Learn about how bacteria in your gut can produce electricity. Then, performer and lecturer Thom Britton will tell us about the origins of seances and how Hollywood gets them wrong
Learn about how bacteria in your gut can produce electricity. Then, performer and lecturer Thom Britton will tell us about the origins of seances and how Hollywood gets them wrong.
Some Bacteria in Your Gut Produce Electricity by Cameron Duke
More resources from performer Thom Britton:
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-hollywood-gets-seances-wrong
[MUSIC PLAYING] ASHLEY HAMER: Hi. You're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity.com. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, you learn about how bacteria in your gut can produce electricity. Then performer and lecturer, Tom Britton will tell us about the origins of Sciences, and how Hollywood gets them wrong.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
[SWOOSH]
NATALIA REAGAN: There is a whole class of bacteria that have super powers. They can generate their own electricity. They're called electrogenic bacteria. And believe it or not, they're probably inside your body right now. Yeah, that's it, baby. You're electric.
Electrogenic bacteria are bacteria that give off electrons. While bacteria that wield force lightning sounds like something that should be rare, it's surprisingly common. Most often, these bacteria live in hard to get places like, the bottoms of lakes. But in 2018, scientists gave the world a shock, pun intended, when they discovered electrogenic bacteria in the human gut.
We now know that many of these bacteria are an important part of the human microbiome. There's at least one you've probably heard of, lactobacillus. It's a species used to make yogurt. And it's naturally found in the human gut. And yes, it's electrogenic.
Electrogenic bacteria spit out electrons for the same reason we breathe oxygen. When the mitochondria in our cells break down sugars to produce energy, they pass electrons down a molecular assembly line. That line ends with oxygen, which takes in any leftover electrons. Electrogenic bacteria do the same thing, except they typically live in environments without oxygen. So they have to dump their electrons into something else.
In the gut, that's often an organic molecule like Flavin, which comes from vitamin B12. In lakes and other geologic environments, that's often a metal like ion. Scientists call that extracellular electron transfer. And while many species of bacteria do this, scientists are still learning the specifics of how it works. That's important because it may be possible to harness electrogenic bacteria for our own energy needs.
Researchers have found that some electricity generating microbes can form large electricity conducting networks, which could be used to create new green technologies. And in 2018, researchers used listeria monocytogenes, an electrogenic bacteria that causes food poisoning to make a battery that could generate a tiny amount of electricity. The electricity generated is a far cry from what would be needed to power a car. But it does suggest that microbial power sources could be on the distant horizon. But for now, I'll leave you to wonder. Are those butterflies in your stomach or sparks?
[SWOOSH]
ASHLEY HAMER: When you picture a seance, you probably think about a bunch of Victorians sitting around a table in the dark, holding hands and trying to summon the spirits of their dead relatives. But according to today's guest, that is the low-rent version. Tom Britton is a performer, producer, and lecturer, and one half of the seance, an original stage show that blends a history lesson with vivid demonstrations to recreate an authentic Victorian era seance. And full disclosure, my fiance, Jonathan, makes up the other half of the show.
Obviously, COVID has shut down the show this season. But in the performance, Tom explains that from the mid-1800s to the turn of the 20th century seances were huge productions, think spotlights, stages and ticketed seats. And they all started with the Fox sisters. Young girls, who figured out a trick that would make people think they could speak to the dead. Here's Tom.
[SWOOSH]
TOM BRITTON: They begin figuring out how to make rapping noises. Now, part of it, they could do with a cool little trick with their toes, where you kind of snap their toes, if you will. And the shoes that wore back then were quite a nice conductor of sound. Picture almost Dutch wooden shoes these girls are wearing, not comfortable shoes. But they make a nice clicking sound. You can't really tell where it's coming from.
So this is a ventriloquist trick. If I point you here at that direction, the exact same sound coming from the same technique I point you here at a different direction. I can lead you misdirect to that way. But also, rudimentary stuff, you would have thought of at 11 too. Tie an Apple to a string outside the window, and it will occasionally knock on the side of the barn.
They did all of that. And their mother was very religious and a little gullible and believed it. So she already had a belief system. And then add a little layer of less skeptical thinking, a good audience for a young burgeoning magic act. They really fooled their mom. And then it just took off their mom. And a neighbor lady came over to see and ran from the room.
They go to church because their mother, a religious woman, now needs to seek the counsel of the elders. So she takes these girls to do their demonstration on the dais at church with a simple question of, "Is this godly? I mean, they say they're talking to the dead. I'm really worried as a mom. Am I doing the right thing here? Are they playing with dark forces they do not understand?" And that's their first real shows, because it blows the audience away.
A couple of weeks later, the church is packed. And then from there, they have to go to the field where they can do-- we need more room. We've got a hit on our hands, kids. We need to get out there.
The Vaudeville theater is with the next logical step. And then it got pushed to prime time. And all this is in a very short span of time. So these girls really felt like they were just holding on for dear life as this thing got out of control.
ASHLEY HAMER: So what would you see if you went to one of these church services? I mean, it's probably more than rapping, right?
TOM BRITTON: Well, the Fox sisters were the headliner, right? So first, the preacher because it is first and foremost a religious ceremony. And it's proof of principles that need to be explained if you're a visitor. And you would very quickly start getting visitors.
So the pastor of that original church probably would have been that opening act. Would have come out and said, these are the tenets we hold dear. This is the belief we have. This is the Faith we have from our Bible, from our teachings for years and years and years and years. And now, let's sing some hymns.
Hymns in the 1800s were terrible. They sounded like dirges for a half an hour. Because I don't know, they didn't have a radio yet. Finally, the Fox sisters would come out, two young girls with the performers. And it wasn't like a modern seance like you think of it now.
Now, what you'd expect is you, the audience member, would ask me the medium of question I would then summon your grandma and you would ask me the question. They would simply ask their-- they called it Mr. Split huff. Another example, they're not great marketing. But they had a guide that was assigned to them from the afterlife. They would just ask you questions about its environment, laying a basic of world building, we would call in modern literature.
And you would watch them do this. And you would hear the clicks and raps in response. And to you, what you were seeing, it didn't matter that it wasn't your grandmother answering your question. What you got there was proof of the afterlife. It confirmed your biases. It confirmed your beliefs right there. And that was enough for you at first.
Later, performers come on. Most notably, if you want to Google one, the Davenport brothers. Well, there's thousands. I just picked them, because they're my favorite. Who's sitting in the audience with their manager go, "We could do better than this. I can do those same tricks. And my brother and I are dazzling on the stage."
They got the preacher. They had a different opening act. Maybe an Acrobat would be nice. And they made it much more of a show. So all of a sudden, there was these really cool versions of seances happening across the country.
[SWOOSH]
ASHLEY HAMER: So why did they ever stop? Well, Tom says that eventually, scammers started using these tricks to fool people into giving up their life savings. Things got pretty dark. But those same magicians, who knew they could copy those original seances, they turned around and started revealing these hucksters for what they were. The most effective of all was the great Harry Houdini, who would go to seances in costume and loudly confront the performers mid-show. That put a damper on their popularity.
And by 1920, seance performances were a thing of the past. But hey, don't let that stop you. You can always sit around a table in the dark. Again, that was Tom Britton, a performer, producer, and lecturer, and one half of the seance, an authentic Victorian era seance show. You can learn more about it in the show notes.
[SWOOSH]
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, let's recap today's takeaways.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, number one, we learned that bacteria in our gut can actually produce electricity in something called extracellular electron transfer. And it's possible to harness electrogenic bacteria for our own energy needs. Scientists have already made a battery out of bacteria responsible for food poisoning. Talk about finding a silver lining.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yikes, but I actually did find multiple articles about how scientists were trying to extract methane and other types of chemicals from sewer sewage materials, and stripping them of their smell, and actually using them potentially to create some petrol.
ASHLEY HAMER: We actually have a story very similar to that coming up soon.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, yes. We also learned that seances have been around for a while. And weren't necessarily these big theatrical productions that we think of now. But it started off as these small performances by these sisters that originally did them for their mom. And then realized, hey, we got a show on our hands. And took them to church services.
But instead of audience members asking specific questions to try to talk to their dead loved ones, the sisters basically were just talking to spirits who were describing where they were. Kind of World it looked like. Which could be interesting unless, it was like, I'm in a room. I got a chair, right?
ASHLEY HAMER: It depends on who you contact. It's just going to be like, why are you talking to me? How did you get this number?
[LAUGHS]
NATALIA REAGAN: My name is Stan, and I'm an accountant. I was an actuary for many years. I'm sitting with a Rolodex and a fax machine. But over time, these seances got more theatrical and showy. And then, of course, people like Harry Houdini would try to take them down. And of course, the amazing Randy, who we all know and love.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes. Everything I learned about Harry Houdini just makes me more impressed. Something Tom told me, which I didn't know about in this interview, was Harry Houdini once went to Australia just so he could be the first person to ever fly a plane in Australia.
NATALIA REAGAN: What?
ASHLEY HAMER: He did it secretly, so nobody would know. But that was just the kind of guy he was. He just wanted to be the best and the first at everything.
NATALIA REAGAN: I love that. He's actually buried here in Queens. I had no idea. I would run around that cemetery. And this is during quarantine. And it's a beautiful, gorgeous cemetery.
And I need to go visit. I need to make the pilgrimage to his actual gravestone. But people leave cards and all sorts of little grave goods for him. It's pretty fantastic.
And I've told you parts of this. But my great aunt's in Scotland. And they lived in large Scotland, in Southern Scotland, on the West Coast. And it was technically my great grandfather. He was raised to think that his actual grandmother was his mother. But it was actually his sister who was his real mother.
So it was his aunts that were these charlatans or these witches that used to hold seances. And they were almost run out of Scotland for running these seances. Because people thought that they were witches. I think they had a pretty awesome show.
And my grandmother actually held seances before I was born. And she recently passed away. And her joked to me in the end was, she was going to haunt me. So I'm looking for that.
ASHLEY HAMER: There you go. Yeah.
[LAUGHS]
[SWOOSH]
NATALIA REAGAN: Today's first story was written by Cameron Duke, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan and Sonja Hodgson. Today's episode was edited by Natalia Reagan. And our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]