Creativity is Crumbling, Sarcophagus Juice Sourdough, Mycelium Mutual Aid

Pattie Gonia joins the show to talk about how secret networks of underground fungi are basically like nature's mutual aid. Plus, Moiya McTier returns to discuss creativity, why it might be crumbling, and how one measures it (spoiler: it is NOT easy). And Rachel explains how scientists used yeast from a melting mummy to bake a loaf of sourdough. 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: Order RIGHT NOW and save up to $20 at https://STORYWORTH.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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want, online only, at homedepot.com.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  From the creators of Zootopia and Frozen comes Disney's Hext. Welcome to Hext and enter the world of witchits, where it was foretold that an ordinary girl would become an extraordinary witch and save the world of magic. Disney's Hext arrives in theaters this Thanksgiving.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  The best part of waking up? A full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  Shop Folgers K-Cup Pods and more at your nearest retailer.

• 1:24Rachel 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.

• 1:45Speaker 04

  I'm Moya McTeer. And I am Pattie Gonia.

• 1:48Rachel Feltman?

  Patty, welcome to the show.

• 1:50Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for having me. What a nerd dream.

• 1:55Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, thank you. Very flattering. Would you tell our listeners who are not familiar with you, though I suspect most of them are, a little bit about yourself?

• 2:04Speaker 04

  Sure. I am a drag queen. I am an environmentalist. And right now, I'm a very sunburned human being. I need to learn to wear sunscreen. I went on for a hike yesterday and the sun did its thing, so.

• 2:19Speaker 05

  She's really powerful in our face right now.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  She is so powerful.

• 2:24Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  But that's me. It's been a really fun journey. And ah, is right. I think a lot of listeners are probably feeling, the world is a crazy world right now. So I'm just trying to do my thing with what I do, with drag, with activism, to try to make a little bit of difference in this world.

• 2:43Rachel Feltman?

  Amazing. Well, we're really psyched to have you on. And Moya, welcome back to the show.

• 2:48Speaker 05

  Thank you. So happy to be back. I love this show.

• 2:51Rachel Feltman?

  Ah, we love having you. Would you tell us a little bit about your upcoming book? Very soon, coming out.

• 2:58Speaker 05

  Very soon, yes. I've been working on this for like, two and a half, three years, almost. It's called Mothers of Invention. It's a history of creativity and, obviously, inventions, written from the perspectives of the muses from Greek mythology, which is a really fun creative exercise.

• 3:14Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh. That is amazing. Congrats on your child.

• 3:19Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thank you. I think it's also quite amusing.

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Oh, the puns. The puns have started.

• 3:26Rachel Feltman?

  Yes. They've started and they won't stop. All right. Well, let's roll right into it. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, et cetera. 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 we all win. It's Pride Month, so everybody wins. And also, always, not just on Pride Month, but especially on Pride Month. Moya, what's your tease?

• 4:04Speaker 05

  My tease is that Berkeley once did a study that's kind of like the Stanford Prison Experiment, but with creativity instead of violence. And we almost lost the records.

• 4:14Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 4:16Rachel Feltman?

  They don't want us to know.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 4:17Speaker 05

  You're right. You're right. It came out decades later.

• 4:19Rachel Feltman?

  That we can be creative.

• 4:20Speaker 05

  This conspiracy.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  It's almost like people in power lie to us. Crazy.

• 4:24Rachel Feltman?

  Hmm, crazy.

• 4:28Rachel Feltman?

  Patty, what's your tease?

• 4:30Speaker 04

  My tease is mycelium are mutual aid networks. We need to talk about it.

• 4:36Rachel Feltman?

  I love that. I love that. I can't wait. My tease is you've heard of mommies with sourdough starters. Now get ready for mummies with sourdough starters.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 4:48Rachel Feltman?

  Like I said, the puns won't stop.

• 4:50Speaker 05

  I'm both intrigued and terrified.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Same.

• 4:54Speaker 05

  Like, is this gonna be like vaginal yeast bread again? Like, what are we doing?

• 5:01Rachel Feltman?

  You're kind of on the right track, so perhaps I should just dive in.

• 5:04Speaker 04

  We need to dive in.

• 5:05Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, okay, okay, great. So the headline here, just, you know, to get it out of the way, is that someone made sourdough bread using yeast from the desiccated corpse of Otsi the Iceman. And we're gonna talk about that, but first, we're gonna rewind a little bit to remember why we like this random dead guy so much. So in 1991, a pair of German tourists were hiking in the Ustal Alps on the Austrian-Italian border, and they were around 10,000 feet, and they saw a body. Yikes. And it was pretty, pretty striking. You can see photos of this

• 5:47Rachel Feltman?

  body before it was excavated. Basically, you've got like a torso sticking out of the ice, looking for all the world, like it's trying to army crawl its way up out of there. Really, really horrific, you know, opening into hell visual on this glacier. Very video gamey, honestly. Just, I cannot imagine how Helmut and Erica felt when they saw this guy. But they thought they had found a recently deceased fellow mountaineer. They were like, this guy's family must be looking for him. And they reported it as such. So the cops came, and they tried to break him out of the ice, and they failed, and the weather sucked. So they took his axe and headed back down to the mountain, I guess, thinking that maybe

• 6:32Rachel Feltman?

  they could identify him with this axe.

• 6:35Speaker 05

  He's not Gilly.

• 6:41Rachel Feltman?

  The cops, the cops would soon realize they were entirely out of their element. But at first, they were just like, "Ah." And they came back the next day, then they failed because they had no helicopter available, yada, yada, yada. The days go on. Meanwhile, this very famous mountaineer, Reinhold Messner, like, the most mountaineeringest mountaineer of the time, he'd done a lot of mountains. He came by to take a peep, and he was shown a drawing of the axe, which is like, you can see pictures of this, and in fact, buy, you know, recreations of it online, if that's a thing you want to do. And it's, in retrospect, very clearly something from, like, you know, stereotypical caveman times.

• 7:25Rachel Feltman?

  It's copper, I mean, not, so not caveman times, copper age. But, anyway, you got copper affixed to wood with raw hide. It's very rustic. I guess one could argue that it was plausibly the work of like, some very self-indulgent hipster.

• 7:42Speaker 05

  Like a famous heirloom.

• 7:44Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  The original hipster.

• 7:47Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah. But Messner was like, "Mm-hmm, you guys, I'm pretty sure this axe is like, really old. Like, why are the cops handling this?" And so, at this point, we're several days after the hikers had spotted this guy, and they finally successfully get him out of there. There's a camera team there, filming this body, getting ice picked out, airlifted in a body bag. There was still no archaeologist present. He was actually sent to forensic experts. This was still being treated like this was a recent death. In their defense, this guy was like, very well preserved. He still had soft tissue.

• 8:30Rachel Feltman?

  But meanwhile, the extraction yielded a bunch more clearly very old stuff, like pieces of hide, and a dagger, and this piece of wood that we now know was a bow.

• 8:41Speaker 05

  I carry that stuff with me all the time. I don't know what you're talking about.

• 8:44Rachel Feltman?

  Right, right, yeah. And like, you know, maybe if this happened today, you could be like, this guy probably has some like, weird niche YouTube shtick, where he is like, paleo man, and he like, only-

• 8:55Speaker 04

  Or making sourdough bread.

• 8:57Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah. But- Finally, an archaeologist gets looted. And he was immediately, like, I think at first glance, like, this guy is at least 4,000 years old. And he was like, he's starting to melt. We need to get him back on ice ASAP. That is as gross as it sounds, the fact that he was starting to melt. Thankfully, they nip that in the bud. Long story short, we now know that Otsi, I'm terrible at umlauts, but that's the best I can do. And it's definitely less wrong than how a lot of people say it. We now know that he only looked so freshly dead because he was naturally mummified in glacier ice, and he lived and died about 5,300 years ago.

• 9:41Rachel Feltman?

  So that's pretty wild. And I did an episode years ago on like, all of the different sort of forms of mummification that can happen, including natural mummification. And it is super interesting, sort of, how random sets of factors can interact with human physiology to result in, you know, what's supposed to be a pretty straightforward decomposition process, just going totally off the rails, you know? And since Otsi is a wet mummy, which means he has tissue, bones, and organs that are well-preserved, we've been able to examine him, I say "we," scientists, I have not personally examined him.

• 10:26Rachel Feltman?

  Scientists have been able to do tons of studies on him and learn just loads of stuff about him. And since 1998, I mean, they immediately, like, put him back in cold storage after the archaeologist was like, "He's melting." Put him in the freezer. Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  He was a wet mummy.

• 10:43Rachel Feltman?

  Yes, he is a wet mummy. But since 1998, he's been kept in a, like, specially devised cold cell. It is designed to simulate glacier conditions, and they have, like, precision temperature scales, and they track the humidity. The public gets to see it through a window, but like, everything is kept very perfect. And they do have to spray him down with sterile water to keep him moist, which is disgusting. But no offense to him, but I don't like that.

• 11:17Speaker 05

  He's like that stretched piece of skin, the Cassandra, like, spry.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 11:23Rachel Feltman?

  He really is spry. Things that we know from the studies that have been done on him over the last, you know, coming up on 30 years, his femur bone was studied and they looked at, you know, the sort of growth that happens in the bone as you age. And they think he was likely around 46. He had dark, medium-long hair, which he wore loose, though he did also have the genes for male pattern balding. So, so maybe a little bit of a riffraff thing going on, but, well, you know, who can say?

• 12:00Speaker 05

  Oh, it sounds kind of hot. I'm just gonna...

• 12:04Rachel Feltman?

  God bless. He, his DNA shows, I think, still the earliest evidence we have of Lyme disease. He had an adorable gap in his two front teeth, like me. His lungs were damaged from constantly being around open fires, which, you know, is interesting because we, I always really think of, you know, modern sources of pollution and lung damage. And I know that, you know, sort of more rustic heating and cooking methods in the home in other countries are a huge source of lung damage. But I don't really think about, like, you know, people 5,000 years ago, sitting around fires outside, that adding up over time. But yeah, he, we know that he ate a lot of game, a lot of grains and plants.

• 12:48Rachel Feltman?

  Really cool research has, has gone on to, to study this guy. Also, speaking of the research on him, plot twist, he was murdered. So the police being there was actually kind of apropos. He was involved, yeah. I don't know, maybe he deserved it. Like, obviously, we sort of have a bias to, he's sort of a hero of, of our story. But he was involved in hand-to-hand combat a few days before his death. He has like a nasty cut on his hand that I guess has all the makings of a defensive wound.

• 13:19Speaker 05

  So he could fight?

• 13:21Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah, he could fight. Maybe not very well, but he was well enough to get out of that scrap. But then he took a flint arrowhead to his shoulder and that severed an artery. He also had a head wound, but it's quite likely that the, the bleed from the, the arrowhead is what took him out. So... That's just a brief overview of like, why we are obsessed with this Iceman. He just, it was such a weird, random situation that he's preserved as well as he is. And we've been able to learn so much from him. This latest study on him comes from Italian researchers who were just broadly looking at the microbes, both ancient and modern, that can still be found in, in his body.

• 14:02Rachel Feltman?

  And they found that there are bacteria and yeast that have persisted in his tissue, which isn't super surprising. You know, there, we know that there are microbes that thrive at low temperatures. So it makes sense that those are continuing to thrive as he's in cold storage. And they found some interesting stuff. I won't dig too deep into it, but the big takeaway for me, you know, in terms of weird stuff is that in his gut, they found four yeasts that can survive sub-zero temperature.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  Like four types of yeast?

• 14:35Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 05

  Four, okay.

• 14:36Rachel Feltman?

  They found four yeasts. Yeah. And we know that these only live in, in really cold conditions. So they think that they came, they entered his body after he died, like from the glacier, or at least that's the theory. Now, the evidence they're using to say that these microbes are old, like as in they got into his body right after he died and have been there since, as opposed to like they somehow got into his cold storage room, is based on the amount of DNA damage they, they see, they, they think that they are that old. There are definitely lots of microbes in him that are just from his environment now,

• 15:17Rachel Feltman?

  including the sterile water he gets spritzed with, because nothing is entirely sterile. But what's great is that the scientists involved were like, well, obviously we have yeast, we should make bread. And it, yeah, it did not work at first. One of the researchers, Mohamed Saran, he

• 15:39Rachel Feltman?

  Said that the yeast basically hadn't adapted to the environment of flour. I mean, first it had adapted to living on a glacier and then it had adapted to being in this guy's very cold body. So they sort of had to give it a long period of creating a sourdough starter where the yeast was exposed to flour and then kind of leaving it be and then adding more yeast. So they really gave the yeast time to be living and growing in there and getting around to the idea that maybe flour was delicious. And eventually, they did. They brought their sourdough starter to life. I think very relatable for many people, you know, coaxing, babying your sourdough starter.

• 16:21Rachel Feltman?

  And they were able to make what they say was some really good dough with it, though this researcher did say he's never baked bread before and it showed. So the result definitely had room for improvement, but they hope to, he hopes to collaborate with, with somebody, you know, more from the bread space in the future so that they can, they can really do this. Of course, this is the main point of the experiment. It's not even really a point of the experiment. It was kind of a footnote, but I, I just found it delightful. And, you know, yes, these microbial samples did come from like the skin, gut, and juice from when he started melting that one time. So that's gross.

• 17:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a terrible sequence of words.

• 17:04Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. But I will say, they like grew, they took that and grew yeast in the lab. So just for any listeners who've like never, never been in a lab setting, talking about yeast, talking about microbes, there is quite a bit of removal. We're not talking about dumping mummy juice into a bowl of flour and calling it a day. But yeah, you know, we've, we've learned such kooky stuff from him and scientists are going to keep learning new things from him. I mean, just one example is that when they first found this body in 1991 and they were treating it as a normal cadaver, they used this chemical called phenol to stop fungus from growing in the body.

• 17:48Rachel Feltman?

  And basically, some of the yeast in him was able to eat phenol instead of the phenol stopping it from growing. So they're very interested in, in whether that means that the yeast could be used to like break down that chemical in environments where it's a contaminant. So.

• 18:07Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, that's really it. They made bread. Would I eat the mummy bread?

• 18:11Speaker 04

  They broke bread.

• 18:13Rachel Feltman?

  They, yeah. I don't know if I'd eat the mummy bread. I like to believe that I would, but like, if, if faced with it, I might have some qualms, but yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 05

  I mean, if it's, it would depend on how it smells.

• 18:27Speaker 05

  If it smells like mummy, I'm probably.

• 18:30Speaker 04

  The smell.

• 18:30Speaker 05

  Well, I still might eat it, just, just for the novelty of it.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  Just to say.

• 18:35Rachel Feltman?

  Right.

• 18:35Speaker 05

  Just to say.

• 18:36Speaker 04

  Just to say that you've eaten it. What is the, what is the, um, most interesting thing y'all have eaten lately?

• 18:43Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, good question.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  I, I had a grasshopper tacos two days ago.

• 18:48Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, nice. Oh, those are delicious. Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  It was actually very good.

• 18:53Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, they have a nice, like, grassy nutty flavor. People say that, and if, if you're skeptical, it's like, okay, but then they really do have a nice grassy nutty flavor.

• 19:04Speaker 05

  It's like grasshopper flour and things. Flavor is gone by then. But I would try it.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  Yes. It's like, I think it's so interesting how we don't eat more bugs. They, we really have been eating bugs that this person we're talking about has, was eating bugs, you know?

• 19:23Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Yeah. There was actually, a study came out recently. I haven't gone deep into it, but it was essentially like, our ancient ancestors ate bugs, probably mostly not on purpose. It was like, yeah, same. Anyone who's ever ridden a bike knows what you're talking about. But yeah, you know, I, I think we're gonna keep learning a bunch of new stuff from this Iceman and hopefully making a bunch of new fermented food products from him too. Cause why not?

• 19:56Speaker 05

  It's otzi kombucha next.

• 19:58Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 20:00Speaker 04

  And it's like, it's like, you know, it's so meta, cause it's like hipster on hipster. He was the original hipster. Axe, and now, you know, hipsters are gonna take it and make some cultured, perfect breakfast food with it. It'd be great. You know, avocado toast, ain't seen mummy bread yet.

• 20:17Speaker 05

  So true.

• 20:18Rachel Feltman?

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

• 20:28Speaker 00

  New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want, online only, at homedepot.com.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  From the creators of Zootopia and Frozen comes Disney's Hext. Welcome to Hext and enter the world of witches, where it was foretold that an ordinary girl would become an extraordinary witch and save the world of magic. Disney's Hext arrives in theaters this Thanksgiving.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  The best part of waking up? A full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Shop Folgers K-Cup Pods and more at your nearest retailer.

• 21:54Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, we're back. And actually, before we get into Moya's fact, I have to say that that story has been doing the rounds, the Oatsy Bread thing, but I got it, thanks to our listener, Erin Shanley. So, thank you so much for sending it to me. I really appreciate that you thought of me when you saw that story. Listeners, you can always send me stories at [email protected]. I love it. Moya? Tell me about the Stanford Prison Experiment, but fun? But nice, good?

• 22:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I think there was probably a little bit of tension involved in it. There's a controversial part of the study I'll talk about. But this study happened at UC Berkeley in the Institute of Personality and Assessment and Research. Sorry, the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research, which was founded in 1949, but was then renamed to have more of a focus on social research in 1992. But back in the 40s and 50s, it was directed by Dr. Donald McKinnon, who was a personality assessor, who during World War II was responsible for screening people for, quote, "jobs in irregular warfare." So he was basically responsible for choosing spies in World War II.

• 23:06Speaker 05

  And then they brought him on to direct this Personality Assessment Institute. And he was swept up in this new wave, this trend of caring about personality and creativity in the 1950s because of concerns about mechanization and automization, which I think people are still feeling concerns like that right now. But it was really fresh in the 1950s. So people wanted to study creativity. And Donald McKinnon put together a few different studies through IPAR. He had a few colleagues with him because he was not a psychologist himself. So he was working with a psychologist named Frank Baron, who was developing his own creativity

• 23:49Speaker 05

  tests where he asked people to assess art. And if they liked more simple art versus more nuanced and abstract art, then that would tell Frank Baron how creative these people were. Super biased, like a terrible creativity test. But that was his side work. He did more legitimate work with IPAR. So they had this landmark study. McKinnon was really interested in studying experts in creative fields, bringing them together and observing them in context, because he believed that creativity was a function of your environment and your context. Also a function of what expertise you have and your... Home life, growing up and all of that stuff, but he wanted to observe it in real time.

• 24:31Speaker 05

  So their architect study happened in 1958 in one, over one cold January weekend. They brought 124 architects to the Berkeley campus and had them stay on site for, for a whole weekend and do a bunch of different tests. Of those 124 architects, 40 of them were the top architects in the field at the time, or like around California at the time. They got Impe. I don't know how much you know about architecture, but Impe designed the Louvre Pyramid.

• 25:03Rachel Feltman?

  Star architect.

• 25:04Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. He designed the Louvre Pyramid and the National Gallery of Art in DC, so he was a huge deal. Louis Kahn designed the National Parliament House in Bangladesh. And Iero Saranen designed the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which is popular for fans of Percy Jackson.

• 25:22Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:23Speaker 05

  And so many more rock star architects, and they all agreed to come for this live-in assessment. The other 84 architects were lesser known. They were people who had worked with those 40, or just random architects chosen from around the area.

• 25:39Rachel Feltman?

  This is the season of traitors I need.

• 25:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Exactly. Architect traitors.

• 25:47Speaker 05

  You know, I would love to see Alan Cumming giving all of these personality tests.

• 25:51Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh. Perfect.

• 25:54Speaker 05

  Yes, I would, I would watch 20 seasons of that stat. So they, they ran so many tests on these architects. They did some personality assessments, including other people's personality assessments, like the Myers-Briggs. So they were really interested in seeing if the architects were more thinking versus feeling, and more introverted versus extroverted, because they were really interested in seeing if there was a connection between how social a person is, how pro-social a person is, and how creative they are. Turns out there wasn't much of a connection. But they did that personality assessment. They did a test called the mosaic construction test, where they asked people, they just gave them a bunch of clay tiles, and said, "Design a mosaic grid that you think looks pretty."

• 26:39Speaker 05

  And then they scored the creativity of the grids. And the person who got the highest score on that test was Iiro Saranen, who just put a whole grid of white tiles. And he was like, "I like that it looks so simple. It's so clean."

• 26:55Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 26:56Speaker 04

  He should be an architect.

• 26:56Speaker 05

  So highest. You know what? He should. I wonder if anyone's ever told him. They did this line drawing test, where the participants had to, they had two pre-drawn lines at some angle to each other. And they had to come up with little cartoons to connect those lines, and then quick captions for them. But they only had 10 minutes to do like 16 of them. So they had to do it quick. They were asked ethics problems and weird hypothetical scenarios. So they were asked, "What would you do if a client hired you for a job that went against your ethics?" And then they graded the architects on that. They were also asked to solve the third arm problem. So if human beings suddenly grew a third arm,

• 27:40Speaker 05

  where would it be and how would it be used?

• 27:43Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, my gosh. It's like if a dog wore pants.

• 27:46Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 27:46Rachel Feltman?

  Like this or like this.

• 27:48Speaker 05

  Yes, same question. They're essentially asking all these architects, like, "Would a dog wear pants? Is a hot dog a sandwich? Is water wet?" And figuring out whether or not they're creative based on those answers. They also did, Sargo?

• 28:02Speaker 04

  I was just gonna say, where do you guys think the third arm would be?

• 28:07Rachel Feltman?

  Hmm.

• 28:08Speaker 05

  I think middle of back to scratch butt.

• 28:11Rachel Feltman?

  Hmm.

• 28:12Speaker 05

  And yeah, and back, yeah.

• 28:14Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. I think that's really smart, because sort of, I mean, I'm hypermobile, so I actually can reach pretty much all parts of my back. But my understanding is reaching behind you for things is sort of the limit of the human arm in a lot of respects. So that would maybe like back of head.

• 28:35Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 28:35Rachel Feltman?

  Down toward that, I don't know. Scratching butt is pretty good.

• 28:41Speaker 04

  I think it should just, our arm should be a tail.

• 28:44Speaker 06

  Can I just say, I think there's a lot of I think there's a lot of Resident Evil creatures that embody all of these things you guys are describing. So if you need inspiration, there it is.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  I, I, I know what our Halloween costumes are going to be this year.

• 28:59Speaker 05

  What a power group costume that would be.

• 29:03Rachel Feltman?

  Just, just the third arm problem.

• 29:05Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 29:05Rachel Feltman?

  I hate gay Halloween.

• 29:10Speaker 05

  Well, I'll see you all in October for our group costume.

• 29:14Speaker 05

  In, in case some of those tests seem kind of biased to you in terms of how can you possibly assess that for creativity? They also did a little bit more objective things. They had a conformity test where they asked each participant to estimate the distance to an object. And then they showed some participants other people's answers to see if they would be swayed by other people. Because if you are supposed to be really creative, then you should probably be less swayed by other people's performance and opinions around you. The controversial part of this test was they had all of the architects rank each other and themselves in terms of their creativity.

• 29:53Speaker 04

  Literally traitors.

• 29:57Speaker 05

  And there was a clear winner, Iro Saranen, the, the one who did all of the white tiles. He, he won in the group creativity popularity contest. So good for him. They did a bunch of these tests and then they never published their results from this study. The records were put in boxes and just stored away in some Berkeley closet somewhere until, I guess, the 20 teens, when an author, Pierre Luigi Soreno, decided to write a book about this study. He'd heard whispers of it and he found the records and then he published this book called The Creative Architect in 2016. And now we have this great story, but they didn't stop there with the architects.

• 30:41Speaker 05

  The IPAR Institute went on to study groups of writers, including Truman Capote and Norman Mailer. That study was led by Frank Baron. They also studied mathematicians and research scientists. There was a, a woman who was part of the group named Ravenna Nelson, who studied creativity in women and started a longitudinal study of graduates from Mills College, which is a women's college. And looking at them over a long time to see what we can learn about creativity and personality. As people age, which is awesome. And these results from the IPAR studies agree with results from other creativity studies that have happened. They say that, well, they actually did focus a little bit on the early lives of the architects

• 31:25Speaker 05

  and the other creatives, and they found that there's typically a distant and possibly strained relationship between a creative person and their parents. They also found a high sense of self or a high obsession with self-image, either very healthy or very not healthy. But they did find that creative people tend to have skills that in the 1950s were considered more feminine. So they're more self-aware, they're more open-minded, they're more flexible and less rigid in their thinking. And other creativity studies outside of IPAR have also found no strong relation between IQ and creativity. So, you know, IQ tests have their own baggage associated with them, but still there doesn't

• 32:09Speaker 05

  seem to be a hard association, a hard correlation between intelligence and creativity. They find that the best ways to foster and nurture creativity are to have a lot of unstructured playtime, a lot of time to get bored and think, and a lot of a good balance between collaboration, so like interacting with other people and getting inspiration for new ideas, and time alone to reflect on your experiences and thoughts. Hmm. Yeah. And so since then, there have been a few other creativity tests that have been developed. The gold standard for creativity tests these days is called the Torrance Test, developed

• 32:51Speaker 05

  by Ellis Paul Torrance and first given in 1958, the same year as the architect study. It was originally given to schoolchildren in Minnesota and was a way to assess their divergent thinking, which is similar to creativity, but not exactly the same. It's, you know, do you think like your fellow students, or do you think differently from your fellow students? And one of the most interesting parts of that test, to me, anyway, is the unusual uses test. This was developed by a psychologist, J. P. Guilford, in the 30s or 40s, and it

• 33:26Speaker 05

  Asks you to look at an item and think of as many different uses for that item aside from the obvious as possible. So if I show you a brick, how many uses can you think of for this brick? You know, it could be a paperweight. It could be something to test the acceleration due to gravity as you fall from the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  I'm on the spot, so I can't think of any other thing right now. I would get a low score on this test. But but that is how how they would assess it. Or they would ask a story question. What would happen if what happens after the cow jumps over the moon?

• 34:03Rachel Feltman?

  Hmm.

• 34:04Speaker 05

  They would ask these children. And we've been doing this test since nineteen fifty eight. It was upgraded in nineteen eighty four. And then people were like, oh, no, this really is the best creativity test we have. And so we've been running this test for the last several decades. And up until the nineties, scores on that test were increasing, as as well as scores on IQ tests were increasing. But starting in the nineties, a researcher named Kyung Hee Kim found that there's a creativity crisis. Because since the nineties, our Torrance test scores have been decreasing, even though the IQ test scores continue to eat, continue to increase. And so in twenty eleven, Kyung Hee Kim wrote the a paper called The Creativity Crisis.

• 34:47Speaker 05

  And that is what I wanted to address in my book, is the idea that humanity's relationship to creativity is crumbling. That's why we have this, you know, reboot issue, where everything's a reboot or a prequel. That's why it's harder to find good music or good movies. It's harder to, as a creative person, break into new industries unless you're already famous, like on social media. It's why people are using AI. It's why people are, yeah, just struggling a lot when it comes to creativity and and the death of expertise. So. That kind of ended on a low note with the with the study.

• 35:28Speaker 05

  But in the book, I end on a high note and show how we can get back to this more healthy relationship with creativity. And it's not just about using less AI. Like, there are actually other things. Yes, use less AI, but there are other things you can do.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  Well, tell us some, I want to hear.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, so my main piece of advice is to kind of decouple yourself personally from the responsibility of creating. In the past, like thousands of years ago, we wouldn't call a person a genius. We would say they had a genius, this external thing. Yeah. And and now it's like we we've mushed the two and it's it's created a lot of problems. So I have stopped thinking of myself as the creative origin. I now think of, you know, it's the external sources of inspiration. It doesn't have to be an invisible muse spirit thing, but there are external sources of inspiration and I feel so much better when I can't, when I have writer's block. Because, you know, it's just that the external sources of inspiration haven't come to me

• 36:28Speaker 05

  yet and there's other work I need to do to coax them to me.

• 36:32Rachel Feltman?

  Wow, I love that. I'm so excited for your book.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  I'm so excited for your book, too. I feel like I'm going to learn a lot about, you know, what can apply to drag world, too. Because I think for me, as a drag artist, so much of it is like letting letting the people in front of me flow through me. I don't see it as my genius. I see it as part of this collective whole and I get to pull pieces from from the universe, from people in front of me, from from different songs, from different art pieces and make this little quilt. But I don't think of it as the responsibility on me. And so what you said about a person, you know, having genius really, I think, could make for a lot better art in this world, too. Because for me, my favorite art is art that reflects the moment, reflects other people.

• 37:20Speaker 04

  And I think right now we have a lot of art that reflects ego in this world. And a lot of art that reflects AI, obviously, because it's made by AI. And I think that art that reflects where we are at and what we're collectively feeling is going to be some of the most needed and rare things on earth.

• 37:39Speaker 05

  That was so beautiful. Yes. I agree.

• 37:42Speaker 04

  Well, yes. I can't wait to read your book. When does the book come out?

• 37:45Speaker 05

  It comes out August 18.

• 37:47Speaker 04

  And I'd be so happy to send you a copy. Oh, my gosh, please send me a copy. I can't wait to read. Yay. Oh, I love this.

• 37:55Rachel Feltman?

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

• 38:03Speaker 00

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• 38:34Speaker 01

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• 38:53Speaker 02

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• 39:28Rachel Feltman?

  OK, we're back. And Patty, tell me about mycelium, please.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh, OK. Here's this little fact that I'm learning a lot about lately. We're gonna dive deep down this rabbit hole into soil, OK? Mycelium are some of the best teachers we have from mutual aid networks.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  And I think we've heard a lot about mycelium lately in the news. We've heard a lot about mutual aid lately because of the news. So some news about mycelium first. We're hearing a lot about them because, shocker, nature is the best architect, nature is the best engineer. And we're using mycelium now in things like insulation, even breaking down plastics, replacing plastics as an alternative plastic. We have mycelium cellulose, which can be textile fibers. I'm actually working on a drag outfit right now using this mycelium cellulose textile fi- fibers. So I'm very excited. It's gonna be fun. You know, this is also a billion dollar market. I don't love to talk about capitalism, but mycelium are even important to capitalism these days.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  So, you know, it's definitely trending in the news and, you know, the growth is driven by being a biodegradable packaging, an alternative protein, an alternative textile. But now let's talk mutual aid. So, you know, we see mutual aid everywhere. I think for me as an activist, a community organizer, mutual aid is really at the root of my work, pun intended, because we're seeing local communities step up and provide the support we need for each other as our government, politicians, social networks and systems are failing us. And, you know, we see this in nature too, in mycelium's networks. In forests, when other systems fail,

• 41:08Speaker 04

  they rely on mycelium, which is this kind of underground mutual aid network. And it's, it's quite literal, a mutual aid network. And mycelium, for those that don't know, are thread-like fungal networks running through soil. They connect trees and plants across an entire forest. And a lot of scientists have nicknamed it the wood wide web, which is this underground system where resources actually move to where they're needed. So trees use these fungal networks to share carbon, to share nitrogen and water. And a big established tree can funnel sugars to struggling seedlings in the shade. Older trees have even been shown to direct more resources to their own kin. But also just to neighbors in need in general.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  It's redistribution, it's not hoarding. And dying trees have been observed dumping their resources into the network on the way out as a last act of passing everything they have to the community. So this is like, it's estate planning, but make generous, you know? So, so what do they do? It's mycelium are the ultimate connectors. They're the ultimate care workers. And they really have shown me a lot in my activism to often provide the care or the need behind the scenes that doesn't get the spotlight. You know, I think we have this connotation of activists or mutual aid workers of people on the front lines of these movements.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  When really it's a lot of caregivers, bridge builders, you know, even people that are providing like actual like first aid to people. It's it's a lot of these roles behind the scenes, you know, there's no one more important to my nonprofit than our accountant. And our accountant is not seen at all. So for me, this is really inspiring because mycelium show me that everyone has a role. And that oftentimes the least visible things are the most important. And I think that's something that I'm learning a lot from that I think we can all take away right now is that everyone has a role to play. We don't need a thousand people doing it perfectly. We need a million and one people doing it imperfectly. And we need people using who they are and what they're good at to take action that they and only they can take.

• 43:16Speaker 04

  And I think that's what mycelium do all the time. So to get back to it, and they look so cool doing it. So I kind of went on my BS there for a second, but I wanna get it back to the mycelium. So mycelium don't photosynthesize. They trade with plants. They say, you give me sugar and I'll give you minerals and water. I'm better at finding it. And so it's this genuine exchange economy built on reciprocity rather than extraction, which I also think we could learn a lot from right now. Mycelium are also great recyclers. They are decomposers that break down dead matter and return nutrients to the soil so new life can grow. Nothing is wasted. Death feeds the next generation. And so it's almost like composting as.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  This sacred civic duty. And, you know, it's it's interesting, this kind of full circle moment to to the mummy. But we're seeing how much like back then, you know, dead bodies, something that was dead, used to provide life for the next generation. And now we just pump it full of formaldehyde, we put it in this box where things can't reach it. Think truly, it's this ultimate last act of disconnection that models so much of what capitalism and society teaches us is. The more disconnected we are, the more we can extract from things. I could go down this rabbit hole for forever, but it's very interesting to think about. So, you know, I think mycelium for me, they they route around damage.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  They cut a path in the network and and it reroutes like a system with no single point of failure, no boss. It's decentralized, it's leaderless, it's resilient. And now here's the fun part. There's been a lot of research lately about just how queer fungi and mycelium are. Can I pop off, please?

• 45:04Rachel Feltman?

  Happy pride.

• 45:05Speaker 04

  Okay, happy MF pride, everybody. Okay, so here's where it gets fun. So many mycelium blow up the two sex model entirely. They are split gill funguses. And this is where I'm gonna struggle to pronounce things, but they are the schizophyllum commune. That is is what it's called. In the schizophyllum commune, they have more than twenty three hundred mating types and sexes. Not to tens of thousands. Gender binary, never heard of her, you know, truly. And these mating types are determined by genes. And basically, any type can pair with almost any other type that is in its own. So the dating pool isn't the opposite sex, it's almost everyone. So it's radically inclusive by design.

• 45:50Speaker 04

  And, you know, these mycelium also resist tidy categories in general. They are constantly becoming something so new and so different from what they are, that scientists can't categorize them and. Mycelium aren't quite plant, they're not quite animal, they're their own kingdom entirely, which is something that I just learned. And so they blur boundaries, we treat as fixed, and they thrive precisely because they don't fit into boxes. And when two compatible fungi or mycelium meet, they can fuse their networks and share nuclei, merging into something collaborative rather than staying separate, competing individuals. So their identity is fluid, it's communal, it's shared.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  So the big takeaway for me is mycelium point to one lesson, which is that the most resilient systems in nature aren't just built on competition and rigid roles. They're built on connection, reciprocity, flexibility. And the forests don't thrive on lone genius trees. It survives on the strength of the network underneath. So I'm learning a lot about the way I wanna go about fighting for what I care about and taking care of what I love via mycelium lately. How about y'all?

• 47:08Rachel Feltman?

  Wow, I love that so much. I'm a big, I've always been a big mycology nerd, but yeah, it's really, that is such a beautiful way to think about it. Also, you both had such lovely philosophical notes to end on, and mine was about mummy juice bread.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  You stand the gamut today.

• 47:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. That was, yours was yummy in a different way.

• 47:34Speaker 04

  Exactly, yummy in a different way.

• 47:37Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, no, mycelium are like, pretty much the more you learn about fungi, the more you're like, I think they are actually the, you know, if we wanna talk about like, the highest evolution, you know, I've talked a lot about the fact that humans are not the pinnacle of anything, evolutionarily speaking. We certainly are not.

• 48:01Speaker 05

  We're not even crabs.

• 48:02Rachel Feltman?

  No, we are not even crabs. But I'm like, you know, if you were gonna say something is the pinnacle of evolution, it would probably be some kind of, some kind of fungus, cuz they, they're weird. They're out there doing their own thing and they are helping each other out too.

• 48:20Speaker 04

  Do you wanna hear my theory? I think that mycelium are aliens on planet Earth.

• 48:26Rachel Feltman?

  Like they came from somewhere else?

• 48:28Speaker 04

  Totally, totally.

• 48:30Speaker 05

  I'd buy it.

• 48:31Speaker 04

  Totally, totally, totally.

• 48:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, pants burry is a thing.

• 48:34Speaker 04

  Yes, they're their own little thing. Why not believe in the magic of aliens? Mycelium are aliens to me.

• 48:40Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 05

  I love that they spread out so far. Like, it's one of, one of the largest living organisms is a, a mycelial network. And it, to me, I think that's the closest I ever come to how people feel when they think about how big the universe is. When I think about how big some mycelial networks are.

• 49:00Speaker 04

  Hmm. Totally. I, I, I think that's such a really beautiful way to also just show how interconnected we all are as people. We just can't see it or comprehend it yet. I want a lot more science and research on how much we are all interconnected through the water we share, through the bacteria we share, through the yeast we share, you know? Like, I think we have more in common with each other than we realize. And I think that could really help some, some policy and political breakthroughs if we saw our commonalities more than our differences.

• 49:36Rachel Feltman?

  So true. Patty, would you remind our listeners, uh, where they can go find you online?

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Yes, you can find me all over social media, just Patty, P A T T I E, Gonia, G O N I A. But more than the internet, I'd love to see you in real life. We're constantly doing free group hikes around the US, also doing a climate drag show that we tour across the US. So if there's a chance to see each other in real life, that is what I would love to do is to get offline and spend some time I R L.

• 50:06Speaker 05

  Spoken like a true performer with the people.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  It's more fun. I hate the internet these days. I, it's the worst. So I'm just like, can we please just push people into real world communities as much as possible? I think that's gonna, that's gonna help.

• 50:23Speaker 05

  Nice.

• 50:24Rachel Feltman?

  Absolutely. And Moya, would you remind our listeners what your book is called so they can go preorder it?

• 50:29Speaker 05

  Please, thank you. It's called Mothers of Invention. History of creativity from the Greek muses. And you can find that wherever or on my website, moyamictir.com.

• 50:40Rachel Feltman?

  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.

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• 51:43Speaker 01

  From the creators of Zootopia and Frozen comes Disney's Hext. Welcome to Hext and enter the world of witchits, where it was foretold that an ordinary girl would become an extraordinary witch and save the world of magic. Disney's Hext arrives in theaters this Thanksgiving.

• 52:04Speaker 05

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