Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome this stuff to Blow your mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglass. Julie, we've discussed in the past how robots and uh in technology, the the emergence of both of these overtime, the evolution of these technologies. Um, we go hand in hand with the side idea that we but we look at the human body and we eventually discover, hey, this is basically a machine. It's a machine made out of blood and muscles and bone and tissue of different types. But we can look at like say the arm, and we can be like, oh, well that moves because that pulled on something there and that released there. Yeah, And it is so on one one side, we're figuring out how the human body works. On the other side, we're learning how to build things. We're learning how to make little machines, little eventually clockwork devices even And you see this as you know, I mean way back to Leonardo da Vinci's day, where we're creating things that can can move of their own power, or can where you can manipulate and use like a puppet or something you know, so we begin to reach this point where we're like, Hey, the human body is a machine and I can make machines. So I'm gonna make a machine that is the human body, or I'm gonna attempt to make a mechanical effects simile of this particular um part of the human body. Right, It's not enough that you would just create something in your own image. We actually want to see how the systems work. Yeah, I mean it's part of the you know, it's it's part of understanding it. Let me create a working model of that so I can better understand how that works and at the same time, I can, you know, live this whole Frankenstein dream a little bit of of creating another human body. Almost. Yeah, And so to me it means that we just get to merge two of of our favorite topics, or at least for me. Yeah, what are those robots and poop? Yes? In this podcast, Yes, as the title UH indicates, we are going to discuss a robotic pooping duck uh from the past. Uh, specifically from the seventeenth century. But but having discussed this whole idea that you know that we really want to mechanically replicate different functions to the human body, it makes sense. And within that framework, yeah I'm pooping duck. You just hear about it, you know, just read off the cuff and it seems insane. Yeah, it sounds like I remember finding these. People may have seen these before, but they used to make these little I think we're made out of a lead or something horrible, maybe some sort of metal, but uh, but it seems like they were probably made out of lad or something. But you you would put a little firework in it, and it looked like a little dog. And when the firework would go off, it's kind of like the little things that make snakes, like these little black actions. Yeah, and they would they made a version of it, you know, back in like I don't know, the thirties ere or even say for like the World Exposition or something. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but I mean it's the kind of thing that like my dad would have played Luther when he was a kid. Um, and you would put the fire work in the little metal dog lighted up and then like it would look like the dog was pooping. It would look like black excrement was coming out of the little metal dogs behind. Yeah, So that's an example of where the you know, the science was making the dog do something that was funny. It was funny that this little tiny dog was pooping. Science was making a joke. So on one one hand, the duck we're about to discuss does that. It is amusing to see a robotic duck defecate. Um, but it is all It also ties well into this idea of here's a function of the human body. Uh, if the human body is a machine, then I should be able to create a machine that does this function. Yes, yeah, yes, so we'll discuss that and and I'm jumping ahead just for a moment, but we'll also talk about creating a machine a machine just for the purpose of creating excrement at some point, and then we will talk about its true pooping robot. Yes, because this first model that we're gonna look at is is slightly problematic. But but let's go back blueprint. Yes, so let's go back to the hundreds. All right, we're in France. Um, let's say you were You're on the streets of France, uh, streets of Paris, and you're just you're walking around. You get maybe you got a little extra coin in your pocket, jingling there, you know, maybe you're you're you're a little loaded with delicious wine and and fatty foods and uh, and suddenly you hear somebody talking about, Hey, come see the pooping duck we have or the canal did you Oh gosh, that was so slaughtered. But what that means is digesting duck. The digesting duck, the fabulous digesting duck. So you can imagine, like, you know, you go into this exhibition hall and they you, you pay, you drop your coins into the bucket and you get to go in, and then they unveil this amazing um um example of modern technology and it really yeah, yes, automato, which is really important to talk about too, But it is this gleam beautiful sculpture. Basically, imagine setting up on this pedestal and it's it's gold. It's a gold plated copper duck, all right. Um. The it has gilded copper feathers that are that are that have a little holes in and that allows you to see the inside a little bit, so you can tell that it's it's both the work of art and it's and it's some sort of a machine. It's uh. And then it's in the shape of a duck, which is it. So it's both you see both the natural world. You have the comedic going on there because ducks are inherently funny, um and uh. And then it's also clearly a machine of human ingenuity. And then it's also this you know, like I said, it's made out of gold. It's it's it has precious metals. It's beautiful to the hole. Yeah, I mean some ofs like it was, you know, taken down from Olympius Mount Onlympius, you know, from the gods, and it has tons of moving parts, hundreds four hundred moving parts and each wing. Yeah, you said you were reminded of the mechanical owl from Clash of the Titans, right, Oh, actually there's something else that. Yeah, I often am reminded of Bibo. Yes, this reminds me of Febo as well. But okay, so you're you're there, and the things pretty awesome. And then it starts to move. It muddles its water with its beak, it appears to drink. It kind of sets up and sets down, and then somebody feeds it some with some grain pellets, I believe, and it eats it and it kind of you know, it actually has a swallowing motion, swallowing motion and uh, and then it eventually poops. Yeah, I mean this is the big part of it, right, And this is this is the part of the funny equation. Right again, it's it's a duck, and it's already funny, but it's now it's pooping. Yeah. And it's explained though that the grain is passing through tubes to a chemical filled stomach in the base and then on through the duck's bowels anus and a mechanical sphincter. Yeah. And again that there are parts of it where you can see you could like part the wings and you can see the glass beneath it and the duck's innards. So this is completely fascinating, Like I'm here and now, but can you imagine in the seventeen hundreds beholding such a spectacle? Yeah? It begs the question who created this duck? Right? Who's this? Who? What kind of brilliant and maybe slightly demented mind came up with this? Right? A talented French engineer by the name of Jacques de vi Clessan. Yeah, he was born in seventeen o nine died two and ms French engineer. He was really into creating these automatons. These uh, specifically what we're referred to as philosophical toys, which are curios that combines science and amusement, which you know, it's kind of like you know, a pooping duck or or or something to where it's the the ultimate function of this particular automaton. It's like the iPhone of its time, well, but the iPhone has purpose. This is more like, let's demonstrate. It's kind of like some of these demo robots you see today where it's like, wow, it does something amazing, but it's kind of pointless, like it's it's demonstrating a certain technological skill and it shows that, oh, well, these guys really figured out something clever in making this, but ultimately it doesn't do anything. Well, yes, not to him, because he and this is from the book Digital People. He gave an address in which he said he wanted to construct an automat on that will quote imitate in its movements, animal functions, the circulation of blood, respiration, digestion, and the combination of muscles, tendons, nerves to understand the different states of human beings and to heal their ills. So he really did have a purpose beyond this. It was about, let's create a model, working model of something so we can understand the original, which is not unlike what we do today when we when we are dissect animals or we run studies and we try to figure out how they react to their environment so and so forth, so that we can then take that knowledge and apply it to ourselves. But the model in and of itself doesn't do anything aside from right. Yeah, now, some of the other thing, earlier things he had done. He had made android waiters in seventeen to serve dinner and clear a table, yes each apparently um was some visitors deemed this profane and ordered the workshop destroyed this one who's working and more closely with the church. Yeah, but I mean that probably did seem like some sort of weird witchcraft right at the time. And you can imagine it going kind of off to like uh in the Walls and Grament cartoons, where he's always making like the automated UH like delivery system that shoots him down to his breakfast table, dresses him, yeah, and dresses him and drops toast out and put butters the toast, and it always goes wrong, so it ends up like getting jam fired into his face. I like to picture that like church officials coming and uh uh and uh vakasan um having all these devices that just end up, you know, shooting jelly and terrifying and they're like forget it. Yeah. But then he also created a mechanical flute player that was supposedly just really impressive too, because it was like powered by nine different bellows, and it was this little wooden man that would play twelve different melodies in the flute. It had like a metal tongue supposedly that regulated air passing through the lips. It had gloved wooden fingers that covered the holes in the flute as required to play these different melodies that would seal off the air. So it's like this fabulous little clockwork wooden man would play the flute and people were just really in office, and and then he would he realized the time was right for the duck, right, and the duck really sort of vaulted his career quite a bit. You would think that, you know, some people might look down in it, but no, I mean it made him are more famous than he already was. Yeah, he seemed to realize that apparently he was quoted as saying that some ladies or some people who is that French enough, that's kind of gone off into some sort of some ladies or something. Now it's it's sounding like laughing or something. Some ladies or some people who only like the outside of animals, would have rather seen something else. Uh, you know, he's that he that he was. He was sort of already sort of joking like this is kind of I don't know if you're ready for this. So there's you know, he even he realized there's sort of a freak show kind of vibe to this. Yeah. Yeah, right, he had to kind of put that disclaimer out there. Although we'll say the ladies were probably most excited to see it, even if they couldn't voice it at the time. Uh. Yeah, Voltaire was actually he seemed impressed. Although it's it's hard to say because this comment could be taken anyway, but he said without vau consonance, duck, you have nothing to remind you have the glory of France. Like he was a bit of a smart alec, because it's hard to say whether or not he really felt that way. Yeah, and uh, I was really fascinated too by the by one particular theory as to why he was fascinating fascinated with with defication and UH and mechanical ducks and again it ties into the whole. Let's make a working model of something so we can understand it, um. And uh. Apparently he was a man preoccupied by the state of his digestion. He may have suffered from fistula of the anus um and so this plagued him and UH, I mean, I'm not going to go into the details of this, but it's a really horrible thing to have to suffer from, especially uh in this day, at this day and age. And so his own focus on this machine bowels and anus and sphincter um may have been his own reflection on his his personal preoccupations. That makes sense. I mean, if he especially if he's trying to solve the riddle of his digestive self system for himself, and you know, and he had the capabilities to make this this uh piece of technology, why not do it? UM. Let's talk a bit a little bit how it worked real quick. It had a rubber hose meant to mimic a digestive canal. And that's the important thing here because as it turns out it is not really it's it's kind of like a brilliant con way because it doesn't really digest food. As far as we know, it's it's we we can't really point to the duck today. The duck kind of like disappeared a little throughout history and and a lot of this is his guesswork. But but yeah, I mean, the the hose was pretty importan because it was this um it was an illusion, and it was said that you know that you would put the chemicals down the hose, and then of course you can peek in and you can see something that approximates basically a digestive system, right the small intestine or you know, intestines in any case. But it was kind of fascinating in that sense. But again, this was just a bit of make believe magic here going on. As far as we can tell. The food or went into a slot in the base of the neck basically and stopped there. And then the the the duck excrement be it fake duck excrement, uh, you know, concocted from you know, materials around the kitchen or actual duck excrement. I don't know, but but that would have have come from a different chamber. Yeah, that was actually a secret compartment where that was coming from. And yeah, and someone observed that the duck kible I guess you could call it, was getting stuck in the base of the throat, so whatever came out on the other end couldn't possibly be the same thing, right, So it's kind of like a combination of magic trick and clockwork ingenuity. Yeah. Yeah, and uh, if you're interested, there is a replica at the Museum of Automatons in Grenoble, France, which I think would be a fascinating museum to go to. And it's really I mean, the the pooping duck has a pretty big reputation. UM recently came up in a Radio Lab episode. UM, it has showed up as motifs in film and art, and most notably in Thomas Pinchon's novel Mason and Dixon, the duck comes alive and terrorizes a French chef with his belt the beak of death. So, I mean, it's it's definitely captured people's imaginations. But having talked about that, I think we need to return to what we tend to return to all the time. I'm pretty happy to talk about it the Cloaca first, this break. This presentation is brought to you by Intel sponsors of Tomorrow. Okay, the Kloeca shows up again and just you know, in case you guys haven't checked out an other podcast about dinosaurs having sex. I believe it's called tsur sex. Yeah, the Kloeca is a sort of uh well, it's let me put it this way. The Latin term means sewer, so it kind of does double duty for everything, so you can have sex, double duty, double duty, and you can do your duty. It's the Yeah, it's it's the naughty parts of of birds and and perhaps dinosaurs and definitely the platypus. That was the other podcast that the the Cloaca emerged from. Yeah, and as you can tell, it always makes me uncomfortable because I say things like you can have sex there. But it's important to to bring up in this instance because there's something called the Kloaca machine. Yes, and it's offying. It is terrifying, It truly is, even though it's it's the most sterile contraption ever made. It is uh has been created by Belgian conceptual artists them Delvoy and it's a thirty nine foot long machine. Yeah, and the pictures of it, it's like it it looks like it's laid out on tables and it's in this big, barren room and it's just kind of disturbing now, I mean looking at it and knowing what it is. Well, I mean it could be an autopsy room too, because it's so sterile. Uh. But the idea is that it's meant to be housed in a room sized installation of six glass containers connected to each other with wires, tubes and pumps. And every day the machine receives a certain amount of food. This is from art nett dot com. Meat, fish, vegetables, and pastries passed through a giant blender and then we're mixed with water impoured into jars filled with acids and enzyme liquids. There they got the same treatment that's the human stomach, and electronic and a mechanical units controlled the process, and after almost two days, the food came out of a filtering unit as something close to genuine human scat. It was nourished by a first class chef who prepared two meals a day in and detached kitchen. The atmosphere suggested a hospital equipped for a strange experiment, the birth and care of a machine that eats and defecates a mechanical baby. Hi, it seems to say, I'm almost like you, well, I don't know about that last part um, but no, no, it does seem to drive home like two facts. A. It definitely ties in with the whole idea of let's make a machine that does what a human does, in this case turning food and processing and turning into excrements. And also there's this kind of it is kept, this kind of frightening, the humanizing thing to it, like look at this, this is what you basically are humans? Yeah, the machine. In fact, that same article goes on to say that there was a little girl in the field trip and she started crying at the side of it. Whose idea for a field trip with this kid? Like, all right, kids, we can either go to the zoo or we can go see the robotic cloaca at the art museum. Um. Yeah, and it really is awful when you you should definitely look at some videos online of it because the the end part, I suppose the anus part is squirting it out almost like a pastry. But truly, this is this is a this is poop coming out now it bags itself. It doesn't bag itself. Um, But because that would be an awesome like innovation. But no, I don't. I don't believe it does. But I know that on display they had dozens of vacuum packed Kloeca eliminations that were made during the five first exhibits of the machine around the world, and there's apparently a waiting list of collectors that are really eager to buy one of those, especially the ones in the New York exhibition. So it's pretty sought after stuff. This sounds it sounds like a very kind of like turning the art wear world on its head. Its kind of a banks kind of thing, like I'm going to create a machine that creates poop and then I'm gonna sell it to art lovers. Yes, right right, which the artist I mean, he loves this, right, and we'll get to him in a second. Um. But the matter is, just in case you're worried about hygen, it's irradiated with gamma rays to kill the bacteria and dried and vacuum packed, um. And then after that they're packed air tight in a plexiglass box. So there you go. There's the Chloaca machine. UM. And then the reaction. Of course, I think the little girl starting to cry is pretty perfect. But what they found is that when they compared the human created excrement to the Chloaca machines excrement, it was remarkably similar in bacterial content. UM. And the machine also seemed to suffer from constipation and stomach upsets, caused in part by the diet that was fed to it and the different acids the ratio is used. Well, it's hard to follow that. UM. I mean just think good, it's the thing that have teeth. But I do want to say, just real quick, them delvoid the artist. He's completely obsessed with Pooh pursuits. Um. He created tiles that from far away looked like kind of like le Moorish tiles, but when you get up close on them you realize that it's like this curling figure and it's actually of his own. Uh. I don't know if it's a painted on their orders to photograph that's then put on there, but it's of his own excrement. UM. And this is the same guy, just just so you know, because obviously he's pretty much proporcifal um. He had an x ray in which excuse me, had an installation in which he X rayed people having sex using sonograms. Um well, not having sex using sonograms, but he used sonograms, mammograms, m r s, and X rays and then to film them having sex and I mean very intimate. So that guy, because I think I've I've run across that, but yeah, yeah, I mean we're talking about very graphic intimate scenes here. And he turned those into stained glass church windows and he was able to capture the images by slathering the models with barium powder mixed with nibia cream in order to eliminate illuminate the bones during X raying. Well, I'm glad he's not. Everything he does is vow that's scatological. So it does make me wonder. I wonder if he has like what if there's a reason for the fixation. I wonder if he has digestion problem. Yeah, well, well I don't know, because there's an interview in which he proclaims he's very proud of his experiment and he proclaims his like the best smelling, the best formed, the best texture. It's like he's like Kellogg And in that movie where Anthony Hopkins played him, Yes, he is subccessful. Yes, he's obsessed with goes into his toilet, are onto tile. Well he can be proud, but nobody likes likes a braggert um. Now there's another robotic if you might think, well, one, we have one actual pooping robot, right, so that's enough. Well there's another project that takes it much farther because the thing about the Chloaca machine, uh, is that it is not really creating energy from this and that's the crucial thing. It's like, our bodies don't just turn food into poop obviously, uh, just for the spectacle of that. I mean, the whole purpose is I need to take the energy that is in food, use it from I've harvested for my body, turn it into more of my body, and then the excrement is the product byproduct, the unusable parts. So the real interest here to some robotists, specifically the robotist at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, have been to create a truly self sustainable robot. So they've had earlier projects and we're talking about basically robot predators. They can hunt down and eat living organisms then break them down into energy. Okay, does that sound a little bit, Well, yeah, I guess a little bit that can can eat. But so they have they've had earlier products, like they had the slug bot that thrives on garden because I guess they're easy pickings, right, um. And then they've had there was the echo Bot two, which eats flies, and they've even explored the possibilities of a plankton eating robot for the oceans. And uh, you know, like like some of these like you can imagine like a gardening robot going through your garden and then at and and not only is it there is it's kind of like a rumba that eats slugs. You want to de slug your garden, get a rumba that that eats slugs, but instead of having to recharge itself, it just charges itself on all the slugs it eats. You know. I think that's the basic I actually think it's a really cool idea. Um. But they use microbial fuel cell to the digest that biomass, right and turn it into electricity. Yeah. They the echo about three is the most recent one and this and they've been really showing this one off and they they talk it up as the world's first robot to exhibit truly self sustainable functions. Uh. And it's capable of operating with an enclosed environment for seven days, collecting its food and water from the area environment and by this weaning liquid food and little dishes. It's not this one isn't actually like hunting down slugs or anything quite so vigorous. But yeah. The the actual digestion is done by a series of microbial fuel cells uh bacteria in the south. And these cells consume the food and produce hydrogen atoms as a by product. All right. Then the hydrogen goes into the fuel cell itself, which generates electricity to the powers the robot. And then there's also it drinks water because it needs the water to keep from dehydrating. B exactly. And the remaining biomass goes through the entire cycle once more. So there's it's not just food food to poop with this thing. It actually cycles in another time just to make sure it gets everything it needs out of the out of the the food, water and uh, and then it basically goes potty. Ye. What I think it's interesting about this too, is that it's kind of like the Venus fly trap of robots, although it doesn't quite catch its own flies yet, right right. Then they've worked with some designs that would would enable that will do that, but not in a very cool, not like in a venus fly trap kind of mouth, the kind of way. Now then there's a so so yeah, this is an example of it catches, it catches something, digest that and turns it into energy and then excretes. And then yeah, the biproduct is, of course what you said, the potty part right now. And then there's one more and this this one got a little more play in the media because it's it's called the it was part of a DARPA concept and it was it's called the energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot or e a t R eater, which uh, you know, so yeah, this one got a lot of play because people were like, they are designing a military robot that will eat human corpses, and so like everybody who is into writing headlines was like instantly like, oh my god, that's that's because it's headline gold. You know. Well, but you know, like for for people like myself who fear the singularity a bit, it does kind of seem like, oh, okay, so that's how it's gonna go down. Humans become food for robots, right, of course, it's one of the you know they say, like, you know, uh, dog bites man, that's not a story. Dog man bites dog. That's a story. But actually, robot eats human, human eats robot. Both are pretty awesome. So it's kind of a toss up there. But this was definitely the robot eats human thing, though the DARPA actually played that down. They're like, no, this is not about a deadly robot, uh, you know, eating the dead on the battlefield. But but basically the way this would it would depend on this thing called a Cyclone Mark five, which is uh, this company called Cyclone Power came up with and it's basically a steam engine. Uh, and most of the time it would not be uh, it would be digesting, like burning vegetable matter that it finds, so that that would be it's would primarily be a vegetarian. Yeah. When we're talking about the energy too that it's getting from these food sources, it's it's just not quite that big of a deal yet that it could actually um power these robots to the point where they would be zooming around. Yeah, this is not as near nearly as robust a design as the echo bot. Yeah, I mean this, this is fairly rudimentary. So it's going to take a couple of years before they eat us. Yeah, yeah, but no, I think it's actually really cool because it's an alternative to how we make and use energy. Yeah, because it's just another way we could harness ergy. Yeah. And it's like, imagine again, imagine a gardening robot that doesn't actually need to be refueled with by plugging itself into the electrical outlet. It doesn't have to be filled with gas. Imagine it going around and eating like just some you know, decaying vegetable matter and fueling itself or catching slugs or catching flies. So I see, I see a couple of unfortunate chipmunks there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's possible, all right. So there again terrifying future of robots. Plus well, digestion. It depends on how you look at it. It's like it's like digesting itself, you know. Um. But yeah, on one hand, we have you know, robots seating human corpses. On the other hand, we have robotic models of human functions that we would want to better understand. All right, take me to the light to some emails. All right, Yes, we have some emails that actually deal with ye, both of wese deal with our mentioned and discussion of non Pho non Cloe related topic. So Adam writes in Adam says, I am an open nonbeliever in all religions, but belief but believe that the basic ideas associated with them will always have their place in society. And he's responding to our religion in Space episode Don't Kill, Don't steal, don't sleep with your neighbor's life, respect your blah blah blah, it goes on forever. I really enjoyed the reference to the buffet, where I said that I kind of like the idea personally of of uha future humans taking the best aspects of different religions and carrying them with them in the future and leaving the batty stuff on the table with human belief. He says, I really enjoyed the reference to buffet because that's the way I have always loved my life, and that's the way I teach my kids to live their lives. Religion in Space would need to be flexible so that you could effectively understand what you discover about other people in their religion. So in short of a face style religion, with tolerance being the rack of lamb with a nice plum sauce, and flexibility being the asparagus with shallots, and uh o blanc sauce is the way to go. And yes, I would gladly wear a turtle neck to the table. All right, turtleneck Carl Sagurn reference there. Oh, yes, yes, because we were discussing a sagan religion of the in which we would all wear title. Next cool, here's another one. This one is responding to the Memory Palace episode that we did about the about human memory and this memory trip. That well technique that we used that to relies on spatial um. Spatial memory um. Anyway, Sean writes in and says, hey, Robert Julie, I just listened to the Memory Palace episode. I was blown away. Uh as you were talking. It was almost step by step how I remember everything I get with a lot of meetings, and it's sometimes rude to take notes, So I just uh sit, listen and associate where they're sitting with the words in relation to me, and I can recall entire meeting for weeks after and everyone is so baffled by it. But I have been doing it since grade school. In fact, I failed classes while I aced the finals in tests because notes are large, great percentage, and I've had to retest because teachers believed I was cheating. I love this episode. I finally know what to call the method to my madness. Thanks Sean. It's very cool. Yeah, that's really cool. There's somebody using the memory palace or or related techniques in their daily life to remember things. I have to say I've been employing it now and again sometimes so my attention gets diverted by some of the images that I come up with. So you find yourself at the grocery store and you're like, what, like you created this like fantastic image of like chipmunks dressed in like tutor uh costuming and yeah, sumo wrestler with a bikini on? Like what was that actually representing? What that congees? Yeah? Well cool h. If you have anything you would like to share with us, cool links, cool tidbits, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter as Blow the Mind, and you can always drop us a line at Blow the Mind. It has to work dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Staffork's staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome this stuff to Blow your mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglass. Julie, we've discussed in the past how robots and uh in technology, the the emergence of both of these overtime, the evolution of these technologies. Um, we go hand in hand with the side idea that we but we look at the human body and we eventually discover, hey, this is basically a machine. It's a machine made out of blood and muscles and bone and tissue of different types. But we can look at like say the arm, and we can be like, oh, well that moves because that pulled on something there and that released there. Yeah, And it is so on one one side, we're figuring out how the human body works. On the other side, we're learning how to build things. We're learning how to make little machines, little eventually clockwork devices even And you see this as you know, I mean way back to Leonardo da Vinci's day, where we're creating things that can can move of their own power, or can where you can manipulate and use like a puppet or something you know, so we begin to reach this point where we're like, Hey, the human body is a machine and I can make machines. So I'm gonna make a machine that is the human body, or I'm gonna attempt to make a mechanical effects simile of this particular um part of the human body. Right, It's not enough that you would just create something in your own image. We actually want to see how the systems work. Yeah, I mean it's part of the you know, it's it's part of understanding it. Let me create a working model of that so I can better understand how that works and at the same time, I can, you know, live this whole Frankenstein dream a little bit of of creating another human body. Almost. Yeah, And so to me it means that we just get to merge two of of our favorite topics, or at least for me. Yeah, what are those robots and poop? Yes? In this podcast, Yes, as the title UH indicates, we are going to discuss a robotic pooping duck uh from the past. Uh, specifically from the seventeenth century. But but having discussed this whole idea that you know that we really want to mechanically replicate different functions to the human body, it makes sense. And within that framework, yeah I'm pooping duck. You just hear about it, you know, just read off the cuff and it seems insane. Yeah, it sounds like I remember finding these. People may have seen these before, but they used to make these little I think we're made out of a lead or something horrible, maybe some sort of metal, but uh, but it seems like they were probably made out of lad or something. But you you would put a little firework in it, and it looked like a little dog. And when the firework would go off, it's kind of like the little things that make snakes, like these little black actions. Yeah, and they would they made a version of it, you know, back in like I don't know, the thirties ere or even say for like the World Exposition or something. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but I mean it's the kind of thing that like my dad would have played Luther when he was a kid. Um, and you would put the fire work in the little metal dog lighted up and then like it would look like the dog was pooping. It would look like black excrement was coming out of the little metal dogs behind. Yeah, So that's an example of where the you know, the science was making the dog do something that was funny. It was funny that this little tiny dog was pooping. Science was making a joke. So on one one hand, the duck we're about to discuss does that. It is amusing to see a robotic duck defecate. Um, but it is all It also ties well into this idea of here's a function of the human body. Uh, if the human body is a machine, then I should be able to create a machine that does this function. Yes, yeah, yes, so we'll discuss that and and I'm jumping ahead just for a moment, but we'll also talk about creating a machine a machine just for the purpose of creating excrement at some point, and then we will talk about its true pooping robot. Yes, because this first model that we're gonna look at is is slightly problematic. But but let's go back blueprint. Yes, so let's go back to the hundreds. All right, we're in France. Um, let's say you were You're on the streets of France, uh, streets of Paris, and you're just you're walking around. You get maybe you got a little extra coin in your pocket, jingling there, you know, maybe you're you're you're a little loaded with delicious wine and and fatty foods and uh, and suddenly you hear somebody talking about, Hey, come see the pooping duck we have or the canal did you Oh gosh, that was so slaughtered. But what that means is digesting duck. The digesting duck, the fabulous digesting duck. So you can imagine, like, you know, you go into this exhibition hall and they you, you pay, you drop your coins into the bucket and you get to go in, and then they unveil this amazing um um example of modern technology and it really yeah, yes, automato, which is really important to talk about too, But it is this gleam beautiful sculpture. Basically, imagine setting up on this pedestal and it's it's gold. It's a gold plated copper duck, all right. Um. The it has gilded copper feathers that are that are that have a little holes in and that allows you to see the inside a little bit, so you can tell that it's it's both the work of art and it's and it's some sort of a machine. It's uh. And then it's in the shape of a duck, which is it. So it's both you see both the natural world. You have the comedic going on there because ducks are inherently funny, um and uh. And then it's also clearly a machine of human ingenuity. And then it's also this you know, like I said, it's made out of gold. It's it's it has precious metals. It's beautiful to the hole. Yeah, I mean some ofs like it was, you know, taken down from Olympius Mount Onlympius, you know, from the gods, and it has tons of moving parts, hundreds four hundred moving parts and each wing. Yeah, you said you were reminded of the mechanical owl from Clash of the Titans, right, Oh, actually there's something else that. Yeah, I often am reminded of Bibo. Yes, this reminds me of Febo as well. But okay, so you're you're there, and the things pretty awesome. And then it starts to move. It muddles its water with its beak, it appears to drink. It kind of sets up and sets down, and then somebody feeds it some with some grain pellets, I believe, and it eats it and it kind of you know, it actually has a swallowing motion, swallowing motion and uh, and then it eventually poops. Yeah, I mean this is the big part of it, right, And this is this is the part of the funny equation. Right again, it's it's a duck, and it's already funny, but it's now it's pooping. Yeah. And it's explained though that the grain is passing through tubes to a chemical filled stomach in the base and then on through the duck's bowels anus and a mechanical sphincter. Yeah. And again that there are parts of it where you can see you could like part the wings and you can see the glass beneath it and the duck's innards. So this is completely fascinating, Like I'm here and now, but can you imagine in the seventeen hundreds beholding such a spectacle? Yeah? It begs the question who created this duck? Right? Who's this? Who? What kind of brilliant and maybe slightly demented mind came up with this? Right? A talented French engineer by the name of Jacques de vi Clessan. Yeah, he was born in seventeen o nine died two and ms French engineer. He was really into creating these automatons. These uh, specifically what we're referred to as philosophical toys, which are curios that combines science and amusement, which you know, it's kind of like you know, a pooping duck or or or something to where it's the the ultimate function of this particular automaton. It's like the iPhone of its time, well, but the iPhone has purpose. This is more like, let's demonstrate. It's kind of like some of these demo robots you see today where it's like, wow, it does something amazing, but it's kind of pointless, like it's it's demonstrating a certain technological skill and it shows that, oh, well, these guys really figured out something clever in making this, but ultimately it doesn't do anything. Well, yes, not to him, because he and this is from the book Digital People. He gave an address in which he said he wanted to construct an automat on that will quote imitate in its movements, animal functions, the circulation of blood, respiration, digestion, and the combination of muscles, tendons, nerves to understand the different states of human beings and to heal their ills. So he really did have a purpose beyond this. It was about, let's create a model, working model of something so we can understand the original, which is not unlike what we do today when we when we are dissect animals or we run studies and we try to figure out how they react to their environment so and so forth, so that we can then take that knowledge and apply it to ourselves. But the model in and of itself doesn't do anything aside from right. Yeah, now, some of the other thing, earlier things he had done. He had made android waiters in seventeen to serve dinner and clear a table, yes each apparently um was some visitors deemed this profane and ordered the workshop destroyed this one who's working and more closely with the church. Yeah, but I mean that probably did seem like some sort of weird witchcraft right at the time. And you can imagine it going kind of off to like uh in the Walls and Grament cartoons, where he's always making like the automated UH like delivery system that shoots him down to his breakfast table, dresses him, yeah, and dresses him and drops toast out and put butters the toast, and it always goes wrong, so it ends up like getting jam fired into his face. I like to picture that like church officials coming and uh uh and uh vakasan um having all these devices that just end up, you know, shooting jelly and terrifying and they're like forget it. Yeah. But then he also created a mechanical flute player that was supposedly just really impressive too, because it was like powered by nine different bellows, and it was this little wooden man that would play twelve different melodies in the flute. It had like a metal tongue supposedly that regulated air passing through the lips. It had gloved wooden fingers that covered the holes in the flute as required to play these different melodies that would seal off the air. So it's like this fabulous little clockwork wooden man would play the flute and people were just really in office, and and then he would he realized the time was right for the duck, right, and the duck really sort of vaulted his career quite a bit. You would think that, you know, some people might look down in it, but no, I mean it made him are more famous than he already was. Yeah, he seemed to realize that apparently he was quoted as saying that some ladies or some people who is that French enough, that's kind of gone off into some sort of some ladies or something. Now it's it's sounding like laughing or something. Some ladies or some people who only like the outside of animals, would have rather seen something else. Uh, you know, he's that he that he was. He was sort of already sort of joking like this is kind of I don't know if you're ready for this. So there's you know, he even he realized there's sort of a freak show kind of vibe to this. Yeah. Yeah, right, he had to kind of put that disclaimer out there. Although we'll say the ladies were probably most excited to see it, even if they couldn't voice it at the time. Uh. Yeah, Voltaire was actually he seemed impressed. Although it's it's hard to say because this comment could be taken anyway, but he said without vau consonance, duck, you have nothing to remind you have the glory of France. Like he was a bit of a smart alec, because it's hard to say whether or not he really felt that way. Yeah, and uh, I was really fascinated too by the by one particular theory as to why he was fascinating fascinated with with defication and UH and mechanical ducks and again it ties into the whole. Let's make a working model of something so we can understand it, um. And uh. Apparently he was a man preoccupied by the state of his digestion. He may have suffered from fistula of the anus um and so this plagued him and UH, I mean, I'm not going to go into the details of this, but it's a really horrible thing to have to suffer from, especially uh in this day, at this day and age. And so his own focus on this machine bowels and anus and sphincter um may have been his own reflection on his his personal preoccupations. That makes sense. I mean, if he especially if he's trying to solve the riddle of his digestive self system for himself, and you know, and he had the capabilities to make this this uh piece of technology, why not do it? UM. Let's talk a bit a little bit how it worked real quick. It had a rubber hose meant to mimic a digestive canal. And that's the important thing here because as it turns out it is not really it's it's kind of like a brilliant con way because it doesn't really digest food. As far as we know, it's it's we we can't really point to the duck today. The duck kind of like disappeared a little throughout history and and a lot of this is his guesswork. But but yeah, I mean, the the hose was pretty importan because it was this um it was an illusion, and it was said that you know that you would put the chemicals down the hose, and then of course you can peek in and you can see something that approximates basically a digestive system, right the small intestine or you know, intestines in any case. But it was kind of fascinating in that sense. But again, this was just a bit of make believe magic here going on. As far as we can tell. The food or went into a slot in the base of the neck basically and stopped there. And then the the the duck excrement be it fake duck excrement, uh, you know, concocted from you know, materials around the kitchen or actual duck excrement. I don't know, but but that would have have come from a different chamber. Yeah, that was actually a secret compartment where that was coming from. And yeah, and someone observed that the duck kible I guess you could call it, was getting stuck in the base of the throat, so whatever came out on the other end couldn't possibly be the same thing, right, So it's kind of like a combination of magic trick and clockwork ingenuity. Yeah. Yeah, and uh, if you're interested, there is a replica at the Museum of Automatons in Grenoble, France, which I think would be a fascinating museum to go to. And it's really I mean, the the pooping duck has a pretty big reputation. UM recently came up in a Radio Lab episode. UM, it has showed up as motifs in film and art, and most notably in Thomas Pinchon's novel Mason and Dixon, the duck comes alive and terrorizes a French chef with his belt the beak of death. So, I mean, it's it's definitely captured people's imaginations. But having talked about that, I think we need to return to what we tend to return to all the time. I'm pretty happy to talk about it the Cloaca first, this break. This presentation is brought to you by Intel sponsors of Tomorrow. Okay, the Kloeca shows up again and just you know, in case you guys haven't checked out an other podcast about dinosaurs having sex. I believe it's called tsur sex. Yeah, the Kloeca is a sort of uh well, it's let me put it this way. The Latin term means sewer, so it kind of does double duty for everything, so you can have sex, double duty, double duty, and you can do your duty. It's the Yeah, it's it's the naughty parts of of birds and and perhaps dinosaurs and definitely the platypus. That was the other podcast that the the Cloaca emerged from. Yeah, and as you can tell, it always makes me uncomfortable because I say things like you can have sex there. But it's important to to bring up in this instance because there's something called the Kloaca machine. Yes, and it's offying. It is terrifying, It truly is, even though it's it's the most sterile contraption ever made. It is uh has been created by Belgian conceptual artists them Delvoy and it's a thirty nine foot long machine. Yeah, and the pictures of it, it's like it it looks like it's laid out on tables and it's in this big, barren room and it's just kind of disturbing now, I mean looking at it and knowing what it is. Well, I mean it could be an autopsy room too, because it's so sterile. Uh. But the idea is that it's meant to be housed in a room sized installation of six glass containers connected to each other with wires, tubes and pumps. And every day the machine receives a certain amount of food. This is from art nett dot com. Meat, fish, vegetables, and pastries passed through a giant blender and then we're mixed with water impoured into jars filled with acids and enzyme liquids. There they got the same treatment that's the human stomach, and electronic and a mechanical units controlled the process, and after almost two days, the food came out of a filtering unit as something close to genuine human scat. It was nourished by a first class chef who prepared two meals a day in and detached kitchen. The atmosphere suggested a hospital equipped for a strange experiment, the birth and care of a machine that eats and defecates a mechanical baby. Hi, it seems to say, I'm almost like you, well, I don't know about that last part um, but no, no, it does seem to drive home like two facts. A. It definitely ties in with the whole idea of let's make a machine that does what a human does, in this case turning food and processing and turning into excrements. And also there's this kind of it is kept, this kind of frightening, the humanizing thing to it, like look at this, this is what you basically are humans? Yeah, the machine. In fact, that same article goes on to say that there was a little girl in the field trip and she started crying at the side of it. Whose idea for a field trip with this kid? Like, all right, kids, we can either go to the zoo or we can go see the robotic cloaca at the art museum. Um. Yeah, and it really is awful when you you should definitely look at some videos online of it because the the end part, I suppose the anus part is squirting it out almost like a pastry. But truly, this is this is a this is poop coming out now it bags itself. It doesn't bag itself. Um, But because that would be an awesome like innovation. But no, I don't. I don't believe it does. But I know that on display they had dozens of vacuum packed Kloeca eliminations that were made during the five first exhibits of the machine around the world, and there's apparently a waiting list of collectors that are really eager to buy one of those, especially the ones in the New York exhibition. So it's pretty sought after stuff. This sounds it sounds like a very kind of like turning the art wear world on its head. Its kind of a banks kind of thing, like I'm going to create a machine that creates poop and then I'm gonna sell it to art lovers. Yes, right right, which the artist I mean, he loves this, right, and we'll get to him in a second. Um. But the matter is, just in case you're worried about hygen, it's irradiated with gamma rays to kill the bacteria and dried and vacuum packed, um. And then after that they're packed air tight in a plexiglass box. So there you go. There's the Chloaca machine. UM. And then the reaction. Of course, I think the little girl starting to cry is pretty perfect. But what they found is that when they compared the human created excrement to the Chloaca machines excrement, it was remarkably similar in bacterial content. UM. And the machine also seemed to suffer from constipation and stomach upsets, caused in part by the diet that was fed to it and the different acids the ratio is used. Well, it's hard to follow that. UM. I mean just think good, it's the thing that have teeth. But I do want to say, just real quick, them delvoid the artist. He's completely obsessed with Pooh pursuits. Um. He created tiles that from far away looked like kind of like le Moorish tiles, but when you get up close on them you realize that it's like this curling figure and it's actually of his own. Uh. I don't know if it's a painted on their orders to photograph that's then put on there, but it's of his own excrement. UM. And this is the same guy, just just so you know, because obviously he's pretty much proporcifal um. He had an x ray in which excuse me, had an installation in which he X rayed people having sex using sonograms. Um well, not having sex using sonograms, but he used sonograms, mammograms, m r s, and X rays and then to film them having sex and I mean very intimate. So that guy, because I think I've I've run across that, but yeah, yeah, I mean we're talking about very graphic intimate scenes here. And he turned those into stained glass church windows and he was able to capture the images by slathering the models with barium powder mixed with nibia cream in order to eliminate illuminate the bones during X raying. Well, I'm glad he's not. Everything he does is vow that's scatological. So it does make me wonder. I wonder if he has like what if there's a reason for the fixation. I wonder if he has digestion problem. Yeah, well, well I don't know, because there's an interview in which he proclaims he's very proud of his experiment and he proclaims his like the best smelling, the best formed, the best texture. It's like he's like Kellogg And in that movie where Anthony Hopkins played him, Yes, he is subccessful. Yes, he's obsessed with goes into his toilet, are onto tile. Well he can be proud, but nobody likes likes a braggert um. Now there's another robotic if you might think, well, one, we have one actual pooping robot, right, so that's enough. Well there's another project that takes it much farther because the thing about the Chloaca machine, uh, is that it is not really creating energy from this and that's the crucial thing. It's like, our bodies don't just turn food into poop obviously, uh, just for the spectacle of that. I mean, the whole purpose is I need to take the energy that is in food, use it from I've harvested for my body, turn it into more of my body, and then the excrement is the product byproduct, the unusable parts. So the real interest here to some robotists, specifically the robotist at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, have been to create a truly self sustainable robot. So they've had earlier projects and we're talking about basically robot predators. They can hunt down and eat living organisms then break them down into energy. Okay, does that sound a little bit, Well, yeah, I guess a little bit that can can eat. But so they have they've had earlier products, like they had the slug bot that thrives on garden because I guess they're easy pickings, right, um. And then they've had there was the echo Bot two, which eats flies, and they've even explored the possibilities of a plankton eating robot for the oceans. And uh, you know, like like some of these like you can imagine like a gardening robot going through your garden and then at and and not only is it there is it's kind of like a rumba that eats slugs. You want to de slug your garden, get a rumba that that eats slugs, but instead of having to recharge itself, it just charges itself on all the slugs it eats. You know. I think that's the basic I actually think it's a really cool idea. Um. But they use microbial fuel cell to the digest that biomass, right and turn it into electricity. Yeah. They the echo about three is the most recent one and this and they've been really showing this one off and they they talk it up as the world's first robot to exhibit truly self sustainable functions. Uh. And it's capable of operating with an enclosed environment for seven days, collecting its food and water from the area environment and by this weaning liquid food and little dishes. It's not this one isn't actually like hunting down slugs or anything quite so vigorous. But yeah. The the actual digestion is done by a series of microbial fuel cells uh bacteria in the south. And these cells consume the food and produce hydrogen atoms as a by product. All right. Then the hydrogen goes into the fuel cell itself, which generates electricity to the powers the robot. And then there's also it drinks water because it needs the water to keep from dehydrating. B exactly. And the remaining biomass goes through the entire cycle once more. So there's it's not just food food to poop with this thing. It actually cycles in another time just to make sure it gets everything it needs out of the out of the the food, water and uh, and then it basically goes potty. Ye. What I think it's interesting about this too, is that it's kind of like the Venus fly trap of robots, although it doesn't quite catch its own flies yet, right right. Then they've worked with some designs that would would enable that will do that, but not in a very cool, not like in a venus fly trap kind of mouth, the kind of way. Now then there's a so so yeah, this is an example of it catches, it catches something, digest that and turns it into energy and then excretes. And then yeah, the biproduct is, of course what you said, the potty part right now. And then there's one more and this this one got a little more play in the media because it's it's called the it was part of a DARPA concept and it was it's called the energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot or e a t R eater, which uh, you know, so yeah, this one got a lot of play because people were like, they are designing a military robot that will eat human corpses, and so like everybody who is into writing headlines was like instantly like, oh my god, that's that's because it's headline gold. You know. Well, but you know, like for for people like myself who fear the singularity a bit, it does kind of seem like, oh, okay, so that's how it's gonna go down. Humans become food for robots, right, of course, it's one of the you know they say, like, you know, uh, dog bites man, that's not a story. Dog man bites dog. That's a story. But actually, robot eats human, human eats robot. Both are pretty awesome. So it's kind of a toss up there. But this was definitely the robot eats human thing, though the DARPA actually played that down. They're like, no, this is not about a deadly robot, uh, you know, eating the dead on the battlefield. But but basically the way this would it would depend on this thing called a Cyclone Mark five, which is uh, this company called Cyclone Power came up with and it's basically a steam engine. Uh, and most of the time it would not be uh, it would be digesting, like burning vegetable matter that it finds, so that that would be it's would primarily be a vegetarian. Yeah. When we're talking about the energy too that it's getting from these food sources, it's it's just not quite that big of a deal yet that it could actually um power these robots to the point where they would be zooming around. Yeah, this is not as near nearly as robust a design as the echo bot. Yeah, I mean this, this is fairly rudimentary. So it's going to take a couple of years before they eat us. Yeah, yeah, but no, I think it's actually really cool because it's an alternative to how we make and use energy. Yeah, because it's just another way we could harness ergy. Yeah. And it's like, imagine again, imagine a gardening robot that doesn't actually need to be refueled with by plugging itself into the electrical outlet. It doesn't have to be filled with gas. Imagine it going around and eating like just some you know, decaying vegetable matter and fueling itself or catching slugs or catching flies. So I see, I see a couple of unfortunate chipmunks there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's possible, all right. So there again terrifying future of robots. Plus well, digestion. It depends on how you look at it. It's like it's like digesting itself, you know. Um. But yeah, on one hand, we have you know, robots seating human corpses. On the other hand, we have robotic models of human functions that we would want to better understand. All right, take me to the light to some emails. All right, Yes, we have some emails that actually deal with ye, both of wese deal with our mentioned and discussion of non Pho non Cloe related topic. So Adam writes in Adam says, I am an open nonbeliever in all religions, but belief but believe that the basic ideas associated with them will always have their place in society. And he's responding to our religion in Space episode Don't Kill, Don't steal, don't sleep with your neighbor's life, respect your blah blah blah, it goes on forever. I really enjoyed the reference to the buffet, where I said that I kind of like the idea personally of of uha future humans taking the best aspects of different religions and carrying them with them in the future and leaving the batty stuff on the table with human belief. He says, I really enjoyed the reference to buffet because that's the way I have always loved my life, and that's the way I teach my kids to live their lives. Religion in Space would need to be flexible so that you could effectively understand what you discover about other people in their religion. So in short of a face style religion, with tolerance being the rack of lamb with a nice plum sauce, and flexibility being the asparagus with shallots, and uh o blanc sauce is the way to go. And yes, I would gladly wear a turtle neck to the table. All right, turtleneck Carl Sagurn reference there. Oh, yes, yes, because we were discussing a sagan religion of the in which we would all wear title. Next cool, here's another one. This one is responding to the Memory Palace episode that we did about the about human memory and this memory trip. That well technique that we used that to relies on spatial um. Spatial memory um. Anyway, Sean writes in and says, hey, Robert Julie, I just listened to the Memory Palace episode. I was blown away. Uh as you were talking. It was almost step by step how I remember everything I get with a lot of meetings, and it's sometimes rude to take notes, So I just uh sit, listen and associate where they're sitting with the words in relation to me, and I can recall entire meeting for weeks after and everyone is so baffled by it. But I have been doing it since grade school. In fact, I failed classes while I aced the finals in tests because notes are large, great percentage, and I've had to retest because teachers believed I was cheating. I love this episode. I finally know what to call the method to my madness. Thanks Sean. It's very cool. Yeah, that's really cool. There's somebody using the memory palace or or related techniques in their daily life to remember things. I have to say I've been employing it now and again sometimes so my attention gets diverted by some of the images that I come up with. So you find yourself at the grocery store and you're like, what, like you created this like fantastic image of like chipmunks dressed in like tutor uh costuming and yeah, sumo wrestler with a bikini on? Like what was that actually representing? What that congees? Yeah? Well cool h. If you have anything you would like to share with us, cool links, cool tidbits, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter as Blow the Mind, and you can always drop us a line at Blow the Mind. It has to work dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Staffork's staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.