Why were frogs in the Arctic?

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  • Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
  • Abigail Thorn, Jordan Harrod and Annie Rauwerda face a question about Arctic amphibians.
    LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcas...
    GUESTS:
    Abigail Thorn: ‪@PhilosophyTube‬, / philosophytube
    Jordan Harrod: ‪@JordanHarrod‬, / jordanbharrod
    Annie Rauwerda: / depthsofwiki
    HOST: Tom Scott.
    QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
    RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
    EDITED BY: Julie Hassett.
    GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
    MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
    FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
    EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
    © Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2024.

Комментарии • 108

  • @milk_choc7889
    @milk_choc7889 4 месяца назад +266

    The sudden whiplash of the switch from Moby-Duck to _detached human feet_ really is something

    • @rus.t
      @rus.t 4 месяца назад +5

      But it was all worth it for the pun

    • @grmpf
      @grmpf 4 месяца назад +10

      I thought she was going to talk about the Garfield Phones and then that happened!

    • @MrDannyDetail
      @MrDannyDetail 4 месяца назад +6

      @@grmpf I thought she was going to mention the place in Cornwall where lego has being washing up on every tide for about 2 decades now, due to a shipping container full of the stuff falling off a ship near to the coast.

    • @PsyKosh
      @PsyKosh 4 месяца назад +4

      Caused your sense of mood to be de feet ed?

    • @rosuav
      @rosuav 4 месяца назад

      I was going to go with "The Hunt for Red Quacktober" but they were yellow.

  • @benford1726
    @benford1726 4 месяца назад +104

    I enjoyed the contrast between the Tech Diff guys casually referencing Twister ("that's a really blowy one, it'll have a cow in it") and Tom having to ask a bunch of younger people if they've seen it

  • @edl5731
    @edl5731 4 месяца назад +176

    If you brought frogs to the North Pole they would croak.

    • @davidroddini1512
      @davidroddini1512 4 месяца назад

      🤣

    • @loddude5706
      @loddude5706 4 месяца назад +1

      'Naughty step - now!' : )

    • @allanrichardson1468
      @allanrichardson1468 4 месяца назад

      No, they would stop croaking!

    • @davidroddini1512
      @davidroddini1512 4 месяца назад +1

      @@allanrichardson1468 They would stop croaking because they already croaked. 😉

    • @Squant
      @Squant 4 месяца назад +1

      @@allanrichardson1468 Congrats, you made it worse.

  • @ErikFromCanada
    @ErikFromCanada 4 месяца назад +56

    At 5:07 I was expecting "20,000 Bath-toys Under the Sea" or something

  • @TaylerJDust
    @TaylerJDust 4 месяца назад +40

    "A really grizzly Cinderella" is a perfect closing line

    • @tom.parryjones
      @tom.parryjones 4 месяца назад +9

      Ironically, the original Cinderella is already pretty grisly!

    • @hannahk1306
      @hannahk1306 4 месяца назад

      ​@@tom.parryjones I was thinking that, isn't part of the plot literally about chopping off (bits of) feet?

    • @robspiess
      @robspiess 4 месяца назад +2

      @@hannahk1306 Yeah, the step-sisters cut parts of their feet off so it would fit in the glass slipper.

  • @gerrit2409
    @gerrit2409 4 месяца назад +40

    In 2013, I participated in an adjacent study. I put a note in a glass bottle with a wax cap and threw it in the Davis Strait between Nunavut and Greenland - and was contacted by a Swiss family that had gone kayaking in Ireland and found the bottle some 16 months later. We were interviewed by a morning radio show in Dublin, and it was a wonderful experience!

    • @avsgriffy
      @avsgriffy 4 месяца назад

      I should have done that last week when I was in both Nunavut and Greenland!

  • @notarealdad
    @notarealdad 4 месяца назад +57

    5:37 I think the French novelty Garfield phones is my favourite story about things being lost at sea and turning up on shore

    • @grmpf
      @grmpf 4 месяца назад +14

      I was so sure that was what she was going to say and then DETACHED HUMAN FEET

    • @orwellboy1958
      @orwellboy1958 4 месяца назад +8

      mine is the life size lego man who turned up on a british beach and then disappeared.

    • @christinesizemore3
      @christinesizemore3 4 месяца назад

      that's definitely what I thought she was going to say too!

  • @EricGerlachCa
    @EricGerlachCa 4 месяца назад +20

    When Tom lists off the toys I can't help but hear a strange version of Lucky Charms: "Yellow ducks, red beavers, blue turtles, and green frogs! They're always after me Friendly Floaties!"

  • @Balsiefen
    @Balsiefen 4 месяца назад +17

    I'm more proud of instantly getting "Moby Duck" than guessing any of the previous questions on this channel.

  • @Keenath
    @Keenath 4 месяца назад +15

    As far as the feet thing goes -- basically this is an area that's heavily traveled (both by boats and shoreline hiking) but has limited outlets to the open sea. Sometimes people drown in any area like that, and when that happens, well, modern shoes often have foam in them and are quite floaty, so as decomposition happens, eventually the floaty bits sort of break off at the nearest joint and go riding the current until they wash up somewhere.

    • @christinesizemore3
      @christinesizemore3 4 месяца назад +1

      I've subscribed to the theory that they may belong to people completing s-cide off of bridges upcurrent... Shoes, being a rather more solid material and a tight fit, protect the feet from predation. As the weaker joints deteriorate and detach, the low-density materials in said shoes cause them to gain some buoyancy and be swept away only to come to rest on the Salish shoreline.

  • @ToyotaCharlie
    @ToyotaCharlie 4 месяца назад +3

    i love the genuine enthusiasm and sparks in the eyes when Annie gets to tell the macabre story about feet of dead people getting washed on the shore 😂

  • @MyRegardsToTheDodo
    @MyRegardsToTheDodo 4 месяца назад +24

    There were atleast three bugs in Antarctica. VW gave them to the Australian Antarctic corps (or whatever they were called) back in the 1960s, didn't even have to modify them that much. And the Australians were quite happy with them.
    Oh, and I think I got the answer to that question from Death in Paradise.

  • @jonathan_60503
    @jonathan_60503 4 месяца назад +14

    I knew of the those ducks, but the beavers, turtles, and frogs threw me off the track

  • @Slikx666
    @Slikx666 4 месяца назад +8

    Moby duck? That's quackers!

  • @aloysiuskurnia7643
    @aloysiuskurnia7643 4 месяца назад +2

    That "moby duck" sounds like it was straight up came out of a Citation Needed ending prize

    • @petertaylor4980
      @petertaylor4980 4 месяца назад

      It's also a song by the Longest Johns.

  • @daerdevvyl4314
    @daerdevvyl4314 4 месяца назад +13

    I recall reading a science fiction story once, it may have been by H.G. Wells or Jules Verne or somebody like that: Somebody travels to the bottom of the ocean and finds a civilization there. They have this strange perception of what must be above them because every once in a while it “rains” metal objects accompanied by dead people. They’ve never seen a live human before and seemed to think that all humans are dead. That’s about all I remember though.

    • @IceMetalPunk
      @IceMetalPunk 4 месяца назад

      I don't know what story that is, but it definitely sounds far more Jules Verne-esque than H. G. Wells.

    • @lateralcast
      @lateralcast  4 месяца назад +14

      "In the Abyss" by H.G. Wells. www.telelib.com/authors/W/WellsHerbertGeorge/prose/plattnerstory/abyss.html

    • @IceMetalPunk
      @IceMetalPunk 4 месяца назад +3

      @@lateralcast Welp, this is what I get for judging authors by their covers 😅

    • @RandomOnlineIdiot
      @RandomOnlineIdiot 4 месяца назад

      I didn't know of this story. Thanks for sharing.

    • @Kaorulabelle
      @Kaorulabelle 4 месяца назад

      @@lateralcast Wow. That story is awesome. Thank you !

  • @BleuSquid
    @BleuSquid 4 месяца назад +6

    I remember this! I seem to recall there was a campaign in some public schools to get people to go out and find them and turn them in. Except they only talked about the ducks. I don't think I ever heard mention of frogs, beavers, or turtles.

    • @christinesizemore3
      @christinesizemore3 4 месяца назад

      yeah, I was familiar with the rubber duck phenomenon but had never heard of the other animals!

  • @kayleighlehrman9566
    @kayleighlehrman9566 4 месяца назад +3

    The Salish Sea feet are usually found in sneakers/trainers/tennis shoes, which has been attributed to helping them stay preserved, helping them stay buoyant, and preventing them being eaten by oceanic predators. The rest of the bodies the feet were at one point attached to wouldn't have had the same level of protection, and so would be more likely to sink or be eaten (or both).

  • @lorenzoblum868
    @lorenzoblum868 4 месяца назад +11

    In the North Pole you can find anything if it's on your Christmas wish list.

  • @aidanbrumsickle
    @aidanbrumsickle 4 месяца назад +5

    "Moby Duck"... I would have said 20,000 Beaks under the Sea

  • @alanreader4815
    @alanreader4815 4 месяца назад +2

    This is Almost becoming my most favourite Show after Citation Needed.

  • @thecomputerguy6335
    @thecomputerguy6335 4 месяца назад +2

    The detatched human feet thing was bodyies kept ending up in the place she mentioned, before then the crabs in the area would eat through the bodies, but when a shoe company, i can't remember remember who of the top of my head started making a specific type of shoe, then when the crabs ate their ankles the feet would float to the surface and wash up on shoar

    • @ecchikitty1395
      @ecchikitty1395 4 месяца назад +3

      Not strictly crabs, and not a specific type of shoe. Any shoe protects from the elements better than the average pant leg, so the flesh leg falls apart while the encased foot is still protected and held together.

  • @TheLatokuivaaja
    @TheLatokuivaaja 4 месяца назад

    My favourite story about stuff turning up on the shore is the Garfield phones.

  • @random832
    @random832 4 месяца назад +3

    "Coke can things" Pepsi not getting the value they thought they would out of that product placement.

  • @saerynk
    @saerynk 4 месяца назад

    Please let this show go on forever.

  • @jxmink
    @jxmink 4 месяца назад

    This incident was the inspiration for Eric Carle's "10 Little Rubber Ducks"

  • @nacoran
    @nacoran 4 месяца назад +1

    Sneakers protect the feet, so when they detach from the body they are more likely to make it to shore.

  • @treksez
    @treksez 4 месяца назад +3

    This happened with Lego containers as well. Off of lands end.

    • @lmpeters
      @lmpeters 4 месяца назад +5

      Tom has a video about that on his main channel.

  • @matthewbowers88
    @matthewbowers88 4 месяца назад +1

    What sound does that make would have been a great set up for our favourite Gary Brannan.

  • @nariu7times328
    @nariu7times328 4 месяца назад

    In Alaska, in the 80s, we used to get mail by shipping container. Occasionally your mail would just not arrive, and the USPS would carefully dodge any comment of containers just being swept away with big waves.

  • @lorenzoblum868
    @lorenzoblum868 4 месяца назад +4

    In the ocean you can find pretty much anything... Except fishes soon.

  • @DragonslayerProd
    @DragonslayerProd 4 месяца назад +1

    "How many feet washed up on shore?" me: An even number?

    • @christinesizemore3
      @christinesizemore3 4 месяца назад

      Not sure how serious, but I find the subject fascinating, so here's a light infodump! Considering most of the feet have been determined to have naturally detached after a lengthy submersion, they often become subject to the currents at different times, and so don't often come in pairs. They've reportedly only ever found 2 sets of matching feet - one pair in the same place around the same time, and one pair directly across the strait from each other several months apart. Remarkably, a number of the remains HAVE been identified! ETA: There was another existing set which I missed as having also been paired and identified, both in the same area. Apparently there is ALSO one other set of paired shoes, but one of the entries is missing from the Wikipedia article, also found near each other.

  • @katepeterson5478
    @katepeterson5478 4 месяца назад +1

    A friend of mine found one of those feet while they were at band camp. It was, and a lot of the feet were, in a hiking shoe, which is notable because the shoe holds the foot together even though the ankle had rotted away, and it floated to carry the foot to shore. So it's possible that the feet originally belonged to hikers who got lost and drowned accidentally rather than anything sinister.

    • @IceMetalPunk
      @IceMetalPunk 4 месяца назад

      That's a very different sort of "this one time at band camp" story...

  • @popquizzz
    @popquizzz 4 месяца назад +3

    Hey Annie, the reason why the disembodied feet show up is that they don't typically decomposed in the cement shoes, but the cement that had been typically used back in those days tends to disintegrate after about a year and fully almost dissolves after around two to three decades. Not that I have experience with this other than forensic pathology.

  • @TarunoNafs
    @TarunoNafs 4 месяца назад +1

    I knew the answer. In fact, this exact incident is intorduced in a Chinese Language textbook for primary students in Hong Kong.

  • @37adrianporter
    @37adrianporter 4 месяца назад

    Never duck the question !

  • @abczoomom
    @abczoomom 4 месяца назад

    The foot thing was an episode of Bones, down to it being on the US/Canada border.

  • @justandy333
    @justandy333 4 месяца назад

    A similar thing like this happened off the coast of Cornwall, UK. A container full of Lego went overboard and millions of Lego bricks ended up being washed up on the coastline around Cornwall.

  • @copycat2696
    @copycat2696 4 месяца назад +2

    My initial guess is that those all originated from an area far from the Artic and were frozen in ice, showing that the ice drifted all the way there

  • @cwaldrip
    @cwaldrip 4 месяца назад +2

    "Are they real?" should be a question in every episode...

  • @JennaGetsCreative
    @JennaGetsCreative 4 месяца назад

    Sounds like the Garfield phones that wash up in France.

  • @isaacbobjork7053
    @isaacbobjork7053 4 месяца назад

    It's like all the Garfield telephones spread along the Brittany coast or tons of lego at some places

  • @OlegDorbitt
    @OlegDorbitt 4 месяца назад +1

    one heckuva footloose

  • @tomcardale5596
    @tomcardale5596 4 месяца назад

    I was definitely going with the Lego container!

  • @lordtraust
    @lordtraust 4 месяца назад

    I never knew there was anything other than ducks in that shipment which is why I couldn't work out the answer

  • @princecharon
    @princecharon 4 месяца назад +2

    The question of the feet suggests a serial killer, though that's far from the only explanation of the coincidence.

    • @ecchikitty1395
      @ecchikitty1395 4 месяца назад

      Serial killer was an early guess. As I understand, a leg wrapped in pants doesn't hold up to ocean elements very well, and falls apart. The foot at the end of that leg, tightly wrapped in layers of foam, leather, and rubber, holds up much better, and tends to float. So the detached foot in a shoe ends up on shore while the leg and rest of the body is lost at sea.

  • @GrandHighGamer
    @GrandHighGamer 4 месяца назад

    The feet are definitely just detached from people lost at sea. The same thing has been in the news somewhat recently about seals or something. People just finding seal heads littering beaches. They reckon they just drown naturally (dwindling sea ice and all that) and then getting tossed around at sea pops it off. Disturbing, but it at least means there's not a seal / human foot serial killer about.

  • @RossParker1877
    @RossParker1877 4 месяца назад +3

    Yay. I knew one!

  • @WistyFish
    @WistyFish 9 дней назад

    The foot thing is o retesting. One theory is that bodies sunk, but after decomp, sneakers float

  • @sorrynotsorry8224
    @sorrynotsorry8224 4 месяца назад

    1:01 - "I've never been to Anarctica, but I do not believe there are frogs hopping around up there"
    Oh honey. Also, I'll never understand why Antarctica gets that first T forgotten so much.

  • @wyrdlg
    @wyrdlg 4 месяца назад +2

    The feet thing is mostly solved as far as I heard...

  • @YouennF
    @YouennF 4 месяца назад

    It's my second question on the show ! #BraggingRights

  • @dayalasingh5853
    @dayalasingh5853 Месяц назад

    Depths of Wikipedia and Philosophy Tube on the same episode?!

  • @JohnHolzman-e3f
    @JohnHolzman-e3f 4 месяца назад

    Some of my household goods were lost in shipping from England to the US.

  • @Wogle
    @Wogle 4 месяца назад

    Not gonna lie, I got this partly because of the episode of Death in Paradise where the ducks were mentioned 😅

  • @ihathtelekinesis
    @ihathtelekinesis 4 месяца назад +2

    Wasn't there a Half as Interesting video about this a few years ago?

  • @erictaylor5462
    @erictaylor5462 4 месяца назад

    A "conglobulation is what you get when you put a large number of frogs in a blander and press start.

  • @observer127
    @observer127 4 месяца назад

    Hearing that last part of the video makes me feel defeeted.

  • @erictaylor5462
    @erictaylor5462 4 месяца назад

    Shipping containers are designed to sink if the go into the water because they become a navigation hazard otherwise.

  • @pookhahare
    @pookhahare 4 месяца назад

    I heard storms picking up frogs but beavers? And 29000 😮

  • @walterskent
    @walterskent 4 месяца назад +2

    Gotta say, the foot fact was more interesting

  • @PixelatedPenfold
    @PixelatedPenfold 4 месяца назад

    Cinderella (the original story) is grisly enough. You don't need detached feet to make it grisly.

  • @North_West1
    @North_West1 4 месяца назад

    Rubber Duckie is my first guess.

  • @Artaxo
    @Artaxo 4 месяца назад

    What do you mean "maybe they used to be part of full bodies"? What's the alternative?

  • @erictaylor5462
    @erictaylor5462 4 месяца назад

    Were the ducks mallards?

  • @deafeningoctopus
    @deafeningoctopus 4 месяца назад

    I'm glad something positive came out of this spill rather than just environmental damage! That's not the usual outcome unfortunately.

  • @Anolaana
    @Anolaana 4 месяца назад

    Upon hearing the list of animals, I thought "man, that sounds a lot like Madagascar" - and given what happens during that movie, I guess it was closer than I thought!

  • @geoffroi-le-Hook
    @geoffroi-le-Hook 4 месяца назад

    There was an accident at Santa's Workshop

  • @poja82
    @poja82 4 месяца назад

    I love lateral, is a very clever and friendly emission, but this one had something troubling. Tom said
    Rhis is artic not antartic, so is up top 1:32. I come from Argentina, the southest country in the globe, and it is kind of demeaning to imply that we are "way down". South is not down, north is not up. It is demeaning. I understand the way maps are constructed in the northern hemisphere, and how hanging them give the idea of up and down, but if you could not say that north is up top, which implies that south is all down, it would be nice. I will keep watching no matter what, awesome emission, i love it.

  • @version365
    @version365 4 месяца назад

    4:56 Fun fact: There are more airplanes in the ocean than submarines in the sky.

  • @RFC3514
    @RFC3514 4 месяца назад +2

    Those feet are probably coming from the USA.
    Because everybody else is metric.

  • @happyconstructor
    @happyconstructor 4 месяца назад

    moral of the story, we need to put more plastic in the ocean :D

  • @markusklyver6277
    @markusklyver6277 4 месяца назад

    Mass murderer vibes