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No Such Thing As A Fish
No Such Thing As A Fish

No Such Thing As Chekhov's Volcano

June 04, 2026 • 1h 0m

Summary

⏱️ 8 min read

Overview

This episode of No Such Thing As A Fish features guest Greg Foot, a science communicator and host of the new Baby Fact Check podcast. The hosts share fascinating facts about baby crying and Volvo vibrations, the physics of vacuums and the famous Magdeburg hemispheres experiment, volcanic eruptions and their surprising ability to clean up methane, and Paul McCartney's eye yoga practice. The conversation weaves through medieval baby care, space exploration, and the surprising modern origins of yoga.

Baby Crying and the Volvo 240 Solution

Greg Foot introduces the surprising fact that a Volvo 240 was once considered the best car for calming crying babies, thanks to its specific vibrations. The discussion explores the science behind why babies cry so much and for so long without damaging their vocal cords, touching on white noise machines, the crying curve universal to all babies, and historical remedies including medieval wine and opium-based colic drops. The conversation reveals that babies' vocal cords are fundamentally different from adults, being more elastic and shock-absorbent.

  • Tests showed a Volvo 240 had the right vibrations to calm crying babies, likely due to its resemblance to womb sounds and motion
  • Honda developed a small plush toy car that recreates womb sounds to help soothe babies
  • The first white noise machine was created in 1667 by architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Clement IX who suffered from insomnia
  • Babies can cry for hours without vocal cord damage because their vocal cords contain hyaluronic acid and lack stiffening ligaments, making them extremely elastic
  • There's a universal cry curve where babies increase crying around week 5-6, peaking at week 8, with some crying only 30-40 minutes daily while others cry up to 7 hours
" If you cannot get the child off wine, referring to red wine, then give it white wine, well diluted, and that will wean it off the red wine. "
" Colic drops used to be alcoholic. So colic is basically just a catch-all term for uncontrollable crying. And you used to get these drops that would help them, and they would have alcohol, but also opium sometimes. "

The Science of Crying Without Injury

The discussion delves into the remarkable physical adaptations that allow babies to cry for extended periods without damage, including the unique properties of infant vocal cords. The conversation also explores cultural differences in baby communication, with Italian babies using more gestures than American babies, and addresses the reality that there's limited reliable scientific evidence on best parenting practices for infants.

  • Baby vocal cords are filled with hyaluronic acid and lack stiffening ligaments, allowing them to absorb shock and enabling hours of crying without injury
  • Italian babies say fewer words than American babies at the same age, but use significantly more gestures; when gestures and words are combined, the totals are equal
  • Parents can distinguish their baby's cry based on time spent with the child, not biological connection - non-parents trained on a specific baby's cry perform as well as parents
  • All societies, including hunter-gatherer groups, show the same frequency of crying in babies under three months old
" If any one of us were to scream for several hours, we would be in pain. How do they do it? Their vocal cords are physically just very different to adult vocal cords. They're full of hyaluronic acid. So what that means is that they're way more elastic and they absorb way more shock, which allows the baby to cry for hour after hour after hour. "

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