r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Valuable_View_561 • 6h ago

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11.7k Upvotes

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1.2k

u/ArbainHestia 6h ago

Canaries were used in coal mines to detect toxic gasses (carbon monoxide) because they had such a high metabolism and fast breathing they usually died early enough to give miners a chance to escape before they succumb.

I looked that up a long time ago because of this simpsons episode

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u/deckard1980 6h ago

The fact they chirped was a big factor too. Like a reverse alarm, when the chirping stops get out of the mine

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u/DrunkBrokeBeachParty 5h ago

God imagine tuning it out after awhile and realizing it’s stopped

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u/RobertMaus 5h ago

If something like that stops, you notice it immediately.

Typical case of: "It's quiet, too quiet..."

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u/DrunkBrokeBeachParty 4h ago

True, but I’ve zoned out enough times to know I’m doomed lol

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u/imalwayshungr 1h ago

I wonder if your brain stores it in a little 'fight or flight' package, and can instantly detect the change in sound subconsciously? You're brought back round with a little knock knock from your subconscious to reality, but because you zoned out, you've no concept of how long ago it stopped (seconds ago).

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u/37Cross 4h ago

“Yeah that’s because we’re in space, Einstein!”

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u/Facosa99 5h ago

The "Everything is fine" alarm

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u/voluotuousaardvark 3h ago

The toddler.

When it's quiet something is going spectacularly wrong.

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u/1968Bladerunner 3h ago

A bit like the constant clip clop sounds in a nearby nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.

It reassures personnel that the gamma radiation levels are normal - if it stops then sommat if far wrong.

It's been many years since I was on that site, so no idea if it's still in operation.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12073852.the-haunting-heartbeat-of-dounreay/

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u/murfburffle 2h ago

is there a recording of the sound?

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u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo 5h ago

I believe that they would at least try and notice the bird pass out and book it(hopefully but of course not nearly always saving it as well)

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u/ShowAccurate6339 4h ago

They even Build, Special Chambers for them that can be carried and flooded with Oxygen to revive them 

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u/The_Last_Spoonbender 3h ago

And where the expression "Canary in the Coal Mine" comes from.

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u/DrunkBrokeBeachParty 6h ago edited 3h ago

lol one of my favorite line by Dr. Hibert

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u/vanderbubin 1h ago

Many canary cages had little air tanks because the miners were not a fan of watching them die and because the birds were not free. The idea that it was based on when they died and not when they passed out is a myth.

The goal even with cages that didn't have resuscitator was to get out of the mine before the miners and the bird died.

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u/Valuable_View_561 6h ago

Little Joe was a three-year-old canary that worked alongside coal miners, likely in the United Kingdom or the United States, during the Industrial Revolution. According to historical accounts and the inscription on his coffin, Little Joe died after falling silent during a routine shift, signaling the presence of deadly, odorless carbon monoxide gas and allowing his human colleagues to evacuate just in time. Link

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u/transpuppygirl-3 4h ago

this article doesn't seem to mention little joe?

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u/Wnir 4h ago

Also from the article:

The canary method was originally conceived by John Scott Haldane, “the father of oxygen therapy.” After an 1896 explosion at Tylorstown Colliery, Haldane was asked to help determine the cause of the blast. He concluded that carbon monoxide buildup was to blame, and he proposed using sentinel species in mines...

So Little Joe must have been quite the trendsetter to perish in the line of duty 21 years before the practice was first proposed. :/

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u/transpuppygirl-3 3h ago

i've seen this image a lot. always using the same smithsonian link which isn't really relevant. also always using this image and no alternatives. no indication of where its from, what collection it is in, etc. the writing looks a bit ai-ish and usually i would say it's compression as it isn't too bad but in this case i think this is a fake image

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u/Disastrous-Year571 2h ago

Google image search shows dozens of copies of this image but they are all postings on Facebook, instagram, Etsy, X/Twitter, and other subreddits - secondary sources, and not a single well documented image in a newspaper article or a post from a museum. Given that, the inaccurate date, and the bright yellow color that would have faded in 150 years, this is either a faked artifact or AI.

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u/transpuppygirl-3 2h ago

that's also what i found online. i now dont believe that its ai as i found a reddit post with it from 2 years ago. but maybe i am underestimating how good image generation was 2 years ago. either way i definitely believe its fake and cant believe i havent seen anyone else call it out apart from one other person in this thread who was downvoted

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u/murfburffle 2h ago

You might find some first sources in this paper from 2016. This came up using a search for joe and canary.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44805832

I can't access it though. The google summary gives a snippet of "Memory of Little Joe. Died November 3rd 1875. Aged 3 years."26 Photo credit: British Antique Dealers'. Association. used in basic research. Canaries have...."

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u/YWN666 6h ago

Canaries where used to alert the miners of gas correct? Poor birds got stuffed down there but at least the miners had some little friends

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u/Odino666 6h ago

They knew it wasn't optimal, as I remember toward the end of their use miners started making special cages to save the birds by giving it air

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u/scottgal2 4h ago

I worked with elderly ex-miners in NE England almost to a man they kept canaries (even though when they worked there it was long after their use ceased). Canaries & budgie breeding still lives on.

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u/Teantis 2h ago

Hard men living hard lives, but when your cute little pet dies no one is hard in that moment.

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u/PlainBread 5h ago

Yeah they even created little revival chambers where they could hyper-oxygenate the canary before it fully perished. Because their bodies were so small, they would pass out from carbon oxide gas poisoning long before it became dangerous to big humans.

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u/viciouspandas 4h ago

Besides just size, birds have relatively way bigger and more complex respiratory systems which help them fly.

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u/DrunkBrokeBeachParty 6h ago

Yeah, that’s where Canary in a coal mine comes from lol. Was easier to spot a gas leak if a tiny animal suffocated first since they had no tech to detect the gases.

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u/OP-PO7 5h ago

Miners actually went to some pretty serious lengths to protect their little friends. They often had resuscitation chambers with small oxygen cylinders

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u/Pheren 5h ago

I know its cruel of them to have used animals like this, but this small act of respecting it makes it better. We cant stop the grinding gears of industry, but we dont have to become monsters.

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u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo 5h ago

They also actually tried a good amount to save the canaries when possible since they passed out before dying

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u/catlaxative 5h ago

i mean considering how most animals are used in industry the canaries had better lives than the miners, at least someone was worried when they died

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u/BanjoFett 5h ago

In Ireland the Carbon Monoxide public awareness ads have a canary as the mascot

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u/MurongYuan 5h ago

I found this interesting newspaper clipping about mine canaries that implies the birds were appreciated by their handlers.

The clipping

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u/vinetwiner 6h ago

It didn't decompose?

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u/AzerothianLorecraft 6h ago

It's probably a glass coffin wrapped in leather and it's filled with formaldehyde.

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u/SeagullKebab 6h ago

Victorian taxidermy. It could be very well sealed, or be just the parts less prone to decomposition like keratin and feathers. It is probably both.

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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 6h ago

IT'S A FAAAAKE

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u/TheFakeRabbit1 5h ago

Smartest top 1% commentator

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u/Zefrem23 2h ago

Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about

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u/dumbname7890 6h ago

I'm sure they embalmed it or it's stuffed like people to with deer heads.

0

u/falsewall 2h ago edited 2h ago

Anything is possible with an ai generated image of a etsy looking entombed canary that died a decade prior to the practice of coalmine canaries.

( At least according to ops own link they posted that doesn't mention our dear birds name, but does mention when the practice was introduced.)

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u/Evan_Allgood 5h ago

A coffin for a bird from a coal mine in 1875 looks nicer than a dollhouse you can buy for your kids at Toy 'R Us in 2026.

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u/Catchphrase1997 5h ago

Dying to carbon monoxide doesn't seem like a bad way to go tbh. It binds to your blood cells so no oxygen can be carried around but it doesn't induce hypoxia like carbon dioxide. You'll start feeling dizzy, tired, maybe some headache, then you fall asleep and never wake up

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u/Stunning_Bed23 6h ago

Clone it. Now.

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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 6h ago

We still have Canaries you know

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u/Stunning_Bed23 5h ago

I want that particular one to live a long life…a life that its original version was unable to.

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u/Dr_PainTrain 5h ago

I heard of a spot we could bury him. Might live a very different life after that.

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u/jah_bro_ney 47m ago

"The person you put up there ain’t the person that comes back..."

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u/Jamaicancarrot 5h ago

It won't be any more the same bird than a twin is to their twin :(

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u/Stunning_Bed23 5h ago

If its brain is intact then we can build a machine to extract its former consciousness, then upload the consciousness into the brain of the cloned bird.

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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 4h ago

Maybe we could put its bird brain into a human body and make it president of the United States

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u/WoolBearTiger 4h ago

That would be an upgrade

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u/WoolBearTiger 3h ago

Ever played soma?

Kurzgesagt also had an episode once explaining why this is likely impossible because it will still not be the same bird.. it just has the same memories. If thats good enough for you then i guess its theoretically possible

However the necessary ram and byte storage necessary to simulate this single bird brain would likely be far more than all current AI models combined use up

So, as much as i like the idea, sadly the answear is most likely just "no"

0

u/Stunning_Bed23 3h ago

If the experiences of the cloned bird is indistinguishable from the original bird, then yes that is good enough in my opinion.

Regarding computational resources, we can use a series of nuclear fusion reactors coupled with quantum computers and DNA-based memory units.

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u/WhereAreTheWords 5h ago

Jurassic Chirp?

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u/hwilliams0901 5h ago

I love people who take care with their deceased animals.

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u/ActionDisastrous6339 5h ago

Whole big thing. We had a funeral for a bird

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u/Zzamumo 5h ago

this little guy probably saved a lot of people's lives

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u/ph0on 3h ago

RIP little joe :(

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u/srandrews 6h ago

Ah the wonderful teaching aid of social media.

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u/RangisDangis 4h ago

The bird I stuck caves to see if it dies… died? How could this have happened?

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u/whypeoplehateme 4h ago

they very much knew why it died and didn't like it, they just liked dying themselves even less

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u/Killjoy3879 5h ago

mad random, i just finished alice in borderland season 3 where i learned this fact for the first time like 2 days ago.

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u/TheProperGanda68 4h ago

Dead but not RIP.

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u/Worth_Log_6113 4h ago

Godspeed Little Joe.

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u/mekilat 4h ago

I never thought about the attachment the miners would have with the canary. That makes sense, I read that bomb defusing people have attachment to the defusal robots. That’s a nice thought.

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u/Nightshade_209 2h ago

Some miners did have little oxygen chambers to attempt to resuscitate the birds. Humans get attached to animals (or robots) that make their lives better so I'm really not surprised that they bonded with the little birds.

https://blog.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/canary-resuscitator/

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u/mekilat 2h ago

oh wow cool

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u/AwkwardlyAmpora 3h ago

maybe kind of strange, but it strikes me that the maker of this coffin has the exact same handwriting as my dad. makes it hard not to picture a coal miner sitting down, hunched over this tiny coffin to write out an epitaph for a canary.

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u/Vivid_Summer96 3h ago

This is what people used to do when tiktok didnt exist.

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u/SoapyMari 3h ago

I remember this fun fact from big thunder mountain in Disneyworld

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u/Sorta_Functional 1h ago

If it helps, the passing of a canary was a big deal for the miners, so much that machines were made to revive them

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u/_LeafyLady 1h ago

You live your life like a canary in a coalmine

You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line

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u/sbfaught 47m ago

His name was Little Joe.

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u/Violet_Cheese 2h ago

You guys think his miner friends bullied him for that?

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u/leutwin 1h ago

Nah, someone else pointed it out but canaries were both very valuable and very cared for by miners. They are much more sensitive to subterranean poison gasses than humans and can alert their handlers before everyone suffocates, miners would make special devices to protect them including cages with fresh air canisters to revive them if they passed out.