Last week on Bad Things in History we continued our coverage of the 1950s by touching on events
of the year 1953, but this week deals with more recent discoveries of a disturbing nature.
Have the events of the past year affected your mental health?
Do you feel isolated, hopeless, and generally depressed about the future?
If so, then that is truly unfortunate.
Because it’s only going to get worse.
Although disease and social unrest spread through the world in 2020, scientists kept
working through it all.
And as the recent discoveries we share with you will demonstrate, they don’t care
about your feelings at all.
Let’s start with more discoveries about Earth’s climate.
Unfortunately, it’s not good news.
In a previous Disturbing Discoveries episode, we explained how scientists drilled into the
ocean floor and retrieved sediments.
In that instance, they were reviving long dead microbes.
Most scientists who study ocean sediments do so for a much different reason.
By examining the chemical composition of shells left by ancient organisms they can
discover details about the Earth’s climate during the time the animal was alive.
The process of retrieving sediments and analyzing them has been going on for decades.
This year, researchers compiled all the sediment data into a single chronological record.
It covers the past 66 million years and shows that the Earth went through four distinct
climates.
Scientists named these different climate states Warmhouse, Hothouse, Coolhouse, and Icehouse.
About 3 million years ago, Earth entered an Icehouse phase.
It is important to note that humans evolved under these conditions.
The researchers also used orbital data and overlaid that with information about the atmosphere’s
composition.
What they found was that orbital changes only had slight effects on climate.
The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere made the greatest impact.
The sobering conclusion is that Earth is quickly entering another Hothouse state which has
not been seen for over 50 million years.
Will humanity survive?
We’re not sure.
But there will be a lot of happy ocean microbes.
Warmer temperatures mean more nutrients for them to consume.
Climate issues may seem like an insurmountable problem.
But the recent pandemic has shown that small threats are terrifying too.
Scientists have found that the virus causing this worldwide outbreak has some disturbing
abilities.
Not long after coronavirus started spreading across the world, doctors noticed that some
patients who became infected developed heart problems.
Scientists wanted to know why, and they didn’t think it was a good idea to experiment
on people.
Thankfully, they were able to use stem cells.
The researchers created the three different types of heart cells in a lab.
Then they infected them with the virus that causes COVID-19.
The only type of cell that became infected was the heart muscle cell.
The heart muscle cells create long fibers that are responsible for making the heartbeat.
When these cells became infected, the virus cut the fibers into segments.
That would result in serious heart damage if it happened in a person.
Additionally, they noticed some of the heart muscle cells had their DNA missing entirely.
The virus basically removed the ability of the cell to function at all.
The results of this study were combined with autopsy results of patients that died from
the infection.
They found that heart muscles were affected, but in a slightly different way than what
was seen in the lab.
Scientists hope that eventually they can create treatments to prevent this damage.
In the meantime, it might be a good idea to not get infected.
Humans are not the only animals that experience depression and anxiety.
It seems that elephants also share this experience.
And one zoo wants to use drugs to help.
Elephants are a matriarchal society, meaning the herd usually follows the elder female.
And when she dies, surviving members of the herd suffer emotionally.
Zookeepers at the Warsaw Zoo in Poland are trying to find a way to make it easier on
the poor animals.
In March Erma, the elder elephant in their herd, passed away.
Three of the younger elephants have shown signs of stress since that happened.
The zoo wants to help keep these large animals calm by giving them CBD.
CBD is the short name for cannabidiol, a substance that is derived from cannabis
plants.
The main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol, and that is what
gets users “high”.
But CBD does not have this effect.
CBD is an increasingly popular product in the wellness industry.
It has been claimed that it can treat anxiety and has other healing effects.
There isn’t a lot of research on CBD.
The studies that are available provide mixed results.
Some indicate that CBD does help with anxiety and depression, while others say it has no
effect at all.
There are no studies that indicate how CBD will affect elephants.
Researchers at the Warsaw Zoo do have a plan to monitor the elephants though.
They will collect samples from feces, saliva, and blood.
They will measure the amount of cortisol to determine how stressed the elephants are.
If CBD doesn’t help lower those values, then they might conclude it isn’t helpful.
We’re not sure if using cannabis on elephants is going to work.
But do you know what is definitely a good idea?
That’s right, a history quiz.
In the 1850s, which United States citizen installed himself as dictator of Nicaragua?
Was it Brigham Young?
Perhaps the culprit was Nicholas Senn.
Or could it have been William Walker?
Take a few moments to consider your answer.
The correct answer is William Walker.
He was a child prodigy who was able to practice law and medicine.
But what he really wanted to do was spread slavery to countries that didn’t want it.
And he was willing to kill to make it happen.
If you want to learn all about this horrible person, please watch our previous episode
The American Dictator.
The climate is always perplexing.
So is allowing elephants to experiment with drugs.
But the insanity of health remedies from the past is just as confusing.
Isaac Newton is responsible for discovering the laws of motion.
He is also credited with the development of Calculus.
Advanced science and math would not exist without his contributions.
Isaac Newton even took it upon himself to ensure a grifter was convicted and killed
once.
He also involved himself in a lot of other things that were not very scientific.
By modern standards, a lot of his ideas were frankly stupid.
Newton had suggestions for treating the black plague, which he was happy to share with the
public.
Gemstone amulets were one way to avoid catching the disease.
He specified which ones you needed for maximum protection.
If you didn’t have access to the perfect gemstones, there was another way to protect
yourself.
You could use toad-vomit lozenges.
Two unpublished handwritten pages from Newton are now available for auction, which is how
we know of this.
Isaac Newton described in detail how to make this strange item.
You should hang a toad by its legs in a chimney for three days until it vomits up
“earth with various insects in it”.
The vomit must be caught on a “dish of yellow wax”.
Then, after the toad dies, it needs to be turned into a powder.
The powder should be mixed with vomit and made into lozenges that can be worn around
the affected area.
Newton said this treatment would “drive away the contagion” and “draw out the
poison”.
In the modern world, the plague would be treated with antibiotics.
Although nobody is making remedies from toads now (at least not the way Newton did), the
study of reptiles has continued.
One researcher in Florida found a lizard that set a new world record.
Northern curly-tail lizards are native to the Northern Bahamas.
They were released in Florida in the 1940s.
A Palm Beach resident released several of them on his property to eat pests.
Now they have invaded the state and replaced many of the native lizards.
One lizard that was found lived near a pizza parlor.
It lived near the dumpster and ate insects that were feeding on the pizza.
Pizza is a very greasy food, and that grease was also in the ground beneath the dumpster.
The lizard, when it ate insects, also consumed greasy particles of dirt.
Over time the particles stuck together and formed a lump so dense the lizard couldn’t
excrete it.
Natalie Claunch, from the University of Florida in Gainesville, found this poor animal at
a time when the greasy lump made up 80% of the animal’s body weight.
The lizard was slowly starving to death because its body could no longer get nutrients from
the lump in its gut.
And there was no room for more food.
Natalie euthanized the lizard.
The lizard weighed 28 grams.
The mass in its stomach weighed 22 grams.
That is an 80% body-to-poop ratio.
The previous record was 30%.
So, this lizard had the honor of setting a new constipation world record.
People also have a habit of swallowing things they shouldn’t.
And sometimes they don’t even realize it has happened.
On July 29, the Journal of Emergency Medicine published the story of a 17-year-old patient.
He went to the Emergency Room after experiencing chest pain for three days.
The doctors tested his heart’s electrical activity and found it was abnormal.
Blood work also showed increased levels of protein that can indicate a heart injury.
They performed a CT scan of the heart and found why the patient had chest pains.
There was a 1.4-inch metallic object sticking through the lower right chamber of the heart.
Initially the patient claimed to have not swallowed anything.
In a later interview, he admitted that he tailors his clothes and sometimes holds
sewing pins in his mouth.
He wasn’t aware of swallowing any.
Doctors had to perform open heart surgery on the poor teenager.
They found that it was a sewing pin sticking through his heart.
It was successfully removed.
They’re not entirely sure how the pin migrated from the stomach to the heart.
But this case has implications for treating other patients that ingest foreign objects.
Normal guidelines suggest not using surgery to remove the object if there are no symptoms.
If objects can migrate from the stomach to internal organs, then more aggressive treatment
might be required.
There is no shortage of ways for humanity to end.
A warmer climate could be the catalyst for our doom.
Or viruses might just rip our hearts into pieces.
And even if mother nature doesn’t try to kill us, we might just swallow something
by mistake and die anyway.
Because scientists around the world continue to make new discoveries, there is always the
possibility for new solutions and a better future.
The demise of humanity is not yet assured.
But remember, it’s never too late to give up.
It’s also not too late to like this video and subscribe to our channel.
We release new episodes every Monday.
Thank you for watching Bad Things in History.