February 20, 2020 • 49 mins
It’s a pretty safe assumption that people have been born with birthmarks since humanity began, and between then and now we’ve come up with some wacky, even dangerous, explanations for them – even a few that survive still today.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you've ever been at home and wondered, Josh and
Chuck is it really worth going to see them perform live?
The answer is a resounding yes yes. And if you
live in Vancouver, b C. Or anywhere near there, come
on out to the Chance Center on Sunday March to
see us and find out for yourself. And then the
next night, if you live around Portland, Oregon, you can
(00:20):
go to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and we'll be
there ready to go on Monday March. That's right. You
can get all ticket information at s y s K
live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
(00:41):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant over there, and there's Jerry. Jerry's back everybody
that's right. And all the listeners said, what happened to
Josh TV? What are we doing that? Did we decide? Yeah,
we're gonna do birthmarking? Check the title? Chuck, Well, I
mean I have two things in front of me. How
(01:03):
are you doing? I'm great? How are you? I'm good?
You got any birth marks? I do what you got Um,
I've got something under my right armpit. You're like, it
looks like Richard Nixon. Close, it looks like Spiro Agne.
Do you remember when Mad magazine used to make fun
of Spiro Agne And you're like, I have no idea
(01:25):
who that gets the name. Maybe no, it's because like
they hated his politics, but too. But then there was
a Simpsons where Millhouse is like, they're making fun of
Spiro agnew again. He must work there or something, and
I remember specifically thinking that he referenced Mad Magazine. That's funny. Yeah,
so you you've got an under your armpit birthmark? Yeah,
(01:46):
how about you? I don't think I do. Actually, what
I have a lot of now because I'm an old
man speeding toward death. Our skin tags, oh yeah, around
the neck and armpit. That's where they like tend to gather.
That's just your skin, you know, really going at it.
(02:09):
I used to have them clipped, and I did. I
did that for a while, but it's been a while,
but now I went in recently. It was so annoying.
It was one of these our medical system is just broken.
It was one of those reminders because I went in
to get it taken care of like I usually do.
And I got in there and the guy was like, oh, well,
we don't do this now unless you make another kind
of appointment. I was like, well, can I just make
(02:30):
this that since I'm here sitting in your office. He's like, no, no, no,
those take much longer. These are just ten minute appointments
and that that'll take like an hour, and some of
them have their own vascular systems so they need to
be cauterized. And I was like, oh, okay, so I'm
just leaving and he's like yes, He's like, if you
want to make that other appointment, and then they refunded
(02:51):
the money for that appointment, which was the copey, but
then said make the longer appointment if you want to
come back, which I'm gonna yeah. You know. I mean
they're not like medically dangerous or anything, but their brother
unsightly when they get long and big, well long, sure,
(03:11):
I mean how long are we talking like? I mean
some of the ones are like, you know, quarter inch,
so okay, I was just about to say how big
that one? Let me see if I can figure it
out in the metric. It's a few centimeters, so I
think it's what you just want to get him clipped again,
So I'm gonna make that longer appointment, right, I think
it will be painful? Is it painful? I've never had
(03:33):
one clip the regular clipping. The small ones aren't a
big deal because they just hit it with a little
quick shot and then clip it in. This no big deal.
But what kind of a shot like a you know, needle,
like a little numbing, numbing thing. Okay, I like with
a needle like whatever. I don't know if they don't
they don't spray it with the freezy stuff. No, you're
(03:54):
thinking of this stuff for athletes foot This is like
a shot light of cane. But anyway, the ones that
are big that require cauterizing, I'm sure that doesn't feel great,
even if they've numbed it up and just get the
seedline torch out And imagine I'll have to shave my
armpits because if you're torching something near armpit hair, plus
you just want to look good. Maybe I've never shaved
(04:15):
my pits. Um might start that I used to? Why not?
I'll bet that's itchy though. Yeah. Maybe anytime you shave
something that starts to grow out, it's itchy. You know what?
I'm saying, so um. I used to get warts actually
when I was a kid. Oh yeah, And I remember
going into the dermatologists and they go into the freezer,
put on these huge rubber gloves and pull out like
(04:37):
this thermos of I want to say, nitro glystroom. That's
not it, and now you know what I'm talking about. Yeah,
the cold stuff. Yeah, and it would freeze my wart
basically right off right there, just kind of sting for
a second. That was it. I never really had warts.
Believe me, buddy, you lucked out because if you're a
(04:57):
little kid in grade school and you have like it
wasn't like I wasn't coated with them, but you know,
like i'd get one like here between my four finger
and my thumb. I had one of my elbow or
something like that. Other kids jerks zero in on that stuff,
and you're the you're the little weird kid who was
already the fat kid now with warts new and improved. Uh.
(05:22):
I had freckles a lot more than I do now,
because freckles tend to fade as you get older, and
freckles are I guess kind of well, they're not a
kind of birthmark because you're not born with freckles, but
I did look into it. Freckles are just an abundance
of melanin, like collected together. Well, that's basically what a
mole is, which is a type of birthmark if you're
(05:43):
born with it. That's right. So I love freckles though.
Freckles are super cute. Freckles are great, Moles are great. Birthmarks,
especially interesting ones are great. Sports are great. That's why
the term warts and all came about it. That's how
you should love his true Chuck Man, quit making the
people kids. Well, that's a thing, so mean. Birthmarks have
(06:04):
been around since the dawn of humanity, I'm guessing, um,
and people have probably been ostracized because their birthmarks since
the dawn of humanity. And you know, for a very
long time people were ostracized for their birthmarks because of
some really stupid ideas like that it meant you were
a witch, or it meant you were touched by Satan,
(06:27):
all sorts of stuff like that. Um. And then over
time it got a little more innocuous. But even still
today there are parts of the world where you can
find people who are ostracized because their birth marks. And
then even in the developed world, the Western world, which
is rational and based more on science. You can still
find yourself, you know, at the receiving end of being ostracized.
(06:48):
Maybe not because you're a witch, but just because you
have a birthmarker you look different and so um. I've
seen parents react to it if their baby has like
a strawberry mark on their head, yes like that, seeing
them feel the need to say like, oh, you know
this is you know, we'll go away, or something like that.
I was reading this birthmark support group from Great Britain
and they were saying this. One mom had cards printed
(07:11):
up explaining what her child's birthmark was because sometimes she
just couldn't. She just didn't have it together enough to
to have a conversation with the stranger who'd walked up
and been like, what's up with your kid's face? Rather
than belt um, she would just give him a card
and then just probably go home and weep or something
like that, knowing not for herself but the life that
her kid was going to have to face, not because
(07:32):
her kid has a birthmark, but because the rest of
the world are schmucks. Yes, that's the that's the long
and short of its right. Al managed to find a soapbox.
Even in the birthmarks episode, I bet a kid, probably
a collection of kids could still make you cry if
they started. They started, I just started kicking, throwing elbows.
(07:53):
I just hold my arms out and started twirling around
really fast, and whatever got hit got hit. People be
like a Josh fighting a bunch of children and be like, yeah,
they made fun of them. Yeah, they'd be like I
shoved one in a grocery store once. Oh man, I'll
never forget that, lady. So let's talk birthmarks, Chuck. It
turns out there's a lot to know. Yeah, they're um
(08:15):
usually not a big deal. They aren't painful, they're usually harmless.
A lot of times they go away. We're gonna detail
the ones that do and that don't go away, and
the ones that are of more concern. But generally speaking,
science doesn't really know why they come about to begin with,
but they are something that doctors will sometimes want to
(08:39):
keep an eye on. And that's the intro. That's Intro
number seven. Yeah, there's a couple of big categories, uh,
vascular and pigmented. And let's talk about some of these.
Vascular are usually reddish because they have to do with
blood vessels. Yeah, I think reddish is a very common
(09:00):
When you think birthmarks, you think reddish. Typically I think brownish,
brownish too. Um. Apparently they can come in a whole
rainbow of colors blue, brown, black, pink, white, although I
take issue with that purplish or tan. And I take
an issue with white because I think white is like
a reverse birthmark, although technically it would still count as
(09:21):
a birthmark. So the whole rest of your body is
a birthmark, and that one little right, Okay, that's right. Um.
Birthmarks tend to be an aggregation of either pigment or blood,
as we'll see, and white is like an area where
pigment is absent, So I guess it still counts as
a birthmark, but it's not really a birthmark. If you
(09:42):
go into a dermatologist office, they'll be like, he got
this all wrong. Uh. And like we said, the skin
tags and freckles and things like that, they come later
in life, although freckles can start out very early. But
it's still not a birthmark because you're not born with
that mark. Yeah. And even as we'll see, some types
of moles don't technically qualify as birth marks, even though
(10:04):
they typically fall under the banner of birth marks. You
have to be born with something for it to count
as a birthmark, that's right, So that's not even fully true.
As we'll see, this is just full applies. Everybody who
studies birth marks needs to get their stuff together. So
the macular uh um, they're called flat sometimes macular stains,
(10:25):
and we're in the vascular right, This is the non pigmented.
These are usually caused by blood in large blood vessels.
These have some cute names that go along with them,
angel kisses. I think some of these can be because
of where they're found, although I've heard people cross referencing.
(10:45):
Like I think an angel kisses usually on the forehead,
but not always. A stork bite is usually on the
back of the neck. That makes sense, But I've also
when you google stork bite there's some like right on
the tip of the nose, and people call them that.
I took it to me more like, um, that those
those names were derived from the age that they're like
(11:06):
kids who are born with this and then it tends
to go away at an early age. That's what it's
associated with, you know, like the stork brings the baby
and the angels, well, everybody agels love babies. What about
the salmon patch. I don't understand it at all. Uh,
they are usually above the neck um. They usually or
(11:26):
a lot of times they'll disappear and and fade away
by the time they're two to three years old, but
not always. Sometimes the last Yeah, but for the most part,
if you have a macular flat vascular birthmark on your kid,
they're probably going to outgrow it. Is just really no
other way to put They outgrow that birthmark eventually, that's right.
(11:48):
Most often, port wine stains are a whole different ball game. Yes,
they said they look like kind of what they sound like.
They're usually kind of a purplish red where it looks like, uh,
well port or wine has been spilled. I would know
nothing about what a wine spill looks like, right, because
you never ever spill all your wine. It all makes
(12:09):
it into your mouth. That's right. I've seen it, so
port Weinstein, I say, that's like a whole different kettle
of fish. Um, it's in the same uh category as
macular because they're vascular. It's like an aggregation of overdeveloped
blood vessels kind of close to the skin. But they
(12:31):
seem to come from like a whole different um place
a whole there's a whole different reason. And in fact
we should say this chuck, because this is really important.
If you go up to a dermatologist or anybody who
would know what they're talking about, and you say, hey,
where did birth marks come from? What causes birth marks?
(12:51):
They would say, we actually don't know. Um. The closest
that they've come is with port wine stains. From what
I can tell, they figured out that there's a genean
um where the this molecular switch that's supposed to go
on and off is locked in the on position, and
that they think that this is what causes port wine stains.
And the reason that they found it is because about
(13:13):
six percent of kids who are born with the port
Win stain birth birthmark developed something called Sturge Webber syndrome,
which is a neurological condition. Interesting and it's if you
have a port wine stain birth market does not mean
you have Sturge Webber, but if you have Sturge Webber,
you have a port wine birth mark. Six percent of
(13:34):
birth port wine birth marks um cases have Sturge Webber.
It's actually a symptom, but of people with that condition
have right the port wine stain. Yeah, and so in
investigating the syndrome and the link between it and the
port win Stein birthmark, they found this gene that they
think is the culprit. All right, Well, they never go away.
(13:56):
A lot of times, they'll get darker as you become older. Uh.
And these are not a big deal healthwise either, unless
it's something near your eyes that can affect your vision,
and then they might want to take a look at it.
I also saw that in some cases they can start
to get lumpy and actually become disfiguring as you age too.
I did see those, and they can also just once
(14:18):
they lump, they can scar too. So um, a lot
of people seek treatment for port wine stain birth marks.
As we'll see. Yeah, strawberry marks is what I referenced
at the beginning. You might see these on little babies. Uh.
They are haman gioma's is it right? Yeah, and these
most of the times, Um, I saw even less than
(14:39):
thirty percent. But it says your thirty percent are visible
at birth most of the times though. They'll develop between
four and six weeks, and I think by the time
you hit six months, if you're gonna have one, it
will be visible by that point. You won't develop one
of these at like the one year mark. No. But
again that's there's that one. There's that loophole where it's
(15:00):
like you it still counts as a birthmark even though
you weren't technically born with It drives me up the wall, right,
And these are um a little more reddish. And you've
probably seen these, like I said, on babies before, because
they're you know, they're pretty common. Um, they will they
have they're raised off the skin. That's kind of one
of the differentiators is they're not flat so um like
(15:24):
hamageum hamage. I've said it like five times in my head,
hamaggiomas fifty times probably yes, and I can't say it
out loud. Hamaggioma's um macular and port wine seems like
we said, these are all over developed blood vessels, clusters
of blood vessels there. They're from blood vessels, which is
(15:48):
which is why they have that that reddish pigment is
because the blood is close enough to the skin and
it's clustered together. It's kind of almost pooled right there, right,
But it's not like a bruise or any thing like that.
It's the blood hasn't escaped. The vessel is just a
lot of vessels, are big vessels all clumped together near
the skin. What's interesting about maggiomas i did it? Chuck? Ha?
(16:10):
Maggioma's nice work? Um him angiomas oh Man, did I
miss it twice? I think there's an end in there
that it's being forgotten. What's interesting about what you just
mentioned is that in some cases they can extend down
into the body, and the further they extend down, they
won't be reddish, they'll be bluish. Yeah, and they can
(16:34):
even be on the organs. It's pretty rare, but it happens.
It is, and they can be threatening on the organs.
You don't want to have a cluster of blood vessels
on your organs. But back to the blue part. So
the reason that they look blue is because, as everybody knows,
um blood on its way back to the lungs to
(16:55):
be oxygenated is blue. That's right, that's not true. I'm
sorry to set you up like that. I thought it
was true. That's why your morning veins are blue. It's not.
And as soon as you get cut and it hits
that sweet, sweet oxygen, that just transforms into red. That's
what you thought, right, that's what not what I thought
as an adult, but that's what I thought as a
small child. That's what I thought until this morning. No, yeah,
(17:17):
you knew that. No, really, you thought blood was blue? Yes,
I thought deoxygen eated blood was blue. Okay, Well do
you understand why it appears blue? Well, I mean no,
but I just knew that that was like a playground falsehood.
Well I was too busy veins are blue, thinking about
(17:38):
how we're fighting up it was covered with to learn this.
You're like, I'm gonna draw some sweet blue blood out
of that jerky with my fists. The reason it's blue
is because the deeper it is, the less blue light
is able to penetrate, so the less that can be absorbed,
and so the light that's reflected tends to be blue
(17:58):
more than say red, which penetrates deeper and is absorbed.
That has to do with blue foods too, which is
a bit for the next episode. Thank you, just put
a pin in that. Uh. These strawberry marks though, back
to those, they will disappear usually by the time a
kid is like into double digits. Um. If they're large,
sometimes you might see a scar. These are around the
(18:21):
head and neck as well and are most commonly found
on Caucasian girls. But they're not They don't have a
real impact on development either. Um. But if they are
really big and puffy again, they could and around the
eyes or ears, they could interfere with hearing and vision
and stuff like that. Right. Yeah, and if you if
they're on the on your internal organs, it's a problem.
(18:44):
So I think we should take a break because astoundingly
we're twenty minutes in and we have not taken a break. Um,
So we'll be back to birth marks right after this. Okay,
(19:14):
to recap, Remember, vascular blood birth marks are reddish because
of blood vessels. Precisely, if anyone misses that question on
the quiz tomorrow, your toast is not our fault. So
the other kind of birth marks are pigment at birth
marks nothing to do with blood vessels. Oh I don't know.
(19:35):
There could be a blood vessel or too involved, but no,
not really. No, this is because like freckles, like I
was telling about, it is just a collection of melanine
that's brought out by its unexposure. Yeah, and you have
melana sites, melanin cells, melantonin cells, or melanin, one of
the two all over your body. It gives you, like
the color to your skin. Some people have more, some
(19:56):
people have last, but everybody has them. But like you
were saying, when they kind of congregate together, that's when
they form these pigmented spots that we know as birthmarks. Right,
we are in our house, my daughters at the age
now where she has started to notice skin color, which
is something that you you know, every parent has to
(20:16):
deal with at some point. And uh, that's how it
was recommended to us to talk about it with scientifically
being like, hey, everyone's the same, which got different skin
tones because of science, some people have more melanin than
other people. Is that why you had me over to
dinner and started asking me about that? Yeah, you just
wound me up and knew. I go, huh, that's right.
(20:38):
So um, but I mean that is tricky stuff for
parents because what you're really talking about is the first
talks of race, you know, and you just you you
have to do it in such a way that diffuses
it almost so it's just like, no, everyone's the same.
Some people are lighter skin, some people are darker skinned.
Both of her best friend Zo or multiracial, which helps. Oh, yeah,
(21:00):
I'm sure because we can say you know your friend blank.
I'm not gonna say names Jerry Blank. She has two
friends are both named blank. Um, we can just say
you know her skin is a little darker than yours,
because you know when you see her parents and try
to explain all that, and kids are like, oh, okay,
how does this matter? Why does this have to do
(21:21):
a big bird, big bird yellow? That's a great question.
But these have some cute names too, and they are
almost um, well, that's not true. I was going to
say they aren't. They're named because of what they look like.
But really, just the one is. Yeah, there's really just
two types of pigment of birthmarks, or broad categories of it. Yes,
the very Parisian cafe latte, Oh cafe l A, Sorry,
(21:47):
I just read that A lot tastes different. This has
nothing to do with vascular um aggregations of blood vessels. No,
And do you get confused on coffee orders or do
you know all that stuff? I'm pretty pretty good with it.
I don't know what any of them are like anytime
someone it's all just a differing amounts of milk, steamed milk, yeah.
(22:10):
But like when I hear like a maciato or an
Americano American, what these things are a shot of espresso
or multiple shots with ultra hot water, right, that's an Americana.
I think that's what our friend Chad Crowley drinks. It's
it's just a really really really hot black coffee. Okay,
(22:31):
that's all interesting, Marcioto, you got me. I don't know,
like cappuccino, there's a lot there's like more foam than
milk milk. I know those two. It's all just milk
or foam or coffee. What's a cafe? A cafe l
a is simply coffee with milk. That's it, really, that's
what that's literally what it means in French is that
(22:52):
like the what's it called in uh in Spanish? Cafe? Okay,
that's the same thing then with milk. Okay, I am
a dummy. I haven't been drinking. It's not it's not that.
It's just it's not that. As you can see, I'm
still drinking my uh from this morning. Those are great,
(23:13):
aren't they? And it's still hot thanks to And I'll
go ahead and plug it the Zoji roushi and I've
plugged this on our page before. Like, if you like
your coffee hot all day, get one of these little
Thermisis this thing keeps this thing hot for ten hours?
It really does? Yeah, so much? So I have the
same one. You has a little pinquents cute. When I
(23:34):
pour coffee in, I have to like pour the coffee
into a mug to let it cool off. Have to
put it in there because you won't be able to
drink it. No, like maybe the next day you could.
It keeps it that hot, for sure. We need to
get them as a sponsor. Man. They also make out
of this world rice cookers too. Uh yeah, I've got
Well now, I'm not sure if that's the one I
(23:55):
have or another one. I think those are the two
best ones in my opinion. I can't remember, bro, I
have to look, But all I know is the one
I have is very forgiving. You can be pretty off
with your measurements and it still makes perfect rice. You
can use like butter milk and somehow it still comes
out just oh man, buttermilk. That could be all right. Well,
(24:16):
here's a little tip for you. You make sushi rice,
okay um. Usually you just do a one to one
rice to water ratio. Then go in and just put
like half like a teaspoon half teaspoon, even depending on
how tiny you want to be of rice vinegar. Oh
well sure, I usually add that after No, No, you
(24:37):
want to pick it together? Yeah, so you want to
cook it with it? Yes? Okay. I used to make
my own sushi rolls, and then I just got to
the point where I was like, it's not worth it.
It's just a lot easier to get sushi. Where did
you get your your seafood? Uh? Sorry? I would get
that at um the decab farmer's market. I would get
the tuna there and the crab sticks, which that's easy.
(24:59):
Can get that it Kroger's and the seaweed there. But
then there's also a Japanese market nearby where I would
get the eel to a bacon the oven. But that's
kind of a you know, you could do spicy tuna,
tuna eel and crabstick California rolls. I really want some
sushi right now. I we both eat a lot of sushi.
Yeah it's good. Okay. So Cafe A birthmark, So that
(25:23):
is the Cafe l A. They are the color of
a Cafe l A kind of a light brown, which
means coffee with milk. Yep. There and this is to
me was when I think birthmark, I think of these
because it's just a little brown spot anywhere on the body. Yeah,
and that's I think. One of the things we didn't
say is with some of the birthmarks there is kind
(25:45):
of specific places that they'll appear, yeah, um or they're
tied to specific places usually, but with cafe A birthmarks
in particular, they're just they got no rules. Forehead but
cheek wherever, wherever, um and apparently don't there's nothing, there's
no problem with them. But very much like the um
(26:08):
the port wine staying birthmark, that cafe A spots are
tied to a neurological actually a nerve condition where if
you have six or more of these kinds of cafe
A birthmarks, UM, especially if they're larger than like a
dime in a in an older kid, you want to
(26:29):
go to see a doctor because that could mean that
you have something called neurofibromatosis. I said that a million
times in my head too. You gotta start saying things
out loud. Also known as n F one. That's easier,
but um n F one is not even necessarily it
could It could be asymptomatic. Like if you if you're like,
(26:51):
oh my gosh, I've got six or more cafe A
birthmarks on me, maybe I have neurofibromatosis um that that's
It's not like a death sentence or anything like that.
Just go see a doctor. The Mongolian spots are these
look like bruises to me. They can if you don't
know what you're looking at. It can be alarming because
(27:12):
you see these pictures of babies that look like they're
heavily bruised kind of at the lower back upper buttocks area,
but it is not bruising. Their bluish gray though, and
like I said, usually on the lower back. I think
um African Americans, African Asian and Hispanic kids usually with
darker skin have more of more of them or more
(27:35):
more commonly have them, and these are the ones that
fade out by the time they're like, you know, six
or seven, usually yeah, And they're usually a bluish green
because their clusters of pigment cells together deep under the skin.
And so you've got that same thing going on with
like you have with the um Hey Mangiomas nice I
(27:59):
got it. You got it. There's a good old fashioned mole. Uh,
this is a pigmented birthmark. Um. Multiple of them are nev, brown, nev,
and e v I because the nevus is a single mole.
Are any of these like band names? I don't think so,
but very fortuitous mentioning of that because of listener mail later.
(28:20):
It is Latin for spot and there are three categories. Yes, uh, no,
nev I think mole is Latin for spot. Oh is it? Oh? Yeah, wow,
I was just about to make fun of you too.
I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad you have mole sounds
real Latin word. Boy. So there are three categories of moles, congenital, acquired,
(28:44):
and atypical. The congenital About one percent of babies are
born with these, and these are kind of all over
the map as far as color and size. Some remember Harry,
some of them are not Harry. I saw that basically
every congenital mole has a little hair. Hair of some
sort can be very very fine. It can be thick,
(29:04):
it can be coarse, it can be very dark. Um.
Usually they're very dark because they're growing out of pigment
cells that are like just pigment away. Um. And I
learned that on the Dollar Shave Club blog. Um. And
they say also to just kind of pluck because shaving,
if you're a man and like say, you have one
on your face or whatever, it can nick very very frequently. Yeah. Well,
(29:26):
I've got some of the skin tags that obviously don't shape,
so it's not a problem now. But well, maybe that's
why you have skin tags. If you shaved, you just
shave them off all the time, trim them down. I
don't think that's why. Now. The skin tags come from
like clothing rubbing against the skin. That's why they're around
the neckline a lot of times, or sometimes around the waistline.
(29:49):
So you know. But again, those aren't birth marks. Those
are old man marks, acquired moles. Uh. They come around
later in life as well. Uh. And this is not
the same as a skin tag. Still, it is still
a male and a lot of doctors think that this
is from sun damage, yes, but not necessarily cancerous, which
(30:14):
leads us into the third type of mole, a typical moles.
These aren't necessarily cancerous either, but they're the kind you
definitely want to keep an eye on there. Um. There
there will be multiple colors or have some sort of
color gradient in them. Their shape will be um, just
kind of amorphous, yea, irregular. Yeah, they'll be um just
(30:35):
kind of You'll be like that don't look quite right.
That's that kind of mole. And those are the kind
that you definitely want to have a doctor check out
because a lot of people don't know this, but um,
an atypical mole is associated with melanoma, and melanoma is
no joke. I think a lot of people are like,
melan was that thing? Just go, you know, get it
(30:57):
removed at the doctor. No, melanoma can spread like lightning
through your body and it can be a real problem.
It's a very serious thing to to keep up with. Yeah,
I've got a pretty sad situation with a family member
with melanoma that, um, I think the treatment is going
really well, but it is. It has definitely opened my
eyes to the fact that it's no joke. Yeah, I
(31:17):
had no idea. Um, you may open my eyes. She
had somebody that she lost to melanoma. She saw the
same thing like melanoma, and no, that's not at all
how it is, which is really weird because somebody's dropping
the ball because most people just think it's nothing. Yeah
on messaging, Yeah, yeah, I agree with myself. Apparently it's
interesting that different kinds of cancer have better or worse PR. Yeah,
(31:41):
great product, terrible marketing, right, Yeah, it's kind of what
we're dealing with here. But I know that, um uh,
prostate cancer has often lagged behind breast cancer, like breast
cancer does a bang up job of marketing and press
and PR and awareness. Um these, like you said, the
(32:02):
doctors will want to monitor these over time. What I
couldn't figure out was what is the quote unquote beauty mark?
Is that an acquired mole? I think a beauty mark
is any kind of mole. That's just I'm I'm living
with this and and I'm loving every minute. It's so
interesting how that has become a thing. I was trying
(32:25):
to figure out where it went back to. Obviously, Marilyn
Monroe like really kind of popularized, didn't I think it
predated her? Like Liz Taylor is at least contemporary, if
not predated. Yeah, it's very famous for one. And then
like even still it is Cindy Crawford, star Joe um,
who else, Oh, Natalie Portman apparently has I'm like on
(32:46):
her face. Interesting. I went over this list of celebrity
I was like, celebrity birth marks. The only one that
comes up though, is moles. Could not I couldn't find
any like well known celebrity is with birthmarks like birthmarks,
birthmarks like facial birth marks. Yeah, you just I couldn't
(33:06):
think of one either. I couldn't find any. Well, that's
probably because of the prejudice against them, I would guess, so, yeah,
which is sad. Yeah. Um. It reminded me though, Chuck.
Didn't one of the Fat Albert gang have a birthmark
on his face? Um? I don't know. We was he
the guy that had the pulled his toboggan cap over
(33:27):
his face? No, I think that was mush mouth because
you never see his face at all. Well, then how
would you know if he had a birthmark. I don't know.
I just thought that might have been a like a
backstory or something. I think this just went off the
rails enough for um a message break, don't you. Um sure, Yeah,
we'll be back right after this and we'll talk about
treatment and what I think is a pretty interesting things
(33:50):
superstitions throughout history about birthmarks. Greedy. Alright, So, like we said,
(34:14):
about most of these birthmarks, usually medical treatment is not necessary,
but some are monitored over time, and what doctors will
do obviously is examined, examine them, take some pictures, and
then just sort of follow that over time that same
routine to see if they're changing and to see if
they're getting bigger or changing shape or anything unusual. It's
(34:37):
a wait and see, yes exactly. Um, if you have hamangioma's,
they will UM frequently use like a port wine stain
is something that a lot of people go seek treatment
for because it's often on the face, the neck right, um,
and it actually responds pretty well to a laser treatment,
something called the pulse dye laser. Is this like the
(34:59):
same tattoo uh treatment or no? Probably because that's pretty painful, right. Oh, yes,
Like I can't image because it says children a lot
of times can be treated with this laser treatment. But man,
I know it's sad. It feels a lot like um,
having like a hot bacon grease splashing on your skin.
That's what if getting a laser or tattoo remove with
(35:20):
the laser, but without the knowledge that like in a
couple of minutes, I'm gonna be eating some sweet bacon.
More like. The only silver lining too, is that a
pig didn't die for you to be in that situation,
you know what I mean? Right? Or uh, I won't
have whatever tattoo obviously don't want on my body anymore.
(35:41):
That's the reward, they're right. So if that is the case,
then if it is the same feeling as that, then yeah,
I feel bad for little kids who get that. But
that's the best time to start this treatment is when
the child is young, because again, what you're what you're
doing is you're using a pulse die laser, which uses
a certain frequency or spectrum wavelength of light that is
(36:02):
targeted so that that birthmark will absorb that light. The
surrounding skin is a different pigment, so it won't absorb
that light like the birthmark. Well, and that energy, that
light energy is translated into heat energy in the birthmark,
and there go the cells or the blood vessels that
make up the cells. And after enough treatments, you've hopefully
(36:23):
broken up the hamangioma or the port wine stain um
and like the birthmark will go away. Did you hear that?
Did you hear that? That was me? I think that
was me? Now that was mine. Well, then we just
had a simultaneous stomach growl because my stomach just growled
at the same time. Are we like after after twelve
(36:46):
years of podcasting together. So if you are getting something removed,
it's usually a vascular birthmark. Um. Generally they don't try
and get rid of pigmented birth marks, although it's possible,
I think, but usually doctors don't treat that. No, but
if you if you have a child with say a
cafe ol a birthmark on their on their face, the
doctor is not going to be like, no, we're not
(37:08):
doing that. They'll they'll probably try to work it out,
but the results are not nearly as reliable as with
vascular birth marks, which have to do with um blood
vessels beneath the skin clustered together, overdeveloped, that kind of thing,
or what your doctor might say is, um, you know
what this thing is on your forehead, Grow your bangs
(37:28):
out until you get old enough to where you accept
this as like an individual trait that you're proud of.
There's a there's something called the British Association of Skin
Camouflage that is dedicated to helping people actually training makeup
artists on how to cover birthmarks because for some people
(37:51):
they'll just never get used to it. They don't want
to have to get used to it. They just rather
cover it up. And that's their right, that's the prerogative.
That's their birthmark. They can do whatever they want with it.
And so the average makeup artist doesn't know how to
do that. It actually takes special skills apparently, and so
there's groups who train people are interesting to do that.
We should do I don't. I don't know if it's
(38:11):
a short stuff for full length, but we should do
something on vida igo. Uh. I had a friend in
l a who, um, who had videl igo. And again,
like the same with some of this stuff. It's such
a forward facing thing if it's on your face, and
it's a big deal to people, it's an important, um,
it's important issue because like the bullying, like we were
(38:33):
talking about, we're just kids and adults remaining self conscious
about that kind of thing. It's it's sad, it is sad.
I agreed. I think we could all do a lot
better at accepting people with facial differences. What it's called.
There's something on facial differences. I don't remember what it was,
but I know I've mentioned this group before, changing Faces
dot Org. It's awesome. They're just there. Their whole thing
(38:55):
is like, hey, actually it's funny they um are they
promote skin campus if you want it. But they're also
they're big pushes like hey, rest of society, Like there's
nothing different about these people except for their face. Like
they're not cognitively challenged. They're not. They're not disabled in
any way or differently able. Like their face is different
(39:17):
for any number of reasons, and it's really kind of
on the rest of you to get over it, you know,
which I think is the healthiest approach if you ask me.
So the superstitions we were talking about, I know we
mentioned a couple early on, um, like that you were
touched by the devil, like that was real stuff. In
(39:37):
some cultures, uh, in China, there were some quirky ones
like if you have a right foot birthmark means you're adventurous.
It's on the left foot, it means you're really smart.
If it's on your tom toms, that means you're greedy.
And this is just sort of you know, culture and
folklore sure, um, the world around. So because we can't
(39:58):
explain what birthmarks or where they come from. All over
the world, people societies have said it's something the mom
did while she was pregnant. Course, and so we came
up with all sorts of dipstick ideas for exactly what
the mom did wrong to explain birthmarks. One of my
favorites is that the mom was startled and touched her face,
(40:21):
and at the exact same moment, the baby's blood vessels
at that point in the baby's face formed of birthmark.
It's very scientific. Or how about this, If you have
a strawberry mark as a baby, it's because mom ate
too many red things or can't play off the strawberry
or port wine staying they couldn't laugh off the wine. Yeah,
(40:41):
or coffee cafe a coffee that's so on the nose, Like,
come on, people, it is. There's this thing called the
doctrine of signs, where like if a food looked like
um a body part, it was associated with helping to
heal that body part, like beats um are good for
the for the blood or something like that, or avocados
(41:02):
are good for the testicles. Exactly. I was hoping you
would bring that up. Uh, let me see what else
um In Japan if um, a pregnant woman looked at
a fire or into a flame of some kind, they
thought that might cause a burn mark on the baby skin. Yep.
And I think some of these carry forward a little
bit even today. Well, the X ray one is obviously
(41:24):
fairly modern. Oh sure. Like the explanation is that the
mom got an X ray while she was pregnant. In it,
it basically left a mark on the baby. Yeah, that's
not true. That is not true. No. Um. The one
that really is always stuck out to me, and it
reminded me of this case I want to tell you about.
Um is this idea that a birthmark is actually a
(41:45):
mark left over from a past life. This is pretty neat,
Like if you have a birthmark that looks like a
bullet hole in your back, that means you were shot
in the back right in the past life, and not
just like that's what that means. Like there there are
I really hesitate the uses where they're documented cases of
this of this happening. Supposedly, there was this kid in Syria,
(42:09):
UM who was born with like a kind of like
a slash like birthmark I think, on the back of
his head, and apparently from a very early age, when
the kid like was able to start to talk, started
recounting being murdered with an axe and then started talking
about the village where he used to live and who
is what his name was, and then the guy that
(42:30):
killed him, and it was enough allegedly that the village
elders where this kid lived were like, we need to
go check this out. So they traveled to that other
village and they said, does so and so live here?
And they're like, yeah, he lives over there. And it's like, well,
did you did somebody else name this live here? Once
they're like, yes, he died, he vanished mysteriously, and they
(42:51):
went and talked to They went and talked to the accuser.
Um he broke down and confessed and showed him where
they buried the body that this kid supposedly was in
the past life who was murdered by an X. There's
just no way that that happened. But I love reading
about stuff like that. The part of me that's like
that subscribed to that time life books of like Paranormal
(43:12):
Phenomena still loves stories like that. Yeah, I think you
lost me when you said village elders. Oh yeah, yeah,
because you know they're the same ones that are like,
well you're a witch because yeah, see if you see
if she floats right, So what else you got any others?
(43:32):
Let me see here, Well, we talked about the devil's mark. Uh,
supposedly amb Boleyn was accused of witch crafty crafty supposedly.
I saw also that she most decidedly was not. Yeah,
I think that's the legend all right, possession by the devil.
It could be another one. And one thing that we
(43:52):
did know was, um, that definitely did happen historically from
the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. If you were Russian nobility,
you proved it by displaying your birth mark. Yeah, I
guess so yeah, Um, what's the what was the family
of the romanofs pretty interesting? Which actually holds water because
they think that some birthmarks may be congenital. It's entirely
(44:15):
possible that a family line, especially one that kind of
kept in themselves, you know what I mean, could conceivably
pass down something like a birthmark. Yeah, and so uh,
unless you do you have anything else, No, I don't
chuck take it away. I think we just should close
by really like stressing to any kids listening and parents
(44:36):
of children that vascular birth marks have to do with
blood vessels. No, just explain to your kids if there's
another kid in their class, as you know, a pretty
obvious birthmark, that they're just the same. And don't don't
tease kids for that stuff. If you're a kid that's
young and listening, we all look different, we all have
(44:56):
different skin tones. Yeah, just don't be a jerk. No,
I think that's really great advice. Now, I think the
golden rule. Think about how you might feel if somebody
was making fun of something about your body. That's a
good one too. Yeah. Uh, if you want to know
more about parenting, while you could just listen to all
of our other episodes. And since I said that, it's
time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Ryan and Lucy,
(45:21):
the aforementioned band name ref Uh. They have been to
our shows at the Bellhouse a couple of times, a
few times and uh, let me see where are they
from here? Road trips between New York and Providence. And
then they've seen us at the Bell House and they said,
we realize how much we get a kick out of
the various band names. And we started to inventory them
(45:44):
a few years ago since our wedding is next week,
we realize that now it's a perfect time UM to
just go ahead and send you the list. I'm not
sure why that has anything to do anything, but Ryan
and Lucy congratulations. Yea, for what it's worth. Ryan's favorite
a is worm burden. Oh yeah, from Hookworm and Lucy's
mouth parts. Yeah, that's from a lot of episodes. But
(46:05):
we'll just buzz through these really quickly, just for nostalgis
sake and aspiring bands jump in and take these and
give us some money for him. There's some real gold
in here. Are we doing all those? Yeah? Oh my god,
that's right. I'll go through them quickly. Fistful of neurons,
warm burden, tub of pulp. I know you want to
(46:25):
comment on everyone, just throw in what you think is
really good gon here like threat simulation theory, poor fred
noon in. I remember that one, Uh, sweet, give me
the teat. I don't remember that one. It was from
Uncanny Valley, but I don't remember saying that was a
band or even how it would relate to it. This
(46:46):
is from movie Crush Sick Vandalism. That's a good one.
Flesh on the chunks, hot plastic, injection, pyrocastic flow. That's
a good one. Flaming death, death bolts, pantos that is
a legendary one. Conceptual walls framing him cohort offspring, cohort,
omni cohort, third generation cohort offspring, spousal cohort. I don't
(47:08):
remember any of those. All those were from that heart study. Okay,
uh oh, that's right. Cortical homunculous, that's pretty good, medieval synthesis,
magic bullet. I want to retract this next one because
apparently I said herbal Douches was a good band name.
I take that back. That's terrible. Uh. Slaughtered narwhal peck lube,
(47:32):
sex linked recessive manhole incidents. That's a good one. Graphic spew,
gross nuclear bulge, love it, local group. That's kind of dumb.
Oh no, I can see it, kind of like scrantnicity.
Oh sure, the Electric Death Commission. I love that one.
Dr Foss bomb drop What was that one? Michael Dillon Huh,
(47:57):
I don't remember exactly what that referenced death master file
mouth part uh the of course, the classic frozen poop knife,
sloth moths, radioactive cats, that one's dumb. Static Crush. I
like that one. Damage Knight not bad. The descriptive ists
that's a little haughty, I think, but I could be
(48:18):
kind of like Mumford and Sonsie kind of music, right, Yeah, exactly,
it sounds too much like Decembrists. I think that is
exactly right. Bathtub Gin Wasted on Excitement. That's an album title,
he says, But that's pretty good as a band. Mother Culture,
Jungle x Ray very recent, uh wet record the album
(48:39):
from Jungle x Ray to Whale Bolt from Corduroy and
then going Postal, which he says is a lot of
bands are called that. Yeah, I think you looked that
up even into it. I think, so those are good.
We always always, any time we talk about great band
names from episodes, have to give a shout out, especially
when Frozen Poop Knife comes up to Diarrhya Planet. Well,
(49:00):
he had that on the list. I think he didn't
quite understand that that is a real band. That is
a real band that pre dates Frozen Proof Knife. I know.
I'd like to think that they've been tweeted at over
the years. Oh they've tweeted to us. Oh that's right,
they have right, they said, Um, they said, hey, sorry,
we're gonna stick with our Thanks for thinking of it.
In other words, shut up. Maybe I don't know. I
(49:22):
think it depends on how you look at the world. Okay,
so I think that's it everybody. I don't remember what's
going on anymore. But this is the end of the episode.
So if you want to get in touch with us,
you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot
com if you want, and you can also send us
an emails you stuff podcasts that I heart radio dot com.
(49:43):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.
How stuff works from more podcasts for my heart Radio
is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
If you've ever been at home and wondered, Josh and
Chuck is it really worth going to see them perform live?
The answer is a resounding yes yes. And if you
live in Vancouver, b C. Or anywhere near there, come
on out to the Chance Center on Sunday March to
see us and find out for yourself. And then the
next night, if you live around Portland, Oregon, you can
(00:20):
go to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and we'll be
there ready to go on Monday March. That's right. You
can get all ticket information at s y s K
live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
(00:41):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant over there, and there's Jerry. Jerry's back everybody
that's right. And all the listeners said, what happened to
Josh TV? What are we doing that? Did we decide? Yeah,
we're gonna do birthmarking? Check the title? Chuck, Well, I
mean I have two things in front of me. How
(01:03):
are you doing? I'm great? How are you? I'm good?
You got any birth marks? I do what you got Um,
I've got something under my right armpit. You're like, it
looks like Richard Nixon. Close, it looks like Spiro Agne.
Do you remember when Mad magazine used to make fun
of Spiro Agne And you're like, I have no idea
(01:25):
who that gets the name. Maybe no, it's because like
they hated his politics, but too. But then there was
a Simpsons where Millhouse is like, they're making fun of
Spiro agnew again. He must work there or something, and
I remember specifically thinking that he referenced Mad Magazine. That's funny. Yeah,
so you you've got an under your armpit birthmark? Yeah,
(01:46):
how about you? I don't think I do. Actually, what
I have a lot of now because I'm an old
man speeding toward death. Our skin tags, oh yeah, around
the neck and armpit. That's where they like tend to gather.
That's just your skin, you know, really going at it.
(02:09):
I used to have them clipped, and I did. I
did that for a while, but it's been a while,
but now I went in recently. It was so annoying.
It was one of these our medical system is just broken.
It was one of those reminders because I went in
to get it taken care of like I usually do.
And I got in there and the guy was like, oh, well,
we don't do this now unless you make another kind
of appointment. I was like, well, can I just make
(02:30):
this that since I'm here sitting in your office. He's like, no, no, no,
those take much longer. These are just ten minute appointments
and that that'll take like an hour, and some of
them have their own vascular systems so they need to
be cauterized. And I was like, oh, okay, so I'm
just leaving and he's like yes, He's like, if you
want to make that other appointment, and then they refunded
(02:51):
the money for that appointment, which was the copey, but
then said make the longer appointment if you want to
come back, which I'm gonna yeah. You know. I mean
they're not like medically dangerous or anything, but their brother
unsightly when they get long and big, well long, sure,
(03:11):
I mean how long are we talking like? I mean
some of the ones are like, you know, quarter inch,
so okay, I was just about to say how big
that one? Let me see if I can figure it
out in the metric. It's a few centimeters, so I
think it's what you just want to get him clipped again,
So I'm gonna make that longer appointment, right, I think
it will be painful? Is it painful? I've never had
(03:33):
one clip the regular clipping. The small ones aren't a
big deal because they just hit it with a little
quick shot and then clip it in. This no big deal.
But what kind of a shot like a you know, needle,
like a little numbing, numbing thing. Okay, I like with
a needle like whatever. I don't know if they don't
they don't spray it with the freezy stuff. No, you're
(03:54):
thinking of this stuff for athletes foot This is like
a shot light of cane. But anyway, the ones that
are big that require cauterizing, I'm sure that doesn't feel great,
even if they've numbed it up and just get the
seedline torch out And imagine I'll have to shave my
armpits because if you're torching something near armpit hair, plus
you just want to look good. Maybe I've never shaved
(04:15):
my pits. Um might start that I used to? Why not?
I'll bet that's itchy though. Yeah. Maybe anytime you shave
something that starts to grow out, it's itchy. You know what?
I'm saying, so um. I used to get warts actually
when I was a kid. Oh yeah, And I remember
going into the dermatologists and they go into the freezer,
put on these huge rubber gloves and pull out like
(04:37):
this thermos of I want to say, nitro glystroom. That's
not it, and now you know what I'm talking about. Yeah,
the cold stuff. Yeah, and it would freeze my wart
basically right off right there, just kind of sting for
a second. That was it. I never really had warts.
Believe me, buddy, you lucked out because if you're a
(04:57):
little kid in grade school and you have like it
wasn't like I wasn't coated with them, but you know,
like i'd get one like here between my four finger
and my thumb. I had one of my elbow or
something like that. Other kids jerks zero in on that stuff,
and you're the you're the little weird kid who was
already the fat kid now with warts new and improved. Uh.
(05:22):
I had freckles a lot more than I do now,
because freckles tend to fade as you get older, and
freckles are I guess kind of well, they're not a
kind of birthmark because you're not born with freckles, but
I did look into it. Freckles are just an abundance
of melanin, like collected together. Well, that's basically what a
mole is, which is a type of birthmark if you're
(05:43):
born with it. That's right. So I love freckles though.
Freckles are super cute. Freckles are great, Moles are great. Birthmarks,
especially interesting ones are great. Sports are great. That's why
the term warts and all came about it. That's how
you should love his true Chuck Man, quit making the
people kids. Well, that's a thing, so mean. Birthmarks have
(06:04):
been around since the dawn of humanity, I'm guessing, um,
and people have probably been ostracized because their birthmarks since
the dawn of humanity. And you know, for a very
long time people were ostracized for their birthmarks because of
some really stupid ideas like that it meant you were
a witch, or it meant you were touched by Satan,
(06:27):
all sorts of stuff like that. Um. And then over
time it got a little more innocuous. But even still
today there are parts of the world where you can
find people who are ostracized because their birth marks. And
then even in the developed world, the Western world, which
is rational and based more on science. You can still
find yourself, you know, at the receiving end of being ostracized.
(06:48):
Maybe not because you're a witch, but just because you
have a birthmarker you look different and so um. I've
seen parents react to it if their baby has like
a strawberry mark on their head, yes like that, seeing
them feel the need to say like, oh, you know
this is you know, we'll go away, or something like that.
I was reading this birthmark support group from Great Britain
and they were saying this. One mom had cards printed
(07:11):
up explaining what her child's birthmark was because sometimes she
just couldn't. She just didn't have it together enough to
to have a conversation with the stranger who'd walked up
and been like, what's up with your kid's face? Rather
than belt um, she would just give him a card
and then just probably go home and weep or something
like that, knowing not for herself but the life that
her kid was going to have to face, not because
(07:32):
her kid has a birthmark, but because the rest of
the world are schmucks. Yes, that's the that's the long
and short of its right. Al managed to find a soapbox.
Even in the birthmarks episode, I bet a kid, probably
a collection of kids could still make you cry if
they started. They started, I just started kicking, throwing elbows.
(07:53):
I just hold my arms out and started twirling around
really fast, and whatever got hit got hit. People be
like a Josh fighting a bunch of children and be like, yeah,
they made fun of them. Yeah, they'd be like I
shoved one in a grocery store once. Oh man, I'll
never forget that, lady. So let's talk birthmarks, Chuck. It
turns out there's a lot to know. Yeah, they're um
(08:15):
usually not a big deal. They aren't painful, they're usually harmless.
A lot of times they go away. We're gonna detail
the ones that do and that don't go away, and
the ones that are of more concern. But generally speaking,
science doesn't really know why they come about to begin with,
but they are something that doctors will sometimes want to
(08:39):
keep an eye on. And that's the intro. That's Intro
number seven. Yeah, there's a couple of big categories, uh,
vascular and pigmented. And let's talk about some of these.
Vascular are usually reddish because they have to do with
blood vessels. Yeah, I think reddish is a very common
(09:00):
When you think birthmarks, you think reddish. Typically I think brownish,
brownish too. Um. Apparently they can come in a whole
rainbow of colors blue, brown, black, pink, white, although I
take issue with that purplish or tan. And I take
an issue with white because I think white is like
a reverse birthmark, although technically it would still count as
(09:21):
a birthmark. So the whole rest of your body is
a birthmark, and that one little right, Okay, that's right. Um.
Birthmarks tend to be an aggregation of either pigment or blood,
as we'll see, and white is like an area where
pigment is absent, So I guess it still counts as
a birthmark, but it's not really a birthmark. If you
(09:42):
go into a dermatologist office, they'll be like, he got
this all wrong. Uh. And like we said, the skin
tags and freckles and things like that, they come later
in life, although freckles can start out very early. But
it's still not a birthmark because you're not born with
that mark. Yeah. And even as we'll see, some types
of moles don't technically qualify as birth marks, even though
(10:04):
they typically fall under the banner of birth marks. You
have to be born with something for it to count
as a birthmark, that's right, So that's not even fully true.
As we'll see, this is just full applies. Everybody who
studies birth marks needs to get their stuff together. So
the macular uh um, they're called flat sometimes macular stains,
(10:25):
and we're in the vascular right, This is the non pigmented.
These are usually caused by blood in large blood vessels.
These have some cute names that go along with them,
angel kisses. I think some of these can be because
of where they're found, although I've heard people cross referencing.
(10:45):
Like I think an angel kisses usually on the forehead,
but not always. A stork bite is usually on the
back of the neck. That makes sense, But I've also
when you google stork bite there's some like right on
the tip of the nose, and people call them that.
I took it to me more like, um, that those
those names were derived from the age that they're like
(11:06):
kids who are born with this and then it tends
to go away at an early age. That's what it's
associated with, you know, like the stork brings the baby
and the angels, well, everybody agels love babies. What about
the salmon patch. I don't understand it at all. Uh,
they are usually above the neck um. They usually or
(11:26):
a lot of times they'll disappear and and fade away
by the time they're two to three years old, but
not always. Sometimes the last Yeah, but for the most part,
if you have a macular flat vascular birthmark on your kid,
they're probably going to outgrow it. Is just really no
other way to put They outgrow that birthmark eventually, that's right.
(11:48):
Most often, port wine stains are a whole different ball game. Yes,
they said they look like kind of what they sound like.
They're usually kind of a purplish red where it looks like, uh,
well port or wine has been spilled. I would know
nothing about what a wine spill looks like, right, because
you never ever spill all your wine. It all makes
(12:09):
it into your mouth. That's right. I've seen it, so
port Weinstein, I say, that's like a whole different kettle
of fish. Um, it's in the same uh category as
macular because they're vascular. It's like an aggregation of overdeveloped
blood vessels kind of close to the skin. But they
(12:31):
seem to come from like a whole different um place
a whole there's a whole different reason. And in fact
we should say this chuck, because this is really important.
If you go up to a dermatologist or anybody who
would know what they're talking about, and you say, hey,
where did birth marks come from? What causes birth marks?
(12:51):
They would say, we actually don't know. Um. The closest
that they've come is with port wine stains. From what
I can tell, they figured out that there's a genean
um where the this molecular switch that's supposed to go
on and off is locked in the on position, and
that they think that this is what causes port wine stains.
And the reason that they found it is because about
(13:13):
six percent of kids who are born with the port
Win stain birth birthmark developed something called Sturge Webber syndrome,
which is a neurological condition. Interesting and it's if you
have a port wine stain birth market does not mean
you have Sturge Webber, but if you have Sturge Webber,
you have a port wine birth mark. Six percent of
(13:34):
birth port wine birth marks um cases have Sturge Webber.
It's actually a symptom, but of people with that condition
have right the port wine stain. Yeah, and so in
investigating the syndrome and the link between it and the
port win Stein birthmark, they found this gene that they
think is the culprit. All right, Well, they never go away.
(13:56):
A lot of times, they'll get darker as you become older. Uh.
And these are not a big deal healthwise either, unless
it's something near your eyes that can affect your vision,
and then they might want to take a look at it.
I also saw that in some cases they can start
to get lumpy and actually become disfiguring as you age too.
I did see those, and they can also just once
(14:18):
they lump, they can scar too. So um, a lot
of people seek treatment for port wine stain birth marks.
As we'll see. Yeah, strawberry marks is what I referenced
at the beginning. You might see these on little babies. Uh.
They are haman gioma's is it right? Yeah, and these
most of the times, Um, I saw even less than
(14:39):
thirty percent. But it says your thirty percent are visible
at birth most of the times though. They'll develop between
four and six weeks, and I think by the time
you hit six months, if you're gonna have one, it
will be visible by that point. You won't develop one
of these at like the one year mark. No. But
again that's there's that one. There's that loophole where it's
(15:00):
like you it still counts as a birthmark even though
you weren't technically born with It drives me up the wall, right,
And these are um a little more reddish. And you've
probably seen these, like I said, on babies before, because
they're you know, they're pretty common. Um, they will they
have they're raised off the skin. That's kind of one
of the differentiators is they're not flat so um like
(15:24):
hamageum hamage. I've said it like five times in my head,
hamaggiomas fifty times probably yes, and I can't say it
out loud. Hamaggioma's um macular and port wine seems like
we said, these are all over developed blood vessels, clusters
of blood vessels there. They're from blood vessels, which is
(15:48):
which is why they have that that reddish pigment is
because the blood is close enough to the skin and
it's clustered together. It's kind of almost pooled right there, right,
But it's not like a bruise or any thing like that.
It's the blood hasn't escaped. The vessel is just a
lot of vessels, are big vessels all clumped together near
the skin. What's interesting about maggiomas i did it? Chuck? Ha?
(16:10):
Maggioma's nice work? Um him angiomas oh Man, did I
miss it twice? I think there's an end in there
that it's being forgotten. What's interesting about what you just
mentioned is that in some cases they can extend down
into the body, and the further they extend down, they
won't be reddish, they'll be bluish. Yeah, and they can
(16:34):
even be on the organs. It's pretty rare, but it happens.
It is, and they can be threatening on the organs.
You don't want to have a cluster of blood vessels
on your organs. But back to the blue part. So
the reason that they look blue is because, as everybody knows,
um blood on its way back to the lungs to
(16:55):
be oxygenated is blue. That's right, that's not true. I'm
sorry to set you up like that. I thought it
was true. That's why your morning veins are blue. It's not.
And as soon as you get cut and it hits
that sweet, sweet oxygen, that just transforms into red. That's
what you thought, right, that's what not what I thought
as an adult, but that's what I thought as a
small child. That's what I thought until this morning. No, yeah,
(17:17):
you knew that. No, really, you thought blood was blue? Yes,
I thought deoxygen eated blood was blue. Okay, Well do
you understand why it appears blue? Well, I mean no,
but I just knew that that was like a playground falsehood.
Well I was too busy veins are blue, thinking about
(17:38):
how we're fighting up it was covered with to learn this.
You're like, I'm gonna draw some sweet blue blood out
of that jerky with my fists. The reason it's blue
is because the deeper it is, the less blue light
is able to penetrate, so the less that can be absorbed,
and so the light that's reflected tends to be blue
(17:58):
more than say red, which penetrates deeper and is absorbed.
That has to do with blue foods too, which is
a bit for the next episode. Thank you, just put
a pin in that. Uh. These strawberry marks though, back
to those, they will disappear usually by the time a
kid is like into double digits. Um. If they're large,
sometimes you might see a scar. These are around the
(18:21):
head and neck as well and are most commonly found
on Caucasian girls. But they're not They don't have a
real impact on development either. Um. But if they are
really big and puffy again, they could and around the
eyes or ears, they could interfere with hearing and vision
and stuff like that. Right. Yeah, and if you if
they're on the on your internal organs, it's a problem.
(18:44):
So I think we should take a break because astoundingly
we're twenty minutes in and we have not taken a break. Um,
So we'll be back to birth marks right after this. Okay,
(19:14):
to recap, Remember, vascular blood birth marks are reddish because
of blood vessels. Precisely, if anyone misses that question on
the quiz tomorrow, your toast is not our fault. So
the other kind of birth marks are pigment at birth
marks nothing to do with blood vessels. Oh I don't know.
(19:35):
There could be a blood vessel or too involved, but no,
not really. No, this is because like freckles, like I
was telling about, it is just a collection of melanine
that's brought out by its unexposure. Yeah, and you have
melana sites, melanin cells, melantonin cells, or melanin, one of
the two all over your body. It gives you, like
the color to your skin. Some people have more, some
(19:56):
people have last, but everybody has them. But like you
were saying, when they kind of congregate together, that's when
they form these pigmented spots that we know as birthmarks. Right,
we are in our house, my daughters at the age
now where she has started to notice skin color, which
is something that you you know, every parent has to
(20:16):
deal with at some point. And uh, that's how it
was recommended to us to talk about it with scientifically
being like, hey, everyone's the same, which got different skin
tones because of science, some people have more melanin than
other people. Is that why you had me over to
dinner and started asking me about that? Yeah, you just
wound me up and knew. I go, huh, that's right.
(20:38):
So um, but I mean that is tricky stuff for
parents because what you're really talking about is the first
talks of race, you know, and you just you you
have to do it in such a way that diffuses
it almost so it's just like, no, everyone's the same.
Some people are lighter skin, some people are darker skinned.
Both of her best friend Zo or multiracial, which helps. Oh, yeah,
(21:00):
I'm sure because we can say you know your friend blank.
I'm not gonna say names Jerry Blank. She has two
friends are both named blank. Um, we can just say
you know her skin is a little darker than yours,
because you know when you see her parents and try
to explain all that, and kids are like, oh, okay,
how does this matter? Why does this have to do
(21:21):
a big bird, big bird yellow? That's a great question.
But these have some cute names too, and they are
almost um, well, that's not true. I was going to
say they aren't. They're named because of what they look like.
But really, just the one is. Yeah, there's really just
two types of pigment of birthmarks, or broad categories of it. Yes,
the very Parisian cafe latte, Oh cafe l A, Sorry,
(21:47):
I just read that A lot tastes different. This has
nothing to do with vascular um aggregations of blood vessels. No,
And do you get confused on coffee orders or do
you know all that stuff? I'm pretty pretty good with it.
I don't know what any of them are like anytime
someone it's all just a differing amounts of milk, steamed milk, yeah.
(22:10):
But like when I hear like a maciato or an
Americano American, what these things are a shot of espresso
or multiple shots with ultra hot water, right, that's an Americana.
I think that's what our friend Chad Crowley drinks. It's
it's just a really really really hot black coffee. Okay,
(22:31):
that's all interesting, Marcioto, you got me. I don't know,
like cappuccino, there's a lot there's like more foam than
milk milk. I know those two. It's all just milk
or foam or coffee. What's a cafe? A cafe l
a is simply coffee with milk. That's it, really, that's
what that's literally what it means in French is that
(22:52):
like the what's it called in uh in Spanish? Cafe? Okay,
that's the same thing then with milk. Okay, I am
a dummy. I haven't been drinking. It's not it's not that.
It's just it's not that. As you can see, I'm
still drinking my uh from this morning. Those are great,
(23:13):
aren't they? And it's still hot thanks to And I'll
go ahead and plug it the Zoji roushi and I've
plugged this on our page before. Like, if you like
your coffee hot all day, get one of these little
Thermisis this thing keeps this thing hot for ten hours?
It really does? Yeah, so much? So I have the
same one. You has a little pinquents cute. When I
(23:34):
pour coffee in, I have to like pour the coffee
into a mug to let it cool off. Have to
put it in there because you won't be able to
drink it. No, like maybe the next day you could.
It keeps it that hot, for sure. We need to
get them as a sponsor. Man. They also make out
of this world rice cookers too. Uh yeah, I've got
Well now, I'm not sure if that's the one I
(23:55):
have or another one. I think those are the two
best ones in my opinion. I can't remember, bro, I
have to look, But all I know is the one
I have is very forgiving. You can be pretty off
with your measurements and it still makes perfect rice. You
can use like butter milk and somehow it still comes
out just oh man, buttermilk. That could be all right. Well,
(24:16):
here's a little tip for you. You make sushi rice,
okay um. Usually you just do a one to one
rice to water ratio. Then go in and just put
like half like a teaspoon half teaspoon, even depending on
how tiny you want to be of rice vinegar. Oh
well sure, I usually add that after No, No, you
(24:37):
want to pick it together? Yeah, so you want to
cook it with it? Yes? Okay. I used to make
my own sushi rolls, and then I just got to
the point where I was like, it's not worth it.
It's just a lot easier to get sushi. Where did
you get your your seafood? Uh? Sorry? I would get
that at um the decab farmer's market. I would get
the tuna there and the crab sticks, which that's easy.
(24:59):
Can get that it Kroger's and the seaweed there. But
then there's also a Japanese market nearby where I would
get the eel to a bacon the oven. But that's
kind of a you know, you could do spicy tuna,
tuna eel and crabstick California rolls. I really want some
sushi right now. I we both eat a lot of sushi.
Yeah it's good. Okay. So Cafe A birthmark, So that
(25:23):
is the Cafe l A. They are the color of
a Cafe l A kind of a light brown, which
means coffee with milk. Yep. There and this is to
me was when I think birthmark, I think of these
because it's just a little brown spot anywhere on the body. Yeah,
and that's I think. One of the things we didn't
say is with some of the birthmarks there is kind
(25:45):
of specific places that they'll appear, yeah, um or they're
tied to specific places usually, but with cafe A birthmarks
in particular, they're just they got no rules. Forehead but
cheek wherever, wherever, um and apparently don't there's nothing, there's
no problem with them. But very much like the um
(26:08):
the port wine staying birthmark, that cafe A spots are
tied to a neurological actually a nerve condition where if
you have six or more of these kinds of cafe
A birthmarks, UM, especially if they're larger than like a
dime in a in an older kid, you want to
(26:29):
go to see a doctor because that could mean that
you have something called neurofibromatosis. I said that a million
times in my head too. You gotta start saying things
out loud. Also known as n F one. That's easier,
but um n F one is not even necessarily it
could It could be asymptomatic. Like if you if you're like,
(26:51):
oh my gosh, I've got six or more cafe A
birthmarks on me, maybe I have neurofibromatosis um that that's
It's not like a death sentence or anything like that.
Just go see a doctor. The Mongolian spots are these
look like bruises to me. They can if you don't
know what you're looking at. It can be alarming because
(27:12):
you see these pictures of babies that look like they're
heavily bruised kind of at the lower back upper buttocks area,
but it is not bruising. Their bluish gray though, and
like I said, usually on the lower back. I think
um African Americans, African Asian and Hispanic kids usually with
darker skin have more of more of them or more
(27:35):
more commonly have them, and these are the ones that
fade out by the time they're like, you know, six
or seven, usually yeah, And they're usually a bluish green
because their clusters of pigment cells together deep under the skin.
And so you've got that same thing going on with
like you have with the um Hey Mangiomas nice I
(27:59):
got it. You got it. There's a good old fashioned mole. Uh,
this is a pigmented birthmark. Um. Multiple of them are nev, brown, nev,
and e v I because the nevus is a single mole.
Are any of these like band names? I don't think so,
but very fortuitous mentioning of that because of listener mail later.
(28:20):
It is Latin for spot and there are three categories. Yes, uh, no,
nev I think mole is Latin for spot. Oh is it? Oh? Yeah, wow,
I was just about to make fun of you too.
I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad you have mole sounds
real Latin word. Boy. So there are three categories of moles, congenital, acquired,
(28:44):
and atypical. The congenital About one percent of babies are
born with these, and these are kind of all over
the map as far as color and size. Some remember Harry,
some of them are not Harry. I saw that basically
every congenital mole has a little hair. Hair of some
sort can be very very fine. It can be thick,
(29:04):
it can be coarse, it can be very dark. Um.
Usually they're very dark because they're growing out of pigment
cells that are like just pigment away. Um. And I
learned that on the Dollar Shave Club blog. Um. And
they say also to just kind of pluck because shaving,
if you're a man and like say, you have one
on your face or whatever, it can nick very very frequently. Yeah. Well,
(29:26):
I've got some of the skin tags that obviously don't shape,
so it's not a problem now. But well, maybe that's
why you have skin tags. If you shaved, you just
shave them off all the time, trim them down. I
don't think that's why. Now. The skin tags come from
like clothing rubbing against the skin. That's why they're around
the neckline a lot of times, or sometimes around the waistline.
(29:49):
So you know. But again, those aren't birth marks. Those
are old man marks, acquired moles. Uh. They come around
later in life as well. Uh. And this is not
the same as a skin tag. Still, it is still
a male and a lot of doctors think that this
is from sun damage, yes, but not necessarily cancerous, which
(30:14):
leads us into the third type of mole, a typical moles.
These aren't necessarily cancerous either, but they're the kind you
definitely want to keep an eye on there. Um. There
there will be multiple colors or have some sort of
color gradient in them. Their shape will be um, just
kind of amorphous, yea, irregular. Yeah, they'll be um just
(30:35):
kind of You'll be like that don't look quite right.
That's that kind of mole. And those are the kind
that you definitely want to have a doctor check out
because a lot of people don't know this, but um,
an atypical mole is associated with melanoma, and melanoma is
no joke. I think a lot of people are like,
melan was that thing? Just go, you know, get it
(30:57):
removed at the doctor. No, melanoma can spread like lightning
through your body and it can be a real problem.
It's a very serious thing to to keep up with. Yeah,
I've got a pretty sad situation with a family member
with melanoma that, um, I think the treatment is going
really well, but it is. It has definitely opened my
eyes to the fact that it's no joke. Yeah, I
(31:17):
had no idea. Um, you may open my eyes. She
had somebody that she lost to melanoma. She saw the
same thing like melanoma, and no, that's not at all
how it is, which is really weird because somebody's dropping
the ball because most people just think it's nothing. Yeah
on messaging, Yeah, yeah, I agree with myself. Apparently it's
interesting that different kinds of cancer have better or worse PR. Yeah,
(31:41):
great product, terrible marketing, right, Yeah, it's kind of what
we're dealing with here. But I know that, um uh,
prostate cancer has often lagged behind breast cancer, like breast
cancer does a bang up job of marketing and press
and PR and awareness. Um these, like you said, the
(32:02):
doctors will want to monitor these over time. What I
couldn't figure out was what is the quote unquote beauty mark?
Is that an acquired mole? I think a beauty mark
is any kind of mole. That's just I'm I'm living
with this and and I'm loving every minute. It's so
interesting how that has become a thing. I was trying
(32:25):
to figure out where it went back to. Obviously, Marilyn
Monroe like really kind of popularized, didn't I think it
predated her? Like Liz Taylor is at least contemporary, if
not predated. Yeah, it's very famous for one. And then
like even still it is Cindy Crawford, star Joe um,
who else, Oh, Natalie Portman apparently has I'm like on
(32:46):
her face. Interesting. I went over this list of celebrity
I was like, celebrity birth marks. The only one that
comes up though, is moles. Could not I couldn't find
any like well known celebrity is with birthmarks like birthmarks,
birthmarks like facial birth marks. Yeah, you just I couldn't
(33:06):
think of one either. I couldn't find any. Well, that's
probably because of the prejudice against them, I would guess, so, yeah,
which is sad. Yeah. Um. It reminded me though, Chuck.
Didn't one of the Fat Albert gang have a birthmark
on his face? Um? I don't know. We was he
the guy that had the pulled his toboggan cap over
(33:27):
his face? No, I think that was mush mouth because
you never see his face at all. Well, then how
would you know if he had a birthmark. I don't know.
I just thought that might have been a like a
backstory or something. I think this just went off the
rails enough for um a message break, don't you. Um sure, Yeah,
we'll be back right after this and we'll talk about
treatment and what I think is a pretty interesting things
(33:50):
superstitions throughout history about birthmarks. Greedy. Alright, So, like we said,
(34:14):
about most of these birthmarks, usually medical treatment is not necessary,
but some are monitored over time, and what doctors will
do obviously is examined, examine them, take some pictures, and
then just sort of follow that over time that same
routine to see if they're changing and to see if
they're getting bigger or changing shape or anything unusual. It's
(34:37):
a wait and see, yes exactly. Um, if you have hamangioma's,
they will UM frequently use like a port wine stain
is something that a lot of people go seek treatment
for because it's often on the face, the neck right, um,
and it actually responds pretty well to a laser treatment,
something called the pulse dye laser. Is this like the
(34:59):
same tattoo uh treatment or no? Probably because that's pretty painful, right. Oh, yes,
Like I can't image because it says children a lot
of times can be treated with this laser treatment. But man,
I know it's sad. It feels a lot like um,
having like a hot bacon grease splashing on your skin.
That's what if getting a laser or tattoo remove with
(35:20):
the laser, but without the knowledge that like in a
couple of minutes, I'm gonna be eating some sweet bacon.
More like. The only silver lining too, is that a
pig didn't die for you to be in that situation,
you know what I mean? Right? Or uh, I won't
have whatever tattoo obviously don't want on my body anymore.
(35:41):
That's the reward, they're right. So if that is the case,
then if it is the same feeling as that, then yeah,
I feel bad for little kids who get that. But
that's the best time to start this treatment is when
the child is young, because again, what you're what you're
doing is you're using a pulse die laser, which uses
a certain frequency or spectrum wavelength of light that is
(36:02):
targeted so that that birthmark will absorb that light. The
surrounding skin is a different pigment, so it won't absorb
that light like the birthmark. Well, and that energy, that
light energy is translated into heat energy in the birthmark,
and there go the cells or the blood vessels that
make up the cells. And after enough treatments, you've hopefully
(36:23):
broken up the hamangioma or the port wine stain um
and like the birthmark will go away. Did you hear that?
Did you hear that? That was me? I think that
was me? Now that was mine. Well, then we just
had a simultaneous stomach growl because my stomach just growled
at the same time. Are we like after after twelve
(36:46):
years of podcasting together. So if you are getting something removed,
it's usually a vascular birthmark. Um. Generally they don't try
and get rid of pigmented birth marks, although it's possible,
I think, but usually doctors don't treat that. No, but
if you if you have a child with say a
cafe ol a birthmark on their on their face, the
doctor is not going to be like, no, we're not
(37:08):
doing that. They'll they'll probably try to work it out,
but the results are not nearly as reliable as with
vascular birth marks, which have to do with um blood
vessels beneath the skin clustered together, overdeveloped, that kind of thing,
or what your doctor might say is, um, you know
what this thing is on your forehead, Grow your bangs
(37:28):
out until you get old enough to where you accept
this as like an individual trait that you're proud of.
There's a there's something called the British Association of Skin
Camouflage that is dedicated to helping people actually training makeup
artists on how to cover birthmarks because for some people
(37:51):
they'll just never get used to it. They don't want
to have to get used to it. They just rather
cover it up. And that's their right, that's the prerogative.
That's their birthmark. They can do whatever they want with it.
And so the average makeup artist doesn't know how to
do that. It actually takes special skills apparently, and so
there's groups who train people are interesting to do that.
We should do I don't. I don't know if it's
(38:11):
a short stuff for full length, but we should do
something on vida igo. Uh. I had a friend in
l a who, um, who had videl igo. And again,
like the same with some of this stuff. It's such
a forward facing thing if it's on your face, and
it's a big deal to people, it's an important, um,
it's important issue because like the bullying, like we were
(38:33):
talking about, we're just kids and adults remaining self conscious
about that kind of thing. It's it's sad, it is sad.
I agreed. I think we could all do a lot
better at accepting people with facial differences. What it's called.
There's something on facial differences. I don't remember what it was,
but I know I've mentioned this group before, changing Faces
dot Org. It's awesome. They're just there. Their whole thing
(38:55):
is like, hey, actually it's funny they um are they
promote skin campus if you want it. But they're also
they're big pushes like hey, rest of society, Like there's
nothing different about these people except for their face. Like
they're not cognitively challenged. They're not. They're not disabled in
any way or differently able. Like their face is different
(39:17):
for any number of reasons, and it's really kind of
on the rest of you to get over it, you know,
which I think is the healthiest approach if you ask me.
So the superstitions we were talking about, I know we
mentioned a couple early on, um, like that you were
touched by the devil, like that was real stuff. In
(39:37):
some cultures, uh, in China, there were some quirky ones
like if you have a right foot birthmark means you're adventurous.
It's on the left foot, it means you're really smart.
If it's on your tom toms, that means you're greedy.
And this is just sort of you know, culture and
folklore sure, um, the world around. So because we can't
(39:58):
explain what birthmarks or where they come from. All over
the world, people societies have said it's something the mom
did while she was pregnant. Course, and so we came
up with all sorts of dipstick ideas for exactly what
the mom did wrong to explain birthmarks. One of my
favorites is that the mom was startled and touched her face,
(40:21):
and at the exact same moment, the baby's blood vessels
at that point in the baby's face formed of birthmark.
It's very scientific. Or how about this, If you have
a strawberry mark as a baby, it's because mom ate
too many red things or can't play off the strawberry
or port wine staying they couldn't laugh off the wine. Yeah,
(40:41):
or coffee cafe a coffee that's so on the nose, Like,
come on, people, it is. There's this thing called the
doctrine of signs, where like if a food looked like
um a body part, it was associated with helping to
heal that body part, like beats um are good for
the for the blood or something like that, or avocados
(41:02):
are good for the testicles. Exactly. I was hoping you
would bring that up. Uh, let me see what else
um In Japan if um, a pregnant woman looked at
a fire or into a flame of some kind, they
thought that might cause a burn mark on the baby skin. Yep.
And I think some of these carry forward a little
bit even today. Well, the X ray one is obviously
(41:24):
fairly modern. Oh sure. Like the explanation is that the
mom got an X ray while she was pregnant. In it,
it basically left a mark on the baby. Yeah, that's
not true. That is not true. No. Um. The one
that really is always stuck out to me, and it
reminded me of this case I want to tell you about.
Um is this idea that a birthmark is actually a
(41:45):
mark left over from a past life. This is pretty neat,
Like if you have a birthmark that looks like a
bullet hole in your back, that means you were shot
in the back right in the past life, and not
just like that's what that means. Like there there are
I really hesitate the uses where they're documented cases of
this of this happening. Supposedly, there was this kid in Syria,
(42:09):
UM who was born with like a kind of like
a slash like birthmark I think, on the back of
his head, and apparently from a very early age, when
the kid like was able to start to talk, started
recounting being murdered with an axe and then started talking
about the village where he used to live and who
is what his name was, and then the guy that
(42:30):
killed him, and it was enough allegedly that the village
elders where this kid lived were like, we need to
go check this out. So they traveled to that other
village and they said, does so and so live here?
And they're like, yeah, he lives over there. And it's like, well,
did you did somebody else name this live here? Once
they're like, yes, he died, he vanished mysteriously, and they
(42:51):
went and talked to They went and talked to the accuser.
Um he broke down and confessed and showed him where
they buried the body that this kid supposedly was in
the past life who was murdered by an X. There's
just no way that that happened. But I love reading
about stuff like that. The part of me that's like
that subscribed to that time life books of like Paranormal
(43:12):
Phenomena still loves stories like that. Yeah, I think you
lost me when you said village elders. Oh yeah, yeah,
because you know they're the same ones that are like,
well you're a witch because yeah, see if you see
if she floats right, So what else you got any others?
(43:32):
Let me see here, Well, we talked about the devil's mark. Uh,
supposedly amb Boleyn was accused of witch crafty crafty supposedly.
I saw also that she most decidedly was not. Yeah,
I think that's the legend all right, possession by the devil.
It could be another one. And one thing that we
(43:52):
did know was, um, that definitely did happen historically from
the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. If you were Russian nobility,
you proved it by displaying your birth mark. Yeah, I
guess so yeah, Um, what's the what was the family
of the romanofs pretty interesting? Which actually holds water because
they think that some birthmarks may be congenital. It's entirely
(44:15):
possible that a family line, especially one that kind of
kept in themselves, you know what I mean, could conceivably
pass down something like a birthmark. Yeah, and so uh,
unless you do you have anything else, No, I don't
chuck take it away. I think we just should close
by really like stressing to any kids listening and parents
(44:36):
of children that vascular birth marks have to do with
blood vessels. No, just explain to your kids if there's
another kid in their class, as you know, a pretty
obvious birthmark, that they're just the same. And don't don't
tease kids for that stuff. If you're a kid that's
young and listening, we all look different, we all have
(44:56):
different skin tones. Yeah, just don't be a jerk. No,
I think that's really great advice. Now, I think the
golden rule. Think about how you might feel if somebody
was making fun of something about your body. That's a
good one too. Yeah. Uh, if you want to know
more about parenting, while you could just listen to all
of our other episodes. And since I said that, it's
time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Ryan and Lucy,
(45:21):
the aforementioned band name ref Uh. They have been to
our shows at the Bellhouse a couple of times, a
few times and uh, let me see where are they
from here? Road trips between New York and Providence. And
then they've seen us at the Bell House and they said,
we realize how much we get a kick out of
the various band names. And we started to inventory them
(45:44):
a few years ago since our wedding is next week,
we realize that now it's a perfect time UM to
just go ahead and send you the list. I'm not
sure why that has anything to do anything, but Ryan
and Lucy congratulations. Yea, for what it's worth. Ryan's favorite
a is worm burden. Oh yeah, from Hookworm and Lucy's
mouth parts. Yeah, that's from a lot of episodes. But
(46:05):
we'll just buzz through these really quickly, just for nostalgis
sake and aspiring bands jump in and take these and
give us some money for him. There's some real gold
in here. Are we doing all those? Yeah? Oh my god,
that's right. I'll go through them quickly. Fistful of neurons,
warm burden, tub of pulp. I know you want to
(46:25):
comment on everyone, just throw in what you think is
really good gon here like threat simulation theory, poor fred
noon in. I remember that one, Uh, sweet, give me
the teat. I don't remember that one. It was from
Uncanny Valley, but I don't remember saying that was a
band or even how it would relate to it. This
(46:46):
is from movie Crush Sick Vandalism. That's a good one.
Flesh on the chunks, hot plastic, injection, pyrocastic flow. That's
a good one. Flaming death, death bolts, pantos that is
a legendary one. Conceptual walls framing him cohort offspring, cohort,
omni cohort, third generation cohort offspring, spousal cohort. I don't
(47:08):
remember any of those. All those were from that heart study. Okay,
uh oh, that's right. Cortical homunculous, that's pretty good, medieval synthesis,
magic bullet. I want to retract this next one because
apparently I said herbal Douches was a good band name.
I take that back. That's terrible. Uh. Slaughtered narwhal peck lube,
(47:32):
sex linked recessive manhole incidents. That's a good one. Graphic spew,
gross nuclear bulge, love it, local group. That's kind of dumb.
Oh no, I can see it, kind of like scrantnicity.
Oh sure, the Electric Death Commission. I love that one.
Dr Foss bomb drop What was that one? Michael Dillon Huh,
(47:57):
I don't remember exactly what that referenced death master file
mouth part uh the of course, the classic frozen poop knife,
sloth moths, radioactive cats, that one's dumb. Static Crush. I
like that one. Damage Knight not bad. The descriptive ists
that's a little haughty, I think, but I could be
(48:18):
kind of like Mumford and Sonsie kind of music, right, Yeah, exactly,
it sounds too much like Decembrists. I think that is
exactly right. Bathtub Gin Wasted on Excitement. That's an album title,
he says, But that's pretty good as a band. Mother Culture,
Jungle x Ray very recent, uh wet record the album
(48:39):
from Jungle x Ray to Whale Bolt from Corduroy and
then going Postal, which he says is a lot of
bands are called that. Yeah, I think you looked that
up even into it. I think, so those are good.
We always always, any time we talk about great band
names from episodes, have to give a shout out, especially
when Frozen Poop Knife comes up to Diarrhya Planet. Well,
(49:00):
he had that on the list. I think he didn't
quite understand that that is a real band. That is
a real band that pre dates Frozen Proof Knife. I know.
I'd like to think that they've been tweeted at over
the years. Oh they've tweeted to us. Oh that's right,
they have right, they said, Um, they said, hey, sorry,
we're gonna stick with our Thanks for thinking of it.
In other words, shut up. Maybe I don't know. I
(49:22):
think it depends on how you look at the world. Okay,
so I think that's it everybody. I don't remember what's
going on anymore. But this is the end of the episode.
So if you want to get in touch with us,
you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot
com if you want, and you can also send us
an emails you stuff podcasts that I heart radio dot com.
(49:43):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.
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