YouTube channel SciShow recently published a short video on the origin of werewolf myths. A number of people sent me the link – thank you! – and I only just had a chance to watch it.
It gets off to a bad start. Within the first 30 seconds, host Michael Aranda makes a Twilight reference, which would have been tedious a decade ago, and then asserts that werewolves aren’t real, which, okay, granted, but that doesn’t set a fun tone. Your writer and producer better have some good stuff planned to make the next four and a half minutes worth my time, you buzzkill.
They actually do! This is a show about science, not debunking myths or recounting history, so in short order they get into specifics about neurons and chromosomes in order to discuss three werewolf-adjacent maladies – rabies, congenital hypertrichosis, and delusional misidentification syndromes, of which clinical lycanthropy is an example. The science is quite up-to-date, providing some details I didn’t know about. If you’re interested in the how of things, definitely check this video out.