- 11 minutes ago
First broadcast 8th October 2010.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Jo Brand
Jimmy Carr
Jack Dee
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Jo Brand
Jimmy Carr
Jack Dee
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello! Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.
00:05Hello and welcome to QI, where tonight we plot the whole history of humanity
00:12with four prime specimens of the human race.
00:15The highly evolved Joe Brand.
00:21The Ho-Ho Homo Erectus Jimmy Carr.
00:30The Creature from the Black Gloom, Jack D.
00:38And the homeowner, Alan Davis.
00:47Let's see what your buzzers have evolved into.
00:50Joe goes...
00:54I really do go.
00:56We recorded you when you weren't looking.
00:58Jimmy goes...
01:02Well, pardon me.
01:05Jack goes...
01:09And Alan goes...
01:15He's evolved backwards into an Arsenal supporter.
01:19So, let's start with this.
01:21Describe the perfect man.
01:24A dead one.
01:25A dead one.
01:27Just run!
01:33Well, there we have three specimens, my goodness.
01:35A perfect man. Are you fishing for compliments here?
01:38Can I just say, that one in the middle is bloody gorgeous.
01:42Is that my husband?
01:44Do you believe it's his?
01:45Oh, really?
01:46Perfect as in, what, the physical specimen?
01:49Well, sort of perfect physical specimen.
01:51Yeah.
01:52Can you see from that, that there is no such thing as being big boned?
01:56I mean, they are all the...
01:57They all have the same structure, essentially.
01:59And they've never found a fat skeleton, have they?
02:02A big skeleton.
02:03I'm afraid it's true, but we're sorry to hear that.
02:06No, actually, we're steering you slightly awry here.
02:09It's that humans are homo sapiens.
02:11Sapiens is a species of animal.
02:14And every species of animal has a kind of definitive version, called a holotype, by which all the others are
02:23judged.
02:24So, all I'm saying is, where is the human being, which is a standard example of a human being?
02:31Is he standard or is he perfect? Because there's a difference.
02:33Yeah, there is, isn't there, exactly.
02:35See, I mean, I don't mind being perfect.
02:36The fact is...
02:37It's just the average.
02:39The honour should go to the first person who described humanity in terms of its animal origins, in a way.
02:46Which is not Darwin.
02:47Before Darwin.
02:49Who came up with the phrase homo sapiens?
02:51Was it Henry VIII?
02:52No.
02:53Good, good, good effort.
02:55It was really a Swede who named everything, who gave things classifications.
03:00Do you know who this Swede was?
03:01Not in O'Bale.
03:02Ulrika Johnson.
03:03Not Ulrika Johnson.
03:04What must be the other one?
03:06Sven-Gorn-Aaron.
03:07The other one.
03:08It was ABBA.
03:09No, it was ABBA.
03:10Poor Sweden, I apologise to you.
03:12He was called Carl Linnaeus.
03:14Oh, you did know that.
03:15Oh, him, yeah.
03:15Linnaeus.
03:16The Linnaeus system of naming things.
03:18And it was felt that the honour should go to him.
03:21And then, then an American paleontologist, he volunteered.
03:25He was called Edward Drinker Cope.
03:27And he left in his will that he wanted to be the holotype.
03:30There he is.
03:31So they got his skeleton, and he was going to be the type.
03:34But unfortunately he had syphilis, and it was present in his skeletal structure.
03:39The evidence of his having syphilis.
03:42How embarrassing.
03:42I don't put that on the little leaflet in the doctors, do they?
03:44No, they don't.
03:45They don't.
03:46So essentially there is none.
03:47There is no perfect human.
03:48So basically the position is vacant.
03:50The position is vacant.
03:51They've suggested Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bob Hope, Rackle Welsh.
03:55I think she would be distracting for the scientists.
03:58She might.
03:59Yeah, so it is basically a vacant position.
04:02But...
04:04What am I making that noise?
04:08Who's that?
04:09Who's that?
04:09Who's that Jesus?
04:10With legs out.
04:10Oh, Leonardo da Vinci.
04:12Leonardo da Vinci.
04:13Do you know what he's called?
04:13No, I'm...
04:14Vitruvian man.
04:15That's it.
04:15Yes.
04:16Oh, the guy that...
04:17Correct.
04:17That one.
04:17He's done too many arms and too many legs.
04:19He's a bloody fool.
04:21You're the same...
04:22Quite such a fool.
04:22You're the same width as you are height.
04:25It's showing the proportions.
04:26In one of them the man is spread-eagled and is exactly fitting a circle.
04:30And the second one is he is fitting a square.
04:32When we fit a circle like that, our absolute centre, the centre of the circle, is the navel.
04:38But when we fit a square, the centre is the...
04:42Genitalia.
04:43The genitals, you rightly say, alia.
04:45I believe the...
04:45I believe the...
04:46Tommy banana is the term.
04:47The Tommy banana.
04:49That we're using in our house.
04:51Yeah.
04:51Exactly.
04:52Who was Vitruvius?
04:54Why is he called Vitruvian man?
04:55Is that not him?
04:56That was not the name of the man, no.
04:57He was a Roman architect who wrote about man's dimensions being the...
05:02the kind of criterion by which you should design architecture.
05:05And it goes like this.
05:06Your height is equal to the span of your arms as the square demonstrates.
05:10What I want to know is, what is the bloke behind doing that's...
05:15I will never tell you.
05:17That's made in Roman's leg like that.
05:19Did the bloke in front know that the bloke behind was doing that?
05:22Because that's a bit like a very old-fashioned version of doing that behind someone when they're having their photo
05:27taken.
05:27But it must have taken hours just standing...
05:29Oh, come on, the joke's wearing off.
05:30Yeah.
05:32But these proportions are more or less correct.
05:34Your head is an eighth of your body height.
05:38Your head's about a quarter of your body height.
05:40Is it?
05:41Yeah, because your brain's so massive.
05:43Oh, stop it.
05:44Oh, thank you.
05:48Yeah, and you can see also that the width of your shoulders is equal to the distance from the elbow
05:53to the tip of the fingers.
05:54It's the same as your shoulder span.
05:56So there's a lot of proportion going on.
05:58Where would you see this mostly if you're in Italy?
06:01Rome, the internet.
06:02The fact is there are millions of them all over Italy.
06:05Why is that?
06:06Beer mats.
06:06Not beer mats.
06:12No, it's the one euro coin, the Italian version of the one euro coin has this on the obverse.
06:17He was so gifted, they say that when he was a boy he was apprentice to a master painter, one
06:21of the great painters of his age.
06:22And as typically in those days, there was a huge fresco or canvas being, you know, that a pope or
06:27someone had commissioned.
06:28And Leonardo was told just to do one of the angels.
06:31So he went to win the corner and did the angel.
06:34And the master came and looked at it and broke his own brushes and walked out and never painted again.
06:39It's rather wonderful.
06:41Some people are like that, aren't they?
06:42They're just peevish.
06:48But of course people call him Leonardo and of course Da Vinci is just the place he came from.
06:53Name some other painters like that who really really used the first name.
06:56Leonardo da Streatham.
07:00Rolf of Australia.
07:04That is true.
07:09Michelangelo, for example.
07:10His surname was Buonarroti but he was known as Michelangelo and we call him by his first name.
07:14Raphael we call by his first name.
07:16It's like Cooks.
07:17Delian, Nigella, Jamie.
07:20Jamie de Essex.
07:23That's the one.
07:24Exactly.
07:24Anyway, if you think you're the perfect man, there may be a job for you in a museum somewhere, as
07:29long as you don't have syphilis.
07:30On your way there though, how would you spot a Neanderthal if you saw one on a bus?
07:37He'd be the one who comes and sits next to me.
07:43Nearly always.
07:45Yep.
07:46He's the one already sitting next to me because I'm married to him.
07:50Is this going to be the humiliate my husband trick?
07:53Yeah, he doesn't watch this.
07:54It's all right.
07:55Oh fine, okay.
07:56He doesn't really understand it.
07:57Is he the one looking at the wheels going, what the hell?
08:03They've got the lump and great forehead or is that the Cro-Magnon?
08:07Well, the point is actually, we'd be very hard put to tell the difference if they wore a t-shirt.
08:12Admittedly you'd say, well that's an unusual person.
08:15That's our producer.
08:15Yes, but if you imagine, if and I dream of it, we shaved and dressed our producer one day,
08:24and popped her on a bus,
08:30she might look like a normal person.
08:33The point is that they...
08:35But so far we haven't.
08:36No, we've not managed that.
08:37Is that a model?
08:39That's a model of how they might look.
08:41Unfortunately, we think of them as incredibly stupid,
08:43but they had religious rites, they buried their dead, they made ornaments.
08:47At one point we were one species that diverged,
08:49and these two branches of humanity lived in Europe.
08:53In fact, Neanderthals lived in Europe for four times longer than we ever have.
08:59They had a long period of living there.
09:01And did we cross over?
09:02We did cross over, and no one quite knows why they went extinct,
09:05whether we bullied them, whether we outsmarted them,
09:07they were stronger than us.
09:10Right.
09:10We invented the bus, though.
09:12We didn't...
09:14They didn't invent the bus.
09:16No, you can't get on that one.
09:17But about one to four percent of our DNA is Neanderthal.
09:22So we crossbred.
09:23So were there ever, for instance,
09:26homo sapiens who married Neanderthals?
09:29Imagine a wedding like that.
09:32That's going to be a punch-up in a car park.
09:34Go to Basildon any Saturday night.
09:37I'm glad he said that.
09:39Sorry, no, I just want to tour again one day.
09:40Well, a seven resident of Norfolk.
09:43The fact is, yes, you're right.
09:45I mean, there was interbreeding.
09:47And there are many theories.
09:48Some think that we, homo sapiens, as it were,
09:51kept Neanderthal girls as sex slaves.
09:54But it's very possible it was the other way round,
09:55because they were stronger than us.
09:56But certainly there was a lot of interbreeding.
09:58But for some reason they died out.
10:00Probably the first genocide.
10:01First of many that we've proudly executed over the many centuries that we've been.
10:06We've just teased them to death.
10:07They couldn't take it any more.
10:09Neanderthal!
10:10I know I'm ugly and stupid.
10:13So politically incorrect.
10:15Oh, I can run fast.
10:16Oh, you're really good.
10:18Why are they called Neanderthal?
10:20Is it an anagram?
10:24Probably is.
10:26Anagram of leather dant.
10:28Leather dant.
10:29Leather dant.
10:31That's a period in time, isn't it?
10:33No, it's not actually.
10:33It's just simply a valley near Dusseldorf in Germany where they were found Neanderthal.
10:37There were many other.
10:38Could you name other species?
10:39I do like the idea, though, of having another species of human that is just a little bit stupid.
10:45But, you know, friendly.
10:46Yes.
10:46And lived with us and were quite happy just to do all the jobs and stuff for us.
10:50Well, it's a brave new world, isn't it?
10:51Exactly.
10:52I like the idea of it.
10:53I have to say.
10:53I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not a nut or anything.
10:56But I like the idea of...
10:57Who wouldn't mind, either?
10:58They'd be very simple.
10:59And could be your sex slave.
11:00And obliging.
11:01Yeah.
11:01Can we go back to sort of the picture of the man that looks like a gnome?
11:05Oh, yes.
11:06The producer.
11:08Yeah.
11:08I don't really fancy that as a sex slave.
11:10I'm going to be honest with you.
11:12I'm not being overly fussy.
11:13I just think...
11:15Bearing in mind, though, Jim, this is before the invention of electric light.
11:18You know, it's gloomy.
11:19True.
11:19Yeah.
11:20Be in a cave.
11:21It's cold.
11:22Be in a cave.
11:23It's cold.
11:24Have a few beers.
11:26You'd be fine.
11:28He's quite a friendly-looking bloke, isn't he, really?
11:31For a Neanderthal.
11:33So this really good series, an anthropology series, it was really good.
11:36They had this fantastic depiction of the tree of evolution with all the different branches.
11:40Yeah.
11:41And all the various homo this and homo the other that didn't make it.
11:44Yeah.
11:44We're the only one left.
11:46Presumably, though, if it's evolution, we're not finished.
11:48No.
11:48We haven't finished evolving.
11:50So when we go on evolving, presumably...
11:52There is hope for you, Jimmy.
11:53Don't worry.
11:55Why do you think they should keep...
11:56They should keep a breeding population of us, because I think we'd make excellent pets.
12:00Right.
12:01When they've moved on.
12:02Oh, we don't have to moan, though.
12:04Who wants a pet that moans all the time?
12:08That's a fair point.
12:32Next.
12:32What do you think, then?
12:33It's very hard to say.
12:34There's a great fallacy, which is that things that happen to you in your lifetime, you pass
12:39on to your children.
12:40Your DNA doesn't alter because you text a lot.
12:43You know, people say, because you text a lot, people have flat thumbs.
12:45That's a misunderstanding of evolution.
12:48But anyway, fossils.
12:49Why might you take a fossil into a nightclub?
12:52No.
12:53If you're going to string fellows, you wouldn't need to.
12:56Is it, I'm going to guess, the UV?
12:59Yes.
13:00I think there's something in the UV light.
13:01You are so right.
13:02Because people's teeth look weird in clubs.
13:04You're right.
13:04His teeth look weird, anyway.
13:07Why you would take it is because there's quite a business in fossils.
13:09People want a perfect fossil, and there's a lot of money charged for these...
13:14Ammonites.
13:14Exactly, like the ammonites, trilobites, those sort of things.
13:17And a lot of them are dodgy, and they've got plastic in.
13:20And, you know, take it under UV light, and the plastic will show up completely differently
13:24to the original fossil.
13:25So that's a reason to take it into a nightclub.
13:28And do you get a lot of that happening in clubs?
13:29I don't know.
13:31Now that I've suggested it...
13:32I have to say, my wife wouldn't be very pleased with that explanation.
13:36No, darling, the reason I went into the back room of a harness club...
13:41Yeah.
13:41Can I just say on a completely unrelated note, this dear Peter Stringfellow came up in that picture,
13:47that he won't let fat women go in his club in case they break the antique chairs.
13:52No.
13:53Indeed.
13:54So all fat ladies to Stringfellow's later, and we'll sit on his antique face.
14:08If you gave him, and when I say him, I mean a Neanderthal man, a tracksuit and a haircut,
14:13he would attract more attention than any of the other nutters on the bus.
14:17Which bit of you is evolving the quickest?
14:21Is it my propeller?
14:25You have a propeller?
14:27What did you say?
14:27Revolving?
14:28No, evolving.
14:34No.
14:37No.
14:37No.
14:37Wouldn't that be brilliant, no?
14:39Yeah.
14:39If you had a propeller?
14:40If you had a propeller?
14:41It would be, aren't there?
14:42See if there's any animals that have got propellers?
14:44There's a thing that lives in the sea that has sort of a propeller mechanism.
14:48And it was used as the...
14:54The hippo's tail, it's slightly less savoury, but the hippo uses its tail, and it revolves
14:59it to spread its feces in as wider a way as possible.
15:03That's what I do is swimming pools.
15:04Do you?
15:06And what do you revolve to help that happen, I wonder?
15:09Is there anything you can do?
15:09Oh, just...
15:11It's always so embarrassing when it happens.
15:13Well, it does it to mark out more territory, literally, just...
15:16I suppose I shouldn't do it from the top board.
15:18No!
15:20It's always been the distinction.
15:21There's a big difference between pissing in a pool and pissing in to a pool.
15:25That's true.
15:26That's true.
15:26I pooed in the sea once.
15:28Did you?
15:30I'm not going in there again.
15:32I was only about 12 at the time, and I really needed to go.
15:35I was quite far out.
15:38I could just go here.
15:39I mean, fish go in the sea all the time.
15:41And I thought, that's good, that's gone.
15:44But I hadn't allowed for the fact that it just bobs up.
15:50You've got a flop there, there's right next to your face!
15:54You've not got rid of it at all, it's kind of...
15:57Is that how you notice it?
15:59It follows you.
16:03It goes right into shore with you.
16:07I'm strongly advised not to do that.
16:09Yeah.
16:10What was the question again?
16:11You were talking about evolving?
16:12Because I've always thought that, whenever they mention on the news Scottish devolution,
16:16I always think that sounds like they're losing their opposable thumbs.
16:19Or they get their tendency to be open.
16:21De-evolving.
16:22If you're evolving because of breeding, I can't imagine what it is about human beings that will be changing.
16:29Because, I mean, we've got the sofa, the telly, the fridge.
16:32They're kind of building our environment to fit the way we are now.
16:35Exactly!
16:36Are we not going to halt evolution completely?
16:37We're not going to grow wings because we build aeroplanes.
16:39We'll just be developed with a remote control in our hand.
16:43Evolution isn't just a smooth thing.
16:45They occasionally, I think...
16:47You get mutations.
16:47You get mutations, which actually accelerates the process, does it not?
16:51So, an animal is born with a very long neck and can get to the top leaves, and therefore, that
16:56is a more successful creature.
16:57And another female that happens to have done the same thing.
16:59And another female, and they say, oh, you've got a long neck as well.
17:01Let's...
17:01What about it?
17:02Let's have long-necked babies.
17:04Well, well, then...
17:04Then what happens is...
17:05Giraffe family.
17:06I saw a family fortunes once.
17:11Finally back to my level again.
17:13The question was, name a bird with a long neck.
17:17I said, oh, no.
17:18And the guy said, Naomi Campbell.
17:20Wow!
17:23It's like...
17:23It's like my favourite one on weakest link.
17:28It was, what are Chardonnay, Shiraz, and Pinot Noir?
17:32They said, footballers' wives.
17:35Very good.
17:36All the olds again.
17:37My favourite one was, name a dangerous race.
17:39And the guy said, the Arabs.
17:44I mean, they were hoping for a grand national.
17:48In the mall.
17:50What was the question?
17:51Oh, yes.
17:52Are we halting evolution?
17:54Well, no, I don't...
17:55There's no evidence that we are.
17:56But isn't the last thing...
17:56Would it be our stomachs that have evolved the quickest?
17:59Because our diet's changed massively in the last 2,000 years.
18:02You're right.
18:02It seems, though, that the part of the body that has changed most recently,
18:07in the last 10,000 years, is the nose, funnily enough.
18:11And we're not quite sure why.
18:12It seems...
18:13There isn't some noses, in case...
18:14Are you going to tell us the more highly evolved people
18:16have got sort of a slightly bent to one side nose?
18:18Yes, there is that element.
18:19It doesn't...
18:20The most highly evolved people have got three noses.
18:23By the look of it.
18:25Yeah.
18:25Dogs, which were domesticated about 15,000 years ago,
18:28and humans have complementary smell.
18:30And it was around the time we were learning to cook, as well.
18:32And it just seems that our noses...
18:35We lost the need to have the kind of smell that dogs have.
18:39Maybe because we...
18:40Isn't it the most powerful sense memories?
18:42Yes.
18:42Is the olfactory memory?
18:43Yes.
18:43The idea that if you get a smell, it really...
18:45It's very prousty, and you're back there immediately,
18:47and it's the most kind of powerful sort of thing for...
18:49Yeah.
18:50It's very odd, that, isn't it?
18:51I mean, you can smell something and not be sure what it is,
18:53but in a way that you couldn't see something and not be sure what it is.
18:57You wouldn't show someone a picture of an elephant and then go,
18:59Oh!
18:59Oh!
19:00It's a tennis racket.
19:01No, it's a...
19:02It's very odd to that.
19:03Although it's very powerful, it's also very elusive.
19:05Yeah, it feels like smell is the one thing that's miles away from language.
19:09It's so difficult to sort of describe what's going on with it,
19:11but you know you like it.
19:12But it can trigger a memory instantly.
19:14Yeah, there is a widespread assumption that we've ceased evolving,
19:17but that doesn't...
19:17I don't think it's true, but of course it does take so long.
19:20I mean, it's like what I was saying about Neanderthal man
19:22having lived in Europe for four times longer than we have.
19:26Isn't that...
19:26I mean, you say that we never notice it,
19:28but people are getting taller by generation, aren't they?
19:30And that's a nutritional thing, really.
19:32It is nutritional.
19:33And you can see it in Japanese.
19:34The Japanese were only at fish and things.
19:36The moment they started eating beef and beef burgers came,
19:38the Japanese in a generation and a half...
19:41Uh-oh, watch out for them.
19:42They'll be back.
19:43Got a lot taller.
19:48So, it seems that our noses are evolving quicker
19:51than any other part of our body.
19:52Who knows what we will look like in the future?
19:54In fact, who are you looking at here?
19:57It's to do with the proportion in which we are able to sense things
20:02from our body, the hands and the hands.
20:03The kind of brain space and processing that is given to our own bodies.
20:07These are called cortical homunculi, which is a rather nice name.
20:11Our cortex gives over a huge amount of processing
20:13to understand and feel the hands and our ears and our tongues.
20:19Quite a lot to our genitalia, so much so that we've felt the need to be decent.
20:22I see the one on the left is actually a lady.
20:24That is actually Joe, in fact.
20:27It really is.
20:28And that's...
20:28How dare you?
20:30That's what?
20:31And that's you, and that's you.
20:32That's you, but it's...
20:33With your eyes made bigger and your mouths made bigger, you are in there.
20:37That is basically...
20:38Which one's me?
20:38I'm quite happy with that tool, so I don't mind that.
20:39The one...
20:40The female one.
20:42I think we look a lot crazier than those two, don't we?
20:45We look properly out of control.
20:46I actually quite want to shag you now.
20:50A little bit of that.
20:52I mean, that's...
20:53We're very grateful to Steve Colgan, who made these for us, as the artist...
20:56I'm not...
20:57I'm not grateful.
20:57You're not grateful.
20:59I'd like to go on record with Alan and say I'm neither, I'm not grateful at all.
21:02No.
21:03Well, I'll do a drawing of Steve later.
21:06See how he likes it.
21:08So this is where the sensory sort of...
21:10Yeah, it was the brainchild of a man called Dr. Wilder Penfield, who was a Canadian neurosurgeon
21:14who died in about 1979.
21:16And because he'd been doing surgery on epileptics, he realized he could map the parts of the brain
21:20that were responsible for the feelings, dimensions, senses of each part of the body.
21:26And that's what he came up with.
21:27So to the brain, as it were, that's how we are.
21:29So it's a good rule of thumb for a first date, isn't it?
21:31These are the areas you should be concentrating on.
21:33Yeah.
21:33And some people, like Andrew Marr, actually are like that.
21:38Which is going on.
21:39Martin Cluens, perhaps.
21:41Yeah.
21:41The brain is, of course, remarkable complex.
21:44It's the most complex thing we know of in the universe.
21:47We don't know of anything more astonishingly complicated.
21:51Are you filled in a VAT return?
21:54Isn't that easy?
21:55I haven't.
21:56It's 100 billion neurons in the brain, roughly.
22:00Yeah.
22:01That's as many brain cells in your brain as there are trees in the Amazonian forest.
22:04It's a quite...
22:05Have you ever flown into the forest?
22:06Maybe not anymore.
22:07No.
22:07Well, maybe.
22:08Each cell makes between 1,000 and 10,000 connections.
22:12So even the brain of a three-year-old child has about a quadrillion, which is 10 to the 15
22:17synapses.
22:1815.
22:18Yeah.
22:18It's a huge number.
22:20It's almost incalculably vast.
22:22No, I've done it.
22:23Yeah?
22:23I don't know.
22:24And it...
22:25It's 80% water, the brain.
22:28Extraordinary.
22:28Oh, like a weak lager.
22:30Yeah.
22:30Basically.
22:31Basically.
22:32The brain works with chemical reaction always.
22:35Yes.
22:35Electricity, essentially.
22:36Electricity, basically.
22:38That's why...
22:39When an epileptic fit is when the electrical impulses in your brain sort of overload and they cause
22:46you, you know, to...
22:47Yeah.
22:47To have a seizure.
22:49And, in fact, that's how they invented ECT, because some Italian doctor noticed that
22:53a tramp he was experimenting on was a lot more cheerful when he's had an epileptic fit.
22:59Yeah.
22:59So they thought if we induce one...
23:01Why was he more cheerful when he'd had an epileptic fit?
23:04Well, he didn't know, but he just thought...
23:06They still didn't really know, but the thing about ECT is it does often work.
23:11My mother went to a fake recently and someone had spelt et cetera wrong and it went,
23:16this way to the stalls and ECT.
23:21Which, great to get a fake, wouldn't it?
23:24Mad.
23:25Anyway, the cortical homunculus is you, if the size of your body parts reflected how much
23:31brain power they used.
23:32How would you like to huddle up to one of these?
23:36Oh, my God.
23:36How did you get a picture of my scrotum?
23:41You've got the teeth and everything.
23:45Would a scrotum be much more attractive if it had little eyes and teeth?
23:51The only thing the scrotum's good for, testing anti-wrinkle cream.
23:57It's a treat.
23:59Yep, it would.
23:59This little animal was only recently been discovered.
24:03It is a recent discovery, absolutely.
24:05Yes, in Africa.
24:06In Africa.
24:07Oh.
24:07Well, a hairless, because it's hairless.
24:09Yes, it is.
24:10It's called the naked mole rat.
24:12How long is it?
24:13It's about three inches, not really big.
24:15Wow, so it's only the same proportion.
24:19It's neither a mole nor a rat, in fact.
24:21It is a rodent, it's a mammal, and it's a most extraordinary creature.
24:26Bizarrely, there was a zoologist who predicted in the 1970s
24:29that there might be an as yet undiscovered social mammal that lived underground,
24:35and this exactly fits the bill.
24:37It has a queen, who is the only one who gives birth,
24:40a harem of three males, and all the rest are diggers, are workers and slaves,
24:45just like in an ant colony.
24:46It's most unusual.
24:47Because when you said social, I thought you meant it asks its friends around.
24:51Oh.
24:53The workers, they do the child rearing and the digging and the, you know,
24:57school run, as it were.
24:58I mean, all those sorts of jobs.
24:59The school run.
25:00I suppose its friends have to say that they'll come over, don't they?
25:03Because they can't say staying in washing me hair tonight.
25:08So you get a colony of about 300,
25:10and they sleep like this to keep themselves warm,
25:12because they're virtually cold-blooded.
25:13If you just glance at that, it's quite distressing.
25:15It is, isn't it?
25:16It looks like something that happened at Chelsea Football Club's Christmas party.
25:19Oh.
25:21They do look disturbingly like that.
25:23So, do we know why they became like that?
25:24It seems that the best way for them to survive in what is very stuffy burrows
25:29is very, very difficult.
25:30They just huddle together for warmth, and maybe sometimes it's very hot
25:35and the fur is too much.
25:36So their way of regulating their heat is just to be kind of naked
25:39and sleep on top of each other.
25:42But they're quite interesting for us because their genes are being sequenced
25:45because they seem to have resistance to certain forms of cancer
25:48as well as having other interesting properties.
25:52For example...
25:52It's because they don't smoke.
25:55A very healthy lifestyle, really.
25:56That's probably what it is.
25:57They don't have something called substance P,
26:00which transmits pain in us and other animals.
26:03So it's...
26:03Substance P transmits pain?
26:05Yeah.
26:06Are you sure that's science?
26:08Are you sure you haven't misread that?
26:09I know what you mean.
26:10You know, substance P for pain, you know.
26:12It's a neurotransmitter.
26:14Of course it is.
26:15But if we were able to replicate the way it works,
26:18we might be able to find a very perfect painkiller for us
26:21rather than using opiates, which we still use.
26:23Yes, the naked mole rat is a personal hero of mine,
26:27but describe the effects of hero syndrome.
26:30What is hero?
26:32A psychological disorder where you put your trousers on before your pants?
26:35It is a psychological disorder.
26:37I think that's a very good description of it.
26:39Oh, is it where you think you're a hero?
26:41Is it...?
26:42Is it anything to do with hero the person in mythology?
26:46Oh, is it hero in the end?
26:46No, not that.
26:48Oh, I thought I sounded really intelligent there.
26:49You did!
26:51You think you're a hero?
26:52You behave like a hero?
26:53Yes, it's worse than that.
26:55It's really pretty sick.
26:56Do you make something terrible happen so you can look like a hero?
26:59Exactly that.
27:00So you set a building on fire and then rescue everyone?
27:02Especially fire, yes.
27:03It's a real problem, particularly in America, because...
27:06Like Munchausen.
27:07It's like a kind of Munchausen by proxy.
27:09Are we saying this is illegal?
27:10Yes!
27:12That D!
27:13I've no idea, I'm sorry.
27:14So keen are they to present themselves as heroes, they will set fire to buildings and
27:18then be the one who goes in and...
27:19And would these be just regular people or would it be someone that's in a profession?
27:23It's firemen.
27:24It's firemen, yeah.
27:25Because firemen are sort of a hero for a job.
27:28It's a weird job when you think about it.
27:29Couldn't it possibly be the other way around?
27:31That they know they're arsonists but they've got a guilty conscience so they've become firemen as well?
27:36Well there is an element of that.
27:38Did you hear about that Crime Watch presenter in Brazil who found that the show wasn't exciting enough so he
27:44started killing people?
27:46Yeah.
27:46His name is Sousa and he was supposed to have commissioned, if that's the right word, five murders.
27:50The police got suspicious when his camera crew turned up before it had even been phoned in.
27:55Basically.
27:55He went on the run and then he turned himself in.
27:58So yes, in South Carolina in 1993-94 they discovered 47 in one year had done this.
28:04All by the same guy?
28:06No, 47 different.
28:0847 different arsonist, stroke firemen?
28:11Yeah.
28:11It's a weird thing though isn't it?
28:12Because it's a very noble thing to want to be, a hero.
28:14It's like it's a really nice thing to want to be.
28:16Yes, I know.
28:16They're just so, sort of, a bit misguided.
28:18I know, it is.
28:20There was, not quite related, but there was a Japanese customs officer who was training a sniffer dog
28:24and decided to hide quite a large wadge of cannabis on a random passenger who didn't know about it.
28:31Just basically plant it.
28:33And the idea was that then the passenger would go through, the dog would sniff and find it.
28:36The dog didn't, didn't get it.
28:38The person just walked through and got a free brick of cannabis in it.
28:43The dog would go, what the one?
28:46It's just very strange.
28:48I'll fly with them again.
28:52Usually it's just a pack of cashews.
28:54I've only got a wash bag with the other guys.
28:57Most extraordinary, yeah.
28:58You don't have to be a hero to be a worthwhile person, but how much are you worth?
29:05I mean, if you sold all your bits.
29:07Basically, yeah.
29:08As a human, not forgetting your bank account and your social entity.
29:11Your kidneys and your liver, yeah.
29:12Let's start with your, I mean, very basic, just your meat.
29:15Your flesh.
29:16Your flesh, if you prefer to call it that.
29:18I don't know, I mean, I don't know who you're going to sell it to.
29:20I mean, possibly Lidl, Aldi, maybe?
29:24I'll take it.
29:25In Moldova, there were a couple of women stocked who were selling human flesh,
29:28and they were charging £1.30 a kilo.
29:32So that would make the average-ish human, it'd be about £100 of flesh.
29:39I think you'd go for more if you had a restaurant in Chelsea.
29:42And we think there's a problem with the national debt, we're sitting on a gold mine.
29:45We are, yeah.
29:46There's 60 million of you out there.
29:48And there's leather, there's a skin.
29:49But there's a, isn't there sort of a scientific thing here?
29:53Because you've got a very tiny bit of calcium in your body.
29:55But that's saleable, if you could take it out.
29:57Well, there's tiny bits of...
29:58Oh, yeah.
29:59It's gold.
30:00They're gold?
30:01Yes, yes.
30:01In me?
30:020.4 of a milligram.
30:040.4 of a milligram, worth about eight pence.
30:08It's something.
30:09Yeah, it's a tracer.
30:10Do you remember the German who advertised on the internet on...
30:15Oh, my goodness.
30:16And said, I would like to invite you over and eat your body.
30:20And someone said, yes, I would like you to do that.
30:24And so they met.
30:25And he went round to his flat and they said, good evening, would you like a drink?
30:28Yes, thank you.
30:29And I'm going to kill you now.
30:32Yeah.
30:33Did they not get confused?
30:34Because they both sounded alike.
30:37You know the weird thing about that, though?
30:39That guy, that did happen and he killed the guy.
30:41But the guy that came first backed out of it at the last minute.
30:44He had him all tied up and he was about to kill him.
30:45And he went, oh, I don't really fancy it.
30:46And they watched Ocean's 12 instead.
30:50And then he went home.
30:52Oh, that's sweet.
30:53It was the guy that kind of got away.
30:54Yeah.
30:54I've seen Ocean's 12.
30:55I'm not so sure that was a good deal.
30:58Yeah, I'd rather be eaten.
31:01So, okay, we've got the meat.
31:03The meat's £100.
31:03What about leather?
31:05You've got skin.
31:05How much does your skin weigh?
31:07Yeah.
31:0740 quid.
31:08The biggest organ in the body, isn't it?
31:10Or something.
31:10Well, it's large-ish.
31:11I mean, it's about £8, 3.6 kilograms.
31:15I would hope mine would go to Louis Vuitton.
31:17Well, it could do.
31:18It's an area, it's about 22 square foot.
31:20About the size of an average door, say.
31:23Is that?
31:23And if you were charging the same as cowhide, that would be only about £20, I'm afraid.
31:27It's the same if you ended up bagged for life.
31:29Yeah.
31:32I mean, most unfortunate.
31:33I think the coin purse alone would fetch a couple of grand.
31:36The coin purse.
31:38Very nice of the poet.
31:39My Jimmy Carr coin purse.
31:42But then we come to the big ones, the transplantable organs.
31:45A pair of corneas could be £4,000, just the corneas.
31:48So you get good money for your eyes.
31:50How much do you pay for a human heart, do you think, on the black market?
31:53£50,000.
31:54Well, not bad.
31:55£40,000, you can probably get one for.
31:57What about a kidney?
31:57That's the classic thing.
31:59Anything from £10,000 to £20,000.
32:01You know, last year I donated a kidney.
32:02Did you?
32:02Of course they wanted to know where I got it from.
32:08Lungs?
32:10£25,000.
32:11£75,000.
32:12£75,000.
32:12£75,000.
32:13£75,000.
32:13£75,000.
32:13£75,000.
32:14£75,000.
32:14Very valuable.
32:15So basically, all your body parts are, we reckon, about £400,000.
32:21So you've got £400,000, £120,000 so far.
32:24So the thing is, when you get your donor card...
32:27Yeah.
32:27It says, will you donate your stuff?
32:29Yeah.
32:29And you go, yeah, okay, I'll donate it.
32:32Yeah.
32:32You should be able to sell it, shouldn't you?
32:35You could, I suppose.
32:37I carry a donor card, but I...
32:39Is that so you can get a kebab at night?
32:41No, no, I...
32:44What I've done is I carry it, but I haven't signed it,
32:47because I want someone else to have the use of it after I've died.
32:50LAUGHTER
32:56GG.
32:58Erm, and then there are the chemical components, which we mentioned.
33:01There's ten gallons of water, which doesn't go for much.
33:04Enough carbon for a sack of coal, enough bone...
33:07Sorry, enough carbon for a sack of coal?
33:09That's extraordinary.
33:10We're a carbon-based life form, where it's our main feature.
33:13A packet of bone meal fertiliser you could get out of a human.
33:16A bag of salt, a few nails from the iron.
33:18And the small trace elements, like, let's say, 0.4 of a milligram of gold,
33:22which is not much.
33:24You probably wouldn't get much change out of £10,
33:25but it's not really very much, is it, for all your worth.
33:28So, frankly, you know, half a million, if you're very, very in good order.
33:34It's silly to burn it, then, at the end, isn't it?
33:36It sort of is, really.
33:38We've got a lot going on there.
33:39Yes.
33:39So what would it be if you just took...
33:40If it wasn't the organ donation type thing,
33:42if it was just the chemicals and the stuff we're made of?
33:45What...
33:45What about a tenner?
33:47Really not much.
33:47In reality, of course, everybody's priceless.
33:50But what is the point of teenagers?
33:53Are they the only group that you're legally allowed to punch?
33:59I mean, I might have dreamt that.
34:02I think you probably did.
34:03The thing is about teenagers is that they don't think of themselves as remarkable and strange.
34:08No.
34:08People look at them and think, now, they're odd, they sound odd, they speak oddly, but they communicate amongst themselves
34:14very efficiently.
34:15Yes.
34:16Absolutely right.
34:16And really ought to be breeding, in fact, in many areas.
34:20They are.
34:22They are.
34:22They are.
34:23They almost pre-ed.
34:23Because they like being together.
34:25They don't want to be with anybody else.
34:26They function very well on their own.
34:28And they are sexually ready for children.
34:31They are.
34:32Exactly.
34:32That's the point of teenagers.
34:33The point is, yeah, they do think differently.
34:35You can use MRI.
34:37And there were a number of experiments with adults and adolescents with brain scans.
34:43And they were both shown, for example, a woman in a particular emotional state.
34:48And they were asked what emotional state it was.
34:51And all the adults answered correctly.
34:53But lots of the teenagers couldn't interpret the emotion.
34:57And it was found they use a different part of their brain to do so.
35:00So when an adult is having a row with a teenager and they're not understanding each other, it's really because
35:05they just have different ways of thinking.
35:07They don't like it if you try and use their language.
35:11They don't want to be understood, no.
35:13And one of them was outside the park going, look at that minger over there, right?
35:16And they went, oh, for God's sake, it's minger.
35:19Minger.
35:19Yes, I know.
35:20And one of them went, and that's my mum.
35:23So obviously I don't know.
35:27Yeah.
35:27There are those who propose the argument almost like Alan, that maybe they are the proper state.
35:32And we've grown down from that into our rather more fixed and rigid and rational...
35:38It's the best time of life, in a way.
35:41Yeah.
35:41I mean, when you're very sad when you're a teenager, you feel like everything's going to end.
35:45Yeah.
35:45But then the next day, something amazingly brilliant happens.
35:48Like you hear a new band.
35:49Yeah.
35:50No, you're right, absolutely.
35:51And everything's just great again.
35:53Or if you see a film that you like, you really just love it.
35:55Yeah.
35:56And you never forget it the whole of your life.
35:58Yeah, the things that you really, really love or discover at that age are the things that stay with you
36:02for the rest of your life.
36:04No, I agree.
36:05I agree with you.
36:05And I think the Republic of Adolescence is a fine place to live and it's a shame ever to leave
36:09it.
36:10Maybe teenagers are the real thing and it's the adults who are behaving oddly.
36:14Oh, the humanity, it's time for general ignorance.
36:17So fingers on buzzers, if you please.
36:19Name the fastest human runner of all time.
36:24Ah, now.
36:28I'm going to go Usain Bolt.
36:30What?
36:31Well, he is.
36:32Did you not watch it?
36:33He was on telly.
36:35He's called Bolt for God's sake.
36:38What more do you want?
36:39The argument for him being one of the fastest is strong.
36:42What?
36:43Him winning and being the fastest?
36:45He won that race.
36:46He won that race, yes.
36:47But you think you're faster.
36:49No, I don't.
36:49I am.
36:50I think T8 was faster.
36:52T8?
36:53T8.
36:54Who's that?
36:55It's a fossilised footprint in Australia from Aboriginal people.
36:58And you can tell from the strides that they ran really fast.
37:03What were they running from?
37:04The white man.
37:06Yeah, possibly.
37:07They had good reason to.
37:08Usain Bolt can reach 27 miles per hour for a second or two.
37:12Which is very, very impressive.
37:14But again, rabbits run at 35 miles an hour.
37:16Yeah.
37:17And that's much more exciting.
37:18It is not as fast as a rabbit.
37:20It's not as fast as Jimmy Carman.
37:21It's his round.
37:22Oh, hey.
37:24Hey.
37:25Hey.
37:26Hey.
37:2720,000 years ago, on the Gold Coast, they discovered these footprints.
37:32One of the males was running at 23 miles per hour.
37:35But, all right, so Usain Bolt can travel 27 on a running track with spiked shoes, whereas
37:41T8 was in mud, barefoot, and was accelerating.
37:44I don't know how much faster he got.
37:46It seems likely that he was faster than Bolt.
37:47And anyway, it's quite likely also that he wasn't the fastest of his 150,000 strong tribe.
37:55So anthropologists believe that he, you know, he could have gone up to about 28 miles.
37:59It was fast.
37:59I mean, for all we know.
37:59If Usain Bolt wasn't being chased by a line, was he?
38:02There is also that.
38:03Yeah.
38:03That's true.
38:03For all we know, he could have been like a fat bloke who was about 45.
38:08Yeah.
38:08And all the others were really fast.
38:10Exactly.
38:10Exactly.
38:11They're like 48 miles an hour.
38:12How do they actually tell?
38:13Is it the stride length then?
38:15I think it is.
38:15I mean, yeah, stride length depth of impress.
38:18They could be pretty accurate about it.
38:20Maybe they just had a rock in the shape of a foot and they did it for a laugh.
38:23Maybe.
38:24It's true.
38:25It's true.
38:26I'm not saying Usain Bolt isn't fast.
38:28Anyway, now, footprints in Australia suggest that some of our ancestors were much faster
38:33than the best athletes are today.
38:34The fastest one we know of was called T8.
38:37Now, how are saunas good for you?
38:40What's going on over there?
38:42Yes, fine.
38:45What's happening on the far right there?
38:47I'm not quite sure.
38:48Is it for fellas?
38:50It does.
38:51If I'm not very much mistaken, and his missus is just watching.
38:57He's probably showing how to do it.
38:59How to do it.
39:01That's happening in the middle.
39:02That's even more.
39:03That is a bit strange.
39:04Well, that woman on her own at the front, she needs to sort out a bikini line big time.
39:11Yes, it's an unusual sight that I grant you, but it's an early sauna of some kind.
39:16Can I suggest to you that they're just not good for you?
39:19It was a trick question.
39:20Well, I'm sure they don't do too much on, but what they're not good at is one of the major
39:26claims that's made for them,
39:27is that they release toxins from your body.
39:29They don't do that.
39:30This idea, you know, people say, oh, good for a hangover.
39:32Go in, all the toxins go out.
39:34They don't.
39:36You sweat.
39:36When you sweat, you sweat a little bit of salt, which is actually quite a good thing to have in
39:39your body.
39:40But you don't get rid of toxins.
39:42Is that a real thing where you can run off a, er, er, when you're drunk?
39:45Well, there they go again.
39:48Well, it's the fella from The Joy of Sex.
39:51Yes, the point is that people think it's good for a hangover, er, because you get rid of the toxins
39:56and so on,
39:57then it's got a lot of steam.
39:58But in fact, it dehydrates you because you sweat a lot.
40:00It's not, not, not really helpful for that.
40:02It's really uncomfortable and unpleasant.
40:02And also, for losing weight, who uses it for losing weight particularly?
40:06Just for the weigh-in.
40:07And jockeys.
40:08Jockeys.
40:09That's right.
40:09Well, that, yeah, and, and again, it's, you lose weight in a sauna just by dehydrating.
40:14Are those kitchen scales, is he really tiny that time?
40:19This is very cheerful, whatever he is.
40:21A sauna won't remove toxins from your body, and if you're hungover, you might even end up more dehydrated.
40:27Which disease could this animal give you?
40:33Go on.
40:35Malaria.
40:36Oh, Chuck, you were doing so well.
40:41That wasn't how I got it.
40:44It was a mosquito.
40:45But you never get malaria from a mosquito that buzzes.
40:49Oh, silent but deadly.
40:50Sorry?
40:51Silent but deadly.
40:54Silent but deadly.
40:55It's the females of some species of Anopheles mosquito that don't make a noise.
41:01And usually it's the ankle.
41:03It's usually the, the, the lower limbs.
41:05Yeah, they go.
41:05They're the ones you've got to watch out for.
41:06So if you can hear it, it's obviously a nuisance.
41:08And it can give you yellow fever, if it's a buzzy one.
41:11And it can give you dengue fever, which in many respects is worse than some forms of light malaria.
41:15So it's not that they're harmless, but they won't give you malaria if you can hear them.
41:18Isn't Bill Gates, because he's got that foundation.
41:21Yes.
41:21With, with Warren Buffet.
41:22That's right.
41:22They set up this incredible thing.
41:24Huge amount of money they put into it, yes.
41:25And they think they're actually going to be able to tackle malaria.
41:27Which is an extraordinary thing to do when you think about, you know, some geek in a garage starting a
41:30computer company.
41:31It's amazing.
41:31It's amazing.
41:32And he's life is spent doing that because they are the deadliest disease vector in history, of course.
41:36In fact, over half the people who have ever lived on this planet have been killed by mosquitoes.
41:43Over half the people who have ever lived.
41:45If we could just wipe them out, it wouldn't be good either because they're also great pollinators.
41:50And a vital pollinator around much of the world.
41:52Yes, a buzzing mosquito cannot give you malaria.
41:55They might give you something equally unpleasant.
41:57Which brings us to the end of the show.
41:58And before we go, let's see who's the winner in this human race.
42:03Well, it's a very exciting outcome.
42:05I have to say, the pinnacle of human evolution with a score of plus four is Joe Brand.
42:11Oh, my God.
42:17Very good.
42:20Hollowly astonished the missing link with a plus score of three is Alan Davis.
42:31Rightly dragging his knuckles along the ground with minus two is Jack Dee.
42:41But heading, I'm afraid, heading for extinction with minus three, Jimmy.
42:47Come on.
42:49Beautiful.
42:50Beautiful.
42:50Beautiful.
42:52Beautiful.
42:55So what's left is for me to thank Joe, Jimmy, Jack and, of course, Alan.
42:59And I leave you with this thought about being human and being happy.
43:03If you really want to be happy, all you have to do is say, I am beautiful.
43:08So I want you all tonight to go and look at the mirror and say, Stephen Fry is beautiful.
43:13Good night.
43:14You cannot go in the book and see us on the floor.
43:14A genuine rose from May Tree, you know, you must be, I've been, you, I've been here
43:14on my petit 이거, my Industra, and I have to give back
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