113: Rediscovered Organs & Bird Watching

Wait, how are we rediscovering organs in 2026?? Or... are we? Well let's learn about the history and fads of the insides of our bodies! And what is bird watching, why do we all love it, and how casual and competitive can you get with it?

Images we talk about:
(Also available at https://www.letslearneverything.com/113/)
Clay Liver
Online Terminologia Anatomica
Salivary Glands
Bird Study Skins
A Field guide to Birds Example Page

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:56) Rediscovered Organs
(01:05:15) Bird Watching
(01:50:12) Outro

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The Name Website
Study skins,

We also learn about:
Huh?? Mesopotamian organ divination, sheep liver phrenology models, everyone needs to talk about this, Al-Razi’s “Doubts about Galen”, the great ignorance time skip, hmm this dead body must be wrong, the dissection fad, the murder act, you don’t know Burke and Hare?? body snatching and anatomy murder, the vestigial craze, Wiedersheim’s minimal viable person, the problem of naming organs, 20 synonyms of organs, Ella goes feral over the online Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology, our 3-4, hi Dad and Ella’s mom - hope you enjoyed that clitoris joke, our 4th pair of handlebar moustache salivary glands, the interstitium getting reverse pluto’d, labelling an organ is useful but also not the full picture, gen Z loves birding, FUCK YOU JONO WE’RE DOING THE HISTORY, is paleontology birding if you’re looking at sauricia, ornithomancy, where there have been birds - we have watched birds, study skins, hey what if we looked at them alive? in 1901 Edmund Selous discovers bird empathy, “lay down the gun and take up the glasses”, POWs from WWII publishing their findings, slovenly non scientific bird watchers, it’s a hobby with no proper definition, Merline and ObsIdentify and Birder and Ebird and Rare Bird Alert and Birder’s Interface, it’s pokemon! WHO’S THAT bird, “oh my god I actually cannot do this any more”, apps aren’t perfect, twitchers, the New Jersey World Series of Birding, Big Year, the first book specifically for birding, the first big year was just some guy who wrote how many birds he saw one year and told people about it, a big year is a physical and mental trial for glory, it’s for the birds, has their love curdled or have they unlocked a true kind of love? why do we do anything at all? I do love birds but man do I love humans.

Sources:

NIH: Organ Definition
2024 Paper: The Most Ancient Sources of Anatomic Knowledge
2025 Paper: Galen’s Typology of Organs
2013 Paper: The Air of History (Part IV): Great Muslim Physicians Al Rhazes
BBC Bitesize: Medieval Medicine
Wellcome Collection: Getting Under the Skin
2011 Paper: The Study of Anatomy in England From 1700 to the Early 20th Century
Book: Dissecting the Criminal Corpse: Staging Post-Execution Punishment in Early Modern England by Hurren ET, Chapter 7.
Wiki: Vestigiality
Britannica: Anatomy
Terminologia Anatomica 2019 (TA2) Official
BearBoat Terminologia Anatomica 2019 (TA2)
Cleveland Clinic: Organs
Wiki: List of Organs
2021 Paper: The tubarial salivary glands: A potential new organ at risk for radiotherapy
Article: The tubarial salivary glands: A newly recognized organ with dental significance
CORDIS: Did scientists just discover a secret organ in your head?
Netherland Cancer Institute: Cancer researchers discover new salivary gland
2021 Paper: The tubarial salivary glands: A potential new organ at risk for radiotherapy
Cleveland Clinic: Interstitium
SciAm: Meet Your Interstitium, a Newfound "Organ"
2024 Paper: A comprehensive analysis of the tubarial glands
2018 Paper: Another new organ! is this a golden age of discovery in anatomy?
BBC: Scientists just discovered the largest ever human organ – and we all have it
Independant: Human brain is actually two separate organs, scientists find
2026 Paper: Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain
2005 Paper: Gastrulation Movements: the Logic and the Nuts and Bolts
Neuroscience News: The Brain Is Two Separate Organs Joined by Evolution
LiveScience: 'Useless' female organ discovered over a century ago may actually support ovaries, study finds
Uni of Colorado: Rediscovering the Rete Ovarii: The “Antennae” of the Ovary
2024 Paper: Rediscovering the Rete Ovarii: the Development, Role, and Function of a Secreting Auxiliary Structure to the Ovary
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BBC: Why Gen Z Birdwatchers Are Flocking to Reserves
CNN: Why Gen Z is going bonkers for birding
Wikipedia: Ornithomancy
Smithsonian Magazine: How Bird Collecting Evolved Into Bird-Watching
My Bird Buddy: History of Bird Watching
Haikubox: Evolution of Birdwatching
Pitville History: Edmund Selous
British Birds: Best Bird Watching Apps
10000 Birds: Can I rely on Merlin
Science Base: Bird ID Apps
Sussex Wildlife Trust: The Good the Bad and the Middling ID Apps
Reddit: Pokemon Go is Basically Birding
Reddit: Ever Wanted to Catch Em All IRL?
Reddit: Why is Gen Z Suddenly Obsessed with Birdwatching
Youtube: Listers
New Jersey Audubon Society: World Series of Birding
Wikipedia: Big Year
Smithsonian Library and Archive: A Field Guide to Birds
American Bird Association: Big Year Rules
Audubon: The Big Year According to Birders
Birding (American Birding Association): The Next Big Thing
Surfbirds (Wayback Machine): Alaska, The Last Frontier Attu Island
NPR: The Real Birdwatchers Behind Hollywood's 'Big Year'

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