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A so-called dog tie.( Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig via Wikimedia Commos /)
What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s reached podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week makes Apple, Anchor, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every Wednesday morning. It’s your brand-new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spiralings the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the tales in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.
FACT: A jaunty foreskin tendency may have influenced religious circumcision
By Rachel Feltman
While researching weird historical sex stuff( as one does) and trying to determine whether or not Prince Albert really had a penis penetrating( he probably didn’t) I came across the fascinating phenomenon of the kynodesme, which is Greek for “dog tie.” In Ancient Greece and Rome it was common–trendy, even–for young people with penis to grasp the ends of their foreskins, pull them up over the glans, and use parts of sticky paper or pieces of string or leather to fasten them shut. In doing so, they basically bundled the glans of the penis snugly into a little goodie bag, ensuring it wouldn’t peek out to say hello while they were playing athletics( or just plain playing) in the buff.
The preference for foreskin over the rest of the external sex organ seems to have mostly been due to culture positions around sex and penis at the time. We discussed this a bit on a recent chapter of Weirdest Thing, but to make a long story short, size was not everything in Ancient Greece. In fact, a smaller penis was considered a sign of self-control and intellect, while a large one–especially if it didn’t have a foreskin to hide demurely inside of–was a sign of barbarism.
One of the most famous examples of the practice is shown in the ancient bronze sculpture known as “The Boxer, ” where the penis is not just fastened within the foreskin, but tucked and tied up out of the way. But there are many pieces of art and historical texts referencing this practice( and the related use of metal pins to keep foreskin shut over the penis) in non-athletes. It seems to have been quite popular among male singers and performers, who were likely leaning into the belief that ejaculation decreased their artistic abilities.
According to some intellectuals, current trends even forced the purposes of the act of religious circumcision. According to a 2007 newspaper in Reproductive Health Matters, Jewish circumcision up until around 300 BCE expected merely the objective of eliminating the very tip of the foreskin. This intend Hebrew athletes traveling to Greece to compete could, as “theyre saying”, do as the Athenians did: They assembled up their not-so-diminished foreskins and tied their penises up in little bales. This allegedly didn’t go over well with religious authorities at home, especially since the young men often came back with foreskins stretched out by the practice–undoing the visual evidence of their religious practice. Supposedly, this to be translated into a challenge that more foreskin come off during the bris.
FACT: Luxury department stores formerly sold rhino poop at a huge mark-up
By Ellen Airhart, host of the podcast Plant Crimes
Elephants and rhinoceroses are popular zoo attractiveness. But for a long time, they’ve furnished a service beyond amusement and education. Many metropolitan zoos have sold animal manure as “Zoo Doo, ” “ComPOOst, ” “Elepoo, ” or “Zoo Poopy Doo” to metropolitan composting programs, farmers, and even Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s. In this chapter of Weirdest Thing, I dive into the stinky history of poop, every zoo’s least endangered resources. Excrement from herbivores, such as elephants, rhinos, camels, and giraffes construct the best compost. Carnivore poop could contain cancers, and regulators ask managers to incinerate insect poop to prevent any obscured eggs from escaping the enclosures. Some zoos, nonetheless, employ rhinoceros beetles to roll other animal’s poop into easily packable projectiles. However they decide to sell and sell the poop, zoos have turned what could be an annoying mess into useful fertilizer.
FACT: Dimples are a defect, but people want them anyway
By Eleanor Cummins
You hate to say it but … a dimple is a birth defect. Specifically, it’s a genetically-determined depression in what should be a smooth face muscle. Lots of people have dimples–and even more want them. In many cultures, they’re considered attractive( perhaps because so many of us adore the chubby cheeks of youth ). The passion for dimpling is so strong that in the 1930 s, the status of women identified Isabella Gilbert of Rochester, New York, fabricated and sold machine to give wives dimples. It probably didn’t work and it emphatically hurt a lot.
On this occurrence of Weirdest Thing, we poke a little deeper.
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Read more: popsci.com
