Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. But he's here in spirit, so this is short stuff. So yeah, I missed Dave. I missed Dave two. It's been a little while. I haven't seen his lovely, handsome face. I have not seen another human being in two years. Oh that's not true, it's been a while. You know. A human being who I have never seen but wouldn't mind seeing because he has a great mustache is a man named Justin O. Schmidt. He seems like a stash guy. Oh, he's a big time stash guy from pictures. So I've seen him in pictures. I've never seen him in real life. How about that? Yeah, he seems like a guy I wanted to see, like if there were any interviews with him on video, because he seems like quite a character you would have to be to come up with what he did. Which is the Schmidt sting pain Index, which is a scale that qualifies at Lee east and I guess quantifies numerically the pain associated with the stings from different insects. Right, so we've talked about the hot pepper chart, I think we've talked about the regular pain chart, yeah, with the faces the faces, uh. And I think Schmidt realized that there was they knew about like the damage a sting could cause, but like not the actual pain level. Is that right? Yeah? And he was already he you know, he works with um, I'm not terrans bees, wasps and ants. He's an entomologist, we should probably say, um and he was getting stung already, and he's like, well, I might as well be the one to just go ahead and start making something like this so that there is some sort of index of how how painful these things are. And I think ultimately Chucky was trying to see if there was a correlation between the amount of damage done in the amount of pain inflicted in a really and where was Dr Schmidt working at the time a home of our national champion Georgia Bulldogs. That's right, feel so good to say he was probably there not too long after the last time they were national champions. Yeah, I mean that was eighty and I think this was, yeah, eighty four is when he first published the first index. He's now at University of Arizona. No one in Georgia cares, Oh, come on go wildcats. Sure, I think that's wildcats, right, Yeah, that's wildcats, Arizona State, the sun Devils. So, as the story goes, he was going back to his office at U g A there on campus, probably north campus, where the science buildings are. I didn't go over there much. Not very good looking part of campus, but that's where those science buildings are. And you haven't been to Athens in a while, right, it's been a while. You should check it out. It's it's a you'll see people there too, so you can kill two birds with one stone. Okay, people, I haven't seen them in a while, that's right. So he was coming back after a cross country road trip with his wife, Debbie, who's a zoologist, and this is when he put out his Schmidt. It was it's like one of the few times you can name something after yourself without like because of ego. You know, it's it's rather appropriate. He named it for himself, not just for all of the pain he endured. He was stung at least a thousand times by his estimate, while he cataloged eighty three different species, but also like the personality he he associated with the index too. It's not just like A sweat bee is a one moving on like he he had to describe what the pain was like or else it's basically useless. Yeah, I think, I mean, we're going to probably spend the rest of this episode talking about this stuff and how brilliant he was in his descriptions. Right, should we do a couple of them before the breaker? Should we break? I say, we break and then we come back and just let him rip. All right, let's do it go sweat bee. Sweat bee is a one. I think that's that's surprising that it's even a one. But sweat bees are little tiny bees that are attracted to human sweat, as you probably know, um, And they don't sting very often. And I don't think we said chuck, umour doctor what? Yeah, we didn't say zero to four. It's a big one. But also Dr Schmidt didn't. He rarely tried to get stumped. But I think sweat bees might have been one of the ones that he basically had to to make sting him but induced thank you, But he said that, Um, the sting is light, ephemeral, almost rudy, as if a tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm. It's like a nice peanut garugio too exactly. People very frequently. Um uh compared this the Schmidt stinging pain index to like wine descriptions. I love it tasting notes. How about fire ants? The fire ant you would think would be higher, but it's only a one. Uh and uh, you point out very astutely, and we should thank a business insider um Atlas Obscura terminics and science blogs for a lot of this stuff. But you point out that you know, it's a fire ant, not a thousand fire ants on your foot at once. That's a whole different jam. But even still, fire a fire ant bite hurts. So the fact that it's one is a really good reference point for all the ones that come after that. Sure, yeah, I mean it's not a zero, so there is pain involved. And this is and of course you're not allergic obviously. Uh. If you're allergic, it's a whole different thing. But if you're not allergic, it's described as a sharp, sudden, mildly alarming sting, like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch. Okay, so far, so good. I could handle those. Now we're starting to get into where, like I just don't want to have anything to do with these things. Like starting with the bald face hornet, that's a two. That's a two. And the way that Schmidt described it also apparently the bald face hornets sting will keep going for about five minutes. And I'm sure those five minutes seem a lot longer than actual five minutes. But he said that, um, that this sting is like rich, hearty, slightly crunchy, So well, yeah, that's exactly right. What would that mean? So he goes on to describe it as similar to getting your handmashed in a revolving door, and all of a sudden it does kind of like take more shape, doesn't it sort of? And he had to do that because a bald face hornet is a two, a yellow jacket is a two. But he points out like their stings are much much different. They feel the pain associated with them feels much different. Yeah, because the yellow jack it can go on for about ten minutes, give or take a minute or two, and it described as hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. Sorry, uh, there's also something I need to point out and I know I've talked before about the time I was stung eleven times in the face and neck when I came upon a yellow jacket nest camping. They they hurt according to how deep the stinger was. So the far and away the worst one and the longest lasting, was the hardest to get out. It was almost fully buried in that little uh is it the orable bone right under your eyebrow? And it was, it was almost completely in there, and I barely got it out. And that one throbbed and hurt for way longer than ten minutes. Why did you do that? Why did I do what? Why did you get stung by eleven yellow jacket? I didn't do it on purpose. Man, Were you like going after their honey or something. No, we were just we were going down the side of a mountain toward a river, and you know, they had their nests in the ground, and we just disturbed it. And we got down to the river and all of a sudden they we were swarmed. And I probably ran a mile through the woods, and they were probably not a mile, it felt like a mile half a mile, and they were still coming after us. Like we stopped and like here come eight or ten of them still after us angry angry yellow jackets. I should probably also point out to Chuck that I know that their yellow yellow jackets are wasps and wouldn't make honey. I was joking, right, How about red harvest ants. Have you ever been stung by one of those? No, that's a three though, That's that's getting on up there. Yeah, well you could have though, because you lived in human and they're found in New Mexico in Arizona. But they they can inflame your your nerves for hours. It says, yes, bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown tone all. Actually, I had a descriptor that I always said for years about the one in my eyebrow was it felt like someone had a thumb tack stuck on that bone and they were just tapping it with a little ball peen hammer. So I guess I get kind of identified more than I thought I did with weird descriptions. Man, that sounds so terrible. I'm glad you made it. Yes, the paper wasp is next. The most pain I've ever seen my daughter in was this past summer when she got nailed by a wasp. Awful. It's a three point oh, she screamed, like I've never heard before, and I felt so terrible. The good news is it's only about fifteen minutes and then it completely went away. Um and the pain. And this is actually what she said. She said, it's caustic and burning, with a distinctly bitter aftertaste, like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut. That's crazy. So she's she's read Schmidt's book. No, I think she just improved it. I was like, wow, that's really good description. Maybe Schmidt was astra projecting at that moment and happened to find his way. I'm not. I'm fifty. I've never been stung by a wasp. You better knock on wood, buddy. Although the wasp, yeah, true, but before that eleven and trust me, I paid for it with that eleven. But I had only been stung maybe a couple of times in my life. Really, I haven't been stung much. He's been stung like four times already, and she's six and a half. Wow. We yeah, I think that has me beat to what's your worst? I don't remember. I've kind of blocked it out. And I think about it, but probably be yellow jacket. I think it was a yellow jacket as well, their ground dwelling, right, well, yeah these were in the ground. Yeah, it's exclusively in the ground. But yes, I've been stung by a yellow jacket and it is not pleasant at all because they just the wasps look painful. They do. You me found this one, Um, I want to say it's a tarantula wasp, but I don't know if it is or not. But it was purple and orange and it looks just mean, I know what you're talking about. And she was like that, I that looks like something that shouldn't be near momo. So she got away and then she went and looked it up, and yes, it turns out it has one of the most painful stings on the planet. It actually is a four I believe, which would make it tied with the bullet ant, which um Schmidt apparently says is it's a four because that's all the scale goes up to. But it's actually like off the charts painful. Yeah, it's listed as four plus Central and South American ant big and black and uh twelve hour pain, pure intense, brilliant pain, like firewalking over flaming charcoal with a three inch rusty nail in your heel man. Yeah, yeah, I've I've heard that there's videos of people purposely getting stung by a bullet ant on if you want to see that. Yeah, there's like a whole group of people who like go around using the Schmidt Stinging Pain Index and purposely get stungs and make videos of it, just to see what it's like. Write it out. Um, you got anything else? I got nothing else? Okay, well that's it for short Stuff. Everybody steer clear stinging insects. But if you ever do get stung by one, check it out on the Schmidt Stinging Pain Index and see if he's right and short Stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. But he's here in spirit, so this is short stuff. So yeah, I missed Dave. I missed Dave two. It's been a little while. I haven't seen his lovely, handsome face. I have not seen another human being in two years. Oh that's not true, it's been a while. You know. A human being who I have never seen but wouldn't mind seeing because he has a great mustache is a man named Justin O. Schmidt. He seems like a stash guy. Oh, he's a big time stash guy from pictures. So I've seen him in pictures. I've never seen him in real life. How about that? Yeah, he seems like a guy I wanted to see, like if there were any interviews with him on video, because he seems like quite a character you would have to be to come up with what he did. Which is the Schmidt sting pain Index, which is a scale that qualifies at Lee east and I guess quantifies numerically the pain associated with the stings from different insects. Right, so we've talked about the hot pepper chart, I think we've talked about the regular pain chart, yeah, with the faces the faces, uh. And I think Schmidt realized that there was they knew about like the damage a sting could cause, but like not the actual pain level. Is that right? Yeah? And he was already he you know, he works with um, I'm not terrans bees, wasps and ants. He's an entomologist, we should probably say, um and he was getting stung already, and he's like, well, I might as well be the one to just go ahead and start making something like this so that there is some sort of index of how how painful these things are. And I think ultimately Chucky was trying to see if there was a correlation between the amount of damage done in the amount of pain inflicted in a really and where was Dr Schmidt working at the time a home of our national champion Georgia Bulldogs. That's right, feel so good to say he was probably there not too long after the last time they were national champions. Yeah, I mean that was eighty and I think this was, yeah, eighty four is when he first published the first index. He's now at University of Arizona. No one in Georgia cares, Oh, come on go wildcats. Sure, I think that's wildcats, right, Yeah, that's wildcats, Arizona State, the sun Devils. So, as the story goes, he was going back to his office at U g A there on campus, probably north campus, where the science buildings are. I didn't go over there much. Not very good looking part of campus, but that's where those science buildings are. And you haven't been to Athens in a while, right, it's been a while. You should check it out. It's it's a you'll see people there too, so you can kill two birds with one stone. Okay, people, I haven't seen them in a while, that's right. So he was coming back after a cross country road trip with his wife, Debbie, who's a zoologist, and this is when he put out his Schmidt. It was it's like one of the few times you can name something after yourself without like because of ego. You know, it's it's rather appropriate. He named it for himself, not just for all of the pain he endured. He was stung at least a thousand times by his estimate, while he cataloged eighty three different species, but also like the personality he he associated with the index too. It's not just like A sweat bee is a one moving on like he he had to describe what the pain was like or else it's basically useless. Yeah, I think, I mean, we're going to probably spend the rest of this episode talking about this stuff and how brilliant he was in his descriptions. Right, should we do a couple of them before the breaker? Should we break? I say, we break and then we come back and just let him rip. All right, let's do it go sweat bee. Sweat bee is a one. I think that's that's surprising that it's even a one. But sweat bees are little tiny bees that are attracted to human sweat, as you probably know, um, And they don't sting very often. And I don't think we said chuck, umour doctor what? Yeah, we didn't say zero to four. It's a big one. But also Dr Schmidt didn't. He rarely tried to get stumped. But I think sweat bees might have been one of the ones that he basically had to to make sting him but induced thank you, But he said that, Um, the sting is light, ephemeral, almost rudy, as if a tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm. It's like a nice peanut garugio too exactly. People very frequently. Um uh compared this the Schmidt stinging pain index to like wine descriptions. I love it tasting notes. How about fire ants? The fire ant you would think would be higher, but it's only a one. Uh and uh, you point out very astutely, and we should thank a business insider um Atlas Obscura terminics and science blogs for a lot of this stuff. But you point out that you know, it's a fire ant, not a thousand fire ants on your foot at once. That's a whole different jam. But even still, fire a fire ant bite hurts. So the fact that it's one is a really good reference point for all the ones that come after that. Sure, yeah, I mean it's not a zero, so there is pain involved. And this is and of course you're not allergic obviously. Uh. If you're allergic, it's a whole different thing. But if you're not allergic, it's described as a sharp, sudden, mildly alarming sting, like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch. Okay, so far, so good. I could handle those. Now we're starting to get into where, like I just don't want to have anything to do with these things. Like starting with the bald face hornet, that's a two. That's a two. And the way that Schmidt described it also apparently the bald face hornets sting will keep going for about five minutes. And I'm sure those five minutes seem a lot longer than actual five minutes. But he said that, um, that this sting is like rich, hearty, slightly crunchy, So well, yeah, that's exactly right. What would that mean? So he goes on to describe it as similar to getting your handmashed in a revolving door, and all of a sudden it does kind of like take more shape, doesn't it sort of? And he had to do that because a bald face hornet is a two, a yellow jacket is a two. But he points out like their stings are much much different. They feel the pain associated with them feels much different. Yeah, because the yellow jack it can go on for about ten minutes, give or take a minute or two, and it described as hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. Sorry, uh, there's also something I need to point out and I know I've talked before about the time I was stung eleven times in the face and neck when I came upon a yellow jacket nest camping. They they hurt according to how deep the stinger was. So the far and away the worst one and the longest lasting, was the hardest to get out. It was almost fully buried in that little uh is it the orable bone right under your eyebrow? And it was, it was almost completely in there, and I barely got it out. And that one throbbed and hurt for way longer than ten minutes. Why did you do that? Why did I do what? Why did you get stung by eleven yellow jacket? I didn't do it on purpose. Man, Were you like going after their honey or something. No, we were just we were going down the side of a mountain toward a river, and you know, they had their nests in the ground, and we just disturbed it. And we got down to the river and all of a sudden they we were swarmed. And I probably ran a mile through the woods, and they were probably not a mile, it felt like a mile half a mile, and they were still coming after us. Like we stopped and like here come eight or ten of them still after us angry angry yellow jackets. I should probably also point out to Chuck that I know that their yellow yellow jackets are wasps and wouldn't make honey. I was joking, right, How about red harvest ants. Have you ever been stung by one of those? No, that's a three though, That's that's getting on up there. Yeah, well you could have though, because you lived in human and they're found in New Mexico in Arizona. But they they can inflame your your nerves for hours. It says, yes, bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown tone all. Actually, I had a descriptor that I always said for years about the one in my eyebrow was it felt like someone had a thumb tack stuck on that bone and they were just tapping it with a little ball peen hammer. So I guess I get kind of identified more than I thought I did with weird descriptions. Man, that sounds so terrible. I'm glad you made it. Yes, the paper wasp is next. The most pain I've ever seen my daughter in was this past summer when she got nailed by a wasp. Awful. It's a three point oh, she screamed, like I've never heard before, and I felt so terrible. The good news is it's only about fifteen minutes and then it completely went away. Um and the pain. And this is actually what she said. She said, it's caustic and burning, with a distinctly bitter aftertaste, like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut. That's crazy. So she's she's read Schmidt's book. No, I think she just improved it. I was like, wow, that's really good description. Maybe Schmidt was astra projecting at that moment and happened to find his way. I'm not. I'm fifty. I've never been stung by a wasp. You better knock on wood, buddy. Although the wasp, yeah, true, but before that eleven and trust me, I paid for it with that eleven. But I had only been stung maybe a couple of times in my life. Really, I haven't been stung much. He's been stung like four times already, and she's six and a half. Wow. We yeah, I think that has me beat to what's your worst? I don't remember. I've kind of blocked it out. And I think about it, but probably be yellow jacket. I think it was a yellow jacket as well, their ground dwelling, right, well, yeah these were in the ground. Yeah, it's exclusively in the ground. But yes, I've been stung by a yellow jacket and it is not pleasant at all because they just the wasps look painful. They do. You me found this one, Um, I want to say it's a tarantula wasp, but I don't know if it is or not. But it was purple and orange and it looks just mean, I know what you're talking about. And she was like that, I that looks like something that shouldn't be near momo. So she got away and then she went and looked it up, and yes, it turns out it has one of the most painful stings on the planet. It actually is a four I believe, which would make it tied with the bullet ant, which um Schmidt apparently says is it's a four because that's all the scale goes up to. But it's actually like off the charts painful. Yeah, it's listed as four plus Central and South American ant big and black and uh twelve hour pain, pure intense, brilliant pain, like firewalking over flaming charcoal with a three inch rusty nail in your heel man. Yeah, yeah, I've I've heard that there's videos of people purposely getting stung by a bullet ant on if you want to see that. Yeah, there's like a whole group of people who like go around using the Schmidt Stinging Pain Index and purposely get stungs and make videos of it, just to see what it's like. Write it out. Um, you got anything else? I got nothing else? Okay, well that's it for short Stuff. Everybody steer clear stinging insects. But if you ever do get stung by one, check it out on the Schmidt Stinging Pain Index and see if he's right and short Stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.