And now it's time for Who Smarted?
Psst, hey, smarty pants, trusty narrator here.
Kind of a silly question, but how much do you like going on rides like the ones at an amusement park or a carnival?
How about riding a boogie board at a water park or in the ocean?
Me too.
It's so much fun.
Well, what if I told you we're going on a wild ride today that I can guarantee you've never been on before?
How can I be so sure?
Because today we'll be taking a trip inside a farm animal.
Oh, I get it.
The crickets is everyone's confused collective silence as you wonder, did I hear trustee correctly?
Oh, you definitely did.
Or you may be wondering, why a farm animal?
What farm animal?
Trustee, how is this even possible?
A narrator and an army of smarty pants can't fit inside your standard farm animal.
Well, last question first.
Thanks to my shrink app and the magic of podcasting, we can easily fit tiny versions of ourselves into a farm animal.
Next, which farm animal?
There's so many to choose from.
But the one we're choosing sounds like this.
Yep, a cow.
We're going to shrink ourselves down and take a ride downtown into Cowtown.
Ah, now you're asking, why?
Excellent question.
There's a very specific and scientific reason we're headed inside of a cow.
And it has to do with something only cows and a small handful of animals have inside their bodies that all the other animals don't.
Any guesses?
It's something called a ruminant stomach.
And if you got that right, Smarty Pants, you should probably be hosting this show and I should be in the car or my bed listening.
Anyway, rather than me trying to explain what a ruminant stomach is, I asked my farmer friend Philomena, to help us out on our journey.
Howdy, trusty.
I'm honored to have you and all the Smarty Pants here at my family's dairy farm today.
You never did tell me exactly what you were thinking of doing, though.
Just that it involved a cow.
Right.
Well, first of all, thanks for having us.
I couldn't think of a better place for us to learn the ins and outs but mostly ins of a cow's unique digestive system.
Oh, you mean its ruminant stomach?
Exactly.
And I thought it would be fun to shrink ourselves down and travel inside a cow to find out things like how many compartments does a cow's stomach have?
What's the purpose of each one?
What role does saliva play in a cow's digestive process?
And of course, the most important question of all, how much pee, poo, and farts does a cow release in a day?
Great questions.
I can answer them.
Wait.
Did you say shrink ourselves down and go inside a cow?
Who smarted?
Who smarted?
Who's smart?
Is it you?
Is it me?
Is it science or history?
Listen up, everyone.
We make smarting lots of fun on Who Smarted?
All right, Smarty Pants.
Before we shrink ourselves down and go downtown, into Cowtown, let's first plan our route through this cow's tummy.
And that means knowing how many compartments a cow's stomach actually has.
What do you think, Smarty Pants?
Is it one, two, three, or four compartments?
The answer is four.
Fun fact!
Cows and a few other mammals lack sheep, Goats and giraffes can't digest their food whole.
They need to chew their food multiple times, which means they literally have to bring it back up again from their stomach in order to break it down further, to absorb the nutrients and gain energy.
I'm sorry, wait.
Are you saying that cows chew food, swallow it, it goes into their stomach and then they regurgitate it, aka throw it up and then chew it more and swallow it again.
That's what I'm saying.
Gross!
But fascinating.
But gross.
Wait, is that what's going to happen to us?
Yep.
Gross!
Gross!
But fascinating.
But gross.
Once we're inside, I'll explain what each of the four stomach compartments is called and what its function is as we move through the cow's digestive tract.
Move or move?
What?
That was a little cow humor.
Never mind.
Let's get shrinking on one, two, and... Hey, who could that be driving up?
This is Chet Nickerson reporting live from Philomena's family farm, where trusty narrator and farmer Phil are about to make history as the first people to shrink themselves down and enter a cow's digestive tract.
Wow, how did you find out about this, Chet?
Ah, a reporter never gives up his sources.
All right, fine.
The cow told me.
Right.
Okay, we've got our cow.
And our tractor that we'll also shrink down and use to travel through the Cowan.
Looks like we're all set.
This is it.
The big moment.
You know, Chet, you could just report on our trip.
Or you could shrink down too and come with us on our journeys.
Ah, yes, I will truly get the inside scoop.
I'm in.
Okay, smarty pants, on the count of three, we're going to get small.
One, two, three.
Hmm, to this reporter's eyes, it seems to be very green inside this cow.
No, no, we're not inside yet.
We're nestled in some grass waiting for it to...
Hold on tight, everyone.
We've just been eaten.
Indeed we have.
And now we're riding the rapids on the saliva river.
Trusty, do you know how much saliva a cow's salivary glands produce every day?
I can't say I do.
Smarty Pants, what do you think?
Is it 10 quarts, 30 quarts, or 50 quarts?
Believe it or not, a cow's salivary glands can produce over 50 quarts or 473 liters of saliva every day to aid in the digestive process.
How you doing, Chet?
Great.
I can't believe I'm actually reporting live from the inside of a cow.
When you work in this business as long as I have, anything is possible.
Okay, everyone.
First up is the esophagus.
If I remember correctly, the esophagus is like a long playground slide inside a tunnel.
That's right.
Here we go.
The esophagus is a canal that connects the throat to the stomach.
And in this case.
Question.
Why is everything headed upstream in the opposite direction that we're going?
Well, like I said earlier, cows are herbivored ruminants, and their esophagus is bidirectional.
Um, herbivore, meaning they eat plant-based foods.
What's that other word mean?
It means they need to regurgitate or bring their food back up in order to re-chew it.
So that's why things around us are moving in both directions.
I see.
As a reporter, I try to remain impartial to every story.
But that's pretty gross.
But fascinating.
But gross.
That's what I said.
Okay, it feels like we're coming to the end of the line.
Yes, first stop coming up on this four-chamber stomach ride is the rumen.
It's pretty cavernous in here.
Echo!
Echo!
Oh boy, looks like we're about to get tossed around a bit.
That's not the only thing that might get tossed.
The rumen is pretty much a giant storage tank.
It's the largest of the four compartments of a cow's stomach.
Smarty Pants, how many gallons of food do you think could fit in a cow's rumen?
Is it A, 5 gallons of food, B, 10 gallons of food, or C, 25 gallons or more?
If you said C, 25 gallons or more, you're right.
Farmer Phil, what are those ball-shaped objects rolling around?
That's what we call cud.
They're large pieces of plant matter that can't be digested just yet.
You can't really see them, but there are millions of tiny microorganisms all around us breaking down the nutrients from the food as the cud is forming balls.
Hold on.
We're off to the next stop, the reticulum.
According to this reporter, I'd say the walls look like honeycombs.
What happens in here, Phil?
The reticulum pretty much captures large objects, filtering out things like pebbles nails, wire and other sharp objects that might have accidentally been eaten while grazing.
It's important these things don't get digested, as they punctured the cow's stomach lining, which could cause serious infection or worse.
You know, I once accidentally swallowed a penny when I was a kid.
At first, my parents couldn't make heads or tails why I didn't feel well.
Oh, Chet.
Hey, I noticed things just got a lot tighter.
Much smaller than the reticulum where we just came from.
Indeed, this pouch-like compartment can only accommodate about 5 gallons, or 4.7 liters of material.
Is it just me, or did this cow just swallow a bass drum?
That's actually the cow's heart, Chit.
It's just on the other side of that wall.
Hang on, we're starting to move again.
Yep.
Now we're moving on to the third chamber called the O'Masem.
Dare I ask what happens in here?
Also, how do we get out of here?
We're about to find out right after this quick break.
As the trusty narrator, I've taken the smarty pants on countless adventures.
I'll do anything for the fans.
But off mic, I prefer to keep my adventures in the safe space of my own backyard.
However, even a homebody like me can't avoid the unexpected chaos that comes with family life.
Take last week, for example.
My niece was staying with me when she came down with a nasty cold in the middle of the night.
I couldn't leave her alone to get medicine, and that's when I remembered DoorDash is there for you whatever you need, whenever you need it.
With a few taps on my phone, I had cough syrup and tissues delivered right to my door.
DoorDash saved the night, and my niece was back to her energetic self in no time.
Oh, and did I order a little ice cream for myself?
Yes.
Yes, I did.
And DoorDash brought it right to my door.
So while I may not be the biggest fan of real-life adventures, I'm grateful that DoorDash is always there to help me navigate life's little emergencies.
When life happens, get a little order delivered with DoorDash.
Order now.
Now back to Who Smarted?
As we continue to make our way through the four chambers of a cow's stomach.
We've just entered the third chamber called the omasum.
Huh, kind of looks like a library in here.
Excellent observation, Chet.
The omasum is made up of layers of tissue that resemble pages in a book.
Its main function is to absorb water and other substances that are passing through the digestive tract.
Hold on, folks.
The last of the four stomach compartments is coming up, and it's called the abomasum.
Whoa, what was that?
Smarty pants.
Any guesses what that noise was?
If you said a belch or a burp, you're right.
Holy cow, that really shook this place.
Oh, yeah.
Digestion produces nearly 50 quarts, or 47 liters, of gas per hour in the rumen, carbon dioxide and methane being the two main gases.
Sounds like me on Taco Tuesday.
This last chamber, the abomasum, is what's commonly known as the true stomach.
It's the only compartment made up of layered glands.
The glands release hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes which further break down the food material that's passing through.
Sort of like what happens in humans.
Yes, trustee.
This compartment is the only one that closely resembles our own one-chamber stomach.
Wow.
And there you have it.
We do?
Yes, we do.
And I still haven't heard how we're getting out of here.
The rest of this ride becomes similar to exiting a human, as we navigate the small and large intestines before exiting out the anus.
Ah, speaking of how much poop does a cow produce each day after all of this non-stop eating and digestion?
Quite a bit, Chet.
About eight gallons.
That's 30 liters of urine and approximately 100 pounds of poop.
Not counting us.
Trusty, I see daylight ahead.
Activating reverse shrinking in three, two, one.
Ah, we made it.
Yes.
Great stuff, Farmer Phil.
We all learned a lot.
My pleasure, Trusty.
What a ride.
What's wrong with Bessie?
Um, has anyone seen my microphone?
Chet?
Ah, there it is.
Uh, Farmer Phil, may I borrow your hose?
A double dose of shout out to Bennett and Hudson in the Woodlands, Texas.
I hear every night is a Who's Smarted night at your house.
We love that.
And the family conversations that come from the episodes.
That's the smartest thing I've heard all day.
This episode, Cow Stomachs, was written by farmer Dave Davis and voiced by Heather Simsay, Adam Tex-Davis and Jerry Kolber.
Technical direction and sound design by Josh Hahn.
Who Smarted is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios.
Our associate producer is Max Kamaski.
The theme song is by Brian Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex-Davis.
Who Smarted? was created and produced by Adam Tex-Davis and Jerry Colburn.
This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.
