I, I learned how to do it and did it some through high school and then kind of quit doing it. It was a lot of fun though. Dark rooms are, uh, very like peaceful places.

• 36:12Josh Clark?

  Is that right?

• 36:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, just, you know, they're dark, obviously.

• 36:15Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 36:15Josh Clark?

  And you're in there for a, a long period of time and it's just very nice. Usually by yourself, but unless you're in a teen, uh, romance movie and then, you know, the cute girl's in there with you.

• 36:25Josh Clark?

  I, well, I always associate them with the, the murderer finally coming into focus and they happen to be standing right next to the, the photographer who's developing it. So to me, dark rooms are very tense, scary places.

• 36:37Josh Clark?

  Like as it, as the, as the photo paper like comes into focus?

• 36:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:41Josh Clark?

  Oh, very tense.

• 36:42Josh Clark?

  It shows the calls coming from inside the dark room.

• 36:46Josh Clark?

  That's right. Um, where were we? Okay. So what causes this is an excess of silver ions in your body.

• 36:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 36:54Josh Clark?

  And when they're exposed to light, they react by forming dark deposits on the skin that end up looking silverish. And the bad news about this is, once you've got it, it's there. You can't take a pill and get rid of it.

• 37:06Josh Clark?

  No, it's irreversible. We don't have a way to remove excess silver from the tissues in the human body. And that's all it is. It's just, it builds up. Normally the body can excrete, you know, small amounts of silver that we're exposed to from like, you know, touching silver or, um, snorting silver, that kind of stuff.

• 37:25Josh Clark?

  What?

• 37:26Josh Clark?

  You know, uh, like we pee it out, we poop it out and we get rid of it. But if we overcome that threshold and our silver ingestion, um, exceeds our ability to excrete it, it starts to build up in the tissue. And so if you're drinking your own 10 ounce colloidal silver, um, homebrew every single day, you're going to overwhelm your body's ability to excrete silver very quickly. And it's going to build up and build up and build up. And pretty soon you're going to be blue or silver blue.

• 37:56Josh Clark?

  That's right. Uh, and if you look up images of, uh, Karrison, you're probably also going to find pictures of Stan Jones, a libertarian politician in Montana, who around Y2K said, you know what? I think things are gonna go south and we're not gonna have any antibiotics. So I'm gonna, uh, start making my own again colloidal silver solution.

• 38:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Josh Clark?

  And drink that stuff. And then there was a teacher in Brooklyn too named Rosemary Jacobs, who, uh, very sadly, I think got, um, nasal drops with silver when she was a kid. And she was sort of, not sort of, she was very silver for life.

• 38:31Josh Clark?

  Yes, she was. So these people again have proved to be cautionary tales to most people who are like, oh, that's what happens if you take too much silver. I'm not going to take colloidal silver supplements over the counter or, um, anything like that. I'm just gonna steer clear of silver altogether. Because one of the problems is there's not a lot of peer reviewed evidence, if any, that suggests that silver has any beneficial effect when taken internally. Right? It is actually anti, antimicrobial. It's pretty clever to, um, use silver like in the pre-scientific days. But it, there's nothing that says like, yes, if you drink a colloidal silver homebrew,

• 39:13Josh Clark?

  it's going to have any effect on your, on your life or your health. And in fact, it, it might actually turn you blue. Despite this, people still take colloidal silver, um, pretty frequently. Apparently Alex Jones touts it, Gwyneth Paltrow touts it, Dr. Oz touts it. And that's, you know, if it's not actually harming you, there doesn't seem to be any, any harm from it, aside from potentially irreversibly turning blue. But there's a larger harm that I saw chuck to society in general in that silver is a, a antimicrobial of last resort. That is, um, they're figuring out how to use it against, um, my, uh, antibiotic resistant bugs like MRSA.

• 39:58Josh Clark?

  That silver will get in there and even kill MRSA. But that silver resistance may be developed in bugs by all these people taking colloidal silver supplements and drinking colloidal silver, um, you know, homebrews and stuff like that, that is actually creating silver resistant microbes, which is not a good thing for anybody.

• 40:19Josh Clark?

  All right. Well, let's take our second break. Good?

• 40:22Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 40:23Josh Clark?

  And we'll talk a little bit more about colloidal silver right after this.

• 40:38Josh Clark?

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• 40:47Josh Clark?

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• 41:00Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic forerunner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 41:16Josh Clark?

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 41:41Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. Cozy season is upon us and that means crisp mornings. That means soft layers and that means Bombas.

• 41:47Josh Clark?

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• 42:02Josh Clark?

  That's right. And their slippers are everything you'd want for a cozy night in, made with the softest, squishiest materials.

• 42:06Josh Clark?

  And of course, Bombas has socks. Not just any socks, socks for every type of weather, every type of occasion, because fall can be fickle and Bombas makes socks that can handle it all. And the best part about Bombas, for every item you purchase, they donate an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. One purchased equals one donated with over 200 million donations and counting.

• 42:29Josh Clark?

  So head on over to bombas.com/sysk and use code SYSK at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash SYSK using code SYSK at checkout.

• 42:47Josh Clark?

  You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts to feel off, because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.

• 43:03Josh Clark?

  That's right. From the very first bite, food kicks off a chain reaction, signals moving between the gut, the brain, and the immune system, a constant back and forth we can't see and often don't fully understand. So we want to introduce to you Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio. It's hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Eating Interrupted explores everything from food allergies and intolerance and why they seem to be on the rise to how digestion changes as we age and what it's really like to live with a chronic GI condition.

• 43:31Josh Clark?

  Through personal stories and expert insight, listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 44:00Josh Clark?

  All right. So you mentioned earlier that, kind of in passing, that colloidal silver had been used pre, you know, mainstream medical science coming on board. And it's really true. And they were kind of on to something in that, like you said, there were, there are some antimicrobial properties. So people like Pliny the Elder, Cyrus the Great, they both touted the use of silver. Monks in the Middle Ages used silver nitrate to treat ulcers and burns. And it was used a lot. It's, it's kind of in a way, before we had real antibiotics, one of the first antibiotics.

• 44:37Josh Clark?

  Yes. Again, externally, it messes up microbes and we're not exactly sure, even still today, what the mechanism is. The guesses are that it somehow penetrates the, the membrane of the, of bacteria and prevents it from replicating properly. Or it, it has, it does like some one, two punches on enzymes that the, the microbes need to, to survive. But that it, it will leave your human skin cells alone. It just attacks microbes weirdly, bacteria specifically. So yeah, it was like a, a early antibiotic and it actually kept, stayed in use for a long time.

• 45:19Josh Clark?

  Now, nowadays you'll find it in like wound dressings, sometimes sutures will be coated in silver, replacement joints, artificial joints will have some sort of silver component to it to, to protect against infection. But we were using them internally for a really long time, up until the 60s even. I think babies got like silver eye drops when they were born, which I had not heard of until, you know, yesterday.

• 45:45Josh Clark?

  I had neither. Yeah. Silver nitrate to prevent eye infections. But then they found out it can actually cause eye damage and burn the skin. So they really worked on just sort of, what's the word I'm looking for? When you make something less potent by mixing it with water.

• 46:03Josh Clark?

  Dilute it?

• 46:04Josh Clark?

  Diluting it. Right on the tip of my tongue.

• 46:08Josh Clark?

  You did it.

• 46:09Josh Clark?

  No, you did it. So they learned how to dilute it, but the problem with diluting it in a formula is it wasn't an exact science. Like they didn't know exactly how much silver was still going to be active. And so, you know, you couldn't really use it as a medicine anymore because it was either too weak to do anything, or it was so much that you risked turning blue. So eventually they just scrapped it as a medicine and said, I think in 1999, the FDA said, this isn't a medicine, you can't advertise it as such. So they said, all right, we'll just say it's a supplement.

• 46:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 46:42Josh Clark?

  And just move it to the shelf, you know, four feet away.

• 46:44Josh Clark?

  And the FDA said, mm.

• 46:47Josh Clark?

  And that's what happened. And you can still get this stuff. That's where, you know, that's why Gwyneth Paltrow uses it.

• 46:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So, and I mean, like, again, it's one of those things where it's like, yes, it makes sense. Silver has antimicrobial properties. There's probably some microbes in your body you don't want. So take some silver and see if it works. But again, there's just not any peer reviewed evidence that backs this up. That's not necessarily to say that it doesn't work, just because there isn't peer reviewed evidence that backs it up, doesn't also necessarily mean in the same breath that there's plenty of peer reviewed evidence that says it doesn't work. I'm not suggesting anybody take this stuff. I'm just saying there's not peer reviewed evidence to back up that it actually does anything. And if you do take it, again, you risk permanently, irreversibly turning blue.

• 47:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I should point out, I don't know anything about Gwyneth Paltrow's current usage, but this, her appearance on Dr. Oz in 2013 was when she touted it. She, she may have given it up, who knows?

• 47:47Josh Clark?

  Who knows? Paul Karason never gave it up though, Chuck. He died in 2013 as well. Same year that Gwyneth Paltrow outed herself as a silver user. And Paul Karason, he apparently used colloidal silver, that homebrew he made up until the end, like he never stopped, even though he apparently retreated from the public eye because he was tired of being treated like a freak or a weirdo and had some rough years toward the end, apparently after he went public. But he still kept up with the colloidal silver, although that doesn't seem to have been linked to his death. He was also a really heavy smoker for many years and he suffered a, a heart attack and a stroke.

• 48:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, I guess his point was probably, well, I'm already blue.

• 48:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Josh Clark?

  Like, why stop now?

• 48:36Josh Clark?

  Can't get much bluer. So what else you got?

• 48:40Josh Clark?

  Well, I just thought we'd wind it up with this little kind of sidebar. I can't, this doesn't really have anything to do with being blue or silver, but I thought it was an interesting find that, that they basically determine, there's something called repigmenting that has happened to people to go, their skin both darker and lighter, that has nothing to do, and this funny, this article kept calling it intermarriage. What they mean is, you know.

• 49:07Josh Clark?

  E or E or?

• 49:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah. What they mean is having sex and having babies of two different skin colors. But they keep calling it intermarriage, which I guess is, you know, very sweet.

• 49:18Josh Clark?

  It's just such a lovely way to put it.

• 49:20Josh Clark?

  It is. But they know that repigmenting happens regardless of intermarriage. But what they found recently is that this has happened a lot faster than anyone thought. And we're talking about a hundred generations or as little as a hundred generations, which is a long time, but over the course of human history, it's not that long.

• 49:41Josh Clark?

  It's potentially, yeah, it's not that long. Usually a generation is chalked up at about 20 years. So we're talking as little as 2,000 years. That groups that were once lily white, went back to being dark and groups that were dark can turn into a lily white population. And that it's, it's, it's just basically more evidence that race is strictly a social construct. Skin color has nothing to do with anything but the amount of melanin that our genes tell our bodies to produce, which is triggered by the amount of UV exposure that we have over something like 100 generations.

• 50:18Josh Clark?

  Right. And so if your family lineage moves from a place that has lots of UV near the equator to a place that doesn't have much daylight or vice versa, your body is going to adapt and melanin production is going to change. And over time, your entire family's skin color can change.

• 50:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Because we actually need UV, right? But we just need a certain amount of it. If you have too much, you can get skin cancer. Apparently it can have reproductive issues. If you get too little, it can also have issues on your bone because we use UV to produce vitamin D, which we use for, for strong bones, bone density. So our bodies have figured out how to kind of adjust depending on that UV exposure by producing or slowing down melanin production. That's it.

• 51:05Josh Clark?

  Pretty amazing.

• 51:06Josh Clark?

  Pretty neat. But it is surprising that it's, well, actually it's not that surprising that it can happen over 100 generations or 2,000 years, because the body is very responsive to its environment. We adapt very easily. So that's not particularly surprising, although it is neat.

• 51:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, it surprised the scientists, I think. They just thought it was quicker than they anticipated.

• 51:27Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm. So if you're a racist, just stop and think that somewhere down your family line, there is a white person or a black person. Ha ha.

• 51:36Josh Clark?

  Or in the future.

• 51:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 51:38Josh Clark?

  That's right. So take that.

• 51:40Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 51:42Josh Clark?

  I have nothing else.

• 51:43Josh Clark?

  All right. Well, if you want to know more about blue people, or colloidal silver, or pigmentation, go start reading up on it on the internet. Thanks again to all the great sites that you found in putting this really good episode together, Chuck. And since I complimented Chuck's episode, Putting Together Skills, it's time for listener mail.

• 52:04Josh Clark?

  I'm gonna call this one of the many thanks we got for the M, not NRA, but the Mr. Nuh episode.

• 52:12Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 52:13Josh Clark?

  This is one, I think, for both of us, like, we were super stoked to do, and like, in retrospect, very proud of, you know?

• 52:20Josh Clark?

  We're stoked.

• 52:21Josh Clark?

  We were super stoked, not just stoked.

• 52:23Josh Clark?

  Bro.

• 52:24Josh Clark?

  Stoked plus. There's no way to say stoked without sounding like a bro.

• 52:28Josh Clark?

  No, no way at all.

• 52:31Josh Clark?

  That stinks too, because I'm not a bro, but I do like saying stoked.

• 52:34Josh Clark?

  It's fine to say stoked, be loud and proud, like the last remaining blue fugate.

• 52:39Josh Clark?

  So this is from Mark, and it was a really long one that I'm gonna just sort of summarize the first part, is that Mark works in healthcare information technology, and had a rough go of it over the past couple of years, like so many people, working alone and listening to our show, which he said helped quite a bit, losing some close friends to COVID.

• 53:01Josh Clark?

  Man.

• 53:01Josh Clark?

  And seeing all this up close and personal. So Mark had a tough time. So he says this, after working for almost two years on the COVID-19 problem, "The last thing I wanted to hear was your podcast about Mr. Nuh vaccines."

• 53:16Josh Clark?

  Understood.

• 53:17Josh Clark?

  "When I saw the topic pop up on my player, took a deep breath and decided to listen anyway. I knew almost everything you shared on the podcast, but became enthralled in the recap of this amazing story. To my surprise, I was again brought to tears with a recognition, one that you two share, of these brilliant helpers who use their gifts for the benefit of all humanity. At the risk of making you blush, you two are part of those helpers. You presented this Mr. Nuh episode with a childlike curiosity and relatable simplicity that anyone with doubts on taking the vaccine would reconsider. I can't believe that I have to say this, but facts help. In fact, sharers are helpers. I might also add that letting go of any biases to let your curiosity, curiosity take hold is heroic."

• 54:03Josh Clark?

  And that is from Mark, and boy, I'm gonna read that one another 100 times today.

• 54:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, just print it out and fold it up and keep it under your pillow.

• 54:11Josh Clark?

  Yes. Thank you, Mark. He wanted his last name to be withheld, but appreciate the work you've done, Mark, and hang in there.

• 54:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, same, same to you, Mark. And that was very high praise. Thank you very much for it. It means a lot to hear something like that. One other thing, though, Chuck, that, that Mark reminded me of, that people with matematagloganemia actually can blush blue.

• 54:35Josh Clark?

  Oh, so they get bluer?

• 54:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Isn't that neat?

• 54:37Josh Clark?

  I guess that makes sense.

• 54:38Josh Clark?

  Thanks for that, too, Mark. Even though you had no idea you're setting us up for it, you did. So you're just basically a, an altogether great person. If you want to be a great person like Mark and write in to let us know whatever you want to let us know, we want to hear from you. You can wrap it up and spank it on that bottom until it's blue in the face, and send it off to [email protected].

• 55:04Speaker 05

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, MyHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 55:20Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder that Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums, he'd also tell you about how Capital One cafes are

• 56:04Josh Clark?

  open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/BankGuy. Capital One, N A, Member FDIC.

• 56:19Josh Clark?

  Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs, and quick hellos are what keep relationships strong, even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees a network you can rely on, so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T Guarantee. AT&T: Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Just visit ATT.com/guarantee for details.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.