It's, or do they, or do they really feel so slighted that you didn't recognize them that they don't say anything to you?

I mean, I cannot, I am sure that many, many times, like not a day, but like at least once a day when I was in the city, um, I would a- I would like snub someone by accident, and they would probably take it as intentional.

Not necessarily.

You know, and I didn't realize that until, I mean, after I wrote the, my face blindness article, I was, went out to lunch with my editor at the Post.

And, and h- he was like, and then like, so we were just walking out of the Post building and he's like, "That, that like short-ish man was trying to get your attention." And I looked and it was my boss, and I was like, "Oh my God," like, "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Like I just completely ignored my boss.

But at least I just had a new article coming out explaining why, I guess.

[laughs]

Um, do you dream?

Uh-huh

... maybe an albino mouse with fur is equivalent to a human without, who's not albino.

I have no idea.

But I can tell you that the, um, they put them in this wind tunnel, and the wind blew at about six miles per hour, and they exposed them to UV light, and they found that the wind alone produced no detectable skin damage, but the UV...

And the UV lights caused burn, like you would expect, and the UV plus the wind produced worse burns and slower recovery than the UV alone.

Yeah?

Oh my God, yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

But what seems to have happened is that in the '70s, some Virginia, um, hunters got permits to transport Florida raccoons to Virginia, um, in order to hunt them, to replenish the, the, uh, decimated raccoon population up here.

And some of them turned out to be rabid, and I'm sure that, like, Florida and Georgia and who knows where else, like, had plenty of rabid raccoons, but no one was testing them.

But-

Tell me more.

And so the Air Force, like very presciently, um, st- held onto his tissue, his like brain tissue.

Um, and so that was helpful because in 2013, a person who had received a kidney donation from Small died of raccoon variant rabies, and they traced it back to Small, and then they tested his, uh, brain tissue, and he also had the same rabies.

One of the first big aha moments was during a run-of-the-mill errand with her husband.

I was in a grocery store, and I lost track of my husband, Steve, for a minute, and when I found him, he was in, like, the snack aisle filling our cart with lots of stuff he doesn't usually buy.

And for whatever reason, I plucked out a jar of generic peanut butter, and I said, "Since when do you buy generic?" And Steve looked back at me, and he was horrified.

Like horrified, terrified, and whatever would scare this giant man, like, had me a little concerned too.

So I, like, literally looked over my shoulder, and then I was like, nothing was there, and I realized Steve was scared of me because it was not Steve.

It was just some dude who was Steve shaped and wearing a really similar jacket.

So after that, I find Steve at the checking out, and I said, "You won't believe what happened." And Steve was like, "Actually, I totally believe it because this stuff happens to you all the time." And then that was my second clue that maybe this was something to pay attention to.

[laughs]

Mm-hmm.

And so I'm pretty open-minded when I walk into new situations because I have no preconceived notion about what it...

Because I don't even have the mental machinery to project myself into the future.

So again, like, this, these are things that are very odd-sounding to people, but it's kind of nice.

Like, I think it would be really stressful to constantly be thinking about the past and the future.

It, it allows you to actually maybe be more present.

Though a lot of times though, even when I am quite present, like, I'm not...

Yeah.

Okay.

And I actually emailed, um, a person who studies cellular memory.

His name's Nicolay Kukushkin, and he wrote a book called One Hand Clapping that's awesome.

And he, uh, uh-He said that basically what cellular memory is ...

I mean, the generic definition of memory is it's anything that is a lasting change that is caused by experience that affects what you can do later.

So if you're a muscle cell, if you're a muscle fiber and you get worked out, you might produce some extra mitochondria so you do not next time fatigue as quickly.

Okay.

He gets this question all the time from people.

But for some people, holiday cheer is holiday fear.

(laughs) But yeah, so, um, the same, uh, PIN uni- uh, PIN survey said, um, that something like...

In 2023, which was the most recent, uh, 58% of articles on the topic said that suicides peak during the holidays, and in 2000, it was 77%.

Right.

And, uh, and so sometimes they call people on holidays just by random chance and...

Or the day after holidays.

And Christmas and Thanksgiving are consistently in the top five happiest days of the year.

And other holidays like Memorial Day, New Year's, and Independence Day are also regularly in the top, uh, happiest days.

Hmm.

Hair follicles are actually embedded in your scalp and the, they also compared it to skin, and they found that there are many, like, hair, hair is actually quite, um, not a very, uh, it's not a very...

It's like an arid desert, like it's hard for bacteria to thrive on hair shafts, but in your hair follicle, which is embedded in your skin and has all these nice oils, uh, and plenty to eat and moisture, there's just tons and tons and tons in your hair follicle.

But in terms of hair that gets in your food, that's gonna be hair shaft unless you have someone who is, like, plucking their eyebrows while making your soup.

Okay.

(laughs) Um, (laughs) so yeah.

He, he was the father of spin, as you mentioned, but he really, um, sort of pioneered shifting public opinion without, like, direct advertising.

So Vinita Hairnet came to him in the 1920s and they were like, "Oh my god.

All right, so how did they study this? If they do indeed study this, and I'm going to guess they studied it because you studied them studying it.

Yes.

There are tens of thousands of articles on mosquitoes and at least 1,000 on specific attractants of mosquitoes, and the early ones really used human beings.

So my, one of my favorite ones that I came across was the study in 1993 in Gambia where they had...

They constructed huts for the study.

They lined them up along a river during mosquito season and put...

Uh, there was six huts and it was, uh...

Oh my god.

That's a whole different conversation.

Uh, but we prob- but most people agree that it's probably a lower estimate, um, 43 billion.

Um, and then if we divide that by the population of the 18 states where it is today, um...... that is, that comes out to 290 lanternflies per person, um, we have to squish this summer to get rid of all of them.

Um, however, you don't have to get rid of all of them.

To get them on the decline, you only have to kill about 35% of the bugs.

But unfortunately, you have to do it at every life stage.

And they, they lay their eggs, um, about, uh, oh, most of their eggs, like 95% of them, are more than 20 feet up.

So sad.

Okay.

And it's about how plants respond to sound, and it's very...

It's super interesting.

And one of the, like, papers that sort of broke this field wide open, was in 2019, these scientists at Tel Aviv University did an incredible study where they found that, that evening primrose flowers respond to the sound of buzzing bees by ramping up their sugar production, making their nectar 20% sweeter.

What did they show?

So the strawberries, there's an interesting and complicated story wh- (laughs) where s- the...

So they blasted the strawberries for two hours a day or five hours a day of pretty loud, um, broadband sound, and they, um...

So 70 to 100 decibels, (laughs).1 to 1 kilohertz, and they did it for 22 (laughs) to 72 days.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but yeah, so that was the second thing they did.

And, um, what was the other thing they tried to rule out? Yeah, non-random, they're not copying their owners, and they're responding appropriately.

But that is all we know so far.

Mm-hmm.

Because y- like, their primary sense is smell.

So that mean...

I imagine since we're sight, if you, like, do one as an analog, the dogs, um, they...

(laughs)

... that force, quote unquote, "proper" posture.

And if it was just his kids he was doing it to, that'd be bad enough, but he was doing it to other kids too.

And in the John Mew tri- trials or hearings, they brought in, they showed pictures, like, "He-...

he really messed up some kids' teeth.

And one kid was having seizure-like episodes when they tried to put the headgear on them.

These poor five-year-olds were forced to wear headgear literally 24 hours a day, and-

Yeah.

Did they back that up with a study or just an idea, just a supposition?

Well, I definitely well, they did.

They it was just a supposition.

Yeah.

And so I went and looked to try to find elsewhere where else it was found.

I mean, I found it in lots of psychology textbooks, older, usually like pretty old, though.

And let's see.

Well,