Hey, everybody, this is Chuck with this uh Saturday select edition of Stuff you Should Know? And this week I picked out a little show called why do Men Have Nipples? And that's how you have to say it in your head when you read it out loud. This from January, and if I remember correctly, Um, it's just kind of an interesting episode. I think Josh and I we're looking at each other one day with their shirts off. I was like, why you have nipples? Why do you have nipples? And that's generally how most of our shows get started. So give it a listen and I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we're doing this. We're doing it whether you like it or not. Yeah, we're recording our podcast Stuff you Should Know. Probably no because you tuned in, so welcome and if it was an accident, Hey, welcome to the party. Talk about serendipity. You're about to learn about male nipples. Yeah you want to talk about a party? Yeah? You got him? I got him. We all do. Uh, do you want to talk about chromosomes for a second. Sure, okay, chuck, uh, you and I each have twenty three chromosomes in our body. We talked a little bit in Designer Children. I think, yeah about little genetics over We're not gonna go into that now. But um, the twenty three chromosomes. H if you put a man in a woman side by side, or their chromosomes side by side, twenty two of the twenty three chromosomes are going to be exactly alike. It's that twenty three that gets you. The twenty three chromosome either has a pair of xes or an X and a Y. Pair of xes equals a woman, X Y equals a man. Okay, we're not that far apart. We're really not. And that becomes very very clear when we're in utero because sexual dimorphism, which is the the inward and outward differences between genders between male and female, like who who's in ha haas and that kind of stuff. Um, those are all uh, those are all hammered out in the course of our development on the twenty three chrome zone. Right, A lot of it you come out with, right, you were born with a vagino or a penis, right, Um, but a lot of it is also set up to be kicked in when puberty happens. That's right, but still there's differences, there's changes, and it's all because of this twenty three chrome zone. Some of the things though, can go either way and depending on what happens when puberty comes along. Um, either nothing's going to happen to these to this equipment, I guess you could call it yea or um. A lot of crazy things happened to it. And one of those, uh, the good examples of this are nipples. There's a really great question, why do men have nipples? Chuck? Yeah, I have a funny little story about this. My sister and I were hanging out about about fifteen years ago, and I was They had a male dog and I was rubbing the belly and the dog had very like just pronouncing nipples more so than you you would usually see on a male dog. And I guess I never noticed before, and I was just like, I was kind of grossed out. I was like, what is your dog nipples? And she's like, you have nipples? And then it just like it was an awakening my mind. Yeah, It's like, wow, you're right, I do why And I never really researched things like this back then, and uh, now I know why. Now we know why. Yeah, and we should say this is um the generally accepted explanation. It's not necessarily scientific fact, but it is um. This is pretty much why. Ye, most mammals, in fact, most male mammals have nipples. I think mice, stallions and uh platyppie. Yeah, the male platypus is among the handful of animals that of mammals that where the boys are born nipple free, which is weird because um, as Conger points out Christen Conger from Stuff Mom Never told you she wrote this article, and um she points out that you can make the case that mice are more evolved in that respect than human males. Yeah. Ours could be a flaw. Yeah, um, we'll get to that. Well, let's talk about this. So they're back in uh nine, right before Y two K it's y two K fever, Yale University researchers released the study that said, Hey, we've gotten to the bottom of this mystery of why or how male mice don't grow nipples. They're just completely seriously, go out in your yard right now, trap a mouse, pick it up by its tail and examine it's some little belly, no nipples, Yeah, nothing, or if it's got nipples, that means it's a little lady exactly. That's the way you tell. That's one of the ways you tell with mice. And it's because of a protein pth little r P. Yeah. It's always so exciting when they give them names like this. Uh. After mice are after their memory tissue starts to form, produces this protein. Uh. And in male mice it signals the cells to form male hormone receptors and uh, it basically destroys the tissue. Yeah, like in utero. Correct, Yes, because boy mice and male and female mice are all they all develop mammory tissue, which gives you all the equipment for nipples and breasts and milk ducks and all that stuff. They just destroy theirs before they're born. Yeah, that protein signals that for to be destroyed in male mice. Uh, prepare for the mind blower. Now, boys and girls as humans undergo a very similar process in utero as well. Um, before that sexual dimorphism that's really carried out by the twenty three chromosome begins. We both both genders start to develop um memory tissue, uh, and develop all the equipments called milk lines. They're like kind of like calls it the plumbing. We have the same plumbing exactly, which is kind of funny and true. Yeah, um we and we developed this plumbing before it's decided or before we start to um develop sexual traits. So it's almost like if you look at a timeline of sex sexual development, the nipples come first, so that they're not associated as far as the I guess nature is concerned with male or female humans the same thing. Yeah, So we don't have a protein that takes care of this um the nipples and males. So men are and boys and girls are born with pretty much exactly the same setup until puberty, that's right, And that's when the hormones kick in. Estrogen and girls is going to cause breast growth and mamory gland development, and that's when things diverge. You know what It really stood out to me on this um that means that our nature's default setting as far as humans are concerned, it's female. Uh yeah, I think it's pretty neat. It's pretty neat. Well, you know, women are the seed of everything, seed of life. Um, so it's what everybody calls them, the seed of life. So um. The the simple answer then is the reason we have nipples is because we've always had nipples. And through the years, evolution never said, you know what, you don't need nipples. No, And um, the I think the case has been made. The reason men still have nipples because nipples are so vital to female reproductive success that, um, there's no Conger points out, there's no adaptive pressure to select nipples out of men. Yeah, it's such a vital function. Right, So it's like we don't want to possibly mess with anything, So everybody gets nipples. Okay, you just live with it. Yeah. Yeah, but that's why men have nipples because nature's default setting for humans is girls. Yeah. That's interesting. And um, I love my little nipples. I'll just come out and say it. Do you do well? I think it would be odd to not have them. I don't think so. It's a little getting used to, but I think, um, I think it would not look on you know, we did our our Barbie podcasts that come out already. Yeah, and there are web there are people on the web that will teach you how to make nipples. For your Barbie dolls. I saw their kindles. Yeah, yeah, like very realistic, looking, very realistic. But yeah, you look like a kin doll. This would just be weird. I don't think ken looks abnormal without nipples because it's a doll. It also doesn't look at normal without a penis. That's true, you know. Yeah, I think you would be the little distressed if you woke up one day without nipples. Or maybe you'd love it. Maybe it's a new lease on life for you. Yeah, I'd be like, just go bare chested everywhere. Great, I'm a freak. Yeah yeah. Um, so we said, Chuck, something that's kind of interesting. If you ask me, if you take a six year old boy and a six year old girl, prep bess boy and pre pubescent girl, and you compared their um, their memory glands, the whole memory operation they've got going on, they're virtually the same. And it's not until estrogen comes along that the the differences really change. The fat develops, so the breasts get bigger. Um, these milk ducks developed. You've You've got all this this process that's that just kind of takes these things that are almost latent in turns them into functioning breasts. Right, Um, if we've found if you expose a man to estrogen, he could conceivably lacktate himself. That's part two of this. We didn't even put that in the title because we didn't want to just blow your minds right out of the gate. But the point is is men have nipples because girls have nipples, and men can lack take because women can lack take. Yeah, and in fact, as little babies, um, you and I might have lactated. Who knows when the hormone prolactin is what facilitates breast milk production, and new moms um when they can actually pass this along in utero to their fetus, and that little baby can come out if they get enough of that passed along with the ability to lactate both little boys and little girl, and it's called witches milk um only last couple of weeks. Usually, yeah, I'll bet it's a distressing couple of weeks if you're the parent, like, what is going on? Well, I'm sure it's explained. There's all sorts of weird things that can happen right away that you're like, what and uh, I think Usually doctors like, don't worry that a little fun thing else the brain will grow together. Are not the brain, The skull will grow together at some point. Don't worry about this, just don't pat it on ahead an Um, So that yeah, which is milk? It occurs, and I don't know how rare it is, she didn't say, but is it? Yeah? Even rarer? Is um spontaneous lactation in adult men. Yes, and that's called galacteria, which does not sound very pleasant. No it doesn't. But essentially, if um, if you lack enough testosterone that your estrogen levels are comparatively high, you can um suffer galacteria, which basically is male lactation. Spontaneous elactation. Yeah, but um, Congor points out, it could be you know, the cause of alarm though, uh, if you're an older man, correct, is that just because of the testosterone deficiency? Okay, yeah, but Darwin thinks, hey, maybe early man breastfed, like full on breastfed, and who knows, maybe they did. Who's to say? Are we to say? No, Charles Darwin? Yeah, Um, so you've got galacteria is a possibility, which is milk is possibility? Two ways that um human males can spontaneously lactate and we're not the only ones who do. There's a type of bat that was discovered to lactate spontaneously, and a surprising amount of animals over the course of the last century or two have been exposed to all sorts of different tests to make them spontaneously lactate. UM. A steer was made to lactate. Do you know how surprised that steer must have been? UM. But we've found that if you can, if you can increase estrogen levels and trigger the release of prolactin, you can make men produce milk. And it happens sometimes. So the prolactin is UM is produced by the thyroid gland right tuitary gland. Yeah, and women when they have a little baby, they it really ramps up like ten times as much exactly. So what they found is that UM after a baby is born. Dad's suffer, I guess suffer it's not the right word. Dad's experience an increase in prolactin production too. Normally, it's not it's not enough to cause lactation, but they suspect you can make it happen if you are okay, So this is really strange. If you hold a baby to your breast and your nipple and your man and you're the father, so you're already kind of like prolactin high. You could conceivably trigger the production of milk if you did that repeatedly over the over the course of like a couple of weeks. Yeah, it's like it's a physiological response and biological I guess sort of all wrapped up into one, and you can have like a sympathy lactation almost. Yeah, and it's happened two thousand two in Sri Lanka, right. Yeah. Um. I didn't actually get to look this guy up, so I don't know a whole lot about him other than the fact that he breastfed his daughters after his wife died. Yes, his wife died during a childbirth and he took over. Wow, that's amazing. But another way to um lactat as if you're starving chuck. Yeah. Um, there was this one pow camp, Japanese pow camp, and just one there was five cases of men lactating, uh, spontaneously for each other. No, you would think, Um, actually, what what happens is so your your pituitary gland produces prolactin um and your liver is typically charged with um eating up excess hormones. Right. Um, when you're starving, both of them kind of slow down. But when you start to eat normally again, your petuitary gland starts functioning quicker than your liver, so you have higher levels of hormones, including prolactant. Hence you have starving men who lack tate. Wow, that's a reality show some sort of island location islands, I don't know. And there there's a tribe, the Acca pygmy tribe in Africa. There's about out on them and this dude it was documented that they men breastfeed their children and this dude went and live with them. And uh, not only that, it's amazing. They're they're known as the best fathers in the world because they spend forty seven percent of their time um percent of the time their babies are within arm's reach of the father, which is far and away more than any other culture in the history of the world. And the gender roles in this Accat tribe are completely interchangeable. Like sometimes the men go out and hunt, the women take care of things. Sometimes the women go out and hunt and the men watch the clay pots and take care of the children, and it's just they don't know gender roles like that. It's just completely interchangeable. It's pretty cool. That is very cool. Um. And that's a that was a question that kind of Darwin raised, like, well, wait a minute, maybe we used to breastfeed. Men used to breastfeed, and that's why we have this, which would make it vestigial, right, like wisdom teeth appendix. It's something that we used to use that we don't anymore. So it's just superfluous um. Or it's possible that we can in a pinch do it, which would not make a vestigial because we we could still conceivably use it like thead in Sri Lanka, the aka um the I guess the big question that it underlines is like like why if men can do it, why aren't we Yeah, why why wouldn't you do that? Especially if we live in generally monogamous cultures? Well, I think probably because of the evolution, because women did it for tens of thousands of years. Only like if we had kept doing it, if early man did do that and they just kept doing it, then today you and I might it might be like, hey, I'll pump and dump today honey, exactly, don't worry about it. So let me ask you this, if we stopped, if we used to do it, even if we didn't used to do it, the very fact that we're equipped to do it, like under the right conditions, under the right chem coll baths, you and I could lac take right now, right, let's have a party. As our culture has become more and more monogamous, and it's we get further and further away from males going around and spreading their DNA with as many mates as possible and instead pair up. Then, um, it's entirely possible that ten thousand years from now, men and women will both breastfeed. We've got the equipment. It's possible. It will just get easier and easier for us to do it, and then we will breastfeed as well. Interesting it is, Well, it's apparently quite a bonding experience between mother and child, and so I do it. Jerry just laughed. I was not breathfed, however, Oh you weren't, now, man, I was the child number three, and um, your mom was over it. Yeah, she's just like I can know more so, Uh, I've never looked into the ramifications of that psychologically if that matters. It seems like you turned out Okay, no comment. So before we sign off, I guess we should raise the point that because we do have a lot of the same anatomy underneath, UH, men can get breast cancer. Um, it's not rare, but it's not super common. I think in the two thousand twelve about American men were diagnosed with breast cancer, and so it happens. You never hear about it there. There's nothing to be ashamed of guys. And that's that's a high enough rate to say for some to say like, well, then that means that nipples should be selected out in men and probably will eventually while they're in lies. What we mentioned earlier is the fact that it could be just a flaw, an adaptive flaw over the years. Yeah, what about um, third nimples, additional nipples. Did you know that they happen most frequently in males and on the left side. It's interesting one in forty newborns has an extra nipple. Yeah, a lot of I mean, have you ever seen these? Yeah, they don't usually look like a full on Sometimes it looks like a birth the mark or something like that. Um, it has a tooth growing in it. But um, yeah, Chandler had the third nipple and friends, right, all right, that's superfectly sod crusty the clown. Really, I didn't think I knew that. Yeah, one in forty that's way more common than I think. That means that I know if you dudes have a third nipple. They just hadn't told me. I don't think I know forty people. You're so weird. Uh you got anything else? Nope? Okay. Well, um, if you want to learn more about male nipples, male actation, and evolution vestigial stuff, you can type in why do men have nipples in the search part how stuff works dot Com and it'll bring up this article. And I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Uh. Well, whoa, whoa. I guess I need to stop myself stop. Uh. We have a television show coming out where I played Josh, you play Chuck. And the television show is called Stuff You Should Know. Um and uh it's coming out on Science Channel January nineteenth, Saturday at ten pm two episodes for the big debut. That's right, and we are debuting after the season three premiere of Idiot Abroad with Ricky Jervais and Carl Pilkington. Yes, which we're excited about. That's a great lead in for us. And if you don't have cable and you don't have Science Channel, or even if you do and you're like I love that and I want to see it eight hundred times, you can get it on iTunes. I'm told now. Uh, they are making the shows available on iTunes for purchase the day after the episode airs, and episode one is free dudes and do deads. Yeah, so every Saturday when we have a new episode the following day on iTunes, you'll be able to buy it. That's right. Um, So January nine is the big premiere. I'm already wearing a dickie and a bow tie and little cuffs right now. How do I look? You look great? I'm getting ready slowly, but surely. That's right. Uh, that's ten pm on Science Channel stuff. You should know the television show. It's going to be great January, isn't there? Right? All right now, listener mail, I'm gonna call this uh mustache woman. Remember during one of the November plugs, I think said something about ladies. Of course, you don't have a mustache, but blah blah blah, it can happen, and this is probably a pretty good podcast to mention this. Okay, this from Kayleb guys. I was listening to what will Happen When We reach the Singularity and Chuck said, men, I guess women, if you can grow a mustache, more power to you. Immediately up the podcast. What can Email? I suffer from a condition known as polycystic ovarian syndrome p c o S, which is a leading cause of infertility and effects about twelve of women. Many women don't know what it is or that they have it, but symptoms include um, infrequent or no menstruation cycles, acne, weight gain, diabetes and insulin UH insulin resistance and her her sutism her like her which is excess hair UH. It can lead to women growing hair where no woman should on the face, excessive arm hair, legs, and even hair on the nipples. Luckily, I am not affected by this particular symptom, but some women report having to shave several times a day, including sneaking razors into work to shave their faces. UH. Needless to say, this is a devastating reality and can have huge impacts on a woman's confidence an emotional well being. One lady with PCOS is participating in November to raise money for men's health awesome and to promote PCOS awareness. That is really awesome, very cool. So I'd love if you could read this on the air and raise some awareness around this condition. You can find more information through the Polycystic Association of Australia via Twitter at p O s A A on Australian Please don't do an impersonation? Are you going to now? That's terrible. I would really appreciate the plug, big fan of you guys. Uh, this is Kayla awesome, Kaylea, thank you very much for writing in and uh, thank you to the woman who grew mustache from November. That's pretty awesome. Head hats off to you. Um. If you want to let us know about something that we obviously don't know about um because we made some weird reference to it, who, you can tell us all about it on Twitter at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you can send us a good old fashioned email to Stuff podcast at disco every dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff Works dot com, m

Hey, everybody, this is Chuck with this uh Saturday select edition of Stuff you Should Know? And this week I picked out a little show called why do Men Have Nipples? And that's how you have to say it in your head when you read it out loud. This from January, and if I remember correctly, Um, it's just kind of an interesting episode. I think Josh and I we're looking at each other one day with their shirts off. I was like, why you have nipples? Why do you have nipples? And that's generally how most of our shows get started. So give it a listen and I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we're doing this. We're doing it whether you like it or not. Yeah, we're recording our podcast Stuff you Should Know. Probably no because you tuned in, so welcome and if it was an accident, Hey, welcome to the party. Talk about serendipity. You're about to learn about male nipples. Yeah you want to talk about a party? Yeah? You got him? I got him. We all do. Uh, do you want to talk about chromosomes for a second. Sure, okay, chuck, uh, you and I each have twenty three chromosomes in our body. We talked a little bit in Designer Children. I think, yeah about little genetics over We're not gonna go into that now. But um, the twenty three chromosomes. H if you put a man in a woman side by side, or their chromosomes side by side, twenty two of the twenty three chromosomes are going to be exactly alike. It's that twenty three that gets you. The twenty three chromosome either has a pair of xes or an X and a Y. Pair of xes equals a woman, X Y equals a man. Okay, we're not that far apart. We're really not. And that becomes very very clear when we're in utero because sexual dimorphism, which is the the inward and outward differences between genders between male and female, like who who's in ha haas and that kind of stuff. Um, those are all uh, those are all hammered out in the course of our development on the twenty three chrome zone. Right, A lot of it you come out with, right, you were born with a vagino or a penis, right, Um, but a lot of it is also set up to be kicked in when puberty happens. That's right, but still there's differences, there's changes, and it's all because of this twenty three chrome zone. Some of the things though, can go either way and depending on what happens when puberty comes along. Um, either nothing's going to happen to these to this equipment, I guess you could call it yea or um. A lot of crazy things happened to it. And one of those, uh, the good examples of this are nipples. There's a really great question, why do men have nipples? Chuck? Yeah, I have a funny little story about this. My sister and I were hanging out about about fifteen years ago, and I was They had a male dog and I was rubbing the belly and the dog had very like just pronouncing nipples more so than you you would usually see on a male dog. And I guess I never noticed before, and I was just like, I was kind of grossed out. I was like, what is your dog nipples? And she's like, you have nipples? And then it just like it was an awakening my mind. Yeah, It's like, wow, you're right, I do why And I never really researched things like this back then, and uh, now I know why. Now we know why. Yeah, and we should say this is um the generally accepted explanation. It's not necessarily scientific fact, but it is um. This is pretty much why. Ye, most mammals, in fact, most male mammals have nipples. I think mice, stallions and uh platyppie. Yeah, the male platypus is among the handful of animals that of mammals that where the boys are born nipple free, which is weird because um, as Conger points out Christen Conger from Stuff Mom Never told you she wrote this article, and um she points out that you can make the case that mice are more evolved in that respect than human males. Yeah. Ours could be a flaw. Yeah, um, we'll get to that. Well, let's talk about this. So they're back in uh nine, right before Y two K it's y two K fever, Yale University researchers released the study that said, Hey, we've gotten to the bottom of this mystery of why or how male mice don't grow nipples. They're just completely seriously, go out in your yard right now, trap a mouse, pick it up by its tail and examine it's some little belly, no nipples, Yeah, nothing, or if it's got nipples, that means it's a little lady exactly. That's the way you tell. That's one of the ways you tell with mice. And it's because of a protein pth little r P. Yeah. It's always so exciting when they give them names like this. Uh. After mice are after their memory tissue starts to form, produces this protein. Uh. And in male mice it signals the cells to form male hormone receptors and uh, it basically destroys the tissue. Yeah, like in utero. Correct, Yes, because boy mice and male and female mice are all they all develop mammory tissue, which gives you all the equipment for nipples and breasts and milk ducks and all that stuff. They just destroy theirs before they're born. Yeah, that protein signals that for to be destroyed in male mice. Uh, prepare for the mind blower. Now, boys and girls as humans undergo a very similar process in utero as well. Um, before that sexual dimorphism that's really carried out by the twenty three chromosome begins. We both both genders start to develop um memory tissue, uh, and develop all the equipments called milk lines. They're like kind of like calls it the plumbing. We have the same plumbing exactly, which is kind of funny and true. Yeah, um we and we developed this plumbing before it's decided or before we start to um develop sexual traits. So it's almost like if you look at a timeline of sex sexual development, the nipples come first, so that they're not associated as far as the I guess nature is concerned with male or female humans the same thing. Yeah, So we don't have a protein that takes care of this um the nipples and males. So men are and boys and girls are born with pretty much exactly the same setup until puberty, that's right, And that's when the hormones kick in. Estrogen and girls is going to cause breast growth and mamory gland development, and that's when things diverge. You know what It really stood out to me on this um that means that our nature's default setting as far as humans are concerned, it's female. Uh yeah, I think it's pretty neat. It's pretty neat. Well, you know, women are the seed of everything, seed of life. Um, so it's what everybody calls them, the seed of life. So um. The the simple answer then is the reason we have nipples is because we've always had nipples. And through the years, evolution never said, you know what, you don't need nipples. No, And um, the I think the case has been made. The reason men still have nipples because nipples are so vital to female reproductive success that, um, there's no Conger points out, there's no adaptive pressure to select nipples out of men. Yeah, it's such a vital function. Right, So it's like we don't want to possibly mess with anything, So everybody gets nipples. Okay, you just live with it. Yeah. Yeah, but that's why men have nipples because nature's default setting for humans is girls. Yeah. That's interesting. And um, I love my little nipples. I'll just come out and say it. Do you do well? I think it would be odd to not have them. I don't think so. It's a little getting used to, but I think, um, I think it would not look on you know, we did our our Barbie podcasts that come out already. Yeah, and there are web there are people on the web that will teach you how to make nipples. For your Barbie dolls. I saw their kindles. Yeah, yeah, like very realistic, looking, very realistic. But yeah, you look like a kin doll. This would just be weird. I don't think ken looks abnormal without nipples because it's a doll. It also doesn't look at normal without a penis. That's true, you know. Yeah, I think you would be the little distressed if you woke up one day without nipples. Or maybe you'd love it. Maybe it's a new lease on life for you. Yeah, I'd be like, just go bare chested everywhere. Great, I'm a freak. Yeah yeah. Um, so we said, Chuck, something that's kind of interesting. If you ask me, if you take a six year old boy and a six year old girl, prep bess boy and pre pubescent girl, and you compared their um, their memory glands, the whole memory operation they've got going on, they're virtually the same. And it's not until estrogen comes along that the the differences really change. The fat develops, so the breasts get bigger. Um, these milk ducks developed. You've You've got all this this process that's that just kind of takes these things that are almost latent in turns them into functioning breasts. Right, Um, if we've found if you expose a man to estrogen, he could conceivably lacktate himself. That's part two of this. We didn't even put that in the title because we didn't want to just blow your minds right out of the gate. But the point is is men have nipples because girls have nipples, and men can lack take because women can lack take. Yeah, and in fact, as little babies, um, you and I might have lactated. Who knows when the hormone prolactin is what facilitates breast milk production, and new moms um when they can actually pass this along in utero to their fetus, and that little baby can come out if they get enough of that passed along with the ability to lactate both little boys and little girl, and it's called witches milk um only last couple of weeks. Usually, yeah, I'll bet it's a distressing couple of weeks if you're the parent, like, what is going on? Well, I'm sure it's explained. There's all sorts of weird things that can happen right away that you're like, what and uh, I think Usually doctors like, don't worry that a little fun thing else the brain will grow together. Are not the brain, The skull will grow together at some point. Don't worry about this, just don't pat it on ahead an Um, So that yeah, which is milk? It occurs, and I don't know how rare it is, she didn't say, but is it? Yeah? Even rarer? Is um spontaneous lactation in adult men. Yes, and that's called galacteria, which does not sound very pleasant. No it doesn't. But essentially, if um, if you lack enough testosterone that your estrogen levels are comparatively high, you can um suffer galacteria, which basically is male lactation. Spontaneous elactation. Yeah, but um, Congor points out, it could be you know, the cause of alarm though, uh, if you're an older man, correct, is that just because of the testosterone deficiency? Okay, yeah, but Darwin thinks, hey, maybe early man breastfed, like full on breastfed, and who knows, maybe they did. Who's to say? Are we to say? No, Charles Darwin? Yeah, Um, so you've got galacteria is a possibility, which is milk is possibility? Two ways that um human males can spontaneously lactate and we're not the only ones who do. There's a type of bat that was discovered to lactate spontaneously, and a surprising amount of animals over the course of the last century or two have been exposed to all sorts of different tests to make them spontaneously lactate. UM. A steer was made to lactate. Do you know how surprised that steer must have been? UM. But we've found that if you can, if you can increase estrogen levels and trigger the release of prolactin, you can make men produce milk. And it happens sometimes. So the prolactin is UM is produced by the thyroid gland right tuitary gland. Yeah, and women when they have a little baby, they it really ramps up like ten times as much exactly. So what they found is that UM after a baby is born. Dad's suffer, I guess suffer it's not the right word. Dad's experience an increase in prolactin production too. Normally, it's not it's not enough to cause lactation, but they suspect you can make it happen if you are okay, So this is really strange. If you hold a baby to your breast and your nipple and your man and you're the father, so you're already kind of like prolactin high. You could conceivably trigger the production of milk if you did that repeatedly over the over the course of like a couple of weeks. Yeah, it's like it's a physiological response and biological I guess sort of all wrapped up into one, and you can have like a sympathy lactation almost. Yeah, and it's happened two thousand two in Sri Lanka, right. Yeah. Um. I didn't actually get to look this guy up, so I don't know a whole lot about him other than the fact that he breastfed his daughters after his wife died. Yes, his wife died during a childbirth and he took over. Wow, that's amazing. But another way to um lactat as if you're starving chuck. Yeah. Um, there was this one pow camp, Japanese pow camp, and just one there was five cases of men lactating, uh, spontaneously for each other. No, you would think, Um, actually, what what happens is so your your pituitary gland produces prolactin um and your liver is typically charged with um eating up excess hormones. Right. Um, when you're starving, both of them kind of slow down. But when you start to eat normally again, your petuitary gland starts functioning quicker than your liver, so you have higher levels of hormones, including prolactant. Hence you have starving men who lack tate. Wow, that's a reality show some sort of island location islands, I don't know. And there there's a tribe, the Acca pygmy tribe in Africa. There's about out on them and this dude it was documented that they men breastfeed their children and this dude went and live with them. And uh, not only that, it's amazing. They're they're known as the best fathers in the world because they spend forty seven percent of their time um percent of the time their babies are within arm's reach of the father, which is far and away more than any other culture in the history of the world. And the gender roles in this Accat tribe are completely interchangeable. Like sometimes the men go out and hunt, the women take care of things. Sometimes the women go out and hunt and the men watch the clay pots and take care of the children, and it's just they don't know gender roles like that. It's just completely interchangeable. It's pretty cool. That is very cool. Um. And that's a that was a question that kind of Darwin raised, like, well, wait a minute, maybe we used to breastfeed. Men used to breastfeed, and that's why we have this, which would make it vestigial, right, like wisdom teeth appendix. It's something that we used to use that we don't anymore. So it's just superfluous um. Or it's possible that we can in a pinch do it, which would not make a vestigial because we we could still conceivably use it like thead in Sri Lanka, the aka um the I guess the big question that it underlines is like like why if men can do it, why aren't we Yeah, why why wouldn't you do that? Especially if we live in generally monogamous cultures? Well, I think probably because of the evolution, because women did it for tens of thousands of years. Only like if we had kept doing it, if early man did do that and they just kept doing it, then today you and I might it might be like, hey, I'll pump and dump today honey, exactly, don't worry about it. So let me ask you this, if we stopped, if we used to do it, even if we didn't used to do it, the very fact that we're equipped to do it, like under the right conditions, under the right chem coll baths, you and I could lac take right now, right, let's have a party. As our culture has become more and more monogamous, and it's we get further and further away from males going around and spreading their DNA with as many mates as possible and instead pair up. Then, um, it's entirely possible that ten thousand years from now, men and women will both breastfeed. We've got the equipment. It's possible. It will just get easier and easier for us to do it, and then we will breastfeed as well. Interesting it is, Well, it's apparently quite a bonding experience between mother and child, and so I do it. Jerry just laughed. I was not breathfed, however, Oh you weren't, now, man, I was the child number three, and um, your mom was over it. Yeah, she's just like I can know more so, Uh, I've never looked into the ramifications of that psychologically if that matters. It seems like you turned out Okay, no comment. So before we sign off, I guess we should raise the point that because we do have a lot of the same anatomy underneath, UH, men can get breast cancer. Um, it's not rare, but it's not super common. I think in the two thousand twelve about American men were diagnosed with breast cancer, and so it happens. You never hear about it there. There's nothing to be ashamed of guys. And that's that's a high enough rate to say for some to say like, well, then that means that nipples should be selected out in men and probably will eventually while they're in lies. What we mentioned earlier is the fact that it could be just a flaw, an adaptive flaw over the years. Yeah, what about um, third nimples, additional nipples. Did you know that they happen most frequently in males and on the left side. It's interesting one in forty newborns has an extra nipple. Yeah, a lot of I mean, have you ever seen these? Yeah, they don't usually look like a full on Sometimes it looks like a birth the mark or something like that. Um, it has a tooth growing in it. But um, yeah, Chandler had the third nipple and friends, right, all right, that's superfectly sod crusty the clown. Really, I didn't think I knew that. Yeah, one in forty that's way more common than I think. That means that I know if you dudes have a third nipple. They just hadn't told me. I don't think I know forty people. You're so weird. Uh you got anything else? Nope? Okay. Well, um, if you want to learn more about male nipples, male actation, and evolution vestigial stuff, you can type in why do men have nipples in the search part how stuff works dot Com and it'll bring up this article. And I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Uh. Well, whoa, whoa. I guess I need to stop myself stop. Uh. We have a television show coming out where I played Josh, you play Chuck. And the television show is called Stuff You Should Know. Um and uh it's coming out on Science Channel January nineteenth, Saturday at ten pm two episodes for the big debut. That's right, and we are debuting after the season three premiere of Idiot Abroad with Ricky Jervais and Carl Pilkington. Yes, which we're excited about. That's a great lead in for us. And if you don't have cable and you don't have Science Channel, or even if you do and you're like I love that and I want to see it eight hundred times, you can get it on iTunes. I'm told now. Uh, they are making the shows available on iTunes for purchase the day after the episode airs, and episode one is free dudes and do deads. Yeah, so every Saturday when we have a new episode the following day on iTunes, you'll be able to buy it. That's right. Um, So January nine is the big premiere. I'm already wearing a dickie and a bow tie and little cuffs right now. How do I look? You look great? I'm getting ready slowly, but surely. That's right. Uh, that's ten pm on Science Channel stuff. You should know the television show. It's going to be great January, isn't there? Right? All right now, listener mail, I'm gonna call this uh mustache woman. Remember during one of the November plugs, I think said something about ladies. Of course, you don't have a mustache, but blah blah blah, it can happen, and this is probably a pretty good podcast to mention this. Okay, this from Kayleb guys. I was listening to what will Happen When We reach the Singularity and Chuck said, men, I guess women, if you can grow a mustache, more power to you. Immediately up the podcast. What can Email? I suffer from a condition known as polycystic ovarian syndrome p c o S, which is a leading cause of infertility and effects about twelve of women. Many women don't know what it is or that they have it, but symptoms include um, infrequent or no menstruation cycles, acne, weight gain, diabetes and insulin UH insulin resistance and her her sutism her like her which is excess hair UH. It can lead to women growing hair where no woman should on the face, excessive arm hair, legs, and even hair on the nipples. Luckily, I am not affected by this particular symptom, but some women report having to shave several times a day, including sneaking razors into work to shave their faces. UH. Needless to say, this is a devastating reality and can have huge impacts on a woman's confidence an emotional well being. One lady with PCOS is participating in November to raise money for men's health awesome and to promote PCOS awareness. That is really awesome, very cool. So I'd love if you could read this on the air and raise some awareness around this condition. You can find more information through the Polycystic Association of Australia via Twitter at p O s A A on Australian Please don't do an impersonation? Are you going to now? That's terrible. I would really appreciate the plug, big fan of you guys. Uh, this is Kayla awesome, Kaylea, thank you very much for writing in and uh, thank you to the woman who grew mustache from November. That's pretty awesome. Head hats off to you. Um. If you want to let us know about something that we obviously don't know about um because we made some weird reference to it, who, you can tell us all about it on Twitter at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you can send us a good old fashioned email to Stuff podcast at disco every dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff Works dot com, m