meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Unexplainable

Getting to the bottom of butts

Unexplainable

Vox

Life Sciences, Science, Natural Sciences

4.62.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Once upon a time, there were no anuses. These ingenious organs allowed our primordial ancestors to grow bigger and more complex, but scientists still don’t understand how they evolved. And they’re still grasping at a mystery that literally surrounds it: Why is the human butt so big? For more go to http://vox.com/unexplainable It's a great place to sign up for our newsletter, view show transcripts, and read more about the topics on our show. Also email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Support for this show comes from capital.com. Experience seamless trading with capital.com.

0:08.0

They're award-winning platform will keep you up to date on thousands of global markets.

0:13.0

Trade smart with capital.com. Go to capital.com slash box to learn more.

0:18.0

74% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

0:23.0

You should consider whether you understand how spread bets and CFDs work

0:26.0

and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

0:30.0

Support for this episode comes from Contentful.

0:33.0

In today's digital first world content is the customer experience.

0:37.0

But to build those experiences digital teams need an intelligent solution that can keep pace with their business goals.

0:43.0

Enter Contentful. Contentful empowers digital teams to scale and launch experiences quickly and efficiently.

0:50.0

Their composable content platform makes it easy to create, collaborate, manage, and deliver content across all of your channels all from one place.

0:58.0

Contentful. Where content drives business momentum, get started at contentful.com.

1:12.0

In the beginning...

1:16.0

There was nothing.

1:21.0

The back ends of our animal ancestors that swam the seas hundreds of millions of years ago were blank.

1:26.0

Religating the entry and exit of all food stuffs to a single multi-purpose hole.

1:34.0

Animals were serially monogamous with their meals, taking food in one glob at a time,

1:39.0

then expelling the scraps through the same hole.

1:44.0

The appearance of the anus was momentous in animal evolution,

1:47.0

turning a one-hole digestive sack into an open-ended tunnel.

1:52.0

Suddenly, animals had the luxury of downing multiple meals without needing to fuss with disposal in between.

1:57.0

Digestive tracks lengthened and regionalized,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vox, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Vox and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.