In This Week’s Show, episode 238, it’s Tuesday, it’s the end of May, and we’re recording in a foot of snow because fuck us, that’s why.

Now, grab a beer and help us test the god hypothesis — because, while Babi (the bloodthirsty Egyptian baboon god of virility) hasn’t struck us down yet, we are trying his patience!

Shea’s Life Lesson

This week I learned that you can only call it a trebuchet if it comes from the Trebuch region of France. Otherwise it’s just a sparkling catapult.

Jenn’s Actual Lesson

Did you know that Babi’s diet consisted entirely of the entrails of the dead? But that wasn’t his most charming attribute: that would be his penis. Ancient Egyptian males who wished to, shall we say, continue to give their lovers full salutes in the afterlife would pray to Babi. His phallus was said to adorn the doors to the kingdom of heaven, as well as functioning as the mast for the Underworld ferry.

But before we get to all that, let’s have a beer!

This Week’s Beer

Classic Pilsner by Blackrocks Brewing

Donated By: Steve E.

* BA Link:http://bit.ly/2VN3Fly

* BA Rating: 3.9/5

* Style: German Pilsner

* ABV: 5.5%

* Aaron: 8

* Jenn: 7

* Shea: 8

* Steve: 7

This Week’s Show

Round Table Discussion

New Patron Brian! (not the dog from Family Guy, we can do better)

Patron Story

Monkeys In Space -ace-ace-ace-ace…

Well... they're exactly in space. But they are available now at http://patreon.com/w4w

https://www.space.com/able-baker-monkeys-survived-space-60th-anniversary.html

Sixty years ago today - as of recording that is - so… sixty years ago earlier this week, humanity shot two monkeys into space. What separates their story from other space-apes and Kosmo, is that they came back to Earth safely… but, sadly, without super powers.

Able and Baker took flight on May 28, 1959, soaring 300 miles (480 kilometers) up during a 15-minute flight. At the time, they were humble female laboratory animals, barely given names for the project before they were stuffed into a Jupiter Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile

In two years time the first humans would be shot into space. Unfortunately, Able would have already passed away and Baker was married off and put on display as a trophy monkey-wife.

"My whole jam with the history of the astronauts is kind of going one step back in time and going beyond the earliest stories that we know about them," Jordan Bimm, a sociologist at Princeton University who has researched Able and Baker in this context, told Space.com. "Almost nobody remembers the story of Able and Baker, who were actually the first primates to be recovered from a spaceflight."

So, like the contributions of most women in science, they were doomed to be forgotten or see all the credit go to further inflate the massive red-assed ego of some dude-bro monkey who, like totally for sure wrote the majority of the monkey-code or whatever.

They were American stars… I mean, once they landed. The preceding six consecutive monkeys dubbed Albert and one named Gordo all died of space or ex-space related death. Cold War stereotypes and symbolism, Bimm argues. "[Their survival] allowed them to perform a sort of PR work and to become, importantly, America's first celebrity space animals," he said. The monkeys flew as part of NASA's Bioflight #2 mission, along with payloads ranging from blood samples to yeast cells to two frogs they could lick to ease their travels.

Against the backdrop of the Cold War "recovering these animals alive was a huge priority; they really, really, really wanted them both alive," Bimm said. "Getting some wins on the board for America was cruci...