A Man-Eating Tiger Found In London

12:42Hannah Fry:And as a result, they did this forensic analysis in the same way that you would do if there was a human murder. And they managed to prove after the fact that the tiger had been the guilty party. They did DNA evidence against the tiger. They proved he was the guilty party. I think it might have been a female tiger actually on that instance. The female tiger was the guilty party and she'd killed these humans and that was fine. Okay, So her sort of taking her out was okay.

13:08Michael Stevens:It was fine. So they had the trial after the execution and luckily it was okay.

13:17Hannah Fry:But now, now they do the trials before the execution.

13:22Michael Stevens:Okay.

13:23Hannah Fry:So now what they do, you know, if you accept that actually having a tiger that's hunting humans is a really bad thing and that that tiger needs to be removed from that situation in some way or another, then you need to be sure that you are getting the correct tiger. And so what they do is they take the DNA from the crime scene and then they go around, they sort of try and stalk the different tigers that are in the neighborhood. And they manage to get DNA from the tigers, from like urine samples, from like brushing past leaves. They basically do a full forensic analysis, a full forensic like crime scene thing, then run what is effectively a trial right to work out who the guilty tiger is and then they like start with this process of like can we dart the tiger put the tiger in a zoo can we relocate the tiger is there anything anything we can do killing the tiger does still happen but it's the

14:18Michael Stevens:absolute last resort now well that's all really good to hear i love that i love that we're giving these like human rights to the animal criminals. And this should be an episode of some like crime show. There should be like the animal detectives who are like, okay, I got a urine sample from a tiger. We're going to bring it to the lab and we're going to find out if they're the criminal, if they're the murderer. Totally. Well, I want to know. So first of all, this taxidermy tiger head that your former mother-in-law has.

14:48Hannah Fry:It's the full tiger body. It's the full tiger body. If you watch the second video, It's the full body. It's the full tiger body? Paws, everything. It's unbelievably beautiful. Unbelievably beautiful.

14:57Michael Stevens:Oh, my goodness. So what a special story also to have from her life. Why did she not have it on display?

15:06Hannah Fry:Because I think it's not that nice, you know?

15:13Michael Stevens:Yeah, it's a little un-nice. It's a little macabre. It's a little like you need to explain the context.

15:18Hannah Fry:Yeah, I mean, that's the point, right? I think if you've got the postie coming around your house, you know what I mean? Some plumbers come around to fix your sink and then it's like, oh, massive tiger on your wall. That's quite the thing. How did you acquire that? How did you? You'd have to sort of put a plaque next to it being like, it's okay. This is not game hunting. This is not sort of big cat hunting. This is not like a trophy kill. This is like, you know, in the service of human life. And I think actually even in that situation, I think that some people still would not be happy about it.

15:53Hannah Fry:Incidentally, by the way, this particular tiger skin, it can stay in their family, right? It can stay in the family behind it down, but you can't sell it. You can't trade it. I think carrying it across borders is extremely difficult. Quite rightly, all of the rules of these things of like tiger skins, of elephant tusks, all of that have completely clamped down in a really, really serious way. And since the 1970s, actually, you haven't just been allowed to go out and kill tigers, only in a situation where you know that they're in man-eater. Has it even been on the cards that they could be shot?

16:29Michael Stevens:Wow. Well, yeah. I mean, it's such a, we don't always think about it. I know there are bears and sharks. We are prey on this planet still to a certain degree. And I think it's good to be reminded of that, that we are just sharing this planet and sometimes things are going to get a little dark.

16:49Hannah Fry:A little bit dark. One thing that I would say, that old assumption based on the tiger that killed 436 people, that she had this tooth broken and that was the reason why she was hunting for humans. With all of this DNA evidence that has been going on in India in the last 15 years or so, they have tried to work out essentially what percentage of tigers are problematic, by which I mean interacting with sort of humans themselves or with livestock that the humans keep. And the old assumption was that there'd only be one or two tigers if they were hurt who would do something like that. But actually now that they've done these DNA swabs on livestock carcasses that have been sort of dragged into the jungle by these tigers.

17:39Hannah Fry:It's more like 40 % of the tiger population. It's like, hey, you know, it's like a Big Mac, right? It's like, look at this easy lunch that's just right there. Why would I not?

17:50Michael Stevens:Well, yeah. I mean, I was just thinking about that. Like I was using the word criminal to describe these animals and yet I don't think that's a fair description. It's literal fast food, you know? Yeah, they're just getting fast food. They're just getting a nice little snack the same way they would with any other animal. Their intentions are not, aha, I'm going to get away with this. I'm going to commit an act that will weigh on my conscience. And I don't care because it won't because I'm a psychopath. They're just eating meat as they do.

18:23Hannah Fry:Yeah, of course. I mean, and the thing is, hold on a second, that livestock were going to get eaten anyway. It was just going to be, It's like, hey, that's my food rather than that. That's right.

18:33Michael Stevens:You stole our food. Or, hey, you ate food, but it's not the food we want you to eat. So penalty is death. Golly.

18:41Hannah Fry:No. So actually, you cannot kill a tiger if it attacks livestock. Livestock, a sort of not quite fair game. But there's no tiger. In a battle between tiger and cow, the tiger wins every single time. There is something you can do about it though, which is very humane. I really like the simplicity of this as a solution. So in the 1980s, people noticed that the way that tigers hunt, sort of like some folklore about this as well, but the way that tigers hunt is that if they sort of stalk their victims, and then if they feel like they've been spotted, they'll give up and they'll go find something else to eat.

19:21Hannah Fry:So what people did in the 1980s, in West Bengal this is, because you have people who were out there in the jungle, in the forest, you know, collecting honey, fishermen, woodcutters, whatever it might be. They gave out these sort of helmets that had faces on the back of the head. And it turns out that the number of tiger attacks just really dramatically dropped because tigers thought that the people were looking the other way and so didn't bother killing them. Now tigers have got, they've got smart to it. So now it doesn't work quite as well. However, on cows, I'm going to move across to lions now rather than cows.

20:02Hannah Fry:But in Botswana, there was one study. This is really recently, right? It's like 2020, I think, that the paper was published. What they did is they got cows rumps in Botswana and they painted eyes on them. And it basically dropped the number of lion attacks, lions eating the cows, to zero. No kidding. The lions just stopped eating the cattle. Just stopped.

20:28Michael Stevens:Just didn't bother. It's like the old butterfly trick. Just put some big eyes. Just put some big eyes in your place. Yeah. Well, you know what? This is all making me think about, have you heard of Osama bin Laden? His name's come up. The elephant.

20:46Hannah Fry:No.

20:47Michael Stevens:There was an elephant named Osama bin Laden in the Indian state of Assam.

20:53Hannah Fry:Wait, named after the man or just in coincidence with?

20:57Michael Stevens:It was named after the human because this elephant was a rogue elephant that killed 27 people and was not afraid of fireworks, which is, I guess, how they normally get rid of rogue elephants.

21:12Hannah Fry:Right. Yeah.

21:12Michael Stevens:It's my favorite Wikipedia article. Well, it's in my top 20 because the article is titled Osama bin Laden elephant. Just to be clear, we're talking about the elephant. And this elephant, unfortunately, also got executed for its not crimes, but behavior.

21:33Hannah Fry:How did it kill them?

21:34Michael Stevens:Trample people? Well, it doesn't even say I can't find any articles describing what it did.

21:41Hannah Fry:I like the idea that it was just slapping around the face with its trunk instead. Okay, well, I'm going to read the Wikipedia page for Osama bin Laden and the Elephant while you guys go for a break. And when we come back, we'll answer your questions. All right, see you then.

22:03Hannah Fry:Hello and welcome to Doing It Anyway, a brand new series from Goalhanger. I'm Katty Kay. I've spent years studying the science and art of confidence, writing books about how we can close the confidence gap between men and women, and talking to experts and younger women about how to pass it on. Confidence means taking risks, acknowledging your fears, and, well, doing it anyway. In this series, I'll be talking to psychologists, entrepreneurs, and business leaders to unpack how you can rethink challenges and grow your own confidence. We'll talk about how to spot the difference between confidence and competence, how to deal with office politics and stolen credit and, yes, handling rejection, and ultimately how you can become a better leader, teammate, and, yes, a better person.

22:50Hannah Fry:Doing it anyway with Katty K every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.

22:58Michael Stevens:Are all batteries the same? That's like asking if all soccer players are the same. Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracell. Is there any other battery with Power Boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracell. Remember, goats only trust goats because they're built different. And Messi only trusts Duracell.

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24:04Michael Stevens:Welcome back. We are now going to dive into questions from you, our listeners. I want to start with this one from Logan Osorio, who asks, Why is eating food so much more pleasurable than drinking water? I would expect our evolution to make drinking a far more dopaminergic activity because we can't survive more than a few days without water, but we can go months without food. Did you make up that word, Logan? It's a great word. Dopaminergic? It's a new one on me. I like it. I'm going to use it from now on. I don't know, Logan. I mean, speak for yourself. I love drinking water. But I think it is a really interesting way to think here because, yeah, we definitely have all kinds of foods that we love.

24:55Michael Stevens:But you would think that water being even more important to have would be more like even more pleasurable. I what I think is that there might be a little bit of a super normal stimulus thing going on here where compared to our like the diets that we had as we evolved 100 ,000 years ago. Water was really good and water can be really good. We've all had that sip of water that was just like so perfect because we needed water at that moment. And that pleasure we get from eating and drinking is a way for our body to say, yes, you need to be doing this. But we have since manufactured foods to be so good to take advantage of exactly what our bodies are trained to give us pleasure for that we've been able to make foods that are like so much better than anything you would just find out there.

26:00Hannah Fry:Such a good point. If you're eating gruel, you know, eating gruel and drinking water, then actually they're quite similar in terms of the joy that they're going to give you, right?

26:12Michael Stevens:Well, yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. I think like a seared antelope steak probably did really hit the spot when you were hungry. But now we can baste that antelope steak in butter with some herbs and we can raise the, not just the antelopes, but we can raise cattle to have like all this fat marbling in them. And food has just become so much better. It's not a normal stimuli anymore. It's super normal. And Hannah, you and I have talked about this on the podcast and in real life before. But like, you know, the processing that we can do to food to make it just so good, water can't compete. Now, we have processed super normal liquids that are like more delicious than anything we would normally have found.

27:03Michael Stevens:For example, what am I drinking right now? I'm drinking a vanilla flavored, no sugar Coca-Cola. so i'm getting like no nutrient value at all from this not even food energy i'm just getting these flavors and i can drink 12 of these during a podcast you know you'd be quite burpy you'd be quite burpy yeah yeah but i mean i still think that logan is on to something here where like i've I've definitely eaten food and been like, oh my gosh, this is so good. And although I sometimes really enjoy a beverage, I've never had as strong of a pleasure from a beverage as a food.

27:50Hannah Fry:Do you think so? I think I have, you know. You do? Yeah. If it's like, it's mostly cold beer or like a really, really, really good glass, of white wine, like crisp and dry and delicious in the right setting where it's like, just give me more. I've definitely had that sensation. I mean, it doesn't last very long. And there's a point where you're like, actually, after about two of them, I'm like, okay, I'm done. But I definitely, yes. For me, I think that there's like a similar satiation as it were. I'm not a foodie though, right? I think if someone was a foodie.

28:32Michael Stevens:They might privilege food. Yeah, I think that everyone's a little bit different, but I still think that at a fundamental level, I think you're right, Logan. And here's why it might make sense. And this is just me coming up with a hypothetical, speculative answer. But I think that when it comes to beverages and hydration, there really is this upper limit to where you can't drink anymore because it is actually dangerous for you. And we've talked about this all the way back in our first episode. We've talked about water poisoning. But if you find a food source that's going to give you a lot of energy to live, there isn't so much of an upper bound because your body can take the excess calories and convert them to fat to store that help you survive in case you don't find food later.

29:24Michael Stevens:And so, of course, under that thinking, I would get why food would be more pleasurable because your body has evolved to say, yes, have more of this, have more, have more, have more because we can store it for later. But when you drink a beverage, your body might say, oh, yes, the hydration we needed, but also don't keep going because it will make you uncomfortable and there's no benefit beyond a certain point at this moment. What we should have evolved to feel pleasure in is in storing potable water. Like, oh yeah, pour that stream water into a canteen. I love doing this. But we didn't. That would have been useful.

30:05Michael Stevens:Maybe if we had sensory organs in the canteens, it could have happened. But I think that's probably what's going on. Your body is like, look, we need to encourage the food eating because it's always worth it. But the beverage, we're going to limit more. So you just don't get the same dopaminergic effect from beverages.

30:24Hannah Fry:I like the idea that you could even have the water storage pouches, you know, maybe on your hips, just like extra. Yeah.

30:31Michael Stevens:If we had biological water storage pouches evolved into our bodies, then I think we would feel the same kind of like, oh, this is so good. I got to order more. And we would just like over drink all the time.

30:46Hannah Fry:OK, next question. This one's from Timothy. Timothy says dear Hannah and Michael what are some of your favorite ratios narrowing it to just one seems too difficult here's some of mine height of tallest mountain height of tallest building 10 to 1 distance of the earth to sun against the diameter of the sun 100 to 1 isn't it amazing the Everest is only 10 times taller than the Burj Khalifa and yes it's a long way from the earth to the sun but the sun itself is very large I really like this question. I've got some of my own. I've got some of my own ratios. You feel free to jump in as well, Michael, here.

31:21Hannah Fry:Obviously, I think we should start with the Earth, Sun and Moon, right? That the Sun is 400 times wider than the Moon and by pure chance is 400 times further away. That seems like an absolutely extraordinary ratio. It's extraordinary. What a great coincidence. Yeah, there's others, though. Do you want to hear others? Yeah, please. Give me some more. In the 1930s, Paul Dirac was trying to work out the ratio between the electric force, sort of subatomic particle level, and the force of gravity. And he worked out that the ratio was 10 to the 40. So that's a one followed by 40 zeros. And then he was like, oh, you can do something else now.

32:00Hannah Fry:So he worked out the age of the universe measured in atomic ticks. How many times a clock the size of an atom basically has been beating since the beginning. and ended up with 10 to the 40 again. And he was like, that can't be a coincidence. This is, I don't believe in coincidences in the physical world. So he was like, okay, surely there's something going on here. Maybe gravity, maybe they started off as one-to-one and the gravity itself must be slowly weakening as the universe ages. It just doesn't make sense that they'd be the same number. But there's a few other places where the same number pops up.

32:36Hannah Fry:So in Jupiter, this might be my favorite one, I think. In Jupiter, Jupiter's got three moons, right? And in the time that Ganymede loops Jupiter once, Europa goes around exactly twice. Boop, boop. And Io goes around four times. Boop, boop, boop, boop. It's like, that's a weird coincidence, isn't it? Isn't that a weird coincidence that you've basically got this actual sort of clockwork moon system that's just this absolute clean one to two to four. You know? I think that's some weird coincidence. Anyway, there's lots of these and it makes me question the existence of God.

33:18Michael Stevens:Yeah, right. One that I really like is that almost exactly halfway between the Planck scale and the size of the observable universe. So right in the middle between the smallest and the biggest things is a human cell. that's good that's a coincidence isn't it yeah a few tenths of a millimeter is right there in the middle so what we are made out of is just right there in the middle we are average isn't that interesting just as much stuff is bigger there's there's just as many measurements bigger than us as smaller than us in this universe we find ourselves in freaky freaky and unexplained freaky thank you god here's a question from the rest is science subreddit this comes from drunk socks i didn't even know we had a subreddit i'm very excited about this news oh yeah all of you out there i'd love to see you there bring bring your questions your comments tell me how unkept my beard now looks um i apologize for that i'm just not around the kinds of equipment i need to tend it well, but I will be.

34:29Hannah Fry:Oh, I didn't think it looked, you know what, until you pointed it out, it hadn't occurred to me.

34:34Michael Stevens:I just feel a bit rough. But look, here's Drunk Socks' question. Hello, I am investigating what makes a good question because I'm developing an app to have good and interesting conversations based on what people are curious about. I've come to the conclusion that there are some archetypes of questions that open up something interesting. What good question have you been asked? And what's your favorite question this podcast has addressed? I would love to see your list of question archetypes, Drunk Socks, because I've never thought of questions in that way. I've never thought of what is there a taxonomy of types of questions or ways a question can be constructed.

35:14Michael Stevens:But when it comes to a good question I've been asked, man, I think kids, of course, always ask the best ones because they're not afraid. And sometimes the way they phrase the question shows a connection or a lack of connection that we all, all the older ones of us have all just assumed. Once a kid asked me, hey, what's the opposite of a duck? And I was like, whoa, Oh, I love this because it really forces us to question what opposite means. Yeah. And it's also got room for a lot of creativity because you could say, oh, the opposite of a duck is a jump. See, I'm interpreting duck as in like to duck down to crouch down.

36:03Michael Stevens:And you get to do some wordplay. And then you start to wonder about like why words mean the things that they mean. And so, yeah, I don't know. I keep going back to that question.

36:15Hannah Fry:I like that a lot. I mean, I guess, sorry, I'm just thinking about the duck question. It's just a really good one because the duck is comfortable on land, water, and in the air, right? Right.

36:25Michael Stevens:So the opposite would be a creature that's not comfortable anywhere. It'd be me.

36:31Hannah Fry:Yeah. You are the opposite of a duck. I also think that it's about, I think that the really good questions are ones that actually the duck question fits into, which take something that feels really familiar and then give you a route to seeing it in an entirely new light.

36:50Michael Stevens:Yeah.

36:51Hannah Fry:I think those are the really good questions like that start on common ground and take you somewhere completely original and unexpected. I think those are the really good questions.

37:02Michael Stevens:Yeah. Yeah. They don't always have clear answers, but a good question is more about directing and disrupting thinking. So I'm going to be at OpenSauce soon, and I'm going to be on Hank Green's podcast. Nice. Where you ask him questions before you arrive, and he tries to prepare and give you answers. I'm very excited, but I asked questions like, how big do dogs think the world is? Like, you know, like a dog might, you know, live in North Carolina and then it moves with its family to Florida. Like, what does it think happened? Is it like, whoa, I'm far away? Or is it like, oh, hey, all the smells are different.

37:51Michael Stevens:I wonder what happened. I also asked, if humanity suddenly forgot the concept of love, would we ever? And if so, how long would it take for us to rediscover it?

38:06Hannah Fry:Oh, that's a nice question.

38:08Michael Stevens:Because we still have all the related feelings of companionship and loyalty and all of that. But how long would it take for us to be like, hey, I think these all are fitting into a thing that should have its own name. Let's call it love. And I don't think that there is an answer to that in the same way that there is an answer to the question, what's the average height of a human? I think instead, good questions just make you stop and think very differently about stuff that you normally, well, that was normally left unquestioned.

38:40Hannah Fry:Yeah, that sounds really good. I'd always be tempted with the Hank Green one. I'd always be tempted to ask him something quite sort of deep and human about himself too.

38:51Michael Stevens:Well, I don't know which ones he's going to choose. I had to give more than he's going to pick. But I also asked, when was the loneliest you ever felt? We'll see if he's brave enough and trusts me enough to tell me. That's interesting. When's that coming out?

39:08Hannah Fry:I have no idea. Well, we'll watch out for it. We'll watch out for it. Those are all excellent questions. And all the questions from you guys were excellent as well. I've just been on the subreddit for the rest of science. It's really lovely in there. It's just loads of lovely people talking about things. Just really enjoyable. Maybe we should do an AMA at some point. So where should people go to participate in our subreddit? Just to r slash the rest of science. But we should definitely do an AMA. Maybe we should do a rule where it's like it has to have a certain number of posts or something. And then we'll do it.

39:39Michael Stevens:I don't want to hold. I don't want to hold that hostage. I don't want to force people because then they'll all join. We'll do the AMA and then they'll all just leave. We got to earn this the old fashioned way. So, yeah, we do look at it. So leave questions there. R slash the rest is science. As always, you can email them to the rest is science at goal hanger dot com. We love those questions. Keep them coming. And thanks for watching.

40:06Hannah Fry:Yes, indeed. We will see you next week for our normal episodes on what does it come out now? I'm not sure, sometime on Sunday or Monday, depending on where you are in the world, and then another Field Notes episode. See you then.