Month: July 2025

What happens when scientists, writers, and cultural critics take Marvel’s First Family seriously?

On The Rabbit Hole of Research Podcast, we explore the science, symbolism, and speculative logic behind each member of the Fantastic Four. Each episode features a guest expert to examine the biology, psychology, and cultural resonance of these characters.

Listen to the full Fantastic Four series before or after going to see the new MCU movie.

Episodes:

EP37: Sue Storm and Invisibility

What would it take—biologically—for a human to vanish? Writer and cultural critic Nick Ulanowski joins us to unpack the science and metaphor of invisibility.

https://jothamaustin.substack.com/p/ep-37-fantastic-4-series-invisibility

EP38: Ben Grimm and The Thing About Skin

What makes skin “strong”? NYT bestselling author Jonathan Maberry explores the biology, trauma, and identity behind The Thing’s rocky form.

https://jothamaustin.substack.com/p/ep-38-fantastic-4-series-ben-grimm

EP39: Johnny Storm and Spontaneous Combustion

Could a human body survive full-body ignition? Dr. David Pincus (University of Chicago) explores the limits of fire, physiology, and psychological control.

https://jothamaustin.substack.com/p/ep-39-fantastic-4-series-johnny-storm

EP40: Mr. Fantastic and the Science of Stretching

Is stretching a superpower or body horror? Maria Dowell, MD walks us through the anatomical implausibility—and narrative intrigue—of Reed Richards’ elasticity.

https://jothamaustin.substack.com/p/ep-40-fantastic-4-series-mr-fantastic

Follow us down other rabbit holes:

https://open.substack.com/pub/jothamaustin

Or search Rabbit Hole of Research wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript: Fantastic 4 series: Episode 40: Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards): Stretching:

Click link to listen or search Rabbit Hole of Research where you find your other podcasts:
EP 40: Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards): Stretching
What would it actually take for a human body to stretch like Mr. Fantastic? Maria Dowell, MD joins us to explore the fascinating, terrifying, and biologically implausible science of stretching.

Transcript:

joe: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the Rabbit Hole of Research down here in the basement studio hanging out. We’re bringing you the last of the Fantastic four Super series. This is, we’ll be covering all things stretchy,

nick: very stretchy

joe: Mr.

Fantastic. Himself. Himself. We are almost crewed up. You have me, Joe.

nick: You got Nick.

joe: got

nick: We’ve got Nick.

We got the foot of Georgia here.

joe: We’ve got,

I don’t know what that means, but

nick: she stretched away.

joe: she stretched away. I get it. Oh, I get it.

maria: and she left her foot.

nick: Yeah. She just, wanted to act like she was Still here.

joe: And we have our special guest.

nick: Wait. Hello there.

maria: Hello.

Hi, I’m Maria Dowell. I’m a pulmonologist at Northwestern and Laurie Children’s.

joe: Awesome. There we go. So people have been asking for someone to keep us sharp and on point with anatomy, and here we are. We deliver [00:01:00] on Reed Richard. Mr. Fantastic.

Just a little background if you’ve been following the series or if you’re new, the Fantastic four are fictional superhero team created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

First appearing in Fantastic Four, number one in 1961 from Marvel Comics. They were considered Marvel’s first superhero team of the modern era and help establish the more human, flawed and family driven style that defined Marvel storytelling. And a little more at sci-fi as we learned from some of our guests.

As I said, this is the fourth in the series, so episode 37 we had Nick Linsky. Talking about Sue Storm and invisibility, episode 38. We had Jonathan Mayberry talking about Ben Grime, the thing and strong skin. Episode 39. We had Dr. David Pincus, Johnny Storm, human Torch, spontaneous Combustion, and now we’ll be talking about Mr.

Fantastic Reed. Richard himself, [00:02:00]

the man of The fan, the group leader. He’s a scientific genius who can stretch his body into incredible shapes and lengths. He’s also a reckless scientist. He took his team and flew them into the cosmic

nick: I think reckless is a little bit of a

maria: experimental,

nick: them

maria: adventurous.

joe: But okay, we’ll touch this again ’cause I’m always a little like consent there because he just said, get in the ship, we’re gonna go check out some cosmic rays. And I don’t think he explained what could happen, but we usually open with a

definition, a little grounding open. And so I’ll do that, and then we get into it.

I do have a list, but this one here. So what does it mean to stretch in science? Stretching is a form of mechanical deformation. When a material is pulled beyond its original length, storing or dissipating energy in the process, and biology, stretching is dy. Stretching is the dynamic response of living tissues like muscle skin and connective fibers to tension [00:03:00] driven by proteins like elastin and collagen that determine whether a body snaps back or gives way.

But stretching is more than physical. It’s metaphorical and fiction. Stretchable characters like Mr. Fantastic Elastic girl, plastic man turn flexibility into superpower, embodying, adaptability, resilience, and transformation. They just don’t change shape. They change meaning. And today on this episode, we’re going to try and understand the biology and the science behind one of comic’s.

Most hand W Powers.

nick: hand wa

maria: I know.

nick: Whoa.

joe: Whoa. One of the most hand wa on powers.

nick: I don’t You say that every

joe: episode? No, I And this one,

every

nick: every

episode you’re like,

this

has an unreasonable

level of

handwaving.

joe: This one is up there.

nick: I don’t know about that, Joe.

maria: Human torch is not hand wm.

joe: Oh, I didn’t say it wasn’t that I,

maria: Oh, I, see.

Okay. I’m saying this is probably even, this might be more than the human torch

Okay. It’s on the spectrum.

joe: on the spectrum. It’s on the spectrum, yeah. And we actually I thought about it and I didn’t think about [00:04:00] the list, but I think we went in order of probably hand wa

real, realization, the hand waving on from percentage wise, I think invisibility, we probably can make someone invisible, mechanically or whatever.

There’s a path and we do that with materials. Strong skin. I think we talked about a few things. the human torch, was just a episode

nick: We were able to prove that to be able,

joe: we did, we got to some workable

nick: I think we’re gonna come to the same

joe: I don’t know.

nick: dunno. And

joe: We’ll

nick: gonna be like, wow, this is the most

probable

one out of all of ’em.

joe: I just think from a biological standpoint the reason is that with the human torch, what we did there was limit it to just the outer surface of a skin and separate that from internal organs.

So we didn’t have to figure out all the biology of making him completely heat resistant, just so that was nice. Here in this case, the same thing with the thing. He’s really just got the rocky exterior. So once again, that’s an external, there’s challenges, but [00:05:00] you go, okay, that’s external. But this one here, I think you have not only skin changing, you have internal organ structure.

Muscle bone. We have a lot of rigid structures. And Maria, here it’s just a lot of systems to

overcome.

E especially as fantastical as he appears in the comics where he’s not stretching just a few feet. He’s stretching, tens of

maria: He’s stretching.

He’s

splaying

out. he’s doing all sorts of

motions.

I was, thinking

about this and I

stretched,

my mind to

to

say,

When they

got raid,

whatever we’re calling that. I was thinking of the stretching as

The opposite

of

the strong skin. Right. Like whatever

happened To

the

collagen

and elastin and things that make up,

That or allow us to be stretchy or make up that structure.

It changed the

dynamic. Right.

And then I thought wait, his bone stretch,

his

organ stretch. All those things you said is cartilage stretches.

So

[00:06:00] what’s the common theme? One of the common things is collagen, right? We know That, and so maybe something cool

And mutated

happened to his collagen

in the opposite

direction.

Of the thick.

tough, thick

skin. right? So that’s one thing. But then I thought, how does he control it, it’s a balance. And You have collagen, you have elastin. and So thick skin guy has,

More collagen, less elastin and

maybe

Mr. Fantastic has

more elastin,

and less collagen or something.

I don’t know. What was The weird

mutation that happened,

joe: or mutations. Because you, I think you hit on a point and for all of, I think a lot of superheroes, they’re neurological control. You would have to almost reorganize to have that ability to at demand, stretch out and then recall and then have.

The nerve

maria: and why doesn’t it hurt? Because you guys, brought that up

with

why doesn’t it hurt?

When you know,

you’re,

your, you’re bumping against the tough skin,

thing Or your [00:07:00] back. Right.

joe: the human fla, we talked about the human tor with Johnny and

The pain receptors and things like that, like what happened there.

nick: Your body mutated to Be against that. Like, all right, We’re cool with this pain. like This, our nerve endings have changed.

joe: Yeah, yeah, I mean it’s but structures like bone are anti flex. Their design is

not

to be flexible. Is that, because of their content,

maria: right?

Again, it’s a balance,

right? They’re designed to be, to maintain structure,

But They do have some flexibility,

joe: but how much is flexibility? What’s our movement like? I’ve seen bones.

maria: Mine is not much

but Mr. Fantastic. It’s a lot.

joe: A lot. Yeah. But then would you be able to stand and walk if you had like rubbery bones, because then what, so I guess rubber, let’s say that you stretch, that means that you have an addition of some sort of mass, right? Because now you’re elongating and so you’re thin. You can do it two ways. One, you can get thinner and redistribute [00:08:00] cellular material or you add quickly and I guess so if he’s stretching is the bone.

Stretching with

it. Like it’s this, it’s a growth kind of thing.

maria: So you’re asking is he maintaining? mass?

joe: He

maintains strength, so you have to maintain ma mass. We have to, I think, assume that because he is still physically strong because if you stretch your arm out, it, you would lose, ’cause of the way the muscles overlap

and Yeah.

maria: If you stretch ’em too far. they can’t

contract properly. But he’s not normal.

joe: Yeah. But

maria: He’s got super normal.

joe: We gotta explain it how’s, what’s super normal. That’s hand w

maria: That’s hand

waving. Wow.

nick: I feel like,

she’s bringing good points here. And you’re trying to

maria: neuron stretch. If his neuron stretches then his

skeletal muscle can

joe: you could have, so or so.

nick: I feel like it would be weird if just skin stretched like,

maria: oh no, it’s everything. Yeah, it’s

joe: gotta be everything.

nick: You,

can’t just have. Loose skin fingers flapping [00:09:00] around

joe: Or maybe the timing, in the comics and animated and even the movies. It’s a very rapid response.

Maybe after he stretches out, it takes, he is gotta wheel it in to reform,

maria: but he’s in control he

can not, be stretchy and

look. perfectly fine And then he can flip a

switch. Do you think

that has anything to do with his level of intelligence? ’cause he’s super

smart.

joe: maybe you’re saying maybe you already had

nick: I feel like most superheroes do have a certain level of intelligence, to Control their powers Because so much of it. is, Johnny, with his being able to turn his flame

on mis invisible with her invisibility in force fields, it’s all very brain power based.

maria: And there’s precedent for that. Right.

The mind,

gut

access.

the,

nick: Oh, I feel like there are things now that some

people can do, but other people can’t because it’s just, all right, I’m able to control this part of my body. I’ve seen people be able to move their ears. That’s weird. But

joe: yeah,

maria: And There’s some people with really stretchy

skin.

For genetic conditions,

nick: Wait, you can move your ears. [00:10:00] What?

joe: I can, yeah. But we need video for

that.

maria: See it with headphones.

so just, I guess I was starting with the most rigid biological structure in humans, which we’re assuming Mr. Fantastic is a human and he has this and so one, he could, they got into, we, we touched on this before, genotype and phenotype, that he already had some genotype that predisposed him to, have, take advantage of the mutagen when it hit.

joe: And now he’s expressing that. Okay. But I think we gotta go one step further. You have. He can flatten out. So you do have a number of bones in your chest. Is that

maria: Oh yes. They’re called ribs.

They’re called ribs.

joe: Just

nick: is that what

maria: they’re,

called?

joe: I’m just

nick: like to eat those at barbecue

joe: been a while since I’ve taken anatomy, but yes.

And so they have to go somewhere. So now you’re,

they,

to flatten out. And then it, oh, go

maria: You’re

assuming that

they remain

ribs. There’s [00:11:00] collagen

in those structures too. so maybe if he can flip a

switch and be all stretchy in the skin, he can do it with his other organs.

And they can get more fluid.

joe: So fluid is good. ’cause I had an idea. What if he. What if its internal structures, juices up and it, you almost then become a fluid. And you could actually, there’s organisms like octopuses, things like that, that do have stretch. They can stretch their limbs and change shape and form and really elastic, but they’re usually hydrostatic.

And so could his bone structures and things be more hydrostatic and fill almost like a tube and then that would fill out

and the juice of his organs would then become would powered in his

maria: No. I think. you’re onto something. elephant trunks tongues.

Things like that. They don’t have bones in them. And they can do things and they can Change shape. So

joe: Camil chameleon tongues. They can also, they have, they can stretch out and curl and do all sorts of weird things, but and I will say curling,

if

you can roll your tongue.[00:12:00]

if

you can roll your tongue, that’s genetic.

maria: He’s right. He’s right. you, can’t, can he? Oh,

He can’t. He really Looks funny.

Yeah. Ooh,

joe: I can’t do that. What the,

maria: Yours is fluted,

Like aa.

joe: don’t know what’s

nick: Oh man

If only we had videos.

joe: Here it is.

maria: I don’t

joe: But yeah, no,

nick: hummingbirds tongues, don’t they roll up into their heads too?

No.

joe: know.

maria: Oh, they are, they,

do have,

to come out the, no, that’s probus,

joe: Yeah.

I don’t know what that is.

maria: Pocus Probus.

nick: Oh, I don’t know what that word

maria: that word is. like it comes out really long So it can go down. and, get the pollen and then it retracts up.

So maybe you’re Right? It does roll up.

nick: yeah.

I thought

joe: And I was gonna say that there are, with the, with kind of the thinking about the neurological axons and things like that, you could have a situation where you coil up, right?

So you have some length. And our, like our intestines. Our your intestines, average [00:13:00] adult’s about six feet long or so. Stretched out a little

maria: I think it’s longer than

that. Longer than that,

yeah,

much longer.

Like Probably in the

twenties.

joe: Oh, okay. So there you go.

20

feet, but it’s all coiled up inside of you. So

maria: I’m making it up,

I know

it’s longer than six.

nick: Yeah.

joe: We’ll put that in the show notes.

nick: All

I know is

joe: we got you here, Maria, to keep us

maria: Dang, this

is like a,

nick: feel like Maria’s closer than you are right now,

Joe. six feet.

right. I know. That’s

joe: That’s that’s, after you have a procedure,

nick: know anything.

joe: six feet left. Maybe that’s just a small, large intestine,

maria: that’s very

long.

nick: but yeah that’s

joe: I was gonna say that co that’s a nature. Does

maria: oh my God. 30 feet, nine meters The average.

joe: Wow.

There you go. People,

that’s a lot

nick: no, six foot,

lot of

joe: of intestine, but it’s

maria: probably more like twenties.

But

anyway, It’s

joe: coiled up

in there.

maria: yeah.

joe: a feature of nature, that it’s coiled. And actually, if you go to the ultra structure of the intestine, the villa, you have their coiled, and then you have the micro villa, which they’re on the [00:14:00] surface.

They actually are have this kind of , not coiled, but it’s it’s more folded structure. And so if you fold up something, you can pack it in, so a tighter space. So you could have this situation where so many structures are folded up, and then as you stretch

maria: yeah,

you

might have 25 to 30

feet,

Of a tube. But you’ve got a ton of surface

area inside, So agreed.

So you could, Lungs are similar. Yeah.

joe: Yeah, the lung’s, right? So they can flatten out. So he, you might have to juice up all the organs, maybe as a, maybe it’s not completely flat. There’s some lumpiness to it. And so maybe some things are being juiced and then

the

gi to generate the

fluid,

nick: really hate the way you’re saying

this,

joe: we have to.

But I think either way, I think at, if we had Mr. Fantastic here and we did some cell biology on him, I think he would have to have rapid cellular regeneration and growth. I think no matter how you slice it, how you stretch it that he would have to, [00:15:00] I think he would have to make new cellular material one way or the other.

Either stretching out or retracting back and probably both. Because the stretching out.

maria: So

elasticity,

and maybe some

plasticity,

nick: so

as he gets older, would his stretching ability

weaken

Or would it not retract as

maria: much

I say it would

get stiffer.

nick: I was just

thinking like an old rubber band.

That gonna right. That’s right. Yep.

joe: I thought it was interesting too. I was thinking about it and remembered

in the Incredibles, Alaska girl.

maria: She’s awesome. Yeah.

joe: But there was, when she was talking to oh, the woman that was making the super Edna,

maria: Mos talk to

joe: Edna Moons, and they were going over to suits, and Edna goes, it will stretch as far as you without injuring yourself. So that means that for elastic girl, there was some limit or perceive limit that you would stretch, and then you would actually cause physical harm, either get stuck there or not.

nick: No I took it as. If the suit didn’t [00:16:00] move with her, that would be the thing that hurt her.

joe: She said as

is, as far as

you, you would without injuring yourself.

So that’s more

nick: isn’t

joe: sounds more like it will stretch

maria: as far as there’s a limit you

joe: before until you hurt yourself. I, and it presumes that there’s a limit.

You, why say that, just say the suit was stretched as far as you can,

but it said as far as you can without injury. There was a, there was actually a qualifier there of injury,

maria: total

tangent.

But All the garments,

worn by the fantastic war, Why don’t they burn up or overstretch or are they

also imbued with The same

qualities.

nick: What It was

joe: Unstable,

yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Reed. Reed made up all of the

maria: Okay.

joe: outfits

maria: never change. Okay. never change your clothes.

nick: They

maria: assume they meant to,

nick: Adjust

to their abilities

joe: Yep. And even if they swapped, there was a,

what’s

that? A comic or the animated series where they switched power Johnny and

Sue

Switch Powers, but their suits still

nick: all of them. did. Mr.

joe: because they touched That’s right, yeah. Yeah. It was like by tut, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

nick: [00:17:00] Mr. Fantastics and in the comics Reed Richards can stretch up to 1,500 feet.

Just

so you know that’s his limit.

joe: That’s a pretty,

That

maria: was me being

speechless. Oh, wow.

I didn’t know that

joe: I looked at, I found it had about a hundred to 150% stretch limit before, before you tear. So that’s it. That, and that’s not a thousand, you said whatever, a thousand feet,

nick: feet.

joe: That’s not 1,500 feet. And,

is a,

so that means you would have to create new cellular material to keep stretching. That, that would mean that you would have to have some very fast growth of cellular material and then break down of the material.

maria: Wow.

That’s,

yeah.

Also,

nick: he can actually move his body parts

and

create the exact same part within himself.

maria: Wait,

what? example, please? Yes.

nick: I was reading comic recently with my daughter for a nighttime story where Reed goes [00:18:00] ahead and. They Reed and sue find a decayed body inside of a Doom bot, and he proceeds to put his eyeballs in his fingers

and

have it go throughout the body to examine it without

disrupting

the whole

body

itself.

It was absolutely

joe: So we can,

maria: is he a giant organism of

pluripotent cells,

and

he can just like, wow,

joe: just one big stem cell

maria: is one

joe: that’s going one, so yeah, that would fit that.

nick: Here you go.

maria: And there your regenerative aspect.

Ew.

Yeah.

joe: So that means Yeah, he could actually. Juice up his insides, take advantage of the kind of the hydrostatic skeleton.

nick: Also his making

maria: multiple, Appendages. and.

joe: And he maintains strength in all those appendages. Yeah. And

maria: So he’s a shapeshifter,

nick: Yeah.

But he

does wear himself [00:19:00] out while doing that,

joe: Yeah. So you

nick: I can send these to Joe And hopefully we don’t get them taken down.

joe: we’ll put ’em, in the show

maria: notes. Okay.

joe: Yeah, no, he would, you’re right, he is almost like a shapeshifter where he can manipulate,

nick: which Miss Marvel was able to do that as well.

Where

When she first got her power, she ended up changing into Carol Danvers.

And she

thought she was Carol Danvers then for a bit.

joe: But She Can mystique stretch if she. Or no,

nick: miss

that’s her powers

joe: will. Sorry, I meant would rogue stretch. So when she absorbs powers, so would she absorb Mr. Fantastics power?

nick: I’d

assume so. She

takes over anyone’s

Like No matter what it is, her abil, Her power is to take other people’s powers.

joe: a little

nick: And depending how much of her power, Their powers that she gets. It can either drain

them,

joe: Completely kill

nick: Yep.

joe: And then she, and she permanently gets their

nick: depending

on how long [00:20:00] she Holds on. Yes.

maria: I was thinking of the

stress and the strain for

Mr. Fantastic.

What

would

he do in a vacuum? What were, what if he were in space?

joe: Oh yeah. would he

maria: would he just Yeah.

Be a puff up?

blobby, protosome thing? or,

what would

joe: I,

presume he can control it. So you can you become more rigid?

maria: But he use gravity though.

joe: So you think it’s gravity based, especially if it’s

maria: some,

there

has to be some force,

right?

In in order to deform something.

That’s the Strain part.

force is do in space? It just loops, Right.

I’ve never heard water.

say, so maybe you’re

right, That sounded a little goldfish like that. does

joe: not have surface tension in water and space? Is that where you have it and I’m not,

maria: I don’t know.

my mind thinks it breaks down to

the smallest little thing.

that would,

joe: Yeah. People

they,

shoot water at each other and drink

nick: Yeah. They have water. gun fights up there. Like

joe: And the water actually at this, it does. Blob up and itself, it has its own surface tension, it still has its integrity, but it’s not fluid as we [00:21:00] think about it on earth.

That’s interesting. I don’t know I to look ’cause you can soak it up a sponge. Yeah,

maria: do that in

joe: I think it has its properties there, but a vacuum. I’m trying to think what happens to marshmallows. If you put it into a expand, they expand like in one of those flavor saver, vacuums, you suck all the air out, they get puffed up.

nick: yeah, they

joe: I would think that would happen to him. He would just puff up.

nick: So

he would just end up filling the space that’s in there.

joe: I, it, I presume if he can control how big it’s right, he can control. But if he can control his cellular growth and expansion, then he actually won’t experience anything necessarily be like a normal human.

You would just control that.

nick: What do the human do when there’s no. When they’re in a vacuum.

joe: Yeah. I think he, but I think he, I’m saying I think he can maintain a shape,

nick: but you’re losing consciousness too then. If you put Reed Richards in a vacuumed sealed room, I.

suck out all the air.

He’s not gonna be conscious enough to keep himself together.

maria: [00:22:00] But he might be because

he has the ultra structure to combat whatever is expanding him.

That’s why I think he can Use gravity to help

deform himself. That’s the stress on his system, and the strain is all the little movements that, that stress creates.

So that’s the deformation.

So

if he doesn’t have that,

then

he fights the opposite direction to keep himself together. I think he’d be fine.

joe: Yeah. I think you’re right. He would run outta oxygen and if he needs oxygen to live, and yes, he would. But he could be, I don’t know. Could he self.

Oxygenate through cellular breakdown at some level. I don’t know what his respiratory would be like. Is he using his lungs the same way as normal? Because if he’s flattening himself out and he is doing stretching and he is doing activities, then how is he actually inflating his lungs to push oxygenated blood through his system?

So I It’s almost a whole lot of

maria: Yeah. he, He’s maybe he’s turning his skin into, a respiratory system or something.

I don’t

nick: Being able to move [00:23:00] his organs and stuff around. He Could theoretically pump the oxygen that way? No.

joe: or if he, you, I don’t know until you’ve, gimme a better terminology.

When he juices his insides, then he would become more, you would have you would have dissolved oxygen in that fluid that can then be used and distributed in a very different way than a typical

maria: listen system, if Somebody can deform

themselves

that degree, they

could probably change

their hemoglobin to hang on

to whatever,

oxygen and use it over and over again.

Yeah.

I dunno.

I

nick: I feel like this whole series, you’ve

said

maria: the worst word every episode.

Wait, it was juicing

this time. Juicing your Organs. Juice

joe: up. His organs.

It’s

all squishy. Someone poke, Reed,

nick: so

for

his skin then we’re back going.

on the skin episode.

That’s

joe: right.

nick: But

how, like I wonder [00:24:00] if he does get cut, does it cut him or is he, just,

joe: See,

I think if he has increased

cellular regeneration,

I think he’s almost like a Wolverine or

nick: that’s what I was, thinking, like how

joe: That he would actually be able to heal cuts. And that’s a comic thing. I don’t, I’m trying to think if I’ve seen him injured like that.

nick: I don’t think I’ve

really

seen him,

someone

else

actually

do something

to

him other than what he does to himself.

And that’s where it’s huh.

joe: And it’s good in a comic that he runs out of energy because if you are doing this increased cellular regeneration and manipulation of your physical, both your external structures, but also your internal, that you would have this.

Yeah.

He could just

nick: I feel like he definitely does run out of his own

joe: He could be an octopus in the shape of a human,

maria: but I don’t think you can injure him. I

do think he can run out

of oxygen. and thus energy.

He’s a little beat after.

he reforms his shape.

nick: I feel like [00:25:00] that’s one of the main ways that he gets injured. And then if someone’s attacking his mind,

that’s

another way to

get to

joe: And that fits to what Maria was saying, that about the physical, mental control of the systems. And so if you are being mentally challenged and then also have to do physical challenges I think if he was playing chess and trying to, stretch out, would he be limited? Would he be

maria: able could we beat

him at chess Is what you’re saying? Beat

him at chess

We can beat him chess.

nick: no, ’cause

he

joe: outta reach,

right?

nick: do

his

lab stuff. I don’t know what you guys call that stuff, But he’s stretching himself out into multiple

joe: Yeah. But if you’re grabbing a pipette or something like that, you’re not doing a lot of

nick: a what

joe: it’s

nick: a pipe,

Are you

smoking a pipe. at The lab,

joe: called a pipette.

nick: What year are we

joe: pipette?

nick: Joe, I can

really picture you just with a

maria: but he can get snacks.

while he is in the

lab without moving.

joe: So we had we had some [00:26:00] fans stop by and that was one of the things they said they wanted stretching ability to reach the snacks. And so that’s it. But I think you would expend more energy getting the snack than you would actually could take in by the snack.

nick: Why, how many Big Macs are you gonna say, Joe?

joe: Yeah, I Big Macs. So I, once again, if he’s regenerating cells at that level. Then that puts him at the Wolverine Deadpool calorie load.

maria: That’s high metabolism. High

metabolism.

joe: We’re talking maybe baseline 10, 20,000 calories, just resting state. I think if he’s doing this other stuff where he is juicing inside and reforming, you may be in hundreds of thousands of calories.

nick: honestly,

he can take that all down With one bite.

joe: one bite. Was he, is he eating a whale? What are we talking about there?

nick: Open his mouth

and then shove everything in.

He doesn’t really need to sit [00:27:00] there and

joe: I guess you’re right. How’s he, what’s his in like stomach what’s his

maria: maybe he does take Something. in and then

he changes

all of his organs into a

big stomach, into big intestines There go. Extract

it on. And then

put your organs,

back. That’s,

I think he can, I

think he can

manipulate.

everything.

joe: Gotta get Jeff Goble, man.

nick: Oh yeah.

joe: Jurassic Park when he goes, that’s one big pile of

nick: what did he say? I’m

joe: That’s one big pile of poop.

I

think he used a different word there, but

maria: dinosaur.

joe: So maybe that’s so he can, but still that’s a lot of calories. That’s not so that means, as we talk about with other superheroes, does he have some metabolism change or more efficient? That’s been re pointed out. If he can do all this, then why can’t he change? Is his proteins that do work also difference and use and store energy.

Does he, is he using some sort of variable biological high energy [00:28:00] storage? Vehicle

maria: I like it. I think it’s a great theory.

joe: Yeah, that’s it. A lot of handwaving in there.

maria: Handwaving

nick: nailed to

joe: lot of handwaving.

But on the stretching thing and elastins great and that’s what humans have. But I was gonna say, the other thing I had found was Resilin

It’s a

nick: those of us who don’t know,

joe: Yeah. It’s a structural protein that’s found in certain insects. It was discovered in 1960 in Locust, and it functions as like a rubber biological rubber band. It can stretch recoil, it can store mechanical energy with minimal energy loss. And it’s found in areas such as wing hinges, jumping legs for frogs fleas, locusts or feeding or vibration systems like Circadas and things like that.

So it’s a very flexible elastic, protein, more elastic it can stretch up to 300% without damage. And and then there’s synthetic forms [00:29:00] that are engineered and they can stretch a little bit more about 300, 350, 300, 400, 400%. And so you could have used this modified structural protein.

maria: Mm-hmm.

joe: So when a cosmic ray hit

maria: mm-hmm.

joe: he had some sort of, I don’t know, I actually, I didn’t look up what the

maria: Elastin goes to lin

joe: Yeah exactly. Yeah. Yep. Or Reed was monkeying around with CRISPR and head, and I given everyone a little bit of a, he was trying to create superheroes in the lab and. The cosmic ray was the activating function.

I, I just think, I think Reed was up to something funny and I think Doom called him out a couple times about that and said, Hey, that, he experimented on you guys to the rest of the team. Because I think that’s what I think there was, I think he intentionally did

it.

maria: Brilliant.

but disingenuous.

joe: Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. That’s

maria: Experimenting on your

friends

Watch out

joe: using CRISPR in there. Hey, take a look at this

maria: [00:30:00] yeah, let’s see

what happens.

nick: you did that to me last

maria: let’s see what happens.

nick: What are you trying to say?

joe: you get a suit and a meal. But yeah, that, that was one that I found where you could actually start to go in and you could get something that’s a little more stretchy. And if you can combine it with some of these other things we talked about. With that,

would

that get you there to, yeah.

Closer to maybe stretching a little bit. I don’t know, about a thousand feet.

I just think 10, 10 feet

even. That’s a lot.

nick: I do feel like he was stretched further than that in a

comic before where, I want to say it was a

issue

of Spider-Man that was like a alternate universe where something was happening to earth and Peter snapped and stretched out Mr.

Fantastic. To keep everything together.

joe: Yeah.

nick: And that was a

weird Issue. It was dark. And

joe: now did he come back together or did he No. Stay, no.

nick: Reed was pretty much in [00:31:00] a agonizing state.

joe: So he, there was a,

maria: but he didn’t do it

he was stretched.

So back to the mind, body, part. yeah.

Ah,

nick: Where he was keeping

stuff together and it was just like. He

was not,

joe: doesn’t matter if you knock him out, if you,

maria: if

You could injure him, But if he is yeah. If He’s conscious

and

Reshaping himself,

whatever, what are

we calling it Deforming himself. I don’t know himself. Stretching, himself. There we go. Stretching himself.

joe: He Stretching We’re not using that,

maria: to

stretching himself, then he’s in control. But if you take that control

away. we could inre him. We could hurt

him.

joe: That’s it.

maria: are

we working for Dr.

nick: Doom

today?

Like

joe: got it. We can get him.

nick: I do feel like him and Doom are a very good, villain, hero matchup, because

they both do have their darker side as well as a good side.

’cause

what Mr. Fantastic ends up becoming the maker

who

is a [00:32:00] alternate version of him that is absolutely off the walls bonkers where. He wants to control absolutely everything. And Doom is a person that is trying to keep his

country

in order and wants to better them, So it’s like they

have

the good and bad

in them,

and it’s always so cool to see when, yes, they still fight.

But

what I wanna say Doom is the Godfather to Reed and Sue’s children.

joe: Yeah. Yeah.

nick: And

in

what one of the last issues we read, Reed ended up doing a thing where he took out a whole block

of

New York to take out some alien invasion, and he sent it a future

year

in the future.

Doom, got found out, freaked out, tried to fix it, and as soon as that year was up, doom [00:33:00] couldn’t do anything.

And

Reed ended up sending him a picture saying, Hey, I know you tried, but what I did worked and here’s a picture. knowing, letting you know that they’re all good. It’s like

they

still, they’re frenemies.

Yeah. that’s, I think That’s what I’m trying to go at. Yeah.

joe: And it reminded me of something with talking about that and the interdimensional mass storage, and we had this with Cyclops and his eye powers. Now he’s pulling from another dimension to use the optic blast that he has. So he is opening a portal through his eyes.

But we had this, I’m trying to think who else. We’ve talked about this where. This mass conversion. So the one way is that he’s has some rapid cellular, gener generation and then retracted. But what if the mass comes from another dimension? And that would tether into kind of Reed’s overall story of his [00:34:00] intelligence, science, stretching, and then this dimensionality that he has

maria: A human portal,

joe: A human portal, right? So he actually is, instead of channeling energy through his eyes, he actually is channeling through himself. And then you could get to a thousand feet.

maria: Okay.

nick: Where

is he pulling it

from?

joe: from? That’s

maria: it’s still him.

nick: no matter what part of it? You

go to,

maria: His brilliance. there

joe: could be many hims though, right across the

maria: There are Many,

hims, right?

joe: And so he’s just pulling from and himself.

So

maybe in, in some other dimension, he becomes very tiny and shriveled. And while he is stretching out or from multiples, he’s just pulling a little bit of material from many reeds.

nick: Are you high right now?

joe: No,

nick: That

one came outta left

field for me. I was

like,

joe: know.

maria: I like,

it

joe: I know, but

maria: because it’s so weird.

joe: a lot. [00:35:00] It gets you we gotta, we’re trying to make the jump from 10, 20 feet to a thousand. And so I’m just throwing something out there. Then

nick: take that,

take

the stretching ability to, any other stretcher, miss Marvel, Elastic girl,

plastic

Are they all doing that?

joe: So I, like I said, I think Elastic Girl has some limit and that was revealed. We don’t know what the limit is, but even in the show, she only stretched so far, she didn’t stretch a thousand feet. Okay. Maybe she has rapid regeneration. Maybe it’s a genetic, she was born that way.

maria: But

she always

has an appendage or she

always has a body,

appearance, right? Yeah, that’s right. She does. Indeed

but Reed

doesn’t, oh, So I think if you

joe: No. I’m gonna stop. She turned into a parachute and a boat.

maria: She did, but she still had,

A head,

joe: had a head. But I think Reed also has a head, usually his head doesn’t flatten or

maria: because it’s all coming from there,

joe: I’m just saying He also doesn’t but Right. Go ahead.

maria: Yeah, but he can’t maintain mass then, when [00:36:00] I’m thinking about that A thousand feet. I’m sorry. he’s gonna have to, do some regeneration because if

you,

took his mass and you

stretched it. out,

joe: that’s right. Strength and

maria: tiny little thread trying to beat up on you.

we go.

joe: He gets there.

Tink. But if you’re pulling mass Other dimensions and building up as you go, then you can maintain. And then when you get there, you have a powerful punch. ’cause now you’ve been

maria: and when you’re going back to

yourself, you just shove it back down the hole

nick: attacking anyone at that length.

joe: He’s grabbing things. He’s don’t, why stretch a thousand feet if you’re just for a

heck of it?

You’re

maria: just

joe: look what I can do kids. And

nick: I would,

joe: think he’s, I

maria: and then a Breeze comes.

and blows his

like, he’s

joe: grabbing something. Even if something, you could, it could be something that’s trivial as grabbing a knife off the ground at a thousand feet stretch.

You don’t have enough

nick: you grabbing a knife from a thousand feet away?

joe: He’s gotta get, he’s not close

maria: to stab somebody. Of course.

Secretly,

nick: Oh man. I left something at home.

Hold on.

Where What are you doing? I’m grabbing something, don’t worry. [00:37:00]

joe: But if he had, if he was pulling mass and keeping his strength, and then, ’cause when you stretch out, also we’re just talking about stretching in a vacuum.

It was like a physics test. There’s no friction, but

maria: I know

joe: i’s equating,

maria: worth thinking about

joe: if your arm is stretching out and then your gravity’s pulling on it, right? So now as you’re getting thin, not only will it get thin, but now it’s just slump. It’s gonna have a big,

it’s gonna sag in the middle like a, like a weighted clothes line.

And so you’re gonna have a big saggy thing and at the end, your hand’s gonna be out there and super skinny and thin. No, I, yeah.

It’s gonna

be weird. Yeah. Yeah. A thousand feets. That’s a

maria: lot.

That’s a,

joe: I think inter dimensionality, now I’m gonna go with it.

maria: A thousand feet. That’s like

football

field, right?

joe: A thousand feet. A

maria: That’s a hundred?

yards.

Yards. Oh, that’s 300 feet. Sorry. That’s three, three and a Three. plus, sorry.

We’re

nick: How big is a football field.

maria: I know that’s A hundred yards. but I,

Yeah.

Okay.

[00:38:00] That’s,

a

joe: And there’s three feet in the

yard.

maria: I

like the,

portal part.

I think that’s pretty good. That would explain a lot, right? ’cause he can pull on the energy and the Oxygen from whatever. He doesn’t have to maintain. Lung volumes

or,

Or blood volume or, yeah, he just yanks it.

joe: you put ’em in that vacuum. He is just

maria: pulling from

joe: some other dimensional Reed that’s now suffocating for no reason. I can’t breathe. What’s wrong with me?

maria: He would not have to eat a whole pasture of cattle to,

joe: that

is true too.

maria: to maintain

his energy level.

joe: It’s but you would need to eat though, because to maybe opening his portals, that takes some energy. So he would need, he, you might not even have to sustain it during the stretching.

nick: I feel like you just put this weight anymore into hand.

Avium.

joe: It was already

maria: I think if you’re a portal, it just is.

mean, if we’re gonna, we’re, and we’re gonna have to embrace the hand WM here. I’m trying to actually, the portal might work like, ’cause Cyclops does it, I’m not saying that’s not hand wave him also, but

do the cosmic rays make him smarter?

nick: I

[00:39:00] don’t think

joe: I think he was already like genius level,

maria: right?

nick: I think he was

joe: yeah.

nick: Top universe.

joe: That was his thing.

maria: So it Didn’t

hit him in the head.

It hit him everywhere else.

nick: I don’t think.

it affected

joe: Maybe. What was his personality like before? It felt like he was the same, but we started close to him wanting to take his friends up to the cosmic race, his wife, his brother-in-law, and his best buddy to get bombarded by Cosmic Ray to see what would happen to him.

And then they crashed, landed back on earth I believe, and then they woke up with powers.

maria: Boy, And how did they ever

trust him again? That so

rude.

nick: I don’t know about you, but I’m looking for power’s.

joe: Yeah, you

maria: Okay. But

it’s

joe: there’s a an advertisement

going

to explore cosmic ray. Are you in next one? Yes. I

maria: it’s a wild card, what you’re gonna get. You could turn into a giant nose,

you know,

nick: I am

maria: just

one

joe: cancerous tumor or you’ll get superpowers.

maria: [00:40:00] flip a coin. It’s a

gamble

I’m

willing

nick: to take.

Either It’s gonna be something, wild And

joe: That gets into that and there’s a lot of non-consensual superpower gaining in comics.

nick: Oh, a hundred.

joe: And I think. I think this was one of those cases.

nick: I feel like most of them are like,

oh, no no one’s really I’m going

for

joe: Some are accident, truly accidental. Like Spider-Man, he got bit by a spider while he was, and

once again, poor lab animal control that, there was, there’s issues, but some powers are like, you’re actually experimenting. You’re actually trying to do whatever thing happens to you and that’s you consent it yourself.

Now was it, should there be, OSHA rule? Should you be looked at and there, human, scientific experimentation, ethics. Yes. But I think you have that category, but then you have the other category where it’s just like. We’re gonna like we joke about the reign of Superman comics where it was like, we’ll give you a sandwich in a, a suit if you lick this rock and we’ll see.

It’s, and we, and [00:41:00] the scientists know something. Something’s crazy’s gonna happen.

nick: don’t know what’s gonna happen but Something’s gonna happen.

maria: Who was that little kid that was chasing back to the Incredibles for a minute that was chasing

Mr. Incredible

around wanting to be

him. And then Syndrome.

Yes. Syndrome. I Forgot how he got his power. What does

He

do? he

joe: he doesn’t have power. That was his whole point. He created technology.

maria: Oh, it was technology.

That’s right, that’s right. Fake power.

nick: Did you hear the theory that he was actually a

Mr.

Incredible son?

joe: What are you watching?

nick: So many random things. on YouTube.

Yeah. There. Legitimate

joe: son or yeah,

wow.

nick: That was pre elastic girl.

joe: Interesting.

maria: Yeah. That

it was

one of those things I was watching and I’m like, that would be weirdly

joe: It would be.

nick: And that’s why he was

going

around with a

joe: Right.

He had all of the shrine to him and he was older than Violet. It’s Right.

maria: but smaller than

Violet.

joe: [00:42:00] Shorter,

He

was like stocky. He had, it was a super

nick: he looks like dash

joe: a non-super, right?

maria: He was Dash,

with a

big head. Yeah.

nick: And his power was having a big brain.

maria: Yeah. I wonder what the, I always the genetics of superheroes, so we have Sue and Reed and they have kids

Mm-hmm.

joe: and they both are powered. And so it’s whatever the mutation was, it’s not, it’s actually

it

could be passed. It’s hereditary, so

maria: it wasn’t somatic

Wanda had kids too,

nick: mary Jane.

Mayday she has powers.

joe: Some,

maria: did Wanda’s,

they

joe: already genetic, right? So with

nick: have

maria: powers. Wanda’s kids had power. Wanda.

and Vision.

joe: Yeah, but vision wasn’t

Android,

maria: He,

joe: I don’t know how that worked, Yeah. right. That’s a different okay. maybe,

maria: was gonna

say wrong topic.

I say with,

joe: with I was gonna say with Re Reed and Sue who got bombarded by the cosmic race, usually, sometimes that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s [00:43:00] gonna pass that you’ve affected your. Germ line. Your germ

maria: cells,

the non somatic ones. I would think it would affect them all.

Yeah. Yeah.

joe: What do you think it would, Yeah, mutate with similar, so really the mutations would be

maria: I think it’d be random.

joe: Okay. So that’s why the kids not necessarily have invisible and

maria: I have no

evidence. What else

I would predict it.

would be

like rolling the D It’s rolling the dice going up in the cosmic race. Yeah. So It’s every kid would be different. That’s the weird part.

joe: but also, but that, you can say that with Sue because she has all of her a, your women are born with all of their

maria: you got all your eggs.

But

joe: sperm are regenerated. And so that means his germ line, the actual progenitor

maria: And maybe that’s a wild card. Why,

why they have different powers

joe: and maybe, and you said maybe it’s just one big stem cell. So maybe when he reproduces, he just regenerates some genetic out of the juice soup.

maria: Gotta throw juice In there.

don’t you?

joe: [00:44:00] I did it. I was gonna

nick: juice soup

there, Joe?

joe: I was trying, I’m birthing a new term.

Soup Primordial

maria: Mm-hmm. That

joe: Could you

imagine? He’s like lashing around after he gets out of a battle.

nick: One of my

maria: favorite. I think that’s what happens. And then

nick: And you’re saying juice so much and

maria: and then the cells decide, oh wait, I’m the heart cell and oh,

I’m the liver cell and oh I’m your

bones’

joe: have little, or you could just

maria: go where they need to nuggets, little

joe: in there that are for me.

maria: I believe that.

joe: And then. And then you would just, and that’s why you can move the organs around, like you said, they move, they’ll reform his livers here.

And that goes to what Jonathan was talking about, like the medical treatment. Could you imagine like cutting into him and it’s just just

nick: don’t think you’d even need

to cut into him,

He could just pull it out? to the

joe: he’s he’s incapacitated. You gotta help him out. Like he’s now, his heart’s stopping or his, his lungs are not inflating.

maria: I don’t think you could cut into him if he were conscious,

joe: he’s un, let’s say he’s unconscious, you knock [00:45:00] him out and now you’re gonna have to do some work, right? Because we’re saying that when he is conscious, his cellular regeneration or his interdimensional mass, Ree equilibration is so active that if he is

conscious,

he will stop you.

But that means if he’s conscious and he wants medical treatment, he can allow you to open him up.

That would be,

nick: he just open himself up then.

joe: Can you just open yourself up?

Can you make a pore?

maria: Yes.

nick: he’s able to move

every

other thing around his body. Why wouldn’t he be able to just

plop

it out front?

joe: Like he would just move it out like in here’s

maria: I’m gonna move it right here. Here’s my liver. Here, go here.

This is

nick: I need it to be

joe: Maybe he doesn’t need fixing. Maybe he can just generate, but I guess if you have a genetic issue like cancers, like what? What’s his Yeah.

nick: because Mm-hmm. I don’t

maria: think he needs anything fixed, to be honest.

nick: If you go into the cancer category, then you get Deadpool.

Who his body’s constantly killing himself, but he’s also regenerating [00:46:00]

joe: Yeah.

nick: It’s that war with himself.

joe: Now what if Reeds other dimensional reeds aren’t all superpowered?

Would,

Could he pass superpower.

Material back and forth through to dimensionality as he’s stretching and reforming and he’s pulling from his other counterparts,

maria: don’t pull from

the wrong

one. Is that what you’re saying?

joe: Don’t pull from

nick: then you can’t even choose. You

can’t pick and choose who you’re pulling from.

joe: Maybe can,

maria: I think he

has more control than you think. because he

doesn’t Maria, get cancer. That would be cells outta control. He’s in control of the cells.

And

joe: he’s regenerating ’em at that level, would he would,

nick: but

doing the interventional portals, that’s where you’re like,

maria: he says buddies on the other

side. he that.

Yes.

is the only pulling

joe: from dimensions that have super they’re already, they have the cosmic ray, so

maria: That’s his brilliance.

You guys that missed the

joe: pool of,

nick: I feel like

that, [00:47:00] I.

don’t know. Like it,

joe: Yeah, I think cancer is interesting because his, if he has this rapid regeneration also that means his cells have figured out ways to bypass the normal checks that cells have.

So with normal cells, they have like contact limitations. So once they your cells touch each other, they stop growing. But cancer cells, when they have certain mutations, they’ll grow over top of each other. They almost become immortal ’cause they’ll just keep growing into a big mass, uncontrolled mass.

That’s the idea there. So if he’s, now he’s taking advantage of that system to actually create rapidly new cells to stretch and manipulate his internal organs. Now, his external structure,

maria: but to control it enough so he doesn’t turn into a giant sarcoma.

joe: Yes.

nick: A What

maria: basically his

stretchiness over

I

want

I say

over produces itself.

and just

takes over.

Oh

yeah.[00:48:00]

oh it’s

a

A soft tissue tumor. Oh.

yeah. So if you don’t

have control of this process,

of

Not

overgrowing yourself,

You turn into an OMA

and in that situation. be sarcoma. so,

joe: yeah.

nick: Did not know

maria: either. Yeah. I

nick: I feel

like there was a lot of words that dropped. today

maria: know.

nick: wait, what is

that?

Yeah.

What

else you got for us there, Joe?

I see,

joe: I always got

nick: tapping away.

maria: Do you have questions?

joe: Questions? As a quiz?

maria: Yeah.

No, I mean.

Generated questions.

No, I, think we

went through a portal. we went through.

joe: Yeah. I just have I

maria: control of the Slushy. A slushy, is better than juicing

juice.

joe: You, and you don’t, do you slushy?

maria: slushy

joe: slush

up?

maria: Yeah. Because you have a catchphrase like slush up

better than

smoothie.

I dunno. than smoothie.

nick: It’s better than juice.

maria: [00:49:00] Better than juice.

joe: He’s juiced in there. I let’s go. I do have a little list of characters and we talked about Mr. Fantastic already. And everything that he does, plastic man

DC

Yep. He was there and he like can twist himself and he he’s more cartoonish than Reed I think in the comics.

Like more, more humorous and what he does, we talked about last girl Helen Par and hers was more genetics had. Plastic man was a chemical accident, so he fell in and he became, his skin became elastic and his, almost like he got dipped in vinegar or something and

maria: Elastic

or

plastic, because I think of plastic, The opposite of elastic. Yeah.

Okay.

nick: Which he also goes from good to bad a lot.

joe: He does. Yeah. He’s you

nick: know where he’s at.

joe: Yeah. He’s kinda like a joker or where he has

nick: falls in the dead pool

joe: Yeah, maybe Deadpool. Yeah. I

maria: Can he do a flat Stanley?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

he’s everything

nick: like this This guy I feel like he’s [00:50:00] more all over the place than Reed is.

joe: Somebody didn’t, not

realize elongated man

and

he was a DC character also. He consumed gin gold extract. And that. Made ’em stretchy and as gin gold was based on ginkgo extract which ginkgo extracts a real thing. It won’t make you stretchy.

maria: It’s often used to support

cognitive function, memory, How do you know that show?

joe: to the brain.

maria: It just won’t make you stretchy.

it’ll, you’ll know

joe: you need to drink

maria: rabbit

joe: hole of research is, we’re know, take

nick: he’s trying to

save us from

people being Like,

I

drank this ’cause you,

mentioned it on the

show. I just

joe: a quart of ginkgo

maria: and nothing happened.

joe: thing that stretched was my inside got

juiced.

Someone I wasn’t, and maybe, are you familiar with one piece? Yes. And Luffy, is it Louy?

Luffy Monkey.

nick: I

read

them. I [00:51:00] don’t,

I will pronounce it However,

I

do in my head. but I’m not gonna say it.

out loud.

joe: Luffy.

maria: Luffy. Luffy.

Like Puffy.

joe: They have like rubber arms and can bounce and things like that.

Someone I

came up to T 1000 from Terminator two. Liquid metal.

nick: No, I

wouldn’t say. Is he

joe: they can stretch out and they can manipulate their liquid metal form. It’s not biological, but it is a stretchy material that he has functional control over.

maria: think you’re getting into the materials science

world. And we need

joe: maybe Reed maybe he’s liquid metal

maria: science.

joe: And he gets stretch a thousand still difficult. Then there was, when I was a kid, I remember. Stretch Armstrong.

And a stretchy latex

maria: I remember Gumby

joe: was here. Gumby

So

maria: not a superhero, but Gumby.

joe: But Gumby,

maria: that’s

joe: right.

nick: Don’t know. Gumby was

joe: He was a super, oh my god.

nick: I’m here to say?

[00:52:00] It?

maria: You liked pokey

nick: Yeah. He was mean to

maria: pokey

nick: all the time.

joe: there it is.

maria: Read. Richard’s not the NICE’s guy.

in the world either,

So

joe: Gumby

maria: that love, hate that internal war.

joe: Gumby never took pokey to space to examine cosmic race.

nick: Pokey

is a

creature

that has,

joe: He can’t

nick: speak for himself.

maria: Okay.

nick: Stand up for the little guy there, Joe.

saying,

joe: man, it was. We have it there, but yeah. Gumby, I haven’t thought about Gumby in a while. Do you know the Gumby theme song, Maria?

maria: I do not.

nick: I Am Gumby. I am Gumby. that’s it

joe: went. I don’t. And then the go historical 16th century and this has come up journey to the west.

It’s one of China’s four great classical novels. There’s a character s song, W Kong, the Monkey King, and he could

nick: Oh, I, for God,

joe: stretch, transform his body and [00:53:00] shrink and grow in size. So more size morphing powers than any elasticity, I think we’ve been using those a little

interchangeable.

nick: Miss

Marvel goes in big,

and then

she Makes herself giant.

joe: yeah,

nick: So, yeah, it’s

a possibility

to use it.

joe: Yeah.

And I thought I just, now, I don’t know why, just when you said that made me think of it. The pin particles and that

maria: was

joe: we and the inner

maria: dimensionality

joe: aspect of it with mass conversion.

And so it could be a similar thing. Maybe read, discovered pin

maria: Yeah, I think mass is off the table. We talked about

preserving mass before mass

is never

off table.

No. I meant in terms

of conserving mass.

joe: That’s your hand. Wavy re’s, just like mass is gone

maria: It

went into the portal, into the

internal portal.

nick: Joe opened that can, and you’re like, yes, portal. I

don’t have to explain.

anything.

joe: right.

nick: Put it in the I like it. [00:54:00] Like you explain it by explaining it

joe: and it’s just explained.

But yeah, no, I think we’ve covered, like we talked skin. The only other system I had was muscle, but I think if we can get skin and everything else, then you would just, you would do the same trick. Just grow a bunch of new muscle or pull it from, another

nick: So Would he be able to make himself as big as the Hulk?

joe: Yeah. Why not?

he,

does, he does that kind of, that’s if he’s, if you’re going to do it, then yeah, I think he could beef

nick: don’t see why he would need,

joe: I think there’s a different episode and maybe one on just mass conversion. ’cause I don’t know where the Hulk gets his mask for him, like when he bulks up.

So either he has cellular, the same sort of process that he can

maria: pin particles.

in reverse.

No,

nick: It’s actually a portal that just comes out of nowhere in his,

joe: it’s the ga Yeah.

maria: antman. Got really big ones. Really

big, ones.

joe: He had to have orange slices afterwards too. But yeah, no, so you have that, the muscle, but you’re right, you could see [00:55:00] Reed, I think, if you maintain strength a thousand feet away, then why can’t you just bring that back in this beef up?

Become, bigger than Hulk,

mass wise.

maria: I,

always think of ’em as stretchy.

though, and not Really bulky.

joe: Yeah. I think he doesn’t take advantage of it. He presents

nick: I mean he doesn’t

maria: he doesn’t Oh, he is holding, back.

He’s

joe: holding, he presents as like a skinny, lanky dude.

nick: I feel like he doesn’t need to be strength like he has been for that, for the most part.

And then,

joe: That’s just,

nick: he just works.

in self around things.

joe: right? Is that they got the strong guy

nick: Yeah. I mean if you don’t need to,

joe: he doesn’t need the flex.

nick: Yes, he doesn’t need a flex on Ben. He’s

joe: He’s just juicy.

nick: alright.

I need you

maria: yeah,

I,

think what

we decided, this one

joe: very hand waving.

nick: I, think we proved it and we’re, we’ll talk about it in

maria: I don’t know. I mean, there’s a little hand W [00:56:00] portion to it. I think the human body can do strange things

And

bones

can get

Flexible and muscle. you,

still,

joe: you’ve avoided the how flexible are we talking before breakage?

maria: Inches There are or feet?

Oh,

Not

joe: Okay. So we’re already,

maria: but if you can do it a little

and you

get a cosmic

ray hit, then you can do it a

nick: See, this is why I like having her on.

maria: That’s the potential. because there’s precedent there. It’s just on a different

scale. race have you seen this happen?

joe: You have a

maria: what have you seen it on?

joe: i’s why

I want,

maria: anything hand

joe: I’m on team hand Wao, you’re on team. It could happen if we find some cosmic rays. Let’s do

maria: it.

Cosmic gray and a portal. we got both.

Get a

phone call from you Joe,

joe: guess what? Those cosmic rays?

maria: we got a trip. you wanna take it?

nick: Hey Joe, you wanna go

on a road trip

maria: at your base?

nick: To where?

Space. don’t worry.

joe: Yeah, I don’t know. You too. You’re really [00:57:00] leaning into these cosmic

maria: your brains.

joe: I,

don’t Woo. Yes. They’re insides will be juiced. We’ll see you.

maria: that in

Slushy. slushy Smoothie.

joe: Slushy Smoothie.

maria: Reed

joe: Mr. Fantastic. Mr. Pedro Pascal himself. That’s who’s playing. Mr. Fantastic. Are you excited about the movie, Maria?

maria: Now I’m gonna have to see it Yeah,

for sure.

There it’s, yeah. Yeah. I’m

growing excitement. Can’t you tell

Your excitement. I’m stretching.

my excitement container. Oh, I Can’t wait to hear the fanfic from this movie.

nick: Oh,

joe: all

maria: gonna Have to have a watch party.

or something. Yeah. have watch

joe: Alright.

I think that’s yeah, I think we can wrap this up. We wanna thank Maria,

nick: thank you so much for being here. My pleasure.

maria: My pleasure. I learned a lot.

some

nick: words that, I’ll never

maria: lot.

joe: words.

Yeah. You have me, Joe.

nick: You got Nick.

joe: got Nick. We’ve got Nick and [00:58:00] yeah, thanks for Go listen.

Fantastic Four, see the watch a movie. couple days, it’s coming out. So yeah, super excited and we’ll report on it in our mini, I think we already made a date to go. Awesome.

maria: you

gonna interview people again?

Okay.

joe: but

maria: No. That like strangers, what’d you think of the movie? What’d you

joe: Not at the movie. No, that’s, yeah.

Okay. yeah.

And

nick: we went down some stretchy holes.

joe: Y’all stay safe out there.

nick: Bye. Bye.

joe: Love you.

Transcript: Fantastic 4 series: Episode 39: Johnny Storm: Spontaneous Combustion

Click link to listen or search Rabbit Hole of Research where you find your other podcasts:


EP39: Johnny Storm and Spontaneous Combustion

We torch the handwavium behind Marvel’s hottest character—Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. Dr. David Pincus of the University of Chicago explores how biology might survive a “Flame On!”

Transcript:

joe: [00:00:00] Hey.

Welcome back to the Rabbit Hole of Research down here in the basement

nick: studio.

We are setting it a blaze

today. Joe

joe: a blaze today.

david: y’all.

nick: Did you

joe: know it’s coming. We are talking about the human torch. Johnny Storm.

nick: and

joe: our Fantastic four series.

nick: We’ve already talked about

geo: Woohoo ability.

joe: we’ve talked about the thing, and now we’re here talking about human spontaneous combustion

geo: fire.

joe: And here today, joining me, you got me, Joe. We’ve got

nick: Nick.

You got Nick,

joe: we’ve got Georgia.

geo: Hello. Hello.

joe: And we have a guest, a returning guest. I,

nick: I think this is our first, is this his first

Wait, has he been on before?

joe: first returning

geo: shut up.

nick: Yes. Yes. People might remember Dr. David

joe: We’ll let ’em introduce was up on, you might remember our episode on climate disaster

nick: and the permit turpentine

joe: farms.

That was

david: It was it was pretty good.

geo: [00:01:00] it was fun. It was a fun one. I think

joe: was

nick: was as fun as

joe: disaster can

nick: be.

joe: but

david: Always a barrel of

monkeys.

joe: Pincus, will

you wanna give

david: Yeah. I’m David Pincus, uh, assistant professor in molecular genetics at University of

Chicago. And Hopefully

any day now, any day now, I’ll be cashing them checks. Yeah, and I happen to be an expert on the heat shock response, which, , hopefully will come up at some point today.

nick: Wait, if I recall correctly on the last episode, you go, why am I on this episode again,

joe: yeah, yeah.

david: Well, this one was much clearer to me. Spontaneous combustion and I happen to study how cells cope with, , thermal stress. So it actually it’s not that even a simpleton like me could

make that, uh, too.

joe: surprised on this one. I was, I was

nick: like, I

joe: well, I will I

nick: drop the, the Anil. I get on you.

joe: Like, why am I here? Oh, that’s

nick: why.

Yeah.

david: Oh.

nick: we’ll put

a link to that episode

in

joe: the show notes. It

nick: Wasn’t fun

Nick Nick and I are always here and we don’t have, uh, our science degrees.

[00:02:00] never. I actually was gonna start. Piggybacking off Joe’s, you know, be like, yeah, I’m a scientist by association.

geo: we could get an Well, if they ever promote me, I’ll give you all honorary degrees as soon as they let

nick: I am all for it. I need an honorary degree or something.

joe: Honorary degree. All right.

david: or an honorarium,

nick: oh,

joe: that’s even better.

nick: take honorarium. Yep, definitely

better. Yeah.

Let’s jump into this. You guys know how I do it? I have a definition

Do you have a list today?

geo: I thought you had a description.

joe: I mean all the above, but we’re gonna go, a D words. Yeah. A

nick: , we, , covered

joe: Fantastic four Marvel’s first family 1961,

nick: Stanley Jack

joe: Kirby. And so this is Johnny Storm. He is Sue’s younger brother, , just so that he can generate flames, fly and surround himself with them.

And so I wanted to start with what is combustion,

nick: and that’s

joe: as the [00:03:00] moment when matter breaks. Its bonds when oxygen, heat, and fuel collide, rapid oxidation, molecular breakdown, and a violent release of stored energy. This energy erupts in a form of flames, it and light, but in storytelling, fires mourning chemistry.

It is a symbol of change, rebellion of passion and destruction. And no one in a superhero cannon embodies this better than Johnny Storm the human torch. He doesn’t wear a mask. He doesn’t hide. He explodes with a single shout flame on. He becomes pure fire, radiant, reckless, and often just barely in control.

But fire is never just fire. It is the heat of adolescence, the illusion of ego, and the threat of catastrophe. It’s Johnny’s gift and his curse, a transformation that makes him powerful, but also volatile

geo: very nice.

joe: Thank you.

david: In short,

he’s hot.

nick: I’m shocked. Yes.

geo: Wait, okay.

nick: I wanna say in all senses of the

word, say,

joe: will say, oh, go ahead.

geo: Which character does Pedro Mascal

nick: Pascal, Mr. Fantastic.

joe: We’ve

nick: Which [00:04:00] we haven’t gotten to yet.

Because I was gonna say,

this would be spoiler alert,

joe: Next

geo: because he, because

nick: he’s hot,

geo: so maybe

david: That is a great character. Uh, I’m not gonna lie.

Yeah. I will, say out of probably all the shows that we’ve done and all the, you know, hypotheticals that I, I think this character is probably, I.

joe: The most hand. WII Yeah. This is a tough one. I mean, come on.

geo: come on. So spontaneous combustion.

nick: people do this all the time. All the

time. Yeah. Yeah.

There

has been

mysteries. inquire?

I I have not

no. Did you hear about that story where the guy burned alive in his chair with nothing else around him on fire? Come on. It’s usually

geo: everything like the torso and everything, but the hands and the feet don’t move.

joe: he walk away?

nick: No, he died. Okay. Well that’s, that’s part of the spontaneous

complexion, let’s say

geo: a.

pile of ashes.

nick: Okay,

Let’s say he was a charred skeleton,

joe: combustion work. [00:05:00] He,

nick: Johnny keeps living, right? I mean, so

We

got

a explain,

so we got a bunch of hand wavy of stuff

going on here. So a we have, and it’s a rundown his powers that did a little bit, but he can spontaneously combust, set himself ablaze, alright?

joe: That’s, and then he lives he turns it off just as fast

geo: he is not burnt or anything. He’s not

joe: or

david: no, no scar

tissue. scarring. He can fly.

nick: the fire, by the fire, by fire

to fire, which, we, we’ll

get back.

It might

geo: like

nick: propels him. Propels

david: feel like once you can,

you

nick: Once you go, and then

he can project the fire

joe: out.

You Yeah, yeah.

geo: thrower.

joe: thrower. like a flame thrower.

Exactly.

nick: this all seems addict. Insane. yeah, so that’s,

um, and you know, so

joe: so

geo: the plausibility is pretty much 0%?

nick: I’m,

joe: I’m gonna go. Yes, we’re

nick: gonna try.

joe: That’s, that’s the

nick: goal.

joe: We will,

david: Let’s just condition it like what’s the probability even of at will Spontaneous combustion,

joe: No

david: right? Like, let’s set the bar

low. heard of of spontaneous [00:06:00] combustion, but I never thought it was at will.

I suppose

nick: I, I think

david: that’s true. So maybe he’s adding energy. Maybe that’s the thing. The will adds the energy so it’s not spontaneous.

nick: Oh,

geo: So

I mean, you have to think about it, then

nick: he

joe: would be creating a whole new, set of organs probably to be able, in neurological

david: Or

joe: to project heat out, you know, we think about , a firefly or , with luciferase,

david: Sure. so some specialized chemical reaction.

nick: you can think

joe: of a lot of different oxidizers

david: stuff you put in your pockets in the cold, where you mix it

together and then your hands are warm.

nick: Mm yes.

About hot hands.

So, and you have to Hot hands. because,

david: the hot hands in the dice game.

nick: and you have to.

Yeah. and you have to generate

joe: because of oxygen, right.

There. There’s not enough oxygen in our atmosphere. It’s about 21% that you would be able to have spontaneous flame in this way. So you probably [00:07:00] would have to have some oxidant. We could think of a couple, maybe hydrogen peroxide, maybe a, a nitrous kind of compound, you know,

david: Or a heavy metal, maybe like arsenic

might work.

nick: I was thinking of

something that would kill us.

geo: are you

nick: Are you

joe: and that we

david: Yeah,

nick: because we, are you that he’d have to put that on his skin and then like, or

joe: it in some way?

nick: That’s, that,

the plausibility

of that he would have, he would have to develop some new kind of

gland .

, so it’s like a sweat glands,

Like a, like sweat

joe: Yes.

david: Except

with flames.

nick: Except that they would converse.

joe: Right, right. And they will converse

geo: They’d have

david: Would you imagine like there’s jets, like pores where the flames are coming out. , or

Like a grill,

nick: you

joe: kind of like

david: Like a propane

grill.

joe: Like a propane grill with

geo: a, but okay.

nick: A loose hose

geo: So

nick: David’s house,

in the comic, you’re testing the grill turns

into an

experiment.

david: Meat is the bal

geo: let’s not test that. Literally. Okay.

nick: Okay.

geo: [00:08:00] Now

in the comic book

He doesn’t have like pores or anything. Well, with your skin,

nick: I he doesn’t have like vis visible,

joe: cover that.

nick: I mean they just cover him in fire at all.

geo: at all?

joe: Not that I know of, no.

nick: You know, we have to,

You have ‘

david: cause what is, what is combusting, right? Like you need fuel, here.

joe: you need, you need heat and you need, you need an oxid

david: Yeah. And So the skin is presumably not the fuel

nick: But he can,, collect the heat energies

geo: from others.

nick: Yeah. So, uh, in an issue I’ve read, yeah, he, ended up heating up

david: Ah,

nick: lake.

To destroy a certain bacteria and then was able to go back in and absorb it

david: wow. Now that

nick: So he didn’t

david: that is the.

nick: all the, they took the fish out first.

joe: How’d they take the fish? Nevermind.

geo: Oh, okay. That, that

joe: yeah. Now we’re,

geo: that

nick: that all, so Reid was gathering them with his hands and then he was gathering invisible women, woman was, we

haven’t talked about Mr. [00:09:00] Fantastic yet. ‘

joe: cause that’s pretty

nick: fantastic. But

joe: let’s

nick: honestly, what he was making neck with his fingers, you know, just,

I can picture it.

geo: I can picture it.

nick: Just a couple things,

joe: just to set the baseline I think, David, you were headed this way a little bit,

nick: is that,

At,

joe: something around 41 c, 105 degrees Fahrenheit, you begin to get protein,

denaturation cellular lipid bilayer degradation. So the, the cellular bilayer, that’s what holds the stuff inside your cells. Inside of cells.

david: I mean even long before that, so that’s a, that’s even, you know, we’re at 37

degrees,

  1. Yeah.

joe: Right,

david: even when we have a fever, right? If we get a bad fever of above like 103, 104, the reason you’re going to the hospital there is ’cause you’re actually not able, your proteins are starting to denature

and as the proteins go, so goes the function of, of the cell and cognition and all that stuff we like

so.

nick: what happens

joe: to proteins at high heat, just imagine an egg, right?

I mean, that’s mostly protein that you’re frying up [00:10:00] and it coagulates into it like that.

nick: Is this like one of those drug TSAs, like Right.

david: This is your brain.

nick: you’re

geo: You’re,

david: is your brain on

heat.

geo: all I, all I

nick: a superhero?

geo: All I know is that , when I lived in Phoenix, sometimes you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.

joe: You

david: On the cement. Yeah. , on the asphalt, right?

Yeah.

geo: yeah. It’s hot.

joe: So there and

david: you know, tardigrade though, these, uh, there, there are certain extremophiles, how many times do tardigrade come up? Pretty much every episode.

joe: Not as many as you think, but it’s come up.

nick: Yeah.

david: things, , they actually evolved proteins that don’t even have a shape so that, , they can survive.

It’s really primarily for desiccation, but you can take these things up to 120 degrees. Hotter than anything else on the planet. And , they’re still kicking.

So, and

yeah.

so

it is evolutionarily possible

To recode [00:11:00] the proteome of certain cells to make them extremely thermo tolerant, heat resistant.

But a flame is really frigging hot, like Fahrenheit 4 51. Right. If it burns a book, it’s gonna burn

your skin.

joe: I, I think then, you know, with the glands that it may have a couple of functions. One may be to provide the oxidant for the

david: Ah,

the prop, the propellant.

Yeah.

joe: layer

of protective jelly or something

nick: Well, it’s also in his mouth too,

joe: you. It’s in his mouth.

nick: Yes,

geo: Have you

nick: So, uh, I

geo: anything?

nick: in one of the,

david: Of course,

geo: Come on, Nick.

nick: Well, in one of the cartoons, , he ended

up,

joe: you watching?

nick: That was watching all the Fantastic four ended up switching powers where he ended up getting invisibility and he, right.

Yeah, that was Yes,

joe: yes. That was the animated one. Right? Okay. Yep.

nick: So he, what? Heated up a slice of pizza and he took it outta the [00:12:00] microwave and he goes, oh, the pizza bit me. And I’m like, wait, what? You would have

to, and he’s like, oh, that’s ’cause it’s hot.

Yeah, This, this,

uh oh. ’cause

geo: oh,

joe: because

nick: protective,

whatever.

It’s protecting him from all heat it, it might be

that

his pain

joe: receptors are different,

geo: but you know, that

joe: be the

nick: other, ‘

joe: cause

david: ah.

nick: so you might have a

joe: whole neurological kind of change when you do this.

So, so you have to. Affect that also, that you might perceive pain very differently than you would a normal person.

geo: But do you remember the time that we were at the museum and then the stump people were there?

nick: The what?

geo: then they, the stunt people that

nick: oh,

stunned. I heard Stu.

joe: like

nick: like,

geo: stubby

david: stu

people,

joe: stu people were here,

nick: Georgia, please. You’re gonna get us canceled again.

geo: No, the stunt

nick: people,

geo: and they set themselves on fire. Like they put the stuff on , and then they set themselves on,

nick: they have

a lot of protective gear,

joe: like they’re not bare skin. So that’s why I

nick: think that,

geo: that guy in that show we [00:13:00] watch was bare

david: So you would have to regenerate this though, right? Because,

joe: right. Yes. I,

nick: I agree.

david: so there would,

joe: Yep. Some

david: there would be some refractory period, or at least some limit, right? On the.

geo: the,

nick: on

david: On the amount you could withstand if it were some type of protective layer,

nick: Yes.

Or you would,

joe: you would have some.

nick: Rapid

david: unless it’s other hand waving like atium or something like that.

joe: We we’re trying not to do

nick: we already in hand wa we’re trying

joe: take it

nick: away.

geo: Well, there was the, that guy that, oh, what’s his name? David. David Blaine.

joe: David Blaine,

geo: And we watched that show recently. And he sent himself on fire and dived into the remember, right?

joe: Yes.

geo: And there

nick: he he coated himself with like,

geo: some, but it

nick: was material jelly. That would

geo: skin, wasn’t it?

nick: it? Isn’t that like what you do with the spray? What’s that? Like axe body spray and people used to set it on fire.

Oh

yeah. Like

david: trying to get some in New Jersey?

joe: flame thrower.

It’s just

nick: is like

some

homemade flame throwers. Yeah.

geo: Yeah.

joe: movie when

nick: they’re [00:14:00] like, they got, they’re reaching on the counter. and They got the lighter

joe: a, you know, a can of aerosol.

geo: Yeah, but see that’s the opposite of protecting you. That’s makes it

nick: supposed to protect it? That’s

geo: like glider fluid. That’s right.

joe: Don’t put lighter fluid on yourself.

nick: are you sure

that’s not,

let’s not try. But gets to

geo: not

nick: that do not play with fire, period.

Unless you really want to No,

joe: no, please

geo: no.

nick: out here in in the

david: no kids. No. No kids.

geo: But

joe: a a couple things touched on, I mean you touched on , the tardigrades, but there are also the Archie that live in thermo vents and so they also have specialized, uh, kind of

geo: think of them.

nick: of them.

david: Extremophiles.

nick: clue what that is.

And

I think that David’s point,

geo: And what are those? Can you tell us what those are

nick: with a definition, please?

david: Thermi Aquatics is the most famous one, right? So. The reason we’re able to sequence the human genome or do any of the things that we do in modern molecular biology, amplifying [00:15:00] genes,, all this diagnosis for genetic disorders. It all comes from the, this extremophile called thermos aquatics, which is an organism that lives in one of these heat vents.

And people realize that it had to be able to replicate its DNA at an extremely high temperature so it can grow it, almost boiling water and still divide. And so it has these proteins in it that have evolved to be rock solid, so they won’t even denature under, boiling conditions practically.

So The cloning of this genome, what I mean by cloning is once people figured out what the sequence of the, of what’s called the DNA polymerase, it’s the enzyme in the cells that copies. Double helix and makes , the copy for the daughter they cloned that gene, found the sequence of that, and then you can put it in a batch of another organism like e coli and then produce a bunch of it, a bucket load of this enzyme and [00:16:00] then, , you can descend it to all your friends all over the world.

And now they can take their DNA and put it in a really high temperature and put it through a series of temperatures to allow this copying mechanism to occur. And so really the genomic revolution depends on an extremophile that was able to evolve to withstand a high temperature. Now

joe: It’s

david: still we’re solving a problem that’s not, uh, exactly getting us

there, But,

uh, it is quite

awesome.

Right?

joe: it’s a, it’s what’s called a pro

nick: is

geo: that like a single cell?

joe: it’s a single cell,

david: single cell Yeah.

nick: They are

joe: where you carry out, its, that means an a procars. We have a nucleus that contains our DNA. We have organelles like the mitochondria that provides power for our cell. A TP energy. A pro cario doesn’t have those specialized structures. , they are probably the simplest life forms.

geo: I

nick: argue, we throw viruses

in there, but

but

geo: I think, I think that name, that, that’s like a superhero [00:17:00] name. Can you,

could be, can you say that again?

david: tack. Yeah.

geo: No. What was it, ex the, what are they

david: Extremo file

geo: doesn’t that sound like that should be something that’s, so

nick: something, There, there are many,

david: Extreme.

geo: there are

joe: there

nick: are superhero, no,

joe: and there are many extremophiles there. There’s organs.

geo: organisms, so

nick: of

us kicking out on ex extreme ex files.

geo: Not, not all of them can get really hot. Just some

david: yeah. So This

one’s a specific, a

thermo file. Yeah.

joe: at thermal

vents in the ocean.

geo: You know what, when you’re

nick: you, when you’re talking about thermo

geo: I’m picturing like some vent in like a house there inside. I dunno.

nick: And, and then like

david: Turn the air conditioner off.

geo: and then some scientist is just looking in their vent. Oh,

nick: thermo file in there.

joe: Yes, yes.

nick: Get it out these thermophiles that,

joe: Gotta go down there GitHub. So,

geo: sorry.

joe: No,

nick: no, that’s

joe: [00:18:00] I

david: it’s the thermophiles versus the germaphobe.

geo: pho,

nick: I mean he are,

joe: and that’s, uh, the thermo files. They’re just, um, these kind of geothermally heated kind of vents that are on the ocean, sea floor and where kind of tectonic plates would be.

So you’re releasing a lot of heat and gas there. So it’s pretty, pretty hot. It’s pretty

nick: extreme. Just extreme. That’s

geo: and

david: like only Mountain Dew down there.

nick: The fact

geo: there’s scientists, that that’s what they study. I mean, do they have to be in the ocean? Like I, I don’t know.

I’m just, it seems so

david: so the scientists that discovered this, right, never, you know, they got funding for this back in, I think the seventies or something, and this guy just went to go and dig cores and then catalog what was in there and, , put it away for later. And then somebody, and then these guys, , 30 years later when they started making these little pieces of DNA were like, , it would be cool the allegedly took LSD [00:19:00] and had this vision of

nick: This is my kind of science driving down,

joe: , in California. Like some

david: Highway one, right? Or, or, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

geo: to

nick: he pulled over tripping. And

he saw it in the,

david: He saw,

geo: Oh my God. Saw

nick: the

david: Yeah.

This is, at least this is the apocryphal story, I think. I don’t know if it’s real, but

geo: I, I

david: so, so it, so it said.

joe: learned the same story and it’s been passed

david: Yeah, exactly.

nick: So it’s like, that’s like lore,

geo: it’s science scientist lore.

david: this guy won a Nobel Prize.

His name’s Kerry Moles.

Yeah,

geo: crazy. That’s interesting.

nick: So

you’re saying we should be doing more LSD, is that

david: Basically that’s the moral of the story.

nick: I

geo: No. You

joe: you remember, do you remember the magazine

geo: Bio Kids don’t do

david: Yeah, of course. I know Bio techniques.

nick: somewhere I have

joe: one

nick: the

joe: the early. Issues him talking about PCR polymerase chain

david: Oh yeah. This thing’s called the

polymerase PCR. Yeah.

joe: That, and that you can take just a few fragments of

DNA and

or [00:20:00] RNA the instructions for life

nick: and

joe: then you can replicate it and then you can make many more copies, in a tube in a matter of, , hours.

And so

david: You may remember , in COVID, the gold standard test was the PCR

test, You could have a antigen test or a PCR test anyway. All the same

stuff.

joe: there? Yep. And that’s where it comes from. Someone doing LSD on the drive home.

nick: and this is,

geo: And

nick: it

hit too

david: there’s a main line from LSD to

COVID is now what we’re

saying.

nick: now

we’re making it a line. If you do LSD,

joe: can flame on probably. So We’ll,

nick: what’s wrong?

joe: the

nick: So on it come

david: As long as that LSD is fire.

joe: right. Flavor. on. Don’t try at all.

david: Another thing we should not do.

geo: So thir, you said they, they discovered

joe: these

geo: extreme files.

joe: extremophiles,

david: Extreme.

geo: can’t even say it. Yeah,

they found that and then it was 30 years later when he is like,

david: Yeah,

yeah,

geo: moment.[00:21:00]

david: totally. , it was one scientist doing the sort of. Scavenging for the future, not knowing necessarily what they were gonna find, but cataloging it. Well, doing the naturalism and just, , getting a small grant and going out on a expedition thinking that there would be some type of interesting biology down in these very, extreme conditions.

And lo and behold,

geo: In these holes

nick: holes

david: down

joe: hot

geo: holes.

david: it’s hot.

joe: that, that just

geo: that just goes to show, so does that original scientist that was doing more basic research. Did he get involved in an, in any kind

david: You know, he never got the Nobel Prize as far as I

know. Um,

nick: because

david: but I do believe, yeah, he didn’t even get to do LSD

joe: Nothing.

david: you know, I don’t

know. I don’t know this

man’s life.

geo: he might

david: I don’t know that

this man’s life.

geo: document it. Okay. So

david: And I also don’t remember his name and I do remember Carrie

Mo’s name. [00:22:00] So,

anyway. Yep.

geo: this

nick: a question,

LSD

joe: story, that’s

geo: this is kind of going,

nick: Yeah. Young scientist

joe: that.

Like, you just go off and, you know, I don’t know, you’ll just

nick: up all

geo: have an epiphany.

nick: You

joe: some napkins with some great equation written on

it. How’d that,

this here? Do we need to do this? Is this a rabbit hole of research science experiment? No.

david: uh, I some field work.

nick: yeah, that’s

joe: right.

But

geo: I, I have a question, so, yeah, go for it. Does, do people like scientists doing really, really basic research ever win Nobel prizes? Or is it usually something more advanced? Do you know what I mean?

joe: think

david: Well,

joe: Nobel Prize winners were doing basic research. I, I don’t I, I don’t think any, I can’t think of, I

nick: may, there may be somebody,

david: but

there’s always other basic researchers that should also get the Nobel Prize that are not included. ’cause they can only ever give it to three people. And any given thing, , involves, thousands.

right. [00:23:00]

Who knows,

nick: Okay. And who has their hands on it the most? Their labs.

Like they’re

joe: the labs they were in, they generated grad students, postdocs,

Technicians had worked with

geo: Right.

nick: Right. And so usually there’s a, there’s a web of kind of researchers who work and then those are the three that might win the prize.

joe: But then you had many collaborators, colleagues who, you know, they also participated in it. I think

nick: it’s like the Oscars,

it’s

joe: to Oscar with the, with the Nobel

geo: It’s like so many things, right? I think the big thing

joe: with the Nobel Prize is that it really shines a spotlight on particular areas of science and then amplifies that message.

And you gotta, to do that, you gotta highlight a couple people and go, oh, these are the people that really helped push this, , technology. So cryo

nick: EM

joe: 2017 at Nobel Prize was awarded and then everyone jumped in and had to build out their EM facility, you know, so it was this

whole kind of push and it really was because of the Nobel Prize.

And then people said, aha, this is really important. So. I think you

geo: get, it gives that validation, but. [00:24:00] I think that that’s why sometimes it’s much harder to, to convince people about basic research. Yes. You know what I mean? Like why are you

david: but there was

geo: time doing that?

david: There was a Nobel Prize for the temperature sensing receptors that, you know, speaking of heat and cold.

David Julius won the Nobel Prize a couple years ago for how, , how we detect vibrations that, , in our skin that actually, , tell us what temperature it is

geo: and

david: and how the capsaicin, the hot, , the ingredient in in chili peppers, it activates exactly the same receptors that actually detect heat, so you feel hot because it’s the , same signaling.

So I always thought that was quite cool.

Yeah.

joe: if Johnny can eat really hot peppers. Like what is the, because we talked about pain,

nick: I feel like he, could he just go

joe: and he just,

david: can you go ghost pepper?

nick: Well, I mean considering like

joe: Tennessee Reaper?

And, and just go

david: Chomp. Yeah. Ah,

joe: yeah. So I, I [00:25:00]

david: oh yeah. Good question.

nick: it. Like he’s like, no, this is fine. This is fine.

geo: He’s not gonna admit

nick: Yeah. You can’t say that.

Like he’s

joe: have to suck it up,

nick: he like, he’s a

joe: pizza. I’m just wondering, ’cause the pain receptors are what’s, what is the true nature of the pain?

Is it directly related to heat and it’s many versions of heat because one is, . Do you know, is the capsaicin heat receptors similar to other pain receptors or are there different pathway?

david: the, the trip family of, uh, so yeah, it’s a part of a giant family of, , what’s called ligand gated ion channels. So, they’re different things that respond to various things in the environment and allow neurons to turn on and off direct leave by sensing the environment. So, pain receptors have, some of them are in this class.

Yeah, I do believe that’s true. Yeah.

geo: Yeah.

joe: All right.

nick: So, yeah,

joe: so maybe we can get flames on, so , we

nick: flame on,

we can

joe: generate [00:26:00] some sort of oxidant, maybe hydrogen peroxide or something like that.

Our bodies already make that, so not a huge leap.

nick: Maybe to get there,

joe: you have some sort of glands so you can ooze

nick: it

out.

geo: And also the fat, the fat in your body would work as like a candle.

joe: The, the fat in your body

david: You think, that’s what’s actually being burned?

joe: But his internal organs stay intact.

geo: Doesn’t, I was

nick: say, he doesn’t melt from the inside. usually that’s

geo: that’s not a good thing.

joe: you don’t wanna, yeah. Yeah. But

no,

nick: uh, you’re right. Lipids,

joe: you know, and fats do burn. I mean, that’s, we, um, if

nick: calories would he have to have?

joe: well, we’re gonna get some calories potentially.

nick: But I was gonna touch

david: Yeah, that’s a

good

question.

joe: if you do any staining or any, , cleaning linseed oil, things like that, and you, if you read the can you’re supposed to take your rag , and lay ’em out to dry.

Because if you take it and you boil ball it up, , the lipids in there, in the oils will start to oxidize. And you have, then you have a fuel.

geo: a [00:27:00] spontaneous combust,

joe: fuel and it will spontaneous combust if you do that.

david: Oh no.

geo: I

nick: and in grad school we had a

joe: a professor of mine, he wanted to demonstrate this.

We were talking about these processes. So he took, a rag, dipped it in, linseed oil

nick: or

joe: tung

oil, one of the, one of the oils.

nick: And, uh, ball balled it up

joe: threw it in a beaker and left it on a table. Did the lectures, like hour long lecture, nothing happens. Really? Oh man, I was anti-climax.

We

nick: all leave Next day he

joe: in and the beaker, it’s like just ash.

I guess

sat it

in

nick: the hood,

joe: safely. That was the best place. Probably. He sat up on a bench or somewhere, put it in the

geo: hood, but still

nick: Still balled up and stuffed in there. he was disappointed. It didn’t flame

on.

And so at

joe: time during the night, his postdoc called him and was like, there’s a beaker in the hood on

nick: fire.

joe: Should I put it out?

is like, yes, put

it out. What you doing?

No, let it burn.

So

yeah, then he brings a beaker the

next day and he

tells a story and it was like, oh.

nick: And so, yeah, that, that’s a [00:28:00] safety warning out there for anyone

joe: using any, do not just ball a rags up and throw ’em in the, in the corner of your garage.

nick: But I love doing that.

They will fy here

joe: or

nick: throw it into the, dumpster and,

joe: and see what happens.

But

nick: yeah,

geo: that’s dumpster fine. Essentially

joe: you can,

there are

mechanisms love us biologicals

to spontaneously combust. I think the issue here is that it’s on command. And it’s fast. It’s

geo: not, and it doesn’t hurt him.

nick: time? Like right. And it doesn’t. That’s the third thing. But that’s, that’s probably the

geo: most important thing.

joe: That’s,

nick: I

think it’s fairly important if you’re gonna set yourself ablaze in, in some way. So that,

or I mean, for it to not hurt.

other

thing is maybe you have very fast skin regeneration. I mean, he is already himself on fire. So that’s some ability. He got these abilities ’cause he was bombarded with cosmic ray.

joe: Um, so it activated all sorts of genes and things like that. And, , we talked about

nick: this genetics,

joe: you know, your genome. And your phenotype. And I was just wanna say

nick: that

often

you don’t, you know, so he could have already [00:29:00] had

joe: advanced

skin

regeneration, let’s say.

david: S And so here’s the, here’s the thing. I was thinking about what kind of mutations that could help, right? So I know for a fact that you could increase the heat shock response and increase the ability of the proteins in the cell to stay folded with just a few mutations. But then, yeah, the regeneration too.

You would have to ga basically have a localized cancer stem cell population that just regenerates, but , never escapes the niche. You know what I mean? It’s kind of it. Those were the two, mutational ideas that I had. Yeah.

Anyway.

joe: that’s and I was saying that if you have,

know,

at, at some level, if you are never tested. Then you’re unaware that you have some new phenotypic ability,

geo: but then you happen to, so, so maybe, but then you happen to get,

nick: right.

He got this power

joe: then that was the thing that, right, it was kind of

like

the[00:30:00]

fusing to

Wolverine skeleton. It was because he had healing factor that allowed him to have Adam Addium fuse to a skeleton successfully. And so you had that, so if

nick: you didn’t know you had that power, you could

joe: just accidentally get tested on and then wake up with this power and you, you lived and no one else.

Because that, that was a question. And a couple episodes ago it was like, how come no one’s done tests to find a genetic, , pathway to recreate.

A human torch or a

geo: is that the question that we had asked?

david: mean, these

days we would use PCR.

And Oh, I thought you were gonna say LSD. No,

geo: that’s only if you’re Same, same, only if you’re a scientist.

joe: if

nick: If a you know, the, road trip, that’s right. If you’re on it, you’re not No,

you’re not.

joe: No. A PhD scientist. We’re gonna set some

nick: bad.

joe: here.

david: yeah, that Venn diagram is a circle.

nick: David. You got me right. We’re good, right? I I I can do this, right. No, I, for science,[00:31:00]

Georgia was asking,

because

joe: we had, , Jonathan Mayberry on and at towards the end of the episode, he had asked about how

nick: does

joe: Johnny stop from dehydrating?

geo: Oh, that, that was a, yeah. Thought that

joe: was a good question because you are. When you’re on fire you are, removing,

geo: the

david: this is where the tar grade proteins might come in. Right. You know, they’re also desiccation tolerant, so it’s gotta be some combination of, Antifreeze type proteins that you develop. I don’t know, it

seems,

joe: know, I had, I had another idea, I don’t know, if you might think this one, but I was thinking about face separation and biomolecular connaissance. I don’t conc

david: Ooh, yeah.

nick: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, me too.

Yeah.

joe: experience on that, but, uh,

david: Yeah. That’s, that, that, that’s a that’s another thing I do.

nick: Yeah. So, and just

to and

can you give

geo: us a little bit of a, so I was

nick: so I was just gonna say that

joe: that these condensates form when proteins and or RNA [00:32:00] undergo liquid, liquid phase separation, and so they reorganized themselves from this kind of liquid phase into a more dense membrane free droplet inside the cell.

Presumably giving it some heat protection or protection against other stresses, heat shock, oxidative nutrient, de deprivation, DNA

david: Absolutely. Yeah. All the,

nick: of.

joe: Yeah.

david: yeah, the,

if, if you can sort of

add,

that’s great. Yeah.

That’s fantastic. And

I, I,

nick: on

joe: so that’s why I,

geo: I just heard

joe: give a, a lecture

nick: on

this,

joe: so

nick: that’s why.

david: That was incredible. But yeah, it’s basically because the cells made of stuff and this stuff is all gooey.

joe: gooey

david: when you change, when you change the. Anything, the temperature, the goo mixes in different ways, right?

And will reorganize, it’s like a lava lamp in there, basically. And , as the lava lamp stays on longer, it gets hotter and you see the more mixing, right? So it’s the same type of idea that, , the [00:33:00] interior of the cell, it’s been a billion years that this thing’s been evolving. As the temperature goes up and down and up and down and over the seasons and over the latitudes, you just have a huge range.

And then the extre of files, right? We all have

In our genes the memory of all of this fluctuation. And so that has made us super tough. And so you can imagine somewhere out there, there’s some suite of genetic mutations that could confer an incredible amount. Tolerance. Now, it’s hard to imagine that being in a

joe: a

david: big ass person, like a human, like an animal, like I can see it in a cell, or, or a small

animal, I don’t know.

joe: effect, right?

So we

nick: could

geo: not a Johnny.

joe: so you could have these, uh, connaissance that lock. Like kind of vulnerable enzymes and proteins into some sort of protective

geo: you know, what bubble,

joe: that, um, it kind of

david: and [00:34:00] casing. Yeah.

joe: And then he’s just kind of,

nick: so almost a, that’s why I

joe: you would have to start at the layers of the skin and to protect everything in.

So you might not have to have this across every cell type in your body.

david: I see what you’re saying.

joe: limited to, uh, maybe even some specialized new It’s almost like a plasma TV screen. You know that’s a liquid crystal display.

david: actually. that’s, that’s

the right. metaphor.

nick: go. So what we’re saying is we’re moving out of the realm of handwaving. Right. Like, we’re gonna make

it

david: Yeah. You know,

this is, I’m, I’m, I’m coming a little bit round to the idea that this is a little

more,

nick: making

geo: this like

nick: And so you could have percent plausible

Yeah. I mean this goes

to like the

joe: episode. We

nick: ended there

joe: leading into this, because that was where I started and started thinking about that, is that you would, now, if you say well take all the other organs out and body, how do you protect everything inside just on the outside?

And that would be, so now you can have specialized glands with your oxidase or [00:35:00] peroxidase in there and some specialized organ generating the, the, that

there. And

you have

david: Little

reaction trap, the heat, so it

right. Yeah. I think

joe: you

nick: can even form that

joe: as condensates until it’s needed.

Right? So that’s that rapid on and off. So you could actually go turn on, ’cause peroxidase will form these nice crystalline structures inside of cells. And so you could turn on and then you ooze out and you then you

david: You know

what? You could, you could, if you had a little,

little mitochondria, ooze out, flame on.

geo: right?

david: If you recruit mitochondria over there Right. You could uncouple the mitochondria and generate localized heat.

joe: That’s right. Right.

geo: This

is what

david: Yeah. to

get the spark with the, the mitochondria uncouple or could be

nick: the spark.

Yes. That’s where

joe: I was. Yeah, you could do that.

geo: This is what happens when you get a couple scientists

nick: together.

david: the spark, man. This is,

this could, This could be This has legs.

joe: All

nick: right so

maybe we can

set ourselves on fire

joe: and not, [00:36:00] not die.

nick: So would it be safe to say that he doesn’t get sick then, or No?

joe: I think he’s still gonna get

nick: because I mean, if you’re raising the body temperature at the same

david: You’re

basically autoclaving yourself.

nick: yeah, you, you may. right. We

david: there could be some downsides to microbiome, right?

joe: so we just said that we were leaving all internal organs alone, so we were gonna try to maintain physiological temperature nor, uh, normal

nick: physiological

temperature.

But your body has to raise temp either way. No.

joe: Maybe just on the outside,

nick: which is still the inside.

joe: Hold on. What?

geo: No, but

nick: I mean, if you’re ha

david: I mean on LSD.

nick: a,

joe: you’re gonna have a, you, so

nick: you would have multi

Yeah.

but like, you

do get, you do get

fevers, right? So hold on. I’m saying that for the flame

on we’re going to,

joe: we’re gonna now have.

Several specialized layer new layers of skin, one a jelly layer

nick: to kind of

joe: insulate us, the jelly

david: Yes. Yes. Yes,

joe: gonna have then the,

you’re gonna have the [00:37:00] oozing layer that, that generates. And then you’re gonna have

nick: may, maybe, actually no,

joe: that back. You wanna have the, the jelly layer.

nick: and then

you would

joe: have some sort of other skin layer that might be a little more thermal resistant, can have this kind of, the kind sits on and off. And

nick: then I

joe: you would have your ooze layer

nick: and you would have

joe: kind of on top there. And now you would have, you

would have the ooze come through

but also in his mouth as well, is what we

david: You had, you had.

nick: You just said

only thing about

joe: the mouth was that the pain receptors were different. You didn’t say fire shoots out the mouth. No.

nick: No,

but

joe: means that his pain we said also that this pain receptors might also be modified so that he doesn’t really feel the pain.

nick: His temperature would go up. So it if it’s all around your mouth, you’re still having that pain receptors in there.

You’re not getting burnt every time you talk.

joe: Yeah. I mean, yes.

nick: And he talks all the time. I think the

joe: issue you’ve brought up and andour than the mouth is the eyeballs. I don’t,

david: Oh,

joe: know, I, I have, I

nick: don’t, he has some gooey [00:38:00] balls.

geo: he has go eyes.

david: Just always like gga.

nick: he probably has really dry eyes,

right? Yes.

joe: yes. See you.

geo: so

nick: They’re not gooey. I didn’t, I didn’t. Or

joe: Or, or you have some sort of like a membrane that forms already eyes

david: yeah.

joe: So there you go. Okay.

david: A heat re a heat shield.

nick: And you

might have

joe: membranes in your nose and your, your mouth. You might have specialized, like, you know,

david: Lids.

joe: Lids, yes.

nick: Cats.

joe: breathe, uh, uh, alternate breathing apparatus. So that

david: Yep. Yep. ABAs.

nick: yes,

geo: this sounds so plausible. Breathing’s

nick: gonna

joe: be difficult also. So, I mean, I wonder if he can hold his breath for a long time. How long can he flame on? Like, it’s like indefinitely, right? Yeah.

david: he can also fly, right?

So,

nick: is,

joe: flying is its own thing.

nick: What? He’s projecting it

david: but you could propel, yeah, you can propel

right?

geo: like Iron Man. Yeah.

nick: so I think,

joe: I think that before we go to flying, we should talk about projecting the flame, because that’s what you need to do. You [00:39:00] gotta do that before you can fly

geo: like a flame

david: I see.

nick: which he can project. An identical version of himself.

joe: Oh man, come

nick: He can’t,

geo: No, I’m done. That’s, I’m gonna

nick: throw

that

joe: in hand away.

nick: He calls ’em fmo, rip that magazine out,

joe: that comic up.

nick: He would bring it out.

Yes.

So I mean, yeah.

joe: you would have to, the projection system here is, is what you need. And, and there are organisms that project, you know, like the bomber day or beetle.

I think they

david: Oh yeah.

joe: Uh, some,

nick: exo, an

exothermic. I forgot

geo: about the bomb.

nick: I mean, how did you forget that? An

exothermic, uh,

david: Baba Doba Dome

geo: I

joe: it’s like a hundred degrees. I think it’s like a little,

nick: it gives

joe: its enemies a little surprise. It’s like you’re messing with me and

david: and the ladies.

nick: and the,

joe: so

nick: you would need, you would need this, a projectable flame,

joe: maybe gland.

I, I just like, we’re going with glands. Like you, you would have to have some built in, almost

like Spider-Man his web gland,

nick: are you [00:40:00] talking about? Spider-Man uses web fluid, not all of them.

Mm. That was in

joe: MCU. They had the

nick: no, it wasn’t in the MCU. He did it.

He

joe: well, that comes out

nick: of you. Oh, that

joe: That there? Yep.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

nick: I mean, I, I don’t count him as in the MCU, but he’s in the MCU now, you know?

Once again, everyone was confused by him.

geo: what are some other, what are some other like fictional outta

nick: wait, it comes out of you just there,

joe: That

geo: that set themselves on fire?

I writer.

nick: Yep. I was gonna say, say, I think a Nicholas Cage, right?

Cage. There it is. Element, yeah.

geo: Nick Cage, cage

joe: Element also goes on fire

nick: element. You have,

geo: Cole? Yes.

nick: you have the, you don’t know who Element does

geo: No.

nick: No. Look on your face when you said that. Oh yeah. Element Stephen

joe: King’s fire starter. Oh, drew

nick: Barry

joe: Moore in the early eighties.

nick: that’s

geo: been a really long time since I saw that, and I really enjoy that

joe: she, her

nick: thing she didn’t

claim one, but

joe: projected the fire

geo: the, everything would be on f

joe: Well,

nick: that’s once you

joe: a little fire, then the[00:41:00]

geo: becomes a big fire.

joe: fire though,

geo: But it seemed like it just all of a sudden became really

joe: got that.

We didn’t start

geo: Yeah, we, we know, we know.

joe: Okay. Um, moving

nick: on.

stopped. That’s

geo: have, I

nick: have a list. I

joe: I have a

nick: a list of,

joe: of pre early fire controlling fictional characters pre Johnny Storm, 1961.

david: Ah, nice.

joe: so I was gonna go through a few of these. Uh, the Flame first appeared in Wonder World Comics number three

nick: wasn’t who 1939 inspired Johnny.

I mean, I think

joe: these kind of inspired, uh, that was 1939. You

nick: had the Human Torch,

joe: Jim Hammond, that’s the one right there. That was Marvel Comics number 1,

geo: 39. Woo.

nick: Mm-hmm. And

he was a synthetic

joe: Android who ignites into flames, flies, and protects fire. So he was an

nick: Android.

geo: I was gonna

nick: Android I

david: that

makes sense. Yeah.

Engineered. Yeah.

joe: You had, uh,

david: get, get around all the, all the biocompatibility.

joe: you had Prince Flame from Fiction House, planet [00:42:00] Comics

geo: Prince Flame. I

nick: thought he

david: at first I thought you were talking about Prince.

joe: Yes.

nick: Purple rain.

And

So Purple Rain and purple fire. Yeah.

He had full body flame control

joe: and he had fire projection. It was more a sci-fi. And we were talking about so many sci-fi in the golden age of comics like these sci-fi based, uh, comics.

We had fireman and dynamic comics, number 3, 19 41. And he gains fire powers from exposure to a volcano. He can flame on and off at Will, and he shoots flame and resists heat. Um, so very similar to Johnny Storm,

Man,

1941, punch Comics number one. He also shoots fire, super heat body abilities, wears a costume to contain or direct a flames.

geo: Like, um, the guy in the stand that started all the filming. Oh, right.

joe: Yes.

nick: What was his,

geo: he? Oh,

joe: that guy’s name.

Yeah,

nick: Gasoline.

geo: man.

No. Um,

joe: Gas man. No

nick: gas man. I

geo: I don’t know.

nick: know. It’ll probably, I don’t wanna be anywhere [00:43:00] near someone named that.

That’s a scam up.

geo: I know you read that so many

times.

joe: I

geo: Trashcan man.

Ooh, trash Can man.

joe: Trashy. Oh, trashy trash can man.

david: All right.

joe: Turkey tide.

nick: Okay. Yeah, and then there were, there were a number of,

joe: could imagine of kind of mythological folks who, who

david: Prometheus, right?

nick: Prometheus.

joe: You know, you had, uh, cer, , and Norris mythology was, uh, you know, the Ragnar Rock

You know, the giant who wields a flaming sword and engulfs the world of in Ragnar Rock.

So. Yeah, you had, um, you know, fre and uh, Islamic mythology.

david: Where do dragons come in?

nick: Dragons.

joe: yeah. Right. I think, you know, also they would, they breathe fire, so they have this ability. So they, that’s, and

so that got

me thinking, that’s why I went external with, with Johnny and trying to

david: Mm-hmm.

joe: a way to hand w them, because now you don’t have to explain [00:44:00] internal structures because you’re, uh, I think to David’s point, you have a lot more organs and systems that would be much more responsive and heat

damaging

effects that would, may take a long time to recover.

Our, our skin is very flexible and pliable and so, you know, a little more resistant to damage

nick: Was that a hint at the next episode?

david: Ooh.

joe: you mean the episode before this?

geo: Yeah. Flexible.

nick: Oh, oh, flexible. I don’t know where you’re going with it. Come on.

geo: yeah. It’s so confusing. Skin

nick: Flexibility.

joe: gotta have flexibility.

Um,

geo: I think Joe, you could be the solo stove man.

joe: A solo stove. I don’t wanna be the solo stove,

david: that’s another source of heat. that’s what you are in my phone now. Solo stove. Am

joe: I a solo stove man?

nick: Solo stove man.

joe: So, yeah.

Thinking about projection. Let’s go back ’cause I don’t know if we’ve solved that problem.

I guess we had the gland and you could [00:45:00] shoot out the gland.

geo: Is that like the goo

nick: Is that like the go? The No, the oohs,

geo: The goo in the lava lamp.

joe: Sure. Yeah, yeah. yeah. David’s point. Yeah. it. You

david: You know?

nick: wait, what

joe: a controlling,

nick: Why would that be? What

joe: a controlling gland to

nick: actually focus the fire

out? That

only

david: exactly you need to play. You need a way to focus.

Once you can focus, I feel like release is a little easier.

joe: Yes. ’cause

nick: a ‘

david: cause that’s,

nick: release

joe: stuff, like we talked about the bomb,

david: yeah. Like you dissipation. So once you have a, a channeling, uh, yeah. Anyway you, you generate the heat and then you localize it, and then you

And that can be done. I think that’s downhill.

joe: Yeah. once That’s downhill. the initial flames over your body squirting out

david: Once you have the

scaffolding,

joe: The

david: yeah, you can.

nick: squirting out.

your, oh, stop saying that. Goo.

I know There’s so many, there’s so many

david: just like another appendage.

geo: there’s so

nick: many [00:46:00]

geo: icky words. I think the, the only other thing,

joe: and so Johnny’s

kind of biology would be interesting ’cause we, we made all these modifications of skin and

david: Yeah. Right.

So how do you control it? Yeah.

joe: and things like that to, to actually have that.

nick: And if he loses

joe: his pain receptors, that already suggests that there’s been some neurological reworking

david: Some different type of feedback.

Yeah,

joe: that would happen. The turn on, turn off.

nick: I don’t, the

joe: thing I, I haven’t. Is quenching the fire? Is that as simple as stopping

nick: the

joe: release? I’m not gonna say ooze anymore. The release of

david: Right. Do or do you need an active shutdown?

I think you could I think release is as bad.

a, a closing of the channels. A closing of

the channels. That’s better.

joe: better. The of the channels.[00:47:00]

He’s finished.

Yes. But yeah, I mean that’s, yeah. And, and that, that fuel source, that, that could be lipid. That

geo: we figure out the dehydration thing?

joe: Well, we we talked

the protective jelly layer. Oh, gel layer. Okay. In there we talked about the conduits that might help with dehydration.

So as you have these stress events, you could be protecting or instead of having a proteins that, that’s, uh, d de nature, which means they just unfold. So proteins have a, usually a complex folding structure, and that’s what allows ’em to work and do specific work. You de nature, you’re just stretching that back out and then it can’t work any longer.

geo: And then is that when people die,

joe: People will die if there are proteins in nature. Yes. Okay. That’s, that’s generally what it happens.

david: People

Die.

joe: think

about the

frying egg. or a You heard it here first. Your

proteins Do not proteins We’re all gonna die,

geo: Defold

nick: You can’t be [00:48:00] folding yourself. And

they fold and, and usually they, they fold back in the same order so that you might go, what happens?

joe: You take the temperature down, so they actually denature then they start to kind of bundle up like spaghetti into clump and yeah, there’s problems. So,

david: then you get a LS or something.

joe: yeah, you get something bad. Let’s, um, don’t do that. People,

nick: um,

joe: yeah. So

nick: I

geo: that’s,

maybe we should list all the things you shouldn’t do.

nick: I just have a

david: set yourself on fire. There’s been a lot of don’ts

here. can end on some dos. Yeah.

joe: So,

Nick, what do you got? You said you had some hard hitting research coming in.

nick: Did I, I thought we were already go going over that, or, or, or, well, I

think he brought

geo: a lot in as far as like some of fans

joe: and. Extremophiles.

nick: have nothing on that stuff. No. He

dropped

geo: whole mouth thing. He

nick: He brought out, of like the, the setting of

geo: water on fire and then taking the heat.

nick: right.

And so the, the water on [00:49:00] fire,

joe: the set, you know. How big was this lake? A

nick: pond? It was like a small

joe: pond. Like some, a backyard pond.

nick: I mean, I don’t know what a backyard pond is. What is a backyard pond.

Joe, you don’t have a pond in your backyard

pond that would fit in

david: Was it? Yay big.

joe: Was he like

nick: a little, a

little pot of water? I mean, I can You know, end to the other. I this a fantastic, scooped out the few koy goldfish and,

joe: and on

david: we talk in Arizona golf course or New England golf course.

nick: I, I, I don’t know where either of those are, so I’m gonna go New England. I feel like they don’t have a lot of water there.

david: Oh yeah, I should have said something. Swampy

joe: Arizona doesn’t have a lot of water either. Come

by not a lot water, you would go Arizona,

nick: I don’t know, man.

It’s dry heat.

joe: Yeah, it’s, it’s dry

nick: I’m not from Arizona guys. Um, George is over here trying to fry eggs on sidewalks in Arizona. The

thing with, with

geo: Hey

joe: did he have, um, is his outfit specially [00:50:00] designed? Yeah. Does that give him some also protection? Potentially?

nick: It keeps unstable being nude. It’s every time he lights up is

in a nude. It, Sony doesn’t have the fashion It comes out

Buck

naked. No. It saves him from being Oh yeah. It’s so that he’s just like flame on and he comes

off. It’s so he doesn’t have a fashion Like, um, I

david: Hi.

nick: the first, first, until

the

fabric was made, he, he would just

stroll out flame. Pretty much. Yeah.

joe: just, you’re like, whoa, that guy is buck naked

nick: fly. Yep.

joe: on fire. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. Um,

david: when you got it, flaunt it.

nick: what about his hair?

Hair.

That’s right. His hair doesn’t burn off. His

hair not burn off, which I think it would, that would be a nice fuel source. Yeah. I think that’s a

david: Oh yeah.

joe: the come, he should be shaved, he should have a shaved head.

nick: I mean, he was, has a mustache now

joe: have the

geo: the hair flaming,

joe: but then it, it burns off.

nick: But then we already established, that doesn’t happen to him. His eyebrows, he hold

the whole and body, Unless it’s made of a substance that helps to dissipate heat.

joe: but then how [00:51:00] biological substance. Yeah.

david: Like some, some keratin derivative.

joe: or something. Yeah. Or some other protein structure. Is this hair fluffy and light, or is it coarse and brittle?

nick: I.

david: Does it conduct

nick: You know,

joe: No. Yeah.

nick: this is on the pages of a comic. I have

no, once again, thank He’s an expert on that. You know, I, I, I don’t know.

joe: a comic, he might have fluffed his hair, like, you know, like a model, like, you know, we, a video. You

david: like flock of seagulls?

nick: That’s right.

joe: yes.

nick: Like Bobby, he throws his hair back. I don’t know man. He’s got a mustache. Yeah. Yeah.

joe: Yeah.

geo: That

nick: problem. Yeah. Hair.

joe: I think, I think he should be hairless. Like, we’re gonna do this. Right. He should be hairless, no

david: Full alopecia.

nick: That’s right.

So he, to glue him on every time

And I think all of his orpheus

should have

joe: membrane guards.

Like he should

david: Yes.

joe: Yeah. I [00:52:00] think nose, eyes, ears, mouth.

nick: Wait, so what is a membrane guard now? Like, is is it supposed to be like a flap?

geo: it.

joe: Yes,

nick: exactly.

This is

disgusting. He

geo: about it.

nick: Yeah, but he didn’t really go over it. He

just, it was like a lid.

Spanked their

flap. Also, man, you

geo: a lid

joe: You know, you have everything there.

nick: So you’re, you’re, you’re just pretty much putting corks in everything,

joe: the holes,

nick: corks in every hole.

joe: They’re

nick: not, you got a hole, we’re gonna cork it.

Flaps,

david: plug you.

joe: they’re membrane All right. And that’s, I mean, that’s in nature that are a lot of animals that have There are, Kind of, uh, protection.

geo: Well, is that what our, is that what our islands are?

joe: ways yes, but there are, I think all, I mean is it alligators? I’m trying to think of so many aquatic animals that are amphibious

david: With, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

joe: when they actually go into water, they have another membrane that will cover their

david: like STO in plants, right? STO are a great

nick: Stomata for

joe: gas exchange.

And so they allow gas [00:53:00] exchange between the environment. So maybe Johnny has some Sada and

david: Yeah.

joe: he can have

nick: some gas exchange

Johnny

geo: Ada.

in The gas exchange hanging with . Oh my,

david: Oh,

nick: look out Look out

geo: that gas exchange.

joe: Torchy.

david: well that explains the heat.

joe: He’s rigging a heat. But yeah.

nick: But that,

joe: I think that would be the way.

Now if flying is I don’t know. I got nothing for that.

david: I got nothing for flying.

I mean, unless we got gas exchange propulsion.

joe: It’s

nick: shooting it down. ’cause you guys have glands now

shooting down.

david: just like a whoopy cushion,

geo: Yeah.

nick: But you, gotta, he’s shooting out the flame it’s a, you also

have to generate enough

joe: for lift. you, you just can’t shoot like a little, like

nick: to set you on

joe: fire. I just need to shoot a little flame at you and you’ll

nick: go. But he doesn’t just web it out. It’s[00:54:00]

joe: yeah. He shoots it out like his

nick: hands.

Yeah. Which is what

geo: have. It’s like

nick: gland in his

geo: Ironman. That’s how he takes off.

david: hand glands,

joe: he,

nick: but, but he’s, he’s

joe: some propulsion, right? So you’re generating force to push, to give you lift. And he has, he has boots. He has like the propulsions on his boots and so he lifts

nick: off. He’s got the propulsions on his feet too.

joe: That’s

david: he, he stands

on his grand gland

hands.

joe: Johnny.

nick: Yeah. Oh, he has

joe: glands in his feet.

nick: I mean, I’d assume so.

joe: He has feet glands. We didn’t talk about that. I

I guess

if he has skin, he could shoot,

he could have glands all over the place. You’re right.

nick: He is a gland.

joe: we gave him a new layer of skin

geo: gland, man.

joe: That’s

nick: why his skin looks so good. Stop. Maybe

that’s

joe: his skin looks so good. He looks so

david: Oh yeah.

Glow up,

nick: But now he’s just gonna be hairless. He’s just

joe: just hairless

nick: Beautiful skin.

Skin though.

joe: skin though

geo: Hair.

david: but but yeah,

joe: What kind [00:55:00] of jelly do you apply to your

david: because it’s on fire.

nick: And so, yeah. So then I had

joe: you, you asked about I think you asked about the caloric intake.

Yeah.

david: Oh yeah.

joe: if we go with this whole process where you are you know, I mean, all sorts of stuff. You know, this new skin, skin regeneration. , this jelly, whatever it’s made out of, , maybe something like aloe vera kind of product in there. That’s, that’s very insulating.

nick: Yeah. I mean

joe: I’m, you’re probably just base metabolism.

You’re, you’re 10, 20,000. Um, I think if you’re an

nick: even ex skirting all the goose going,

joe: I think if you’re, you’re, I think that’s just chilling. I think it’s the most like wolverine level that, that this might be 50, 50,000, I mean, the cellular regeneration, the,

david: Yeah. Yep,

joe: You might need increased hemoglobin for oxygen, you know, we talked about.

So you don’t suffocate as you’re flaming on and depleting oxygen.

nick: I

joe: do think that you would, yeah, I think you would burn some significant calories

nick: in this burn

[00:56:00] process, no pun intended.

joe: yes. But yeah. So I’m, I’m on a high end 50 a hundred K per minutes of flaming on like, I think

david: brushing eggs all day.

joe: you’re just gonna be

nick: chewing through calories. Big Max Golo. Oh my.

joe: Just line ’em up.

nick: But

joe: they’re fantastic for, they’re pretty wealthy. Yeah,

nick: yeah.

joe: Yeah. So,

nick: I mean, they can afford

it.

joe: need to go to trial. I mean, that’s why they were doing unsanctioned

nick: space exploration

joe: led to this all, you know,

nick: this whole catastrophe.

because scientists are just normally wealthy.

david: we’re just great. in it. That’s right. Just hanging out We’re taking

with extremo foils.

joe: at the extreme of files. We’re going,

We’re gonna

go some un unsanctioned space Odyssey,

I’m Oh, yeah. Let’s go. Yeah,

let’s do it. I’m in. some, superpowers.

just need my

get little

nick: get little degree. Yeah,

david: [00:57:00] Just your honorarium and a vial of LSD.

geo: I’m in. That’s it.

nick: That’s

david: Let’s go

nick: that how we’re gonna get to space? Bunch of

LSD.

david: field research.

joe: get

somewhere.

nick: My car will turn into a spacecraft.

Here I go again.

joe: Yeah. So

nick: cool.

joe: think we did it. I think we pulled Johnny A.

geo: I don’t know what we did, but

nick: I mean, I, I I think we’ve completely made him

joe: Stillman

geo: Ani and

joe: Yes.

nick: Alright.

david: All right.

nick: Yeah,

david: Well, thanks. Thanks you all. It was a treat to be on here as always. I, I hope to get a green jacket on my third appearance,

so uh,

joe: there you go. Yeah, yeah. You got something

nick: you’re, you’re gonna be on for

david: I’ll get something.

nick: Season three.

geo: gonna get an honorary degree.

joe: We’re gonna get you

david: Oh yeah. Awesome.

nick: a nice suit, some

joe: Yeah, some oozing glance. That’s, uh, that’s it.

david: May we all have oozing glands.

nick: Oh no.[00:58:00]

david: Alright.

joe: on that note, you have, uh, you have me, Joe.

nick: Yeah. Nick.

joe: You got Nick. Got Nick. We’ve got Georgia and David and Oh, we got David still there. He already said bye when he said bye again.

david: Yeah, but I’m still here,

so yeah.

joe: We

nick: didn’t cut you

off. Bye.

You,

joe: We

nick: don’t

do that

today, guys. We let it,

joe: we let it ride out. And did we?

nick: I think we set some holes of flame

joe: We

geo: We

david: All right.

nick: Some hot holes. Holes.

david: will actually leave now.

nick: we’ll see you

david: Thanks Everyone.

nick: Bye-Bye Love.

joe: y’all.