August 5, 2017 • 25 mins
In this week's SYSK Select episode, they're always right there, taunting you: why do you have me, they ask? Why do men have nipples? It turns out there's a good answer why and nipples on men aren't entirely useless after all. Join Chuck and Josh for this heady investigation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, everybody, this is Chuck with this uh Saturday select
edition of Stuff you Should Know? And this week I
picked out a little show called why do Men Have Nipples?
And that's how you have to say it in your
head when you read it out loud. This from January,
and if I remember correctly, Um, it's just kind of
(00:21):
an interesting episode. I think Josh and I we're looking
at each other one day with their shirts off. I
was like, why you have nipples? Why do you have nipples?
And that's generally how most of our shows get started.
So give it a listen and I hope you enjoy it.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
(00:43):
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we're doing this. We're
doing it whether you like it or not. Yeah, we're
recording our podcast Stuff you Should Know. Probably no because
you tuned in, so welcome and if it was an accident, Hey,
(01:05):
welcome to the party. Talk about serendipity. You're about to
learn about male nipples. Yeah you want to talk about
a party? Yeah? You got him? I got him. We
all do. Uh, do you want to talk about chromosomes
for a second. Sure, okay, chuck, uh, you and I
each have twenty three chromosomes in our body. We talked
(01:27):
a little bit in Designer Children. I think, yeah about
little genetics over We're not gonna go into that now.
But um, the twenty three chromosomes. H if you put
a man in a woman side by side, or their
chromosomes side by side, twenty two of the twenty three
chromosomes are going to be exactly alike. It's that twenty
three that gets you. The twenty three chromosome either has
(01:49):
a pair of xes or an X and a Y.
Pair of xes equals a woman, X Y equals a man. Okay,
we're not that far apart. We're really not. And that
becomes very very clear when we're in utero because sexual dimorphism,
which is the the inward and outward differences between genders
(02:11):
between male and female, like who who's in ha haas
and that kind of stuff. Um, those are all uh,
those are all hammered out in the course of our
development on the twenty three chrome zone. Right, A lot
of it you come out with, right, you were born
with a vagino or a penis, right, Um, but a
(02:35):
lot of it is also set up to be kicked
in when puberty happens. That's right, but still there's differences,
there's changes, and it's all because of this twenty three
chrome zone. Some of the things though, can go either
way and depending on what happens when puberty comes along. Um,
either nothing's going to happen to these to this equipment,
(02:57):
I guess you could call it yea or um. A
lot of crazy things happened to it. And one of those, uh,
the good examples of this are nipples. There's a really
great question, why do men have nipples? Chuck? Yeah, I
have a funny little story about this. My sister and
I were hanging out about about fifteen years ago, and
(03:17):
I was They had a male dog and I was
rubbing the belly and the dog had very like just
pronouncing nipples more so than you you would usually see
on a male dog. And I guess I never noticed before,
and I was just like, I was kind of grossed out.
I was like, what is your dog nipples? And she's like,
you have nipples? And then it just like it was
an awakening my mind. Yeah, It's like, wow, you're right,
(03:40):
I do why And I never really researched things like
this back then, and uh, now I know why. Now
we know why. Yeah, and we should say this is
um the generally accepted explanation. It's not necessarily scientific fact,
but it is um. This is pretty much why. Ye,
(04:01):
most mammals, in fact, most male mammals have nipples. I
think mice, stallions and uh platyppie. Yeah, the male platypus
is among the handful of animals that of mammals that
where the boys are born nipple free, which is weird
because um, as Conger points out Christen Conger from Stuff
(04:23):
Mom Never told you she wrote this article, and um
she points out that you can make the case that
mice are more evolved in that respect than human males. Yeah.
Ours could be a flaw. Yeah, um, we'll get to that. Well,
let's talk about this. So they're back in uh nine,
(04:44):
right before Y two K it's y two K fever,
Yale University researchers released the study that said, Hey, we've
gotten to the bottom of this mystery of why or
how male mice don't grow nipples. They're just completely seriously,
go out in your yard right now, trap a mouse,
pick it up by its tail and examine it's some
(05:04):
little belly, no nipples, Yeah, nothing, or if it's got nipples,
that means it's a little lady exactly. That's the way
you tell. That's one of the ways you tell with mice.
And it's because of a protein pth little r P. Yeah.
It's always so exciting when they give them names like this. Uh.
(05:25):
After mice are after their memory tissue starts to form,
produces this protein. Uh. And in male mice it signals
the cells to form male hormone receptors and uh, it
basically destroys the tissue. Yeah, like in utero. Correct, Yes,
because boy mice and male and female mice are all
(05:46):
they all develop mammory tissue, which gives you all the
equipment for nipples and breasts and milk ducks and all
that stuff. They just destroy theirs before they're born. Yeah,
that protein signals that for to be destroyed in male mice. Uh,
prepare for the mind blower. Now, boys and girls as
humans undergo a very similar process in utero as well. Um,
(06:11):
before that sexual dimorphism that's really carried out by the
twenty three chromosome begins. We both both genders start to
develop um memory tissue, uh, and develop all the equipments
called milk lines. They're like kind of like calls it
the plumbing. We have the same plumbing exactly, which is
kind of funny and true. Yeah, um we and we
(06:33):
developed this plumbing before it's decided or before we start
to um develop sexual traits. So it's almost like if
you look at a timeline of sex sexual development, the
nipples come first, so that they're not associated as far
as the I guess nature is concerned with male or
(06:55):
female humans the same thing. Yeah, So we don't have
a protein that takes care of this um the nipples
and males. So men are and boys and girls are
born with pretty much exactly the same setup until puberty,
that's right, And that's when the hormones kick in. Estrogen
and girls is going to cause breast growth and mamory
(07:18):
gland development, and that's when things diverge. You know what
It really stood out to me on this um that
means that our nature's default setting as far as humans
are concerned, it's female. Uh yeah, I think it's pretty neat.
It's pretty neat. Well, you know, women are the seed
of everything, seed of life. Um, so it's what everybody
(07:42):
calls them, the seed of life. So um. The the
simple answer then is the reason we have nipples is
because we've always had nipples. And through the years, evolution
never said, you know what, you don't need nipples. No,
And um, the I think the case has been made.
The reason men still have nipples because nipples are so
(08:03):
vital to female reproductive success that, um, there's no Conger
points out, there's no adaptive pressure to select nipples out
of men. Yeah, it's such a vital function. Right, So
it's like we don't want to possibly mess with anything,
So everybody gets nipples. Okay, you just live with it. Yeah. Yeah,
but that's why men have nipples because nature's default setting
(08:26):
for humans is girls. Yeah. That's interesting. And um, I
love my little nipples. I'll just come out and say it.
Do you do well? I think it would be odd
to not have them. I don't think so. It's a
little getting used to, but I think, um, I think
it would not look on you know, we did our
our Barbie podcasts that come out already. Yeah, and there
(08:47):
are web there are people on the web that will
teach you how to make nipples. For your Barbie dolls.
I saw their kindles. Yeah, yeah, like very realistic, looking,
very realistic. But yeah, you look like a kin doll.
This would just be weird. I don't think ken looks
abnormal without nipples because it's a doll. It also doesn't
look at normal without a penis. That's true, you know. Yeah,
(09:08):
I think you would be the little distressed if you
woke up one day without nipples. Or maybe you'd love it.
Maybe it's a new lease on life for you. Yeah,
I'd be like, just go bare chested everywhere. Great, I'm
a freak. Yeah yeah. Um, so we said, Chuck, something
that's kind of interesting. If you ask me, if you
take a six year old boy and a six year
(09:29):
old girl, prep bess boy and pre pubescent girl, and
you compared their um, their memory glands, the whole memory
operation they've got going on, they're virtually the same. And
it's not until estrogen comes along that the the differences
really change. The fat develops, so the breasts get bigger. Um,
(09:53):
these milk ducks developed. You've You've got all this this
process that's that just kind of takes these things that
are almost latent in turns them into functioning breasts. Right, Um,
if we've found if you expose a man to estrogen,
he could conceivably lacktate himself. That's part two of this.
(10:17):
We didn't even put that in the title because we
didn't want to just blow your minds right out of
the gate. But the point is is men have nipples
because girls have nipples, and men can lack take because
women can lack take. Yeah, and in fact, as little babies, um,
you and I might have lactated. Who knows when the
(10:39):
hormone prolactin is what facilitates breast milk production, and new
moms um when they can actually pass this along in
utero to their fetus, and that little baby can come
out if they get enough of that passed along with
the ability to lactate both little boys and little girl,
(11:00):
and it's called witches milk um only last couple of weeks. Usually, yeah,
I'll bet it's a distressing couple of weeks if you're
the parent, like, what is going on? Well, I'm sure
it's explained. There's all sorts of weird things that can
happen right away that you're like, what and uh, I
think Usually doctors like, don't worry that a little fun
thing else the brain will grow together. Are not the brain,
(11:20):
The skull will grow together at some point. Don't worry
about this, just don't pat it on ahead an Um,
So that yeah, which is milk? It occurs, and I
don't know how rare it is, she didn't say, but
is it? Yeah? Even rarer? Is um spontaneous lactation in
adult men. Yes, and that's called galacteria, which does not
(11:42):
sound very pleasant. No it doesn't. But essentially, if um,
if you lack enough testosterone that your estrogen levels are
comparatively high, you can um suffer galacteria, which basically is
male lactation. Spontaneous elactation. Yeah, but um, Congor points out,
(12:03):
it could be you know, the cause of alarm though, uh,
if you're an older man, correct, is that just because
of the testosterone deficiency? Okay, yeah, but Darwin thinks, hey,
maybe early man breastfed, like full on breastfed, and who knows,
maybe they did. Who's to say? Are we to say? No,
Charles Darwin? Yeah, Um, so you've got galacteria is a possibility,
(12:26):
which is milk is possibility? Two ways that um human
males can spontaneously lactate and we're not the only ones
who do. There's a type of bat that was discovered
to lactate spontaneously, and a surprising amount of animals over
the course of the last century or two have been
exposed to all sorts of different tests to make them
(12:48):
spontaneously lactate. UM. A steer was made to lactate. Do
you know how surprised that steer must have been? UM.
But we've found that if you can, if you can
increase estrogen levels and trigger the release of prolactin, you
can make men produce milk. And it happens sometimes. So
(13:10):
the prolactin is UM is produced by the thyroid gland
right tuitary gland. Yeah, and women when they have a
little baby, they it really ramps up like ten times
as much exactly. So what they found is that UM
after a baby is born. Dad's suffer, I guess suffer
it's not the right word. Dad's experience an increase in
(13:34):
prolactin production too. Normally, it's not it's not enough to
cause lactation, but they suspect you can make it happen
if you are okay, So this is really strange. If
you hold a baby to your breast and your nipple
and your man and you're the father, so you're already
kind of like prolactin high. You could conceivably trigger the
(13:57):
production of milk if you did that repeatedly over the
over the course of like a couple of weeks. Yeah,
it's like it's a physiological response and biological I guess
sort of all wrapped up into one, and you can
have like a sympathy lactation almost. Yeah, and it's happened
two thousand two in Sri Lanka, right. Yeah. Um. I
didn't actually get to look this guy up, so I
(14:18):
don't know a whole lot about him other than the
fact that he breastfed his daughters after his wife died. Yes,
his wife died during a childbirth and he took over. Wow,
that's amazing. But another way to um lactat as if
you're starving chuck. Yeah. Um, there was this one pow camp,
Japanese pow camp, and just one there was five cases
(14:42):
of men lactating, uh, spontaneously for each other. No, you
would think, Um, actually, what what happens is so your
your pituitary gland produces prolactin um and your liver is
typically charged with um eating up excess hormones. Right. Um,
(15:03):
when you're starving, both of them kind of slow down.
But when you start to eat normally again, your petuitary
gland starts functioning quicker than your liver, so you have
higher levels of hormones, including prolactant. Hence you have starving
men who lack tate. Wow, that's a reality show some
sort of island location islands, I don't know. And there
(15:55):
there's a tribe, the Acca pygmy tribe in Africa. There's
about out on them and this dude it was documented
that they men breastfeed their children and this dude went
and live with them. And uh, not only that, it's amazing.
They're they're known as the best fathers in the world
because they spend forty seven percent of their time um
(16:20):
percent of the time their babies are within arm's reach
of the father, which is far and away more than
any other culture in the history of the world. And
the gender roles in this Accat tribe are completely interchangeable.
Like sometimes the men go out and hunt, the women
take care of things. Sometimes the women go out and
hunt and the men watch the clay pots and take
(16:41):
care of the children, and it's just they don't know
gender roles like that. It's just completely interchangeable. It's pretty cool.
That is very cool. Um. And that's a that was
a question that kind of Darwin raised, like, well, wait
a minute, maybe we used to breastfeed. Men used to breastfeed,
and that's why we have this, which would make it vestigial, right,
like wisdom teeth appendix. It's something that we used to
(17:02):
use that we don't anymore. So it's just superfluous um.
Or it's possible that we can in a pinch do it,
which would not make a vestigial because we we could
still conceivably use it like thead in Sri Lanka, the
aka um the I guess the big question that it
underlines is like like why if men can do it,
(17:26):
why aren't we Yeah, why why wouldn't you do that?
Especially if we live in generally monogamous cultures? Well, I
think probably because of the evolution, because women did it
for tens of thousands of years. Only like if we
had kept doing it, if early man did do that
and they just kept doing it, then today you and
I might it might be like, hey, I'll pump and
(17:48):
dump today honey, exactly, don't worry about it. So let
me ask you this, if we stopped, if we used
to do it, even if we didn't used to do it,
the very fact that we're equipped to do it, like
under the right conditions, under the right chem coll baths,
you and I could lac take right now, right, let's
have a party. As our culture has become more and
more monogamous, and it's we get further and further away
(18:10):
from males going around and spreading their DNA with as
many mates as possible and instead pair up. Then, um,
it's entirely possible that ten thousand years from now, men
and women will both breastfeed. We've got the equipment. It's possible.
It will just get easier and easier for us to
do it, and then we will breastfeed as well. Interesting
(18:32):
it is, Well, it's apparently quite a bonding experience between
mother and child, and so I do it. Jerry just laughed.
I was not breathfed, however, Oh you weren't, now, man,
I was the child number three, and um, your mom
was over it. Yeah, she's just like I can know
more so, Uh, I've never looked into the ramifications of
(18:53):
that psychologically if that matters. It seems like you turned
out Okay, no comment. So before we sign off, I
guess we should raise the point that because we do
have a lot of the same anatomy underneath, UH, men
can get breast cancer. Um, it's not rare, but it's
not super common. I think in the two thousand twelve
about American men were diagnosed with breast cancer, and so
(19:18):
it happens. You never hear about it there. There's nothing
to be ashamed of guys. And that's that's a high
enough rate to say for some to say like, well,
then that means that nipples should be selected out in
men and probably will eventually while they're in lies. What
we mentioned earlier is the fact that it could be
just a flaw, an adaptive flaw over the years. Yeah,
(19:40):
what about um, third nimples, additional nipples. Did you know
that they happen most frequently in males and on the
left side. It's interesting one in forty newborns has an
extra nipple. Yeah, a lot of I mean, have you
ever seen these? Yeah, they don't usually look like a
full on Sometimes it looks like a birth the mark
(20:00):
or something like that. Um, it has a tooth growing
in it. But um, yeah, Chandler had the third nipple
and friends, right, all right, that's superfectly sod crusty the clown. Really,
I didn't think I knew that. Yeah, one in forty
that's way more common than I think. That means that
I know if you dudes have a third nipple. They
just hadn't told me. I don't think I know forty people.
(20:50):
You're so weird. Uh you got anything else? Nope? Okay. Well, um,
if you want to learn more about male nipples, male actation,
and evolution vestigial stuff, you can type in why do
men have nipples in the search part how stuff works
dot Com and it'll bring up this article. And I
said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Uh. Well, whoa, whoa.
(21:16):
I guess I need to stop myself stop. Uh. We
have a television show coming out where I played Josh,
you play Chuck. And the television show is called Stuff
You Should Know. Um and uh it's coming out on
Science Channel January nineteenth, Saturday at ten pm two episodes
for the big debut. That's right, and we are debuting
(21:39):
after the season three premiere of Idiot Abroad with Ricky
Jervais and Carl Pilkington. Yes, which we're excited about. That's
a great lead in for us. And if you don't
have cable and you don't have Science Channel, or even
if you do and you're like I love that and
I want to see it eight hundred times, you can
get it on iTunes. I'm told now. Uh, they are
making the shows available on iTunes for purchase the day
(22:01):
after the episode airs, and episode one is free dudes
and do deads. Yeah, so every Saturday when we have
a new episode the following day on iTunes, you'll be
able to buy it. That's right. Um, So January nine
is the big premiere. I'm already wearing a dickie and
a bow tie and little cuffs right now. How do
I look? You look great? I'm getting ready slowly, but surely.
(22:23):
That's right. Uh, that's ten pm on Science Channel stuff.
You should know the television show. It's going to be
great January, isn't there? Right? All right now, listener mail,
I'm gonna call this uh mustache woman. Remember during one
of the November plugs, I think said something about ladies.
Of course, you don't have a mustache, but blah blah blah,
(22:45):
it can happen, and this is probably a pretty good
podcast to mention this. Okay, this from Kayleb guys. I
was listening to what will Happen When We reach the
Singularity and Chuck said, men, I guess women, if you
can grow a mustache, more power to you. Immediately up
the podcast. What can Email? I suffer from a condition
known as polycystic ovarian syndrome p c o S, which
(23:08):
is a leading cause of infertility and effects about twelve
of women. Many women don't know what it is or
that they have it, but symptoms include um, infrequent or
no menstruation cycles, acne, weight gain, diabetes and insulin UH
insulin resistance and her her sutism her like her which
(23:31):
is excess hair UH. It can lead to women growing
hair where no woman should on the face, excessive arm hair, legs,
and even hair on the nipples. Luckily, I am not
affected by this particular symptom, but some women report having
to shave several times a day, including sneaking razors into
work to shave their faces. UH. Needless to say, this
is a devastating reality and can have huge impacts on
(23:52):
a woman's confidence an emotional well being. One lady with
PCOS is participating in November to raise money for men's
health awesome and to promote PCOS awareness. That is really awesome,
very cool. So I'd love if you could read this
on the air and raise some awareness around this condition.
You can find more information through the Polycystic Association of
(24:13):
Australia via Twitter at p O s A A on
Australian Please don't do an impersonation? Are you going to now?
That's terrible. I would really appreciate the plug, big fan
of you guys. Uh, this is Kayla awesome, Kaylea, thank
you very much for writing in and uh, thank you
to the woman who grew mustache from November. That's pretty awesome.
(24:37):
Head hats off to you. Um. If you want to
let us know about something that we obviously don't know
about um because we made some weird reference to it, who,
you can tell us all about it on Twitter at
s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you
can send us a good old fashioned email to Stuff
(24:58):
podcast at disco every dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff Works dot com,
m
Hey, everybody, this is Chuck with this uh Saturday select
edition of Stuff you Should Know? And this week I
picked out a little show called why do Men Have Nipples?
And that's how you have to say it in your
head when you read it out loud. This from January,
and if I remember correctly, Um, it's just kind of
(00:21):
an interesting episode. I think Josh and I we're looking
at each other one day with their shirts off. I
was like, why you have nipples? Why do you have nipples?
And that's generally how most of our shows get started.
So give it a listen and I hope you enjoy it.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
(00:43):
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we're doing this. We're
doing it whether you like it or not. Yeah, we're
recording our podcast Stuff you Should Know. Probably no because
you tuned in, so welcome and if it was an accident, Hey,
(01:05):
welcome to the party. Talk about serendipity. You're about to
learn about male nipples. Yeah you want to talk about
a party? Yeah? You got him? I got him. We
all do. Uh, do you want to talk about chromosomes
for a second. Sure, okay, chuck, uh, you and I
each have twenty three chromosomes in our body. We talked
(01:27):
a little bit in Designer Children. I think, yeah about
little genetics over We're not gonna go into that now.
But um, the twenty three chromosomes. H if you put
a man in a woman side by side, or their
chromosomes side by side, twenty two of the twenty three
chromosomes are going to be exactly alike. It's that twenty
three that gets you. The twenty three chromosome either has
(01:49):
a pair of xes or an X and a Y.
Pair of xes equals a woman, X Y equals a man. Okay,
we're not that far apart. We're really not. And that
becomes very very clear when we're in utero because sexual dimorphism,
which is the the inward and outward differences between genders
(02:11):
between male and female, like who who's in ha haas
and that kind of stuff. Um, those are all uh,
those are all hammered out in the course of our
development on the twenty three chrome zone. Right, A lot
of it you come out with, right, you were born
with a vagino or a penis, right, Um, but a
(02:35):
lot of it is also set up to be kicked
in when puberty happens. That's right, but still there's differences,
there's changes, and it's all because of this twenty three
chrome zone. Some of the things though, can go either
way and depending on what happens when puberty comes along. Um,
either nothing's going to happen to these to this equipment,
(02:57):
I guess you could call it yea or um. A
lot of crazy things happened to it. And one of those, uh,
the good examples of this are nipples. There's a really
great question, why do men have nipples? Chuck? Yeah, I
have a funny little story about this. My sister and
I were hanging out about about fifteen years ago, and
(03:17):
I was They had a male dog and I was
rubbing the belly and the dog had very like just
pronouncing nipples more so than you you would usually see
on a male dog. And I guess I never noticed before,
and I was just like, I was kind of grossed out.
I was like, what is your dog nipples? And she's like,
you have nipples? And then it just like it was
an awakening my mind. Yeah, It's like, wow, you're right,
(03:40):
I do why And I never really researched things like
this back then, and uh, now I know why. Now
we know why. Yeah, and we should say this is
um the generally accepted explanation. It's not necessarily scientific fact,
but it is um. This is pretty much why. Ye,
(04:01):
most mammals, in fact, most male mammals have nipples. I
think mice, stallions and uh platyppie. Yeah, the male platypus
is among the handful of animals that of mammals that
where the boys are born nipple free, which is weird
because um, as Conger points out Christen Conger from Stuff
(04:23):
Mom Never told you she wrote this article, and um
she points out that you can make the case that
mice are more evolved in that respect than human males. Yeah.
Ours could be a flaw. Yeah, um, we'll get to that. Well,
let's talk about this. So they're back in uh nine,
(04:44):
right before Y two K it's y two K fever,
Yale University researchers released the study that said, Hey, we've
gotten to the bottom of this mystery of why or
how male mice don't grow nipples. They're just completely seriously,
go out in your yard right now, trap a mouse,
pick it up by its tail and examine it's some
(05:04):
little belly, no nipples, Yeah, nothing, or if it's got nipples,
that means it's a little lady exactly. That's the way
you tell. That's one of the ways you tell with mice.
And it's because of a protein pth little r P. Yeah.
It's always so exciting when they give them names like this. Uh.
(05:25):
After mice are after their memory tissue starts to form,
produces this protein. Uh. And in male mice it signals
the cells to form male hormone receptors and uh, it
basically destroys the tissue. Yeah, like in utero. Correct, Yes,
because boy mice and male and female mice are all
(05:46):
they all develop mammory tissue, which gives you all the
equipment for nipples and breasts and milk ducks and all
that stuff. They just destroy theirs before they're born. Yeah,
that protein signals that for to be destroyed in male mice. Uh,
prepare for the mind blower. Now, boys and girls as
humans undergo a very similar process in utero as well. Um,
(06:11):
before that sexual dimorphism that's really carried out by the
twenty three chromosome begins. We both both genders start to
develop um memory tissue, uh, and develop all the equipments
called milk lines. They're like kind of like calls it
the plumbing. We have the same plumbing exactly, which is
kind of funny and true. Yeah, um we and we
(06:33):
developed this plumbing before it's decided or before we start
to um develop sexual traits. So it's almost like if
you look at a timeline of sex sexual development, the
nipples come first, so that they're not associated as far
as the I guess nature is concerned with male or
(06:55):
female humans the same thing. Yeah, So we don't have
a protein that takes care of this um the nipples
and males. So men are and boys and girls are
born with pretty much exactly the same setup until puberty,
that's right, And that's when the hormones kick in. Estrogen
and girls is going to cause breast growth and mamory
(07:18):
gland development, and that's when things diverge. You know what
It really stood out to me on this um that
means that our nature's default setting as far as humans
are concerned, it's female. Uh yeah, I think it's pretty neat.
It's pretty neat. Well, you know, women are the seed
of everything, seed of life. Um, so it's what everybody
(07:42):
calls them, the seed of life. So um. The the
simple answer then is the reason we have nipples is
because we've always had nipples. And through the years, evolution
never said, you know what, you don't need nipples. No,
And um, the I think the case has been made.
The reason men still have nipples because nipples are so
(08:03):
vital to female reproductive success that, um, there's no Conger
points out, there's no adaptive pressure to select nipples out
of men. Yeah, it's such a vital function. Right, So
it's like we don't want to possibly mess with anything,
So everybody gets nipples. Okay, you just live with it. Yeah. Yeah,
but that's why men have nipples because nature's default setting
(08:26):
for humans is girls. Yeah. That's interesting. And um, I
love my little nipples. I'll just come out and say it.
Do you do well? I think it would be odd
to not have them. I don't think so. It's a
little getting used to, but I think, um, I think
it would not look on you know, we did our
our Barbie podcasts that come out already. Yeah, and there
(08:47):
are web there are people on the web that will
teach you how to make nipples. For your Barbie dolls.
I saw their kindles. Yeah, yeah, like very realistic, looking,
very realistic. But yeah, you look like a kin doll.
This would just be weird. I don't think ken looks
abnormal without nipples because it's a doll. It also doesn't
look at normal without a penis. That's true, you know. Yeah,
(09:08):
I think you would be the little distressed if you
woke up one day without nipples. Or maybe you'd love it.
Maybe it's a new lease on life for you. Yeah,
I'd be like, just go bare chested everywhere. Great, I'm
a freak. Yeah yeah. Um, so we said, Chuck, something
that's kind of interesting. If you ask me, if you
take a six year old boy and a six year
(09:29):
old girl, prep bess boy and pre pubescent girl, and
you compared their um, their memory glands, the whole memory
operation they've got going on, they're virtually the same. And
it's not until estrogen comes along that the the differences
really change. The fat develops, so the breasts get bigger. Um,
(09:53):
these milk ducks developed. You've You've got all this this
process that's that just kind of takes these things that
are almost latent in turns them into functioning breasts. Right, Um,
if we've found if you expose a man to estrogen,
he could conceivably lacktate himself. That's part two of this.
(10:17):
We didn't even put that in the title because we
didn't want to just blow your minds right out of
the gate. But the point is is men have nipples
because girls have nipples, and men can lack take because
women can lack take. Yeah, and in fact, as little babies, um,
you and I might have lactated. Who knows when the
(10:39):
hormone prolactin is what facilitates breast milk production, and new
moms um when they can actually pass this along in
utero to their fetus, and that little baby can come
out if they get enough of that passed along with
the ability to lactate both little boys and little girl,
(11:00):
and it's called witches milk um only last couple of weeks. Usually, yeah,
I'll bet it's a distressing couple of weeks if you're
the parent, like, what is going on? Well, I'm sure
it's explained. There's all sorts of weird things that can
happen right away that you're like, what and uh, I
think Usually doctors like, don't worry that a little fun
thing else the brain will grow together. Are not the brain,
(11:20):
The skull will grow together at some point. Don't worry
about this, just don't pat it on ahead an Um,
So that yeah, which is milk? It occurs, and I
don't know how rare it is, she didn't say, but
is it? Yeah? Even rarer? Is um spontaneous lactation in
adult men. Yes, and that's called galacteria, which does not
(11:42):
sound very pleasant. No it doesn't. But essentially, if um,
if you lack enough testosterone that your estrogen levels are
comparatively high, you can um suffer galacteria, which basically is
male lactation. Spontaneous elactation. Yeah, but um, Congor points out,
(12:03):
it could be you know, the cause of alarm though, uh,
if you're an older man, correct, is that just because
of the testosterone deficiency? Okay, yeah, but Darwin thinks, hey,
maybe early man breastfed, like full on breastfed, and who knows,
maybe they did. Who's to say? Are we to say? No,
Charles Darwin? Yeah, Um, so you've got galacteria is a possibility,
(12:26):
which is milk is possibility? Two ways that um human
males can spontaneously lactate and we're not the only ones
who do. There's a type of bat that was discovered
to lactate spontaneously, and a surprising amount of animals over
the course of the last century or two have been
exposed to all sorts of different tests to make them
(12:48):
spontaneously lactate. UM. A steer was made to lactate. Do
you know how surprised that steer must have been? UM.
But we've found that if you can, if you can
increase estrogen levels and trigger the release of prolactin, you
can make men produce milk. And it happens sometimes. So
(13:10):
the prolactin is UM is produced by the thyroid gland
right tuitary gland. Yeah, and women when they have a
little baby, they it really ramps up like ten times
as much exactly. So what they found is that UM
after a baby is born. Dad's suffer, I guess suffer
it's not the right word. Dad's experience an increase in
(13:34):
prolactin production too. Normally, it's not it's not enough to
cause lactation, but they suspect you can make it happen
if you are okay, So this is really strange. If
you hold a baby to your breast and your nipple
and your man and you're the father, so you're already
kind of like prolactin high. You could conceivably trigger the
(13:57):
production of milk if you did that repeatedly over the
over the course of like a couple of weeks. Yeah,
it's like it's a physiological response and biological I guess
sort of all wrapped up into one, and you can
have like a sympathy lactation almost. Yeah, and it's happened
two thousand two in Sri Lanka, right. Yeah. Um. I
didn't actually get to look this guy up, so I
(14:18):
don't know a whole lot about him other than the
fact that he breastfed his daughters after his wife died. Yes,
his wife died during a childbirth and he took over. Wow,
that's amazing. But another way to um lactat as if
you're starving chuck. Yeah. Um, there was this one pow camp,
Japanese pow camp, and just one there was five cases
(14:42):
of men lactating, uh, spontaneously for each other. No, you
would think, Um, actually, what what happens is so your
your pituitary gland produces prolactin um and your liver is
typically charged with um eating up excess hormones. Right. Um,
(15:03):
when you're starving, both of them kind of slow down.
But when you start to eat normally again, your petuitary
gland starts functioning quicker than your liver, so you have
higher levels of hormones, including prolactant. Hence you have starving
men who lack tate. Wow, that's a reality show some
sort of island location islands, I don't know. And there
(15:55):
there's a tribe, the Acca pygmy tribe in Africa. There's
about out on them and this dude it was documented
that they men breastfeed their children and this dude went
and live with them. And uh, not only that, it's amazing.
They're they're known as the best fathers in the world
because they spend forty seven percent of their time um
(16:20):
percent of the time their babies are within arm's reach
of the father, which is far and away more than
any other culture in the history of the world. And
the gender roles in this Accat tribe are completely interchangeable.
Like sometimes the men go out and hunt, the women
take care of things. Sometimes the women go out and
hunt and the men watch the clay pots and take
(16:41):
care of the children, and it's just they don't know
gender roles like that. It's just completely interchangeable. It's pretty cool.
That is very cool. Um. And that's a that was
a question that kind of Darwin raised, like, well, wait
a minute, maybe we used to breastfeed. Men used to breastfeed,
and that's why we have this, which would make it vestigial, right,
like wisdom teeth appendix. It's something that we used to
(17:02):
use that we don't anymore. So it's just superfluous um.
Or it's possible that we can in a pinch do it,
which would not make a vestigial because we we could
still conceivably use it like thead in Sri Lanka, the
aka um the I guess the big question that it
underlines is like like why if men can do it,
(17:26):
why aren't we Yeah, why why wouldn't you do that?
Especially if we live in generally monogamous cultures? Well, I
think probably because of the evolution, because women did it
for tens of thousands of years. Only like if we
had kept doing it, if early man did do that
and they just kept doing it, then today you and
I might it might be like, hey, I'll pump and
(17:48):
dump today honey, exactly, don't worry about it. So let
me ask you this, if we stopped, if we used
to do it, even if we didn't used to do it,
the very fact that we're equipped to do it, like
under the right conditions, under the right chem coll baths,
you and I could lac take right now, right, let's
have a party. As our culture has become more and
more monogamous, and it's we get further and further away
(18:10):
from males going around and spreading their DNA with as
many mates as possible and instead pair up. Then, um,
it's entirely possible that ten thousand years from now, men
and women will both breastfeed. We've got the equipment. It's possible.
It will just get easier and easier for us to
do it, and then we will breastfeed as well. Interesting
(18:32):
it is, Well, it's apparently quite a bonding experience between
mother and child, and so I do it. Jerry just laughed.
I was not breathfed, however, Oh you weren't, now, man,
I was the child number three, and um, your mom
was over it. Yeah, she's just like I can know
more so, Uh, I've never looked into the ramifications of
(18:53):
that psychologically if that matters. It seems like you turned
out Okay, no comment. So before we sign off, I
guess we should raise the point that because we do
have a lot of the same anatomy underneath, UH, men
can get breast cancer. Um, it's not rare, but it's
not super common. I think in the two thousand twelve
about American men were diagnosed with breast cancer, and so
(19:18):
it happens. You never hear about it there. There's nothing
to be ashamed of guys. And that's that's a high
enough rate to say for some to say like, well,
then that means that nipples should be selected out in
men and probably will eventually while they're in lies. What
we mentioned earlier is the fact that it could be
just a flaw, an adaptive flaw over the years. Yeah,
(19:40):
what about um, third nimples, additional nipples. Did you know
that they happen most frequently in males and on the
left side. It's interesting one in forty newborns has an
extra nipple. Yeah, a lot of I mean, have you
ever seen these? Yeah, they don't usually look like a
full on Sometimes it looks like a birth the mark
(20:00):
or something like that. Um, it has a tooth growing
in it. But um, yeah, Chandler had the third nipple
and friends, right, all right, that's superfectly sod crusty the clown. Really,
I didn't think I knew that. Yeah, one in forty
that's way more common than I think. That means that
I know if you dudes have a third nipple. They
just hadn't told me. I don't think I know forty people.
(20:50):
You're so weird. Uh you got anything else? Nope? Okay. Well, um,
if you want to learn more about male nipples, male actation,
and evolution vestigial stuff, you can type in why do
men have nipples in the search part how stuff works
dot Com and it'll bring up this article. And I
said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Uh. Well, whoa, whoa.
(21:16):
I guess I need to stop myself stop. Uh. We
have a television show coming out where I played Josh,
you play Chuck. And the television show is called Stuff
You Should Know. Um and uh it's coming out on
Science Channel January nineteenth, Saturday at ten pm two episodes
for the big debut. That's right, and we are debuting
(21:39):
after the season three premiere of Idiot Abroad with Ricky
Jervais and Carl Pilkington. Yes, which we're excited about. That's
a great lead in for us. And if you don't
have cable and you don't have Science Channel, or even
if you do and you're like I love that and
I want to see it eight hundred times, you can
get it on iTunes. I'm told now. Uh, they are
making the shows available on iTunes for purchase the day
(22:01):
after the episode airs, and episode one is free dudes
and do deads. Yeah, so every Saturday when we have
a new episode the following day on iTunes, you'll be
able to buy it. That's right. Um, So January nine
is the big premiere. I'm already wearing a dickie and
a bow tie and little cuffs right now. How do
I look? You look great? I'm getting ready slowly, but surely.
(22:23):
That's right. Uh, that's ten pm on Science Channel stuff.
You should know the television show. It's going to be
great January, isn't there? Right? All right now, listener mail,
I'm gonna call this uh mustache woman. Remember during one
of the November plugs, I think said something about ladies.
Of course, you don't have a mustache, but blah blah blah,
(22:45):
it can happen, and this is probably a pretty good
podcast to mention this. Okay, this from Kayleb guys. I
was listening to what will Happen When We reach the
Singularity and Chuck said, men, I guess women, if you
can grow a mustache, more power to you. Immediately up
the podcast. What can Email? I suffer from a condition
known as polycystic ovarian syndrome p c o S, which
(23:08):
is a leading cause of infertility and effects about twelve
of women. Many women don't know what it is or
that they have it, but symptoms include um, infrequent or
no menstruation cycles, acne, weight gain, diabetes and insulin UH
insulin resistance and her her sutism her like her which
(23:31):
is excess hair UH. It can lead to women growing
hair where no woman should on the face, excessive arm hair, legs,
and even hair on the nipples. Luckily, I am not
affected by this particular symptom, but some women report having
to shave several times a day, including sneaking razors into
work to shave their faces. UH. Needless to say, this
is a devastating reality and can have huge impacts on
(23:52):
a woman's confidence an emotional well being. One lady with
PCOS is participating in November to raise money for men's
health awesome and to promote PCOS awareness. That is really awesome,
very cool. So I'd love if you could read this
on the air and raise some awareness around this condition.
You can find more information through the Polycystic Association of
(24:13):
Australia via Twitter at p O s A A on
Australian Please don't do an impersonation? Are you going to now?
That's terrible. I would really appreciate the plug, big fan
of you guys. Uh, this is Kayla awesome, Kaylea, thank
you very much for writing in and uh, thank you
to the woman who grew mustache from November. That's pretty awesome.
(24:37):
Head hats off to you. Um. If you want to
let us know about something that we obviously don't know
about um because we made some weird reference to it, who,
you can tell us all about it on Twitter at
s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you
can send us a good old fashioned email to Stuff
(24:58):
podcast at disco every dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff Works dot com,
m
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