1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000 You know what, I've been around for a while. 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:13,000 I've traveled the world, met some interesting people, done some crazy things. 3 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,000 So you might just think there's not much that could take me by surprise. 4 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:21,000 You'd be wrong. 5 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:27,000 The world is full of stories and science and things that amaze and confound me every single day. 6 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:30,000 Incredible mysteries that keep me awake at night. 7 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,000 Some I can answer. 8 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:37,000 Others justify logic. 9 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:40,000 Does the brain have the power to kill? 10 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,000 Can the mind become our most powerful weapon? 11 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:47,000 The US Army investigates the paranormal, 12 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:53,000 asking if future conflicts could be fought using mind control. 13 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:58,000 Or the boy who loses his thumb in a horrific accident, only to have it grow back 14 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,000 thanks to a mysterious magical powder. 15 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:06,000 Can we really regenerate our limbs? 16 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:10,000 And in Indonesia, an incredible archaeological find 17 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:15,000 did humans once share the Earth with a race of hobbits? 18 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:17,000 Yep. 19 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,000 It's a weird world. 20 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,000 And I love it. 21 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:44,000 Throughout time, magicians, psychics and mentalists have claimed that they can move or lift objects, 22 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:49,000 walk through walls, and affect the outcome of events. 23 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:53,000 Or even cause bodily harm using only the power of thought. 24 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:56,000 But do these paranormal powers actually exist? 25 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:59,000 Can humans really use their mind to affect matter? 26 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:01,000 But come on. 27 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,000 I hear you say psychic power? 28 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:07,000 For real? What level-headed person would possibly take such a crazy idea? 29 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:10,000 Seriously? 30 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:14,000 Well, how about the United States Army? 31 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:21,000 In the late 1970s, the U.S. military did something extraordinary. 32 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:27,000 A group of top soldiers started to investigate whether the mind could be used as a weapon. 33 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:31,000 Among them was retired U.S. Army colonel John Alexander. 34 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:35,000 We had been blindsided by the Soviets on several occasions. 35 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:41,000 And so we had some senior leaders who were willing to explore very unique areas. 36 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:45,000 And paranormal phenomena was one of those. 37 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:49,000 The Army set up a top secret operation called the Stargate Project, 38 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:53,000 its mission to harness paranormal powers for military use. 39 00:02:53,000 --> 00:03:01,000 Some soldiers felt they had experienced the paranormal while advancing through enemy territory in the jungles of Vietnam. 40 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:04,000 They called it Point Man Syndrome. 41 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:08,000 When certain people are on point, they sense things like, 42 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:11,000 we're minds, we're ambushes and whatnot. 43 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:15,000 Other people don't have that. Why? Don't know. 44 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:21,000 John Alexander investigated psychokinesis, the ability to move objects just by thinking. 45 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:26,000 His experimentation started with spoon bending. 46 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:35,000 We had a session at my house, General Stubblebine, who was the head of INSCOM at the time, was present. 47 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:41,000 And we had a truly phenomenal event occur directly in front of us. 48 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:47,000 At this top secret session, a psychic was asked to demonstrate the power of the mind. 49 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:52,000 The guy held up a fork and this thing just dropped over 90 degrees. 50 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:59,000 And we saw that and we said, wow, need to look into how you can do that sort of thing. 51 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:04,000 And so that led to the process. And we set up a program to do that. 52 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:12,000 I ended up being able to teach this. And we used that not because bending cutlery makes any sense at all. 53 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:19,000 It was to get mindset. It was how do you convince people not to think within the box, if you will. 54 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:25,000 Alexander focused his unit's time and resources into learning this psychokinesis. 55 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:30,000 Amazingly, it wasn't long before he started to get results. 56 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:35,000 This particular one was Lieutenant Colonel. He was holding these forks just like this. 57 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:42,000 They used to be matched. This thing dropped over a full 90 degrees. 58 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:48,000 With all of us watching came back up and went to where it is now. 59 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:54,000 And you can see that however you look at it, those are dramatically different. 60 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,000 Absolutely no physical force involved. 61 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:08,000 Encouraged by their success, Alexander and General Stubblebine started programs to train soldiers to use other paranormal powers like remote viewing. 62 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:14,000 Remote viewing is a means of data acquisition. I guess you'd colloquially call it psych-expying. 63 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:21,000 You had an individual who was in a chamber in that case, usually at Fort Mead. 64 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:30,000 They were given specific targets, although they knew nothing about the target and said, tell us about what's going on at that location. 65 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:39,000 The Russians had built a huge concrete structure on the White Sea in the Arctic Circle, but US intelligence had no idea what it was for. 66 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:46,000 Alexander asked remote viewer number one, Joe McMoneagle, to use his psychic powers to see inside. 67 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:56,000 And he described the building. All they gave him initially, by the way, were coordinates, described the building, then went inside, looked and said, there's a big submarine in there. 68 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,000 And he described it and says it's double hulled. 69 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:04,000 Most interesting is that the missiles are forward of the sail. 70 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:13,000 Before that all of them had been behind and a number of other technologies to which our boat builders said, you can't do that. 71 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:17,000 If you build a submarine that big, it would go to depth and crush and whatnot. 72 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:21,000 Well, guess what? It became known as the Typhoon Class Submarine. 73 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:28,000 Again, our intelligence community had totally missed it because we had not heard that there were changes coming. 74 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:36,000 We also did not believe this cerebral centrism that anybody else could do it. 75 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:46,000 Unknown to the US, the Russians had developed a new ultra-secret class of submarine, the largest in the world, with multiple titanium pressure hulls. 76 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:55,000 And now, thanks to the supposed paranormal power of a US Army soldier, the Russians' secret was out. 77 00:06:55,000 --> 00:07:05,000 Was this result an incredible stroke of luck, a coincidence, or had the military application of remote viewing psychic espionage? 78 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:08,000 Actually paid off. 79 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:14,000 There's usually a pretty simple explanation for what seems to be an extraordinary event. 80 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:20,000 Jim Underdown has devoted his life to testing the claims of paranormal powers. 81 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:26,000 And we take it upon ourselves to use science to explain why some people hold some of these beliefs. 82 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:32,000 We do test people who make paranormal claims, so it depends on what the nature of their claim is. 83 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:39,000 The Center for Inquiry invites people to prove their powers in a scientifically acceptable testing environment. 84 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:49,000 While we had a woman who claimed to look inside the human body and tell if a kidney was missing or not, she failed her test. 85 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:56,000 We had people who claimed to be able to send words from one person to another. 86 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:02,000 He failed. So lots of people come forward with these claims. Zero are successful. 87 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:09,000 In fact, Underdown thinks their claimed powers have more to do with magic than with the supernatural. 88 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:16,000 Magicians are helpful in making inquiries into some of these claims because we suspect fraud sometimes. 89 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:24,000 And sometimes the simplest parlor magic trick is employed in the guise of supernatural power. 90 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:29,000 Skeptic investigator and magician Mark Edward knows how spoon bending is done. 91 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:34,000 He feels it has nothing to do with paranormal powers. 92 00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:40,000 A lot of people are interested in spoon bending, so I'm going to just show you how easy it really is if you focus your mind. 93 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:45,000 So focus on Ben. Think of Ben. 94 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:53,000 Yes, I can feel it starting to loosen. Yes, slightly, a little more. Keep concentrating. 95 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:56,000 There we go. Yes. 96 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:01,000 A lot of psychic energy in the room. And let's just try and get this part. This is really good. 97 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:05,000 You'll see it just true. 98 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:11,000 Mark is a magician, so he can't reveal how the trick is done. But one version goes something like this. 99 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:16,000 The spoon is already bent, but Mark is hiding the handle behind his fingers. 100 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:21,000 Mark has a false handle, which he pinches to make it look like the spoon is straight. 101 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:27,000 Releasing his grip makes the false handle drop so it looks like the spoon is bending. 102 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:34,000 When Mark shows us the bent spoon, he's actually diverting attention away from the fact he's pocketing the false handle. 103 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:37,000 Try and get this part. This is really good. 104 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:45,000 I would say it's possible to make the mistake of thinking that your mental state could aid you in bending the spoon. 105 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:51,000 It is impossible to think that the spoon could bend on its own without cheating. 106 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:58,000 In order for the spoon to bend on its own, you have to cheat. There is no physical way to do that. 107 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:08,000 For Jim Underdown, most claims of paranormal ability, including the ones researched by the U.S. Army, are a hoax. 108 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:16,000 So do the U.S. military waste millions of tax dollars on paranormal research after all it's all nonsense, right? 109 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:22,000 No, maybe not. You see, it's not just the Army that has taken such spookiness seriously. 110 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:30,000 Researchers at Stanford and Princeton universities studied phenomena like ESP and psychokinesis for 30 years. 111 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:39,000 And today, some scientists believe laboratory evidence for such psychic ability might actually exist. 112 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:44,000 This is an experiment looking at the relationship between mind and matter. 113 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:56,000 Brayden believes the human mind is capable of interacting with something far smaller than spoons, photons, the subatomic particles that make up light. 114 00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:03,000 Lisa is asked to place her attention on an optical system, which has a laser beam in it. 115 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:12,000 Hidden from view, a laser shoots a beam of photons through two tiny slits etched in a slide to create an interference pattern. 116 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:19,000 She's at a distance. She's not able to see the beam itself, but she's asked to imagine that she could see the beam. 117 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:27,000 And so what we're checking is whether or not pure awareness alone is able to interact with the physical world. 118 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:37,000 According to his theory, if psychokinesis exists, the subject should be able to influence the nature of the interference pattern just by thinking about the photons. 119 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:42,000 This picture here is showing what the camera sees in the double slit system. 120 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:46,000 And here, we're measuring what's happening in her brain. 121 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:52,000 So we want to see, is there a relationship between the EEG and the interference pattern? 122 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:58,000 If we could show that the relationship exists, then that's showing a mind-matter interconnection. 123 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:00,000 The experiment begins. 124 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:04,000 Welcome to the double slit experiment. Please relax. 125 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:05,000 Okay. 126 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:14,000 The subject is asked to imagine, in her mind's eye, the interference pattern. 127 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:19,000 You may now relax. 128 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:23,000 Then she's told to ignore the pattern completely. 129 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:33,000 At the conclusion of the experiment, the images of the interference pattern are compared to the EEG readout. 130 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:39,000 These colors are showing the degree of correlation. 131 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:42,000 If it's positive, we get a redder color. 132 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:53,000 And so this is interesting. This suggests that when Lisa is paying attention to the optical system, we actually see a change in the optical system, even though she's doing it in her mind. 133 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:59,000 And when she's not paying attention to the optical system, you get a very different pattern of activity. 134 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:01,000 Could this just be coincidence? 135 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,000 If we see red, it means that there's a relationship. 136 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:09,000 If we see this kind of red, it means it's a highly significant relationship. 137 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:14,000 It's meaningful that the relationship that we're seeing is not chance. It's a real effect. 138 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:19,000 So can the mind affect matter after all? 139 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:27,000 Raiden's findings are controversial, and the majority of scientists remain skeptical about psychokinesis. 140 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:36,000 Nevertheless, anecdotal reports suggest that the U.S. military still takes it seriously and restarted its paranormal research in the wake of 9-11. 141 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:46,000 Probably the biggest thing that happened was causing people to think and think differently and to think beyond the realm of the possible as they knew it. 142 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:56,000 So whether psychokinesis turns out to be a genuine phenomena embraced by those with open minds or merely cynical slights of hand, 143 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:05,000 the U.S. military's investigation into whether the mind could be used as a psychic weapon is definitely weird. 144 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:07,000 Or what? 145 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:12,000 The U.S. military is a national security organization that is responsible for the destruction of the U.S. military. 146 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:17,000 The U.S. military is responsible for the destruction of the U.S. military. 147 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:19,000 The U.S. military is responsible for the destruction of the U.S. military. 148 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:26,000 Oh! Almost lost a finger there. I need to hang down with that little pinky for a while yet. 149 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:30,000 But did you know that if I were a salamander or a nude, it wouldn't be such a big deal after all. 150 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:36,000 If they lose a limb or a tail, they can grow another. Wouldn't that kind of ability be cool? 151 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:40,000 But why would a nude be chopping vegetables? 152 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:42,000 Oh! 153 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:49,000 Can humans regenerate their limbs? Sounds like science fiction. 154 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:52,000 Well, it's not. 155 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:58,000 As this next story will show, the future is most definitely here. 156 00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:03,000 South Florida 2009 is a typical day for the Maraz family. 157 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:11,000 Dylan goes outside to wash the family car. He's accompanied by his two small sons, Freud and Junior, and 14-month-old Jiva. 158 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:15,000 Their mother, Jeanette, is inside. What happened next? 159 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:20,000 Was the beginning of a bizarre journey into the scientific unknown? 160 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:25,000 He was stepping out. He was coming out from the house to the outside. 161 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:32,000 When Yvonne was following him, he never noticed that Yvonne was behind him. 162 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:36,000 He shut the door like an un-normally kid would do. 163 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:42,000 And Yvonne was grabbing the edge of the door, and he shut the door. 164 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:47,000 In an instant, Jivan's right thumb is cut off just below the nail. 165 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:54,000 I grabbed some rack, the towel from the kitchen, so I put it around his finger. 166 00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:59,000 We were like, we need to rush. Yeah. Because he was losing a lot of blood. 167 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:07,000 I believe she was on her second towel. I'm in no blood. So, yeah, we just rushed to the hospital. 168 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:15,000 As they rushed to get medical aid, Jeanette and Freud and have no idea just how badly injured their baby son is. 169 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:25,000 Doctors treat Jivan's injury, but they tell his parents that since the rest of the thumb is missing, the boy's hand will be disfigured for life. 170 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:31,000 We were right at the hospital and waiting for the results. 171 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:41,000 The doctor told us that probably he was going to lose his thumb, and that was a bad news for us at the moment. 172 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:49,000 The Maraz family is devastated. They believe their youngest son will be permanently scarred and partially disabled. 173 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:58,000 But days later, the pediatrician offers some hope. He sends them to a doctor named Juan Bravo. 174 00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:04,000 He has a controversial new treatment known as pixie dust. He thinks it could improve Jivan's condition. 175 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:16,000 The product is simple. It's a powder and it's applied to the wound bed, and pretty much you reapply every 24-48 hours, and the tissue regenerates underneath it. 176 00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:23,000 Could Jivan's finger be saved? Simply by using a magic dust. It's an extraordinary claim. 177 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:31,000 We call the mother and I remember I call her and say, listen, we've come upon a product that is supposed to be great for fingers. 178 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:38,000 I've got pictures to show you. It should not have any side effects or any future complications for him. 179 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:43,000 And we would like to try it with him. And she was all up for it. 180 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:54,000 But the powder has never been used on a baby before. With no guarantee of success, Jeanette and Froyland would have to take a risk. 181 00:17:54,000 --> 00:18:06,000 It was the first time that they had used that on a baby. So I believe it was a first trial and we give them the yes. 182 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:16,000 Knowing little of pixie dust's mysterious healing power, just days after the first application, Jeanette and Froyland checked Jivan's wound. 183 00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:19,000 What they found was astonishing. 184 00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:29,000 We started seeing that his finger started to get a shape. We were surprised. We never thought it was going to work. 185 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:35,000 We applied powder every 48 hours for the first two weeks and then we spread it out to three times a week the third week. 186 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:38,000 And this really was no need after the third week. 187 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:45,000 It seems like science fiction. In just over three weeks, the seemingly miraculous had occurred. 188 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:53,000 After severing his digit, Jivan's thumb has grown back, nail, fingerprint and all. 189 00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:59,000 It looks like 99% equal to his left thumb. 190 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:08,000 When we finally removed the scab that was formed by the magic dust, what was underneath it? It was normal skin. It was a normal finger. It was like it never happened. 191 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:14,000 It's hard to believe that this finger was going to regenerate that fast and heal that fast. 192 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:22,000 I'm very happy. Yeah, I felt very happy to see that his finger grew. 193 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:28,000 But did the powder alone regenerate Jivan's thumb? If so, how? 194 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:33,000 Many pediatricians and other medical experts are skeptical. 195 00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:41,000 They believe the fact Jivan's thumb regenerated is not that surprising. It's an ability that starts in the womb. 196 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:50,000 We know that pretty serious injuries in fetuses can be completely healed normal like there was never an injury. 197 00:19:50,000 --> 00:20:01,000 What we do know, and I think everybody would agree, is that young children, for example, if they cut off the tips of their fingers, they can occasionally regrow them. 198 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:04,000 That's not a miracle. It was going to happen anyway. 199 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:08,000 But then something extraordinary happened. 200 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:17,000 What is less easy to explain is when you get an individual like a Lee Speedack. 201 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:27,000 In 2005, Lee Speedack, a 64-year-old man at the tip of his finger, cut off in a gruesome accident caused by a model airplane propeller. 202 00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:36,000 Weeks later, his finger grew back. It was possibly the first documented case of an adult regenerating a body part. 203 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:43,000 Remarkably, Lee Speedack's doctor suggested using the same powder Dr. Bravo applied four years later on Jivan. 204 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:49,000 Had the pixie dust now regenerated an adult human finger? 205 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:58,000 Dr. Ashkan Jiovani is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. He believes this kind of regeneration in humans is not possible. 206 00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:05,000 Well, limb regeneration itself is more possible in salamanders and the lizard family. 207 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:18,000 In human beings, you can regenerate skin, but to actually regenerate all the parts of a limb, the bones, the skin, the soft tissue fat, tendons, nerves, that's impossible for that to occur. 208 00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:30,000 Can body parts really grow back from just having the affected area sprinkled in some mysterious magical powder? Apparently so. 209 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:42,000 And it turns out this powder is not so magical after all. It's made up of something called ECM, extra cellular matrix. What's ECM? I don't know. 210 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:49,000 Steve Battelak is a research professor from the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. 211 00:21:50,000 --> 00:22:05,000 Extracellular matrix is the glue that holds all of the cells in our body together. All tissues, as most people know, are made up of cells, different cell types, skin cells, muscle cells, heart cells. 212 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:14,000 So extracellular matrix is what you might think of as an instructive template in which all the cells of our body live. 213 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:24,000 We can make powder forms, we can make sheet forms that look like sheets, we can make gels out of it, and these are important for different therapeutic applications. 214 00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:39,000 Extracellular matrix is the scaffolding upon which all tissue in the body is built. This mix of protein and connective tissue can signal the body to start the process of regrowth if applied to a wound. 215 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:47,000 Some scientists even believe it may be possible to use extracellular matrix to regrow an entire digit or limb. 216 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:59,000 It changes the default mechanism of healing of the body. It's something that Mother Nature has been working on for hundreds of millions of years of R&D, if you want to think of it that way. 217 00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:06,000 So we're just harvesting it and saying, OK, we know we're never going to do as good, so let's just see if we can collect this stuff without messing it up. 218 00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:13,000 So where do scientists get their ECM? Well, here's a clue. It's a cute, cuddly pink farmland. 219 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:23,000 Well, that just happens to have loads of therapeutic ECM. Perfect for regrowing limbs. Yes, no brainer. It's pigs. But why? 220 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:34,000 Pigs are a convenient and abundant source of extracellular matrix. The tissues from which they're made, like skin, small intestine, urinary bladder, 221 00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:43,000 are the throwaway products of the agricultural industry. So here's a tissue that would have been waste or maybe turned into fertilizer. 222 00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:49,000 We're now using as a medical device a regenerative medicine tool for reconstruction of tissue. 223 00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:59,000 Pigs are genetically similar to humans. Because of this, proteins found in their bladders can trigger a response in us. But how do they harvest it? 224 00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:07,000 So to prepare the extracellular matrix, we start with the raw pig bladder. And then by using a croak scraper, we simply spread the tissue, loosen the muscle fiber. 225 00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:13,000 Using forceps, then we grab that muscle and literally pull and tear it away from the underlying matrix. 226 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:18,000 So that's the outside layer, which we refer to as the abluminal layer, which is where the muscle was attached. 227 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:27,000 It then goes through what is referred to as a parasitic acid wash. At the end of that stage, the ECM is ready for use. 228 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:34,000 It can be freeze-dried and used as a dry sheet. That sheet then can either be used as is or ground into a fine powder. 229 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:39,000 But not everyone is convinced that ECM is the answer to this mystery. 230 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:44,000 Rocky Tuwan is the director of the Center of Cellular and Molecular Engineering. 231 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:51,000 He believes there's another explanation. Why Lee Speevac and G-Ven's fingertips grew back? 232 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:56,000 They may have a unique genetic predisposition that enables them to do it. 233 00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:02,000 Possibility of regenerating finger is definitely there, as shown by Lee's results. 234 00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:11,000 He may very well have a genetic, maybe even epigenetic, constitution that allows him to respond in this manner. 235 00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:18,000 Is it possible that people like G-Ven and Lee are able to regenerate while most of us can't? 236 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,000 Could we exploit their incredible ability? 237 00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:26,000 Before we can find the answer, far more research needs to be done. 238 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:34,000 What we're trying to do is try to figure out how in rare instances people are able to grow what their mechanisms are 239 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:40,000 and then also in situations where they can't regenerate and then try to compare the two. 240 00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:48,000 And by doing so, we hope to identify those factors or cells or genes that are responsible for this process. 241 00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,000 And that's how we can move forward. 242 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:55,000 One way this may be possible is through stem cell research. 243 00:25:55,000 --> 00:26:01,000 Found throughout growing embryos, but in only certain places in adults, 244 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:06,000 stem cells are unique because they can become almost any type of tissue in the body, 245 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:12,000 while other cell types like muscle or skin are fixed and unchangeable. 246 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,000 They're sort of like a wild card in a game of poker. 247 00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:23,000 Now, if scientists can figure out how to reprogram any cell into a stem cell through genetic manipulation, 248 00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:30,000 then it may be possible to regrow body parts wherever there is damage. 249 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:40,000 If we can instruct the body to regrow a body part, then why wouldn't we do that? 250 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:49,000 I don't think there's any doubt that someday we will be able to control the way cells act in the body. 251 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:55,000 In other words, we will be able to instruct the growth of new tissues and organs. 252 00:26:55,000 --> 00:27:00,000 But what we would like to do is be able to regrow your heart if you have a heart attack 253 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,000 that destroys so much of the heart muscle that you're going to die, 254 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:09,000 or to replace your kidney to get you off of dialysis, or to regrow your esophagus 255 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:16,000 so that you don't have to go through a life of misery after having it removed. 256 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:19,000 Instead, we will grow you a new esophagus. 257 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:24,000 This is not science fiction. It would have been science fiction 30 or 40 years ago. 258 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:29,000 Could this eventually lead to the holy grail of all scientific discoveries? 259 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,000 Could this give us eternal life? 260 00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:36,000 The fountain of youth has always been the holy grail. 261 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,000 It may change the life expectancy. 262 00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:45,000 If you're able to better locomote because you have better limbs and joints, 263 00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:51,000 you'll be more fit, for example, and maybe you eat better and feel better and so on and so forth, 264 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,000 it will probably affect your life expectancy. 265 00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,000 Imagine a world where no one gets old. 266 00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:02,000 What will our civilization look like in a hundred or a thousand years? 267 00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,000 Jeevan can say he had something to do with us. 268 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,000 Is that weird? Or what? 269 00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:28,000 What if I was to tell you that long ago, in a time before time, 270 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,000 in a remote land at the far edges of the known world, 271 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:37,000 lived a race of tiny people who lived in constant mortal fear of huge carnivorous dragons? 272 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:41,000 You might say, big deal, Shadr, like we haven't seen Lord of the Rings. 273 00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:46,000 But what I'm talking about isn't an epic tale of fiction set in Middle Earth. 274 00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:51,000 What I'm talking about is a real race of hobbits that may once have existed 275 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,000 and fought real dragons right here on our Earth. 276 00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:01,000 Now, I dare you to tell me that isn't weird or what. 277 00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:12,000 The remote island of Florese Southeast Asia has one of the most bizarre ecosystems in the world. 278 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:20,000 Inhabited by elephants, giant rats, and the deadly Komodo dragon, 279 00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:27,000 it is also the location of one of the most astounding archaeological discoveries in history. 280 00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:33,000 In 2001, a team of archaeologists traveled to the island 281 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:38,000 and began excavating deep in a cave called Liangboa. 282 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:44,000 Researchers started excavating at Liangboa, this limestone cave on Florese, Indonesia. 283 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:50,000 And during the first two years of excavation, they found some small bits of human bone, 284 00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,000 but they weren't sure exactly what it was. 285 00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,000 But then in 2003, they discovered more remains. 286 00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:02,000 This time, it was a complete skeleton of a 30-year-old female named LB1. 287 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:07,000 Carbon dating said she lived around 18,000 years ago. 288 00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:13,000 What confounded experts was that she was unlike any other human being ever found. 289 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,000 In looking at our species, it certainly does not fit in. 290 00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,000 If it was a member of our species, it would be very strange. 291 00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:25,000 The reason was astonishing. 292 00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:32,000 She was only around three feet tall, almost two and a half feet shorter than a modern North American woman. 293 00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:34,000 It's a very small individual. 294 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:38,000 It was around three foot, maybe a bit less than three feet in height. 295 00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:46,000 This remarkable discovery led this tiny, full-grown human specimen to be nicknamed the Hobbit. 296 00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,000 Was science fiction becoming science fact? 297 00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:58,000 And then discovered human-like species only three feet tall, sharing an island with Komodo dragons and giant rats. 298 00:30:58,000 --> 00:30:59,000 Sounds too incredible? 299 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:03,000 The indigenous population of Florese think they know what this species is. 300 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:08,000 The mythical Abugogo, a creature they believe once inhabited the island. 301 00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:14,000 The Abugogo are said to have been small, hairy cave dwellers, same size as the Hobbit. 302 00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,000 These creatures are claimed to have survived until it's recently the last century. 303 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:25,000 Is the presence of the Hobbit skeleton's proof that the legends were actually true? 304 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:32,000 Legend or not, it's extraordinary, undeniable evidence on an Indonesian island of a fully grown human only three feet tall. 305 00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,000 How could this happen? 306 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:41,000 Matt Toceri is a paleoanthropologist and expert in ancient people. 307 00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:48,000 He believes one possible reason for their tiny size could be related to a phenomena called island droids. 308 00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:58,000 Island dwarfism is a description of a phenomena where in some cases on islands, say, or other ecological settings that are isolated, 309 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:02,000 that some animals get larger and other animals get smaller. 310 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:08,000 So rats and small animals tend to get larger, mostly because of access to resources as it relates to fertility. 311 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:14,000 So, you know, if there's only so much food, you're better off to be smaller because then you can have more offspring. 312 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:19,000 We don't know for sure if it happened in terms of the Hobbits, it may have, but it may not have. 313 00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,000 Basically, the Hobbit stands about a meter tall. 314 00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:27,000 And so that's quite small for a full grown adult. 315 00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:33,000 And so, the Hobbit is a small, large, and large animal. 316 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,000 That's quite small for a full grown adult. 317 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:46,000 And we haven't really seen normal body sizes of that height for a long period of time in human evolution going back more than two million years ago. 318 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:53,000 So to find something like that when we actually thought that sort of our body size increase, and particularly our lengthening of our legs, 319 00:32:53,000 --> 00:33:02,000 was a big part of our human evolutionary story, that to find something that doesn't fit into that and yet coexisted with us is really quite strange. 320 00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:07,000 But why did these remarkable creatures disappear? What happened to them? 321 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:14,000 Some theorize the Hobbit may have become extinct because they were eaten by the island's Komodo dragon population. 322 00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:17,000 Not nice. 323 00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:24,000 The Komodo dragon was a part of the Hobbits, if there's no question, just like it is the life of people that live on Komodo and Rincha today. 324 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:29,000 Did the Hobbits go after Komodo dragons? Or did the Komodo dragon go after the Hobbits? 325 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:36,000 These are questions that will continue to be answered. These are all possibilities. We're just not sure exactly how it played out. 326 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:43,000 But whatever their fate, this extraordinary discovery confronted scientists with an amazing possibility. 327 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:51,000 Our human evolutionary history is incomplete. And the Hobbit is an entire new species. 328 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,000 Well, the discovery on the floor has certainly broadened our understanding of human evolution. 329 00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:01,000 Does it change any of the general themes of what we've known? Not really. 330 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:10,000 But it does show us that we come from a very diverse family tree and that some of those branches of that tree subsisted for a lot longer than we thought previously. 331 00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:25,000 Generally we thought things like homophoresiensis went extinct a million or two million years ago and yet now we see them living very well on an isolated island in Indonesia up until even 18,000 years ago when modern humans are definitely in the near area. 332 00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:37,000 Knowing that there was a totally different early human species living on Earth coexisting with us that looked so different than us is something that was really mind-blowing to the scientific community. 333 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:52,000 Well, I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I think it adds a real level of diversity to our family tree and seeing something that in some ways looks so primitive that is so recent in time is really this great experiment in being human. 334 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:57,000 No matter what you thought it was, it's just an incredible find. 335 00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:06,000 I remember when it was first announced, you know, many, many scientists including myself were very skeptical about it. I mean, could this really be real? 336 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:15,000 But over time, you know, the evidence has just been consistently presented that shows us that, yeah, this is legitimate different species than our own. 337 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:21,000 Whilst the discovery of the Hobbit excited many scientists, others were less convinced. 338 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:33,000 I had a different viewpoint on this from the outset because when I read that first paper about the skirt, it just didn't fit. And so I looked for an alternative explanation. 339 00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:37,000 So is the Hobbit skull just a lonely example? 340 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:47,000 Or is there other evidence that can prove it is a new species of human relative? Is there anything else unique about the Hobbit? 341 00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:56,000 Well, it turns out they do have one distinctive characteristic that many experts say is proof that it is a separate species. 342 00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:04,000 Matt Toccheri is a paleoanthropologist and expert in ancient people. Matt has studied bones of the Hobbit's wrist. 343 00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:09,000 He believes the unique structure is proof that this is a new species. 344 00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:19,000 The reasons why I think it's a different species stem largely from my own research, which happens to be on the evolution of the wrist in humans and our close relatives, the great apes. 345 00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:26,000 There's been some big changes to our wrist in the last million years. Well, Homo Fresiensis doesn't show those changes. 346 00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:37,000 And so that basically says to me that it must be descended from an ancestor prior to that a million years ago because it doesn't share the derived anatomy we see in us in Neanderthals. 347 00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:45,000 Matt found that a key bone in the Hobbit's wrist is different to modern humans and more similar to a chimpanzee or ape. 348 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:53,000 He believes this means that the Hobbit is in fact a new and unknown species of human cousin. 349 00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:58,000 In terms of the wrist evidence, you can see that it's remarkably similar to what we see in chimpanzees. 350 00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:06,000 Now, that doesn't mean it's more closely related to a chimpanzee because the Hobbit share anatomy with modern humans in Neanderthals that chimpanzees don't. 351 00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:15,000 But what the wrist shows to us is that it retains the anatomy of the primitive hominin and so it must have branched off prior to this new morphology evolving. 352 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,000 And that's pretty amazing. 353 00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:22,000 This compelling evidence was presented to the world's scientific community. 354 00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:31,000 Since there were portions of other Hobbit skeletons found, they classified it as its own species with a Latin name Homo florencises. 355 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:38,000 But anthropologist Robert Martin has a different theory to explain the mystery of the Hobbit. 356 00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:50,000 This skull is really quite unusual. The skeleton is quite unusual and so you can understand why people said it must be a new species. It's a very unusual individual. 357 00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:57,000 Martin believes the Hobbit's inclusion into our evolutionary history was based on too little evidence. 358 00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:03,000 Archaeologists only recovered one skull among all the skeletal remains. 359 00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:11,000 And the point I really want to emphasize is that we have fragments of other individuals but we only have one skull. 360 00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:18,000 If they had found two or three or four skulls that were all the same, it would be much more difficult to argue. 361 00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:25,000 We should be very, very careful about basing huge interpretations on single specimens. 362 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:30,000 Dr. Martin feels the skull isn't consistent with our evolutionary history. 363 00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:34,000 He believes its small size raises a big problem. 364 00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:39,000 The Hobbit's skeleton is nearly 18,000 years old. 365 00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:46,000 If what we know about human evolution is true, the Hobbit's brain should be larger than it is. 366 00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,000 You have to go back three million years to find the brain that's small. 367 00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:56,000 But over the last three million years, the brain has got bigger in every other single hominid except this one. 368 00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,000 So that's a problem. 369 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:05,000 If we look at all of the known hominid skulls and plot out the brain size, you get a very nice curve. 370 00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:09,000 And the only thing that doesn't fit is this Hobbit from Flores. 371 00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,000 Martin has an amazing theory of his own. 372 00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:18,000 He suggests that the Hobbit's skeleton actually belongs to a modern human from Flores 373 00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,000 who suffered from a congenital disease known as microcephalia. 374 00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,000 And microcephalic simply means small head. 375 00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:29,000 It is a developmental abnormality. 376 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:37,000 It's the cost of the skull of a modern human microcephalic, a small brain, modern human. 377 00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:41,000 And this brain is exactly the same size as in the Hobbit. 378 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:47,000 Another convincing piece of evidence is that this disease also has another side effect. 379 00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:51,000 It produces a small body just like the Hobbit's. 380 00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,000 So the mystery deepens. 381 00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:58,000 Is it possible that the world's scientific community is wrong about the Hobbit? 382 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:08,000 To add to the mystery, completely new species of long extinct human relatives have started popping up all over. 383 00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:16,000 Most recently in a remote cave in Siberia where a tiny preserved human-like finger bone was unearthed 384 00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:23,000 with DNA unrelated to any of our so far discovered proto-human pals. 385 00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:29,000 Dr. Breanna Pobina is an education specialist from the Smithsonian Institute. 386 00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:37,000 She believes the Hobbit is just one of many previously undiscovered species and more will likely be found. 387 00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,000 New fossils are being found all the time. 388 00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:44,000 They often fit very well into the early human family tree. 389 00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:50,000 At least three other species of early humans have shared the earth with our species, Homo sapiens. 390 00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:57,000 Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis or neanderthals, and Homo fluoresiensis, the Hobbit. 391 00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:04,000 Potentially this new species found in southern Siberia, this pinky bone, could have even been a fourth species. 392 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:10,000 One of the ways they've determined this pinky bone belonged to a new species was by examining its DNA. 393 00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:18,000 Recent technological advances make it possible to sequence the genes of long extinct species, 394 00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:23,000 but mysteriously the Hobbit's DNA has never been examined. Why? 395 00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:32,000 It turns out the original DNA samples were damaged, and more bizarre since the first scientific paper was published, 396 00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:36,000 no one has been granted access to the original skeleton. 397 00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:41,000 The specimen has been kept pretty much under wraps by the discoverers. 398 00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:50,000 I requested access to CAT scans, CT scans to check this out, and I was refused access. 399 00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:56,000 You're not allowed to publish if you don't make the material accessible to other scientists. 400 00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:04,000 Despite the debate, Homo fluoresiensis, aka the Hobbit, is now widely accepted as a new human species. 401 00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:12,000 There's a lot about human evolution that's still a mystery. In a way it's like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. 402 00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:22,000 In the last 10 or 15 years, we've had an unprecedented amount of discoveries that tell us that the human family tree extends back about double the amount of time that we initially thought. 403 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:27,000 That the number of human species on the family tree is about double the number that we originally thought. 404 00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:32,000 So these finds, these new genetic finds, the fossils, the archaeological evidence, 405 00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:38,000 really is filling out the human family tree, shedding light on some of the darker mysteries of human evolution. 406 00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:47,000 Hobbits might indeed have existed, but their true origins may remain a mystery forever. 407 00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,000 Is that weird, or what? 408 00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:57,000 What kind of mystery is the mystery of human evolution? 409 00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:03,000 What kind of mystery is the mystery of human evolution? 410 00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:14,000 So there we have it. Three weird mysteries each with equally weird theories to possibly explain them. 411 00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:23,000 The US military investigates the power of mind over matter? What did they find? 412 00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:29,000 Can we control objects or even kill just by using our minds? 413 00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:35,000 Or are psychokinesis just a trick of magic? 414 00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:42,000 A young boy and an elderly man both regrow their fingers after horrific accidents. 415 00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:52,000 Can we regenerate limbs simply by using powder extracted from a pig's bladder? 416 00:43:53,000 --> 00:44:01,000 Or on an Indonesian island inhabited by deadly Komodo dragons, archaeologists discover something extraordinary 417 00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,000 that could rewrite the history of human evolution. 418 00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:08,000 A tiny three-foot skeleton. 419 00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,000 Is this a new species of human? 420 00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:15,000 Do hobbits really exist? You decide. 421 00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:23,000 Join me next time for more stories that will undoubtedly be weird, or what.