 Hello everyone and welcome to our weekly broadcast of this week in science podcast Whoo-hoo. We are here. We're gonna talk about science. We're gonna do a podcast thingy Thingy because it's like video and then it'll be a podcast, you know And there might be editing between this video thing and the podcast thing So they're not exactly the same all the time and the one that ends up on the radio is totally different from this very different Co-hosts, are you ready to science so ready? Yeah, ready? We're ready to science So let us bring the show in three two this is Twist this week in science episode number 865 recorded on Wednesday, March 2nd 2022 how to pronounce science Think I did it right. I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show. We will fill your head with bugs personality and words but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer democracy The ability of a people to choose their leaders and hold influence over their government is the greatest threats to world governments At least to those governments that do not have elected leaders While democracy is something we kind of think of as a given in the Western world 37% of the planet's humans are living in authoritarian regimes in these authoritarian regimes The people have limited freedoms highly controlled access to information and essentially no rights that cannot be taken away from them Well, we call in misinformation is often the only information in these regimes Try to imagine for a moment that if all the information you had access to if every media outlet website and social media platform Only presented you with false narratives Then I could tell you there is no pandemic virus no global warming and no such thing as cancer Not only did America win in every goal a goal that every event and you went to Olympics But I your glorious leader personally competed in and won each of those events While that can sound ridiculous I'm in the dinner job claimed. I ran had no homosexuals state media claimed Kim Jong-il didn't defecate That North Korea had cured cancer and AIDS and that they had found an actual unicorn layer China post around 500 million fake profile pro-government posts on social media every year right now Russian media is reporting that they are fighting fascist Nazis and That Ukrainians are meeting the Russian troops with flowers and homemade pies and in the US There was a recent attempt to overturn a democratic election with propaganda and fraudulent electors 37% of your fellow humans are living under regimes of state-sponsored misinformation 37% of your fellow humans cannot vote cannot speak their minds in public and do not have basic human rights protections 37% of your fellow humans will live and die without knowing the simple joys of this weekend science Coming up next Good science to you Kiki and Blair And a good science to you to Justin Blair and everyone out there welcome to another episode of this week in science we are back again to talk about science and Yes, the show does go on even as there are many human rights offenses around the world and it's good to acknowledge those and To know that we have the privilege of taking this time to appreciate appreciate science. I will also acknowledge that even though We like to think we have a full representative democracy here in the United States There are lots of people who don't have proper access to a vote. So that's also a weird asterisk on that that I just want to mention It's a thing. Yeah Over the last decade we have been downgraded United States from a full democracy to a flawed democracy Still democracy. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's just barely. Yeah It has to do with our political system that can actually elect the person who got the less votes You're compared to most of my this usually it's like, no, you just do the math, you know, what's behind that? It's statistics and math and various systems that we can use So let's dive into the science for the week. We're not gonna we're not gonna stick to the policy except for maybe my first Little stories at the very beginning of the story time on this week's show. I Have we have a great show ahead, of course and we are so glad that you're joining us today. I Have stories about what did I bring? I brought some science and policy. Yes, I did I also brought a lot of bugs and I brought some brains Digging into them while not digging into them imaging them. It'll be fun. Justin, what'd you bring? I? Have microbiome and energy levels. I have just good news cancer edition And I have a bunch of fake news the two different fake news studies that use Twitter Fake news Blair what is in the animal corner? I have masks and monkeys or should I say I guess technically masks and primates? So oh the animal science, please don't come for me be accurate This is a science program stories, but my second story also has apes so it would be more accurate to say masks and Interesting one of my stories has Is it got a court overlap of apes and masks as well? But I don't think it's the same story. No, the only apes in my stories are the human ape So let's jump into the science right here right now. You're here for this science program I want to remind you that Subscribing to the twist podcast if you have not done so is easy to do on your favorite podcast platform Just go wherever you find podcasts and look for this week in science if you are interested in finding us as a podcast We also stream weekly live on YouTube Facebook and Twitch again look for this week in science Then we are also twist science on Twitch Twitter and Instagram Whoo all of these different ways to find us But the best one is to go to our website twist.org All right now while that bookkeeping is done It's science time well actually it's science and policy time I want to just dive right into the the big elephant in the room What is coming next for the US and the world when it comes to science and policy? Just a day after the IPCC released on Monday It's latest and most dire report on climate change impacts Adaptations and vulnerabilities really not a pretty picture Biden Gave a state of the union address that spoke of climate change only twice with respect to economics Basically and while the IPCC report warns of future Disease spread the CDC has released new mask guidelines that basically put the onus on the individual To be careful when it comes to wearing masks and the White House just today released a new pandemic preparedness plan That actually does look comprehensive comprehensive enough to help us through future covid variants and maybe future pandemics But as we know time will tell So how will it go any opinions? any thoughts on State of the Union CDC mask mandates Climate change IPCC report. We've got a big bunch of science policy things. I mean the mask the mask thing Depends what the goal is I think so I heard The what what's her name? The press secretary Will Wolensky, I think I heard her. Yeah, she's the ones gaze the CDC director. Oh, no, so I'm thinking about The the secretary sake sake. Yeah, I get them confused because they're both talking about COVID officer But she talks about I think actually both of them did talk about giving people a break, right? And so I think they both are being very clear now and saying you're gonna have to put the mask back on You're just trying to give you a break Which I Okay, I don't know. I'm just it feels odd to give up Partially We're gonna give up and let you take your mask off But we're still gonna try to catch up again later when that causes a later search Yeah, I had heard for for many people online epidemiologists public public health Experts who are upset about the level at which it was deemed all right to remove the masks But as Wolensky said today in the White House press briefing related to the pre pandemic preparedness plan It's different in term the numbers now are different in terms In comparison to numbers say last June or July because now we have More people vaccinated Omicron is less severe. We have generally less severe We also have more treatments like Pfizer's pill the antibody. Yeah, the antivirals antibody Neutralizing agents we've got a lot better therapies and people are not ending up in the hospital as much anymore and so they are saying that they're their judgment for the level at which they deem it okay to remove masks is Different now than it used to be and I think that's the hard part is because if you're trying to follow along with just the numbers It looks like it's much worse than it was even six eight months ago still yet The outcomes are different and so it is a different situation And I think that's part of the problem with the entire pandemic is there's not been a way to just look at it In a just in a single in a single layer. It's a it's it's got multiple layers of complexity that all tie together Yeah, it's nuanced and And if you're not an expert in that area how you don't know why necessarily yeah Well also our media doesn't move in the space of nuance anymore. Oh, no, we move in the space of outrage Yeah one sentence at a time Yeah, yeah, you know what it sounds like to me is you know a car accident death of my car accidents down Go ahead and take the seatbelts off folks. We don't need to wear them for a while because Numbers went down Isn't that mean it's been working It's been working This doesn't mean that like we've gotten more compliance that we've gotten like everybody's got the message Everybody's got the the packets of masks one in the car a couple in the the entryway so you can slap one on Do we leave the house or answer the door they didn't isn't it because we got good at it? Yeah And it very much feels like an all or nothing right so like I would I would be thinking like oh if If you keep your masks on the numbers are so good if you keep your masks on you can go hang out with your friends You can travel you can go to the movies You can do these other things as opposed to take off the mask and do it all if I think I think that's that's the miss Right like we slipped up. We had the Omicron issue I didn't see my parents for six weeks because I was afraid to be near them and That Despite having masked and being vaccinated boosted and all these other things suddenly we had to pull way back I wasn't going to crowded spaces. I wasn't going to the mall I wasn't doing all these things right and so even though you had done all the things that you were told to do and that caused Frustration and so yeah, the psychology of this Also partly because you were aware that even though you did all the things that were required of you that that's not the Guaranteed that it's not immunity that that's not the same thing Well, that's the thing right I had the urge to to go and lick door handles when I got my first shot You mean when you were two years old? The first the first day I did the first vaccine shot for the for the COVID But it was not helping me with that at all like whatever you can get from licking door handles who would still get Even with the shot, but you know, yeah was this desire like now I don't have to worry or think about it anymore, but that wasn't ever yeah So the so what's what's happening here is very interesting because we had the everybody work together Let's collaborate and try and protect everyone approach and now it's the I just protect yourself Whatever your risk is good approach And this doesn't work. Well, also if you put it in parallel or in comparison to like what's happening with climate change and the Efforts we haven't done so far which would have been like oh do it yourself and now we have to push towards Hey, everybody, we really we all really need to work on this together. Let's get the government involved Let's get all this stuff regulations and let's make this work So I know there are a lot of a lot of parallels here a lot of differences in the way these two Scientific issues are playing out though that I find very interesting and we'll see where it goes But I wanted to jump from here to Blair's story. Oh, yeah as a mask story. Yes Yes, so speaking of these disposable face masks that everyone should be wearing They're destroying the environment so It's bad here's the thing You know, we've talked about the litter from face masks before on the show But this is about the chemicals leaching from face masks in tide pools Yes, this is Picture the picture of a Pools first of all important to remember that like Any trash on the ground can eventually make its way to a waterway, right? So any litter can end up in water and once it ends up in a river it can end up in you know Or through a storm jamer or whatever drain or whatever can end up making its way to the ocean and then it can get caught in a tide pool, but also there are also probably just people Throwing them on the ground at the beach too. Let's let's be real So quote we're seeing more and more masks in rocky pools says Laurent Serrant a marine ecologist at the French National de la recherche Scientific who will present the new research Coming up at oh actually at a meeting tomorrow of ocean sciences This could cascade up the food chain and up to us They are seeing altered behaviors in tide pool animals that appear to be associated with the chemicals leaching from disposable masks That includes signs of stress reduced ability to detect makes and reduced Reproduction and so all of those things are coming most likely from the plastic polymers Polypropylene, which is what masks are made out of yes masks are made out of plastic And so those that same pop plastic polymer has previously been shown to have negative effects on aquatic organisms So it's not surprising But so they actually looked at three different types of animals blue mussels snails copepods They all had adverse effects to the leached chemicals All of them were different blue mussels had showed a stress response moved away gathered together Aggregated looked like they were freaked out snails They were less vigilant after being exposed so they actually messed up their stress response It's a response which increased their likelihood of being eaten Which also then brings the chemicals up the food chain and then copepods had trouble reproducing because of it They couldn't find the pheromone trails of females So all that to say those disposable masks are not just yucky litter. They're also causing chemical issues So to Kiki's point The thing that I was thinking about with your IPCC thing is that We were it really feels like society was getting really concerned about climate change and then the pandemic happened And it was like forget about that. We got to worry about this and so We really have to figure out how to do both at the same time because they're connected the environmental issues that are gonna kill us and The pandemic-based issues that are gonna kill us They they can work in tandem in bad ways And I was actually just talking to somebody about how all these coven tests have all these plastic pieces in them And it's creating litter and it's creating more plastic waste and I Understand at a certain point you have to throw caution to the wind for human health But after you have a second to assess how you're doing things it might be good to reassess on the impact that you have by all these plastics that you're using in this pandemic because yes, most of these Masks that are in tide pools are probably from inconsiderate people littering but some of them could be blown off the back of a garbage truck or Blows out of your dumpster after you put your trash very carefully in the dumpster or like I said could be pushed downstream There's a million ways that that stuff could end up out there off of a garbage barge Garbage barges we shouldn't even have these things. You know we do what we do Yeah Yeah Speaking of the IPCC report then and in the lack of attention There seems to be towards global warming at the moment. I actually heard it mentioned Quite specifically addressed in a few speeches very recently Related to the invasion of Ukraine Where people are saying hey, you know what Europe? I think it was it was I think it was a european union or a nato speech. There's been so many lately But saying if they had energy independence and alternative fuels you wouldn't need to be fueling the geopolitical Show That's Taking place elsewhere. So it did get it did work its way in at least somebody was like this is also part of the fossil fuel problem Is that some of the regimes that have a lot of fossil fuels are doing bad things with the money that we're giving them for them and as long as we were to Get to our energy independence using sustainable fuels and not relying on The supplies that we already have like coal From west virginia, which is like what senator mansion is probably pushing forward, but yeah, so it's maintaining and Subsidizing those sustainable forms so that we can get there faster so this kind of Back and forth and battling it doesn't matter. It's just not as big a deal Yeah, yeah, and along the lines of the face masks There's a whole new modeling study that came out this week from chalmers university of technology uh that This is called modeling the direct virus exposure risk associated with respiratory events and It's based on trying to Upgrade the old model that was developed for respiratory viruses back in 1934 and actually is too simplified to account for the complexity of transmission So this new model does that and takes masks into account and oh, it's another confirmation that masks actually do Work so even though the plastic waste is bad If you're using uh if it Masks are still good and you can use them to protect others If you have a respiratory virus, you don't know what it is Maybe you have the flu wear a mask. You can protect people. This is now It's not just going to be a SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 issue It's going to be respiratory viruses kind of moving forward. I sure hope they don't go away for that I really wish people would wear them when they're sick forever after this. I don't want your cold I don't want your cold, um Justin oops. I keep sharing all sorts of things. Don't I I'm sharing all my screens looking at all sorts of stories Speak peak Snakety-pakety is it stories to come but I believe Justin has a story about microbes Yeah, this is uh Clarkson university researchers. They found a correlative link between energy levels and the gut microbiome uh associate professor of physical therapy Ali Bulani and his team searched the microbiome for associations between the microflora of the makeup the gut the bacteria and such in there and self-reported personality traits or mood ratings of Uh four categories they had mental energy mental fatigue physical energy and physical fatigue The four moods of 20 participants, which is not a big sample size We're assessed by survey and they got micro Microbiome and the metabolome Which is the things that are being made by the microbiome Were determined from RNA analysis and some untargeted metabolic analysis respectively, so they found uh some of the most prominent phyla Was only negatively correlated with physical fatigue the second most predominant Phyla that they found uh firmer cuties had members that correlated with all of the traits, which is an interesting hit bacteria aniostrips was positively correlated with mental energy negatively with mental fatigue and physical fatigue respectively, so They're starting to see okay. Hey, these people are saying they've got energy And that's correlating with a specific bacteria in their gut Diet influenced the gut microbiota composition of the participants and only one food group Was correlated throughout all four of the different moods seeming to affect all of them based on this one food group Which was processed meat And it was great, right? It totally was good for energy and all like it just it was it was that bacon and the that that salted ham positively with mental fatigue and positively with physical fatigue meaning Don't add if you add you had the process make you take a nap it uh affected the microbiome And that created mental fatigue and meant or was correlated with mental fatigue and physical fatigue and negatively Meaning if you didn't have it you had a higher chance of having less of the bacteria that were leading towards uh or that were deficient in mental energy and physical energy anyway It's just a correlative with a small sample size and even the scientists are like Ah, we need a larger study to confirm and explore this further But uh, they were a little further. They found the the amino acids and enzymes and cofactors They're produced by the gut microbiota that were correlated to these different things. This is uh quoting Bulani Ali Bulani These new findings support my previous work where we found that feelings of energy are associated with metabolic processes while feelings of fatigue are associated with Inflammatory processes since we're still learning about the gut microbiome We don't know whether if we try to change our personality trait. We might see a change in the microbiome Or if we try to change our gut microbiome Would we be then able to see the difference of the person I take? That's what I was like yeah So and it's oh, there's a study that I was going to have last week that I didn't uh We didn't end up doing because I didn't end up joining the show Which is they had to do one of these studies on heart patients Where they had looked at uh, hey, here's a gut microbiome configuration That we see that tracks with correlates with heart disease Uh, and what they the problem was they ended up finding that half of that which was correlating with heart disease Actually correlated with being on a heart medic medication So so previous to that it wasn't and then so they there's a lot of noise in these things Is that you have to suss out what is causing what what is what's coming before what's coming afterwards being influenced by diet versus mood is that influencing back and forth, but uh, I found that to be an interesting uh an interesting first Survey to to maybe drill down and find those those connections between our diet and energy level that aren't The food they are the food the nutritionist is right. The process meat is what's making you sluggish But it's not the meat's fault. It's what it's feeding in your gut Right. It's what it's what populations it facilitates growth of so it is the food It's just the food is the first domino mechanism the mechanism has been missing. So then you might Then you could possibly have though With this you could have a probiotic enriched bacon But you would but you would have to you'd have to keep up on it Maybe you have to balance your bacon with probiotics. Maybe the problem is the people who are taking the bacon Don't take the probiotics. Yeah Balance it out. You gotta you gotta put in some leafy greens in there with your I don't know. Just get yourself some bento fiber. You're good to go. Is that is that what really this comes down to is eat a salad Actually a lot of the microbiome studies do come down to like actually if you eat a salad it seems to fix everything Yeah, that was a that was it Two cups of leafy greens at every meal that was a footnote to the uh the heart study last week Which is that they found a you know this positive correlation with yeah the leafy greens and uh the lack of uh microbiota that led to heart disease But then again, is it because the leafy greens do something or is it because he ate so many leafy greens He didn't have a chance to eat the the bacon wrapped bologna. It was deep right like Did you wrap the bacon and bologna in lettuce leaves? Very keto, I don't know All right, everybody moving away from the mits. Let's move to bugs I mean, it might not be processed meats might not be your fiber intake that you're looking for but Researchers have and we've talked about it on the show a few times researchers have suggested that we should eat insects For our nutrition, right? Yeah, good idea. We should be eating. We should be eating the bugs bug biomass is better on the planet in terms of the the use of nutrients and the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere And it's better for us. It's high in protein high in lots of nutrients But that's not what this new study is about this new study is about Another reason why we should be eating bugs instead of the cows and the pigs and the chickens and all those things It's for the plants We should eat the bugs to help the plants this study Bugs eating the uh the plants if we just ate all the bugs ourselves We're not eating wild bugs. We're eating farmed bugs These are farmed bugs exactly and as As as Blair has brought up. Yes. These are farmed bugs and these farmed bugs Well, my picture is not coming up for some reason. Come on picture Picture this you're not a happy picture. Okay. Well, just grab the pictures to us. This is radio anyways Well, we're on the radio There's a nice we're on the radio. Okay, so Instead of eating the plants I mean eating the bugs we can eat the plants too, but it's the bug poop because you're farming The insects to eat They produce a lot of waste and they also have their exoskeletons that come off all this frass I love that word Frass is the the waste of these insects The frass is highly nutrient rich as well and it's full of nitrogen Which we apply to soils in the form of fertilizer and maybe we wouldn't have to apply all the excess fertilizer and have all the use of ammonia and the creation of the fertilizers if we used the frass So if we farmed enough bugs if we got enough people eating insects There would be enough frass To then fertilize the plants to then supplement the growth of the plants Which we could then eat ourselves and also use to feed more insects, which we could then eat It is the cycle of our future diet If you blend them up real small, I don't care I just want to taste the legs Don't eat that yet the legs Now we got to figure out what bug eating does to the microbiome Because now I'm like wondering the first step when you started talking about this Because I just been thinking my had the microbiome story. I was like I wonder if I ate nothing but termites for a year if I could digest wood I I bet I bet your microbiome would be very similar to someone who eats a lot of shrimp Probably The one yeah, the one issue with insects is people who have a shellfish allergy may be allergic to these insects because there are similar proteins in the chitinous exoskeletons of the insects as well as Shrimps shellfish crustaceans and so on So this is a path toward more sustainable agriculture if we only would eat the bugs Well, give a cricket tortilla chips a try. I've had them. They're pretty good. I don't need almond flour Just get me meal. Yes flower. So that is also a thing. You can buy me a worm. Terrible for the environment Get me the meal worms. Come on gluten-free I'd assume It's probably not. It's probably mostly normal flour with some mealworm in it. I don't know I don't think so. We'll look it up. Sure. Yeah, we can talk about it in the after show We'll talk about this in the after show. Yes, let's find out what's in mealworm flour Stay tuned to the after show or watch the youtube video if you want to know. All right, uh cancer. It's cured, right, Justin Oh I got the segment. Uh, let's see. Uh, just good news The science news segment that takes on the worst possible topic and delivers just the good news about it cancer edition cancer has been cured in mice Rice university bioengineers have successfully eradicated advanced stage ovarian and Coralactyl cancer in mice And the treatment is vast took about six days Removed tumors and 100% of the animals with ovarian cancer And seven out of eight of the animals with the Coralactyl cancer And this isn't one of those over the potential infinite horizon Could open a door to a path for future researchers that no they're talking about human clinical trials that could be happening this year and that's because the design only included components that had previously been proven safe for human use and the the method of attacking the cancer is already FDA approved What they did though is they created a mechanism for the delivery researchers used implantable drug factory Is what they're calling it. There's beads about the size of a pinhead that were surgically inserted near the tumor That were then able to deliver continuous high doses of interleukin two So natural compound that activates white blood cells to fight cancer drug producing beads were implemented with some minimally invasive surgery and Each contained cells that were engineered to produce the interleukin two Which is then encased within this protective shell. So it did sort of a like a time release thing You see you put in enough of it and every day this interleukin is being generated by these engineered cells And it's right near where the tumor is so in the newly published study researchers placed the drug producing beads besides the tumor within the Peritonium which is a sac-like landing that supports intestines ovaries and other abdominal organs placement within that Cavity concentrated the interleukin two within tumors and limited exposure Elsewhere in the body. So That's the the delivery system right now is like an ivy So and this is quotey voice of Amanda Nash is one of the authors of the study If you gave the same concentration of the protein interleukin two through an ivy pump It would be extremely toxic With the drug factories the concentration we see elsewhere in the body away from the tumor site is actually lower Than what patients have to tolerate with an ivy treatment That's the high concentration is only at the tumor site Nash said the same general approach can be used to They used in this study could be applied to treat cancers of the pancreas liver lungs other organs Drug factories could be placed next to tumors within the lining that surrounds those organs and most others she says And if different cytokine is needed to target specific form of cancer The beads can be loaded with engineered cells that make that immunotherapy a compound They they haven't invented a drug a new drug. They don't it's not dependent on new drug discovery. This is about proper delivery without attacking the whole body system But actually placing something that can express the needed compounds directly into the surrounding area beads outer shell the site is a cytokine producing cell from Wait, the beads outer shell shields the cytokine producing cells from the body's natural immune system Shells are made of material the immune system recognizes as foreign objects But not as immediate threats. So that's how you can They can Surgically embed this and the body doesn't just reject an attack immediately because it's like that doesn't belong here But it's not on the the high threat list. So it doesn't get attacked immediately Right, it doesn't have like antigens that are being presented that it's like danger. I must fight it off because So in cases, so yeah, there we go cancer many forms perhaps have been cured So far in mice, but uh, but I like the fact that this is the they specifically to endeavored to not break new ground On any of the compounds or the construction of their beads And when they bioengineered this so that they could avoid that whole situation of well That sounds really great But now we got to study it for a decade to figure out of the thing that you're using causes about now they specifically like Created their design parameters around things that already are approved. Okay So that it could It's a mechanism of delivery that's very specific that avoids the systemic effects that keeps it very localized So that yeah, so the drugs the cytokines are like super localized by the tumors and the drugs can get in there Yeah, the treatment can get right there and also a uh, a little bit of this location What would you call it the the way that it's surgically located within the lining of specific tissues to prevent it From also escaping. So it's a little bit of a combination of those two things put together And pretty amazing results These these were advanced stage cancer mice So it wasn't like they were They gave themselves the hard challenge in the test and passed with with flying colors Yay, the mice passed the test now We have to see if it works in the pigs or the sheaths Or maybe the primates and we can go straight to humans with this everything on this list Of compounds and the drugs and everything is already FDA approved So yeah, now you just got to see if it works. It's just the mechanism. Yeah, see if see if the delivery system the beads If the beads do it well these little beads they might not cause Problems in the body environment, but like Blair was talking about earlier We're throwing all sorts of things into our environment like plastic masks and other things that have these effects that we don't really expect them to have and uh researchers from Oregon State University Suzanne brander who I've actually talked to previously on the show About her work into micro plastics She and her graduate and post graduate students and postdoctoral scholars took a look at Tire produced micro plastics and so in the laboratory they created Micro-sized tire particles from tire tread to be the equivalent of Of tire tread that would be released on roads Tires lose massive amounts of their tread over the lifetime of a tire and these little tiny particles We're used to seeing the big giant tire chunks that are left when a semi truck blows its tire But in reality every time you drive you are there's erosion taking place and there's That is true. We're basically driving on like pencil erasers that are just slowly getting worn down Yeah, slowly wearing them down. Why do you do that? It's poor planning on our part really and this study Goes a goes a pretty long way to suggest that we really need to fix that because they took this uh this plastic that's the micro plastics and They look to see what these micro not plastics, but these tire tread plastics rubbers did In estuary ecosystem models and also freshwater ecosystem models. They have a couple of papers that are out and in the estuary ecosystem Paper they found uh in their organisms inland silverside and mysid shrimp They found that both organisms after being exposed to the tire tread particles had significant at and this is at concentrations of these tire tread particles that are detected in the environment Had significantly altered swimming behaviors such as increased freezing changes in positioning and total distance moved Which the researchers note could lead to an increased risk of predation and challenges for the shrimpy organisms to Find food in the wild. They also had reduced growth depending on the level of the exposure to these micro tire particles And fish exposed to nano tire particles had reduced growth as well They say leachates affected behavior, but did not impact growth in either organism The freshwater ecosystem paper they looked at embryonic zebrafish and the crustacean dafnia magna Model organisms in the laboratory and they found in these freshwater organisms They experienced mortality and developmental abnormalities due to tire particle and leachate exposures tire particle leachate was the main driver of toxicity for both organisms And exposure to nano tire particles enhanced toxicity in comparison to leachate alone So they found the toxicity From tire particles in all these organisms in these different ecosystem models But since sensitivity was different between the organisms in the different environments And so there's yet again complexity and nuance and some Organisms are more sensitive than others and so that kind of understanding Could lead us to develop different risk assessments and policy decisions moving forward And something that has been happening around my neighborhood over the last few years The the researchers mentioned several ways to limit tire particles from entering the environment One of them is installing rain gardens. I looked up what rain gardens are and these are They're areas full of soil and plants that are available for In the landscape that collects rain from a roof driveway or a street and allows it to soak into the ground They're often planted with grasses flowering perennials And they can be a cost effective and beautiful way to reduce runoff from your property and because it's soil It helps to filter pollutants out in runoff Situations, so there's also if you're using perennials. It's also potentially pollinating insect habitat songbird habitat wildlife habitat. There's all sorts of pluses To these rain gardens And tell somebody does a study saying what all the micro pollutants are doing to the insects that are getting into the And they're getting all Yeah Um, they think we're terrible for the planet. Why don't we make tires out of silicone? I don't uh, because they work on the roads. I don't know I don't know why we do these things the way we do. Why don't we make them out of steel that way? They never wear down right But the roads would wear down and that would be a problem. Yeah Yeah, there are uh, there are new designs to tires That would be Still steel belted tires, right? I just saw a study recently that was talking about new ways to reduce the wear on tires that the the mix of the tire particulate the rubber that they use is Uh, it reduces wear by 30 to extend the lifespan of the tires. I mean one of the things You got you got to wonder sometimes in our consumer Uh, society, you know the faster your tires wear out the faster you buy new ones, which is sure great for the businesses Not so great. I can tell you I can tell you right now tires aren't changing at all The the no no no the maybe over the last two years they haven't been well The thing is the thing is uh, I don't know, uh, if you look at the who's at the Firestone company and all that you have a small problem with a tire going that's going bad because Something is different about it than the other tires And now you have lawsuits that involve car companies tire manufacturers and tires It's one of those things that I don't think can get touched I have a feeling there's too much legal stuff Writing on the on the tire writing on I get it Not writing on the tires. Well right now we are Writing on the science riding on nine Route 66. No, I don't even know where I'm going with this anymore other than to say thank you for Being a part of twist today. Thank you for joining us Thank you for sharing your time so that we can share the science with you We hope that you are enjoying the show if you are enjoying the show, please share us with a friend today All right, we are gonna come on right back This is this week in science and it's time for Blair's animal corner With Blair Oh I have so many primates today. Do you want to hear about learning primates or sleepy primates first? primate primate All the primates and all of them at once. Okay. All right. All of them at once sleepy learning primates. Um, I'll tell you about, um My my preferred story first So sleeping in nature. Um A lot of people look at animals in nature, especially animals that are higher up on the food chain You say they sleep more than humans, right? They sleep a lot. They nap well um A long time ago a study came out a bunch of studies actually that identified you can't Catch up on sleep. You don't have a sleep bank, right? So like if you miss sleep for a bunch of days in a row, you can't then sleep all day and fix it similar You can't sleep all day today and then miss a bunch of sleep for the next three days and be even But one thing that does happen does that mean if I miss a night's sleep That I'm never going to recover from it It means you you Okay, you're ruined. So this is fine. Let me I got a problem with that Let me explain the difference There is another theory called sleep homeostasis And so in that if you had a bad night's sleep last night, you're going to need a nap today Okay, so like within the confines of a singular sleep cycle a singular circadian rhythm Your body has to catch up to its expectation of sleep or it should right and so you the the expectation is you see that in animals as well It's not that if you miss a bunch of sleep a bunch of days in a row You have really bad sleep a bunch of days in a row. You can then catch up on everything you missed No, each day pretty much is kind of a clean slate Um, I think we should call this second one the sleep singularity hypothesis So then so then hang on so that that would mean that would mean then if I missed two nights of sleep Uh on the third night I could get one night of sleep and I'm all caught up correct Oh, yeah, that's that's a much better system. Yes, then it's not you can't catch up It's you can't just pick the one you want What's the evidence layer that each day is a new day Basically, so so previous studies of sleep really but yeah have revealed that animals of every species from honeybees to humans Put aside a portion of their day to rest a lot of animals nap With some notable exceptions all of these sleep studies were in a lab So you're really missing part of the whole picture and so this was As far as these researchers know the first study ever to examine sleeping behavior in a wild group of primates So they were able to do this really intense sleep study on primates in the wild interacting with each other to see if this sleep homeostasis is a real thing So what they did is they um collected high resolution movement data from gps trackers and accelerometers attached to the baboons in almost every single baboon in this troop and they um They found that baboons experience shorter more fragmented sleep when sleeping near More of their group mates. It's like slumber party syndrome, right up all night However, you're exciting. They also synchronized periods of nocturnal awakening with nearby individuals Suggesting that baboons might actually be interacting with each other and strengthening their social bonds So they have these collars the accelerometers on they had gps trackers. They used cameras They did all sorts of things that were non-invasive to try to figure out what was going on with these animals And so What they saw was that because these animals were highly gregarious They were balancing their physical physiological needs for sleep with social pressures of group living so they Basically what this is saying is That Even after sleeping poorly They would spend time on other priorities socialization number one for sure looking out for predators These things are more important than catching up on lost sleep than napping or sleeping during the night, right? and so This kind of calls into question a lot of previous sleep research on animals because it was kind of done in a vacuum and a lot of previous sleep research also involved more more invasive methods And so if you had to Use something where for example, you needed to drill into their skull to look at their brain or anything like that That is going to impact your ability to have them in a space with other individuals Which then is going to impact how they actually respond to these things So basically what these these studies are showing? Sure in a vacuum with no other stressors if they got a bad night's sleep the night before they will sleep more during the day but If you put in all of the normal Stuff that goes with being an animal in the wild sleep is not number one on the list And so this is looking at this idea that humans are kind of Individual or unusual in the fact that we push sleep for other priorities We have to go to work. We can't just nap in the middle of the day or at least, you know, I can't I don't know about other people who are watching or listening, but They're competing Allowed a lot more people to nap in the middle of the day and do their work at different schedules for sure But yes, there are these competing priorities that have us accumulate what you might call a sleep debt, although, you know For what it's worth that may or may not exist depending on what kind of debt you're talking about And that this might be somehow unique to modern industrialized societies But looking at what they're seeing here in these baboons It looks like this actually has a much deeper evolutionary route of being able to kind of weigh costs of missing out versus sleeping so So if you sleep and you miss important social interactions Or you're not there to alert the group to a predator or you miss out some grazing opportunity or whatever it is there The cost actually outweighs the benefit in a lot of cases and so you'd be better off to be tired But to be able to get all this other stuff So you could also look at this like a fomo in the wild, I suppose That's what I was going to say. I mean this this sounds like These primates or are we talking about teenagers or freshmen in college? Absolutely. What are you choosing? Are you going to sleep? Are you going to stay up and study with your friends? Are you going to go to that party? What are the more important things to do right now? Yeah Well, I would argue it would be the studying one, but the teenager might argue it is the party Um, you know what? Maybe they're right. Maybe I'm not right. Maybe the social interaction is more important Who's to say? I mean baboons would probably agree with the teenager in that case The social interaction is the most important thing But anyway, this is called all teenagers baboons because they kind of agree with you No, I kind of agree. No, they do operate very much like a baboon fruit No, no, I'd be an ager. I mean, oh boy tina boon. Oh, no uh, well, anyway, so so yes, so this is something that The first study of its kind identified the need to do sleep studies in the wild but also identified a new methodology that is less invasive accelerometry based methods that are easy. They're cheap They could be integrated into other studies that are used tracking animals in natural habitats And then you can expand this sleep study across a huge range of species And so this could also potentially be applied to humans And so there's lots of different things that you could do to kind of figure out what's going on I want to see them apply these collars to magpies Oh, yeah, they'll pull them right off. I thought you were going to say humans and I was going to say we most of us have them already Yeah, the yeah our our smart watches or sell our smart phones. There are sleep trackers You can stick little pads in your bed to track your sleep if you want. There's all sorts of devices these days Yeah, um, but I but I One thing I really love about this. It's even though it's a small study kind of proof of concept It's it's interesting in that it kind of abends a lot of ideas about The importance of sleep, but at the same time It also, yeah, I think, you know, we So much recently we talk a lot on the show about the importance of sleep And oh if you don't get all the right sleep your metabolism is going to be messed up And that's that's a problem and you're going to die young and bad metabolic disease and all this kind of stuff, but Maybe we can relax just a little bit. Yeah, or or maybe we can find a way to be More relaxed with our schedules a little bit when it's available. I think that's the other problem Right is that we are in this very strict day that baboons don't have this strict day They don't have to be at work at 9 a.m. No matter what if they if things are chill if everyone's else is asleep Nothing interesting is going on they can snooze And that's the difference right is that they can adapt to the need of their environment, but we have these very rigid structured days that So basically the study thing it's not unusual for animals to forego naps Like we often have to do as adults Yeah, but I I would argue what is unusual is that we're not allowed to nap when it would be okay to nap Like if you're having a slow day at work, you know, there's no emails coming in I finished my projects early I'm taking a nap I mean tech companies allow that I'm pretty sure they have they have nap rooms, but But we don't have a nap they also have they also have 18 hour days That's also true. So There's no twist nap room though Blair next story. Come on story right now So this story I bring less for the results and more for the experiment design Because it's very strange So this is a study from central european university and Sorry central european universities department of cognitive science, but also Otvis larand university the university of st. Andrews and max plank institute for evolutionary anthropologies. This is a very collaborative study They wanted to know about how apes and other primates learn Specifically if they want to be taught because There are different ways to learn so one way would be to observe someone doing something and then copy them This is how we observe a lot of animals learning observation This is faster than discovering it on your own their example in the In the article is in case of a baby randomly pushing buttons of the toy to see what happens, right? So just experimentation But the best way to learn most of us would argue is when someone can teach you They can say how to do something why it works and what doesn't work And so the question is do apes and other primates like to be taught Children human children show a preference to learn through what they call communication That's not surprising. That's how our whole society is based right is on teaching our children things Primatologists have recorded several cases regarding the ability of great apes to learn from observing others But what apes lack or at least what current research implies apes lack is intentional teaching What they've seen is juveniles will learn from their mother how to use a wooden stick For a termite fishing situation just by watching her But they say we have not seen Mothers try to call attention to the juvenile To the most important parts of the actions like look here. I'm going to do this this way because xyz So do apes care about the being taught or not? So right off the bat, I would say just because we haven't seen it doesn't mean they're not doing it But I will shelve that right the remainder of it So in the study, this is their attempt to try to identify whether primates have a preference to be communicated with while they learned versus Just observing and copying something. So this is a ride. So stick with me So they showed chimpanzees bonobos and orangutans How to operate a food dispenser device in order to get the food? They had to insert an object into a small hole on top of the device after they inserted it It gave a sound and a food pellet was dispensed. That is if they put the right object in There were also wrong objects provided Which if that happened then just nothing happened. They didn't get a sound. They didn't get a treat So it has to be right object right Right port Yeah, so you're learning multiple aspects of the the situation Right, and so then they had researchers show the apes how to use it They had two kinds of demonstrations. You can see where this is going. They had a teaching and a not teaching right So while one demonstrator was communicating with the ape They would insert objects so they would make eye contact. They'd clap their hands. They told the ape hello They kind of mined like they were teaching The other demonstrator did not communicate. They only made some attention grabbing sounds They knocked on the floor just so the ape was looking in the right direction But otherwise did not communicate did not make eye contact just went about their business And um And so they had these very different Procedures now what I was trying to figure out is they didn't these two individuals doing this in different ways Didn't do the same thing with the objects the demonstrator who was communicating Only used wrong objects the demonstrator who was not communicating only used correct objects Why would you change this variable? And I think this is why Because if you did write objects with both of them or wrong objects with both of them You would be unable to separate out The difference between the two and they could just be copying Otherwise, there's no there's no way to separate out the variable of communication Yeah So they they they did these two different objectives So that they could see and this is what they saw that the that the apes who watched the communicator the teacher Put wrong objects more in more So they paid more attention to what the their teacher was doing. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, it didn't work It didn't work. I don't want to do that right, so okay, so actually it's They actually continued to put the wrong objects in Even though they could see with their own eyes that the wrong objects never made food They still chose those objects often. Hmm So So they did just copy they did they copied the communicator more Yeah, so that is what's happening here is that They paid more attention to the person who was talking to them even though It didn't get them their desired result In control groups when either both demonstrators were communicating or none of them were communicating But one was still using the wrong objects. The other one's still using the right objects. The majority of them did not have a problem Choosing the right objects. They were able to do it and get the treats so they really Is a super confusing, but they actually did a pretty good job of experiment design To try to separate out these variables in a situation where we don't speak the same language We don't know how they communicate fully with each other. We can't do that with them But we could we could figure out a way To kind of parse out these different pieces of the experiment so As opposed to the control they copied the communicator the teacher more which means they paid more attention to what they were doing So they are sensitive to communication cues And they can recognize them and react to them So in the case of children the assumption is that There's language involved, right you they're learning the language. They are cued into you Look, this is how you should do it It would be a tough kind of Leap to go straight there with these apes after this one study But it does look like at the very least they They give they pay more mind to someone who is Connected to them who is making eye contact and talking to them So the hope here is that this is a starting point. There will be further research to help understand what could be kind of the missing piece To to make this true Education I guess or teaching opportunities between humans and apes but also between apes and apes because also this is the other funny thing Is that in this study they say That apes do not teach each other in the wild and I have a really hard time believing that But because then the discovery the discovery is that that That's not that they don't learn from each other. It's that apes could be better teachers They could be better teachers than they are. I mean what they're doing is modeling behavior just by doing it They're not sitting there. They're baby baby apes down and saying now you sit here And I'm gonna tell you what you need to learn like there's no deficit And and and so they're not And they do communicate with their child their offspring and with others, but it it just happens along the way it's not as So focused as we are as humans. Yeah, you don't have to get them to put down the phone Still eyes forward to teach them something And it's modeling behavior that works Education best practices now are not doing that. It's moving more towards the way the apes are learning. It's moving more towards learning by doing an experimentation and Experiment first theory later as opposed to you know, how all of we were raised Which is the sit down listen to this lecture and then put your hot dog in this solar cooker It's you know, it's yeah, and that's an old system Put your hot dog in the solar cooker. It's never gonna cook all though. It does it takes all day But but you know in this theory that's John Dewey by the way John Dewey started in Portland. It doesn't even work Yeah, I know in in the sunny san francisco and the sunset it did not cook at all when I was growing up But yeah, but the idea is don't even solar cooker in san francisco. What is it was a crazy place to be the The theory now would be Send the kids out and do that and then say why did this work? Why didn't it work and then learn together about all of the theories behind it, right? um, and so I yes, so I think I think to say apes quote-unquote don't teach each other in the wild is silly. I'm so sorry You did all this research with apes. I don't buy that. Um I liked the research that you did They 100 teach each other in the wild Um, the way that they do it. Maybe you're not defining that as education or teaching. I think it is But it would be great to be able to observe different Kind of copying behaviors and apes and say okay in this one They made eye contact with each other. They groomed each other before afterwards. Yes in this other situation They didn't do those things and they didn't Carry on the information the same way, right? So we need to figure out how to Analyze what the study is looking at into how apes actually communicate with each other Which we still don't know so yeah that if we can't say that they don't teach each other if they don't really understand their full Modes of communication. Yep By the way, this education system of doing instead of the rote learning of Memorizing lists of things developed by john dewey in the early 1900s who became america's first education czar And changed the way classrooms topped subjects for a really long time and then at some point We were like, oh, but we have to pass a test So we started teaching people to remember information to then regurgitate onto a test And it kind of ruined the thing. It's nice to hear that we're heading back in the john dewey direction We're heading back in the direction of the apes Who came up with it first Justin tell me some science news Oh, you want oh you wanted science news. Oh gosh, let me see if I've got any of that. Yes. Yeah, you got it university of coban hagan and our hoose university looked at the spread of misinformation on the twitter university, so they were looking at cobit 19 pandemic face mask related twitter activity between february to november of 2020 And they were focused on the acceptance or spread rejection of misinformation on twitter During the first wave a big wave the coronavirus pandemic in denmark misinformation They say accounted for a small portion of the overall face mask related tweets very small percentage With almost equal number of misinformation spreaders And rejectors so in the early part of the pandemic Tiny little bit of people who were like ah face masks Make you inhale too much of your own Exhale and that will cause brain damage and then they had the same amount of people like ah you're that's nonsense, right? by the end though This is the first the number of tweets rejecting misinformation Exceeded the tweets spreading the misinformation over time. However the tweets spreading misinformation outnumbered those rejecting it so the The misinformation grew during the pandemic Most cases tweets rejecting misinformation Did not engage with substantive claims, but instead ridiculed the misinformation spreaders Analysis suggests that future initiatives to limit online misinformation should consider also status-seeking dynamics Amongst both the misinformation spreaders and the prominent misinformation rejectors so They're saying the focus seems to be People speaking to their own audience and not actually engaged in a dialogue 33 percent of all tweets rejecting misinformation used satire irony and humor Well, that was only true of 8 percent of tweets spreading misinformation So that kind of tracks so that having a sense of snarky sense of humor. I think tends to track more with people who are fact-based I think the other problem is that Is that is that we've been told for years now that conspiracy theorists Don't care if you give them facts but I think that's the problem is that You might not be You want to be swaying them But it's about the other people reading it It's no, it's about it. It might be them. No, no, it's not it's not it I mean, it's the response because I think what Justin said is exactly right is it's people playing to their own audience You're trying to impress people who think like you Oh, other people might be that that think like me might see what I write and I want to impress them You're not actually the people who are rejecting misinformation rebutting misinformation are not trying to have dialogue They're not trying to actually have a conversation and that's the That's the problem. It's because we're all putting ourselves on stage Yeah, and it wasn't all but it was it was a big it was a big yeah big percentage of those rejecting misinformation We're basically just making fun of the people Which which I kind of get Like, uh, I kind of get that like that was my first response at this point It makes you feel a little better sometimes I hope that doesn't make me a bad person I'm not the one making fun of them. This is a problem, but it's when someone else You know post a conspiracy theory and and I just I get to see the one little comment where I'm like, yeah, you got it Yeah, so, uh, but again, that's who they're doing it for is for you says professor rebecca alder This isn't one of the researchers behind the study. We tend to believe that people Eager to correct misinformation will be very fact-oriented But our study shows that this group of people typically choose to ridicule those spreading misinformation Instead of bridging gaps or inviting people to change their minds by updating their knowledge Their response to misinformation takes the form of know-it-all remarks intended to patronize And patronize their opponent and praise themselves Consequently, the researchers go into a lot of people who either spread or reject misinformation or really trying to defend their own social position Yeah, but At some point though at some point though as the as the number of this misinformation grew Gosh, it's it just gets hard to like point out facts, doesn't it like wow Well, try all the analogies you try all the things and sometimes you get tired Just tired of saying the same things over and over again Um Yeah, and if people won't listen to your to the facts because they have a different set of facts because they are stuck in different chambers of information And your information doesn't overlay with their information Then nothing you say is potentially going to be right because what you're doing is you're battling misinformation with an attack of information as opposed to Trying to be compassionate and find out, you know at hit and and and and at least compose your comment With respect to their emotions to where they're coming from actually having a dialogue As opposed to just spewing facts I mean, I have all of us we can all barf facts all day long Yeah, but see then nobody wants those You're actually in a weird way you're making an argument that is potentially Against giving those facts No, I'm not. No, I'm not. I'm not I'm not arguing that at all. I know you're not arguing that but here's the argument I can hear uh evolved from that Which is that we should just then stop giving equal time to the debates because then it's like here's why global warming is not happening and then Uh, we like we have to give them the same amount of time as the IPCC Like no, no, you don't you can cut to the quick and be like you're uh, uh russian fossil fuel industry lobbyist troll or just a moron I don't know which but it's fine and then just be done It just depends because at some point you got to stop giving equal time Oh, absolutely, but it depends on what what you're talking about right now is twitter And twitter is a different beast than a real debate or real news coverage Twitter is that I mean and you go into twitter And you're gonna decide your communication goal. Are you trying to change somebody's mind or are you tired and you just Want to tweet angrily at people Do you want to just be reactive or do you want to be thoughtful? These are you know individual choices and What I'm seeing from this study that's really important is That a lot of times on these social media platforms. We're not Being thoughtful. We're trying to play. We're not talking. We're playing to our audience because what do we want? more followers And I think that's ultimately where both of you or could meet in this conversation is Give facts have a conversation with a conversational tone Or leave it Yeah, I think that's the point right is that if you are if you are talking down at reprimanding patronizing these individuals Then that's not actually helping other people seeing that tweet and you just look like a jerk and then And not to mention that boosts the whole thing about twitter, right? Is that boost the tweet? The more interactions it gets the more people see it So if you see a tweet that's nonsense and you don't want to spend the time to debunk it properly Maybe leave it I do that all the time. Yeah I like I I write out half a tweet and then I go. Oh gosh. What am I doing? This is no delete delete delete and I take a breath and I put twitter away and I walk away Yeah, and our lore brings a really good point up in the chat room Which is that often people spreading misinformation don't follow the rules that I just said so even if we follow those rules then the misinformers will not and it still causes a problem and then That's why we still do need to fight back with facts Well chances are chances are you can just ignore them because If we're sticking with twitter after a while you might not even hear from them anymore This is our researchers at the technical university of denmark dtu. They analyzed 60 billion tweets boy. That's a lot of reading Oh, I used a computer deep pinky stuff to look at it do the analysis Look at 60 billion tweets. This was they looked at vaccine hesitancy Before the pandemic took place This is this is before the the vaccines were you know in the news the the covid 19 vaccines were even a thing Uh, they found that misinformation on social media Contributes to distrust as well as they fall as false beliefs in both the benefits and disadvantages of vaccines Looking at the links people used to support their tweets They found the pro vaccine crowd often posted links to news media science sites as Reference for their opinion support for their opinion when the anti-vax crowd Links were there they tended to be youtube videos and conspiracy theory websites This is according to uh, bjarke monstera dtu Additionally, they found that the anti-vax protest posters anti-vax posters profiles themselves often linked to commercial sites That were selling alternative health products Previous research had shown That globally there are about 12 people responsible for the majority of vaccine misinformation and that they are part of alternative health product industry This is before the panic so you're sort of also like there's there's the this is the dark underside of communication is who who's Not knowing who you're communicating with sometimes you miss that they have a specific agenda and it doesn't matter what your argument is going to be Uh, anti-vaxxers and pro-vaxxers they found it do not talk to each other Research confirms echo chamber effect making it hard for vaccine advocates and opponents To encounter each other's views on the internet because the way social media algorithms work people interact with others whose opinions align with their own That's why we're speaking to our audience all the time like that the last study was talking about It's because that's who we end up surrounded with And then and then something like a vaccine kind of masks comes up that wasn't part of the Venn diagram before And then that's the little bit of conflict that you can have and it can seem Everybody should be thinking like me because everybody on social media says the things that i'm saying it's that echo chamber Uh, because the way social media algorithms work people interact with those whose opinions align with your own Which I actually think is great. I wouldn't want it any other way Uh, because I have very low tolerance for uh, stupid people At this point. I'm just done done And it may mean that uh, carol and hr, uh, thinks the vaccine her cat got Made it, uh, socially unreceptive towards her, but But it's too bad. I'm not gonna I don't care To share social media circles with bad information anymore Too too annoying Uh, but they say the more resistance to vaccines a user expressed The further from the norm was the media picture. They were exposed to from their circle of friends according to the study Research covers the period before covet 19 And they say there's no doubt that vaccines have become a talking point No, no whole new way over the last few years vaccines have gone from being a topic that was primarily discussed amongst particular population groups to becoming markedly more mainstream So they're uh, they're sort of interested in looking at this again this was uh Just to take you back into this is the 60 billion tweets were were from 2013 to 2016 vaccine supporters Uh made up 45 of the data that they used vaccine opponents Made up only 3% of their data So it seems like somebody's been gaining ground Then Yeah, that's I mean the vaccine the anti-vax thing definitely Was not a as much of it wasn't really a political thing before It was but it wasn't as as identity focused. You're right. I feel like it was way more identified as part of the the the the crunchy health crowd than with uh, oh So that's what you would hear about that's what you would hear about in california especially living in the you know the the uh, the bay area And your surrounding areas that's that's little sliver of the people isn't the biggest portion of that Um, there's a big there's always been a big religious right and right wing anti-medicine grifter supplement industry has been going on for a long time. So the difference is it's not that the anti-vax Here's it. Here's the thing It's always been a grifter thing Not a political thing and tell a grifter thing and the political thing became the same thing Yes. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I'm super excited. So you mentioned the uh research that was done to determine the 12 individuals who are responsible for the majority of anti-vax information um on twitter and the conference for science communicators that i'm involved in science talk which is happening at the end of march the 24th 25th of march Are one of our keynote speakers on the second day is Imran Ahmed and he is the ceo for the center for countering digital hate which did that work So i'm excited to i'm excited to hear him speak about Very neat about that work. He's coming to portland. So i'm hoping i got to meet him and Talk about countering digital hate and misinformation. I'm very excited Very cool. Yeah Science talk 22 For science communicators like you This is this week in science We don't hate we just enjoy science We do we like science If you are enjoying the show, please head over to twist.org and click on the patreon link And help support this show in an ongoing fashion if you sponsor us at ten dollars or more per month Just just per month. It's a fairly doable amount. Well, thank you by name at the end of the show There's a lot more in rewards there as well. Thank you for your supportive twists. We really can't do this without you I'm gonna come on back with a few more stories To finish out our Tight 90. Okay, let's Let's jump into the brain Blah blah blah blah This study published this week in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences is very exciting to me it's uh researchers out of Carl Illinois College of medicine at the university of illinois researchers worked on this multidisciplinary project to develop a way to vision epigenetic markers in the dna of your brain So, you know how an MRI it usually Responds to the changes in oxygenation or the vibration of molecules atoms within your brain the spins of protons And you can get in the the researchers can get a picture of activation in the brain of blood flow in the brain of things That are happening energetically in the brain. Well, they used previous research to That that showed that a marker known as carbon 13 can be imaged in the brain and Carbon 13 could be used if it was given in the diet To a person in this case it was pigs, but could be given in the diet as a way to mark methyl groups which are involved carbon These methyl groups that are needed for DNA methylation. So what happens when You experience something There are a lot of changes that take place within the molecules that are inside your brain Not only do your neurons send their action potentials all over the place to signal with each other The neurons themselves are also computing what's happening and there are changes to the dna that Will change the way that the dna responds the next time you have a similar experience It's part of the learning process and the dna methylation Is a methyl it's a methyl group this molecular group that it gets attached to the dna to kind of wrap it up And where the wrapping happens it changes the way that translation and transcription of the dna can occur Translation and transcription is necessary for the production of proteins which allow processes to take place in the neurons that allow behaviors to occur so They used baby pigs in the first few weeks of their lives they were fed with carbon 13 labeled methionin And then as the the pigs grew without having to Sacrifice the animals they could put them in these what they're calling e MRI machines for epigenetic MRI they're able to image these epigenetic changes As the pigs developed experienced learned and Grew cool thing. I'm so excited about this this technology being able to actually image Molecular changes within the brain But you have to be on the carbon 13 diet from a young pig lady age for this to work Right, but I mean it would be it would be the kind of thing where if we wanted to do human studies What they carbon 13 methionin? This is something we could have in our diets. It's not it's an amino acid It's an essential amino acid. So it's not a problem and instead of using carbon 12 Which is very common. You just read you use a form of methionin that has This isotope that's a little bit different carbon 13 that can be read a little bit differently And so we could potentially use this technology if it as they develop it further to See how the brain changes in response to certain experiences. So you could imagine like psychological experience experiments Where different groups have different different experiences watch a movie that's Shocking or watch a movie that's calming and see if there are changes After having a particular experience Yeah, you could imagine the work that you could do there Very cool on pigs On pigs so far Yeah reading It's like almost humans Aren't we just long pigs? Yeah Pretty much anyway new technology. Yeah new technology imaging epigenetic changes to dna in the brain pictures Changes to dna. It's just That's wild. Yeah It's kind of kind of blown my mind a little bit. Um, and then from the nih this came in very very last minute that I was very thrilled about researchers at the national eye institute Have been looking at uh organelles within the eyes photo receptors These little organelles you might recognize the name of mitochondria Oh that's the energy center there where it's all the you got the in the genes there powerhouse of the cell powerhouse of the cell energy center Yeah, yeah, mitochondria. They're very they're good all cells have them or they should it's very good for ourselves Anyway, this study found an entirely new purpose for mitochondria in the eyes photo receptors uh, these organelles They're not just there for energy production for these photo receptors. They also are stacked in a way that has an optical effect so What they have discovered using just a microscope modified microscope They observe the optical properties of living cone cell Mitochondria that were exposed to light and they found that the mitochondria focused Concentrated the transmission of the light from the inner to the outer segments of the cone photo receptors and thus act as focusing elements within the photo receptors of the eye So they used to just be like oh, why do they have like oh the eye photo receptors must use a lot of energy Why are they stacked in that way? What's going on? Oh, look, they actually have a function In focus you had one job. Oh, no, actually you've got more Mitochondria leaves some jobs for the rest of them Nah, I'm gonna do them all I've been mitochondria mitochondria is So if if multicellular organisms didn't need come from single-celled organisms getting eaten by each other then I'm I'm surprised I'm surprised that that we haven't found more organelles that do a bunch of different kind of disparate things because I think we also just kind of go. Oh, we found your function. Yeah. Oh, yeah And it's like that's great. Thanks. We Yeah, here's the label Yeah, you're in the box. You have your own box there. We love our box. If I got something else not not not already labeled that box I gotta move on a lot of boxes. Yeah. Yeah, but if they if organelles really did come from engulfed single-celled organisms It sure would make sense for more of them to do multiple things I understand that over time It makes sense to streamline the work and do all this kind of stuff But but for it to all kind of go away and have it just have a very one clear rule For it just seems like it wouldn't always happen Yeah, one thing that I thought was very interesting Just from this they in this story Just based on this research, they Realizing that the mitochondria have this function they compared it to other animals and It does give like you're talking about like, okay What are the other functions of different organelles and things? It has been discovered also that there are photoreceptors of birds and reptiles that contain oil droplets and the oil droplets in the inner segments of the Of the eye serve an optical role that might be similar to this mitochondrial micro lens function Yeah, so perhaps there were these oil droplets and then the oil droplets got replaced. I don't know there's Very a lot of ideas the researchers say this insight conceptually bridges compound eyes in Arthropods with the camera eyes of vertebrates two independently evolved image-forming systems Demonstrating the power of convergent evolution Mm-hmm Power of convergence and science and Mitochondria are so cool. Oh and by the way I just want to finish this up with two quick stories of science working the way that it's supposed to work No more brains. We're going to space everybody this week Friday. There's a rocket that's supposed to impact the moon We reported previously I reported previously that it was SpaceX. Well researchers looking at The trajectories of various bits of space junk from different launches think that it's not SpaceX booster a SpaceX booster from a falcon nine that's going to hit the moon the far side of the moon it's going to be a chinese booster that is uh from A uh from the the chang the changy Changi five t1 mission in 2014 Although the chinese deny this is theirs the rocket is going to hit what? Oh, it's just like we got too much space junk up there. Can you figure out? Who's it is? Oh, you put that one up there. I don't know is that one of mine? I can't tell I'm not cleaning it up. It's not mine mom Anyway, why would they deny it? Like what's They're gonna get some moon damage liability issues coming up in the future. Are you hit the moon? You owe us. Who do you pay? Who do you charge? What would be the who cares? The rocket's going to impact into Hertz sprung crater on the far side of the moon at 7 25 a.m Approximately eastern standard time on Friday March 4th We won't be able to see it because it's on the far side of the moon But uh, we know the trajectory and but we don't really know whether it's like spinning Or whether it's going end over end. We don't know exactly what's happening with how it's It's spinning toward the moons. We don't know how it's going to impact, but we have a good idea And then we're going to send our lunar orbiter Around to take a look at it and finish up observations and look at the atmosphere of the moon To see what shot into space surrounding the moon once the impact happened How long will it take the Little lunar buddy to get over there Do you think we'll find out the same day? I don't think that we're going to find out the same day No I don't think that's going to happen Yeah, I'm not sure exactly when the lunar the lunar Orbiter is going to be there to take a look Okay. Yeah I'm not the the sooner the better, but I'm not sure they're going to do what they can And then in other oh, hey science is doing what it's supposed to kind of news There was a report in 2020 from the european southern observatory That there's this Black hole that's a thousand light years away from us. It's the closest black hole to us and well This is amazing. It's super close HR 68 19 solar system and how there was some papers, but then There was some contestation They contested I just made up that word Belgian researchers said hold on a second what's going on and uh, so they They came up with some new hypotheses as to what was going on. They got some new data from the very big And the very large terra telescope And they were able to this with this data have finer resolution to be able to determine that it Is not actually a black hole What it is in fact Is a vampire What? A vampire binary system. It's two stars orbiting each other one star has ripped all of the star stuff away from the other star and they're just Spiral air in a death spiral But it's not a black hole. So No black hole a thousand light years away from us. Thank you science. We needed to know this There might be others we just haven't found them yet But this is the way science works Someone puts out a result someone says I don't think so someone else says okay Let's look at more data and then the experiments are done and you get to a more accurate answer And they collaborated they didn't fight each other for these papers. The two teams came together And published this final paper together. So this is science at work Thank you science For bringing us the knowledge Did we bring the knowledge we do it? Oh, do we do it? Yeah, I think we did But there's been yawning for a while. So I think we stop it. Why you gotta tell the podcast listeners about it I've been yawning since I woke up this morning. So Yeah, why are you gonna put me on last justin so rude? Maybe I had too much processed meat That's not what happened We'll see Thank y'all for listening. Thank you for Being here for another wonderful episode of this week in science. We really do enjoy having you here It's time for some shout outs Thank you, too Fada, thank you so much for all your help on show notes and show descriptions And on social media Our chat rooms. Thank you chatters for being here during the show and chatting and letting us know what you think all the way through Identity four. 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I hope you learned some fun sciencey newsy things I hope you had fun interacting with other sciencey people I hope we all had a very nice evening. Thank you all of you Pink Floyd lunar base Yes It's full of tardigrades Well, I wonder wonder. Oh, there's a great point fata. I wonder if uh The chinese have a probe on the far side of the moon depending on the location compared to Where it's going to impact was it planned? Should we pay attention? I don't I don't know I think this is an example of space junk gone too far I do Ah kevin b kev b artemis one pushed back to may orbit moon Coming back for splashdown unmanned. We'll see if that happens I'm not optimistic about any of it because They just talked about how money much money old artemis is gonna cost us and nobody wants to pay it Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah say billions of dollars a year and our You know the politicians are like well, maybe we should spend that money on war instead of Going to space Fata has a question for you Oh, I saw this earlier Okay, um, so This is a tough question. So the question from fata is Uh, we've taught certain apes sign language to communicate with them Have we asked those apes with asl to teach us how they communicate with each other? So Yeah Unfortunately I don't Really Think we've taught apes how to communicate with sign language. It's like very similar to baby sign So like they can say if they want things They can answer questions with one word answers or a few words of an answer But it's really not It's it's not like they could you if you ask them an abstract question like that They're not going to sit there and sign for five minutes and explain how apes Community like that is that is a really abstract thing and the way that they've been taught sign language is very superficial also only like three or four apes have ever been like taught sign language beyond What's this called it's called this sort of thing um And even those That was not scientific. It was not reported on scientifically and so there's actually a lot of questions Around the methodology and the results in those cases a lot of them are circumstantial. It's a nice story But there's there's not very much scientific about it if I am being honest and I am sorry to tell everyone that but um that there's questionable practices around the facilities where these apes were and They were not very scientific in the way they did things and it's just yeah To say that apes could communicate with sign language. It's not like in the movies where they're just chatting at you So I don't think you could ask that that question having philosophical philosophical conversations with a with a baboon So and this is the thing I think my threshold For alien intelligence I I should probably apply to earth things of all Species Yeah, that's a humor Until you can tell a joke I don't really find you to be intelligent now There have been there is there is chimp humor Yeah There's in interactions that there's an interaction that specifically one that I have in my head of of a chimp Uh Mother chimpanzee mother putting something I think a food something down For an infant who was checking it out who then looked away and then the mother removed it and the child looked at it for it Again and couldn't find it and the chimp mother grinned So there's there are some examples of Maybe some Some humor in the chimpanzee families. Uh, I might well you have to be used to be You should be careful with grinning though, because that doesn't always mean the same thing It was the happy it was the happy one It was that researchers were talking about this is the first example that we covered it I covered this on twist. I think at some point Uh, but a billion years ago, but uh, so there's some examples of that But really it has to be uh Have humor for it to be intelligent, which is also why I found The lack of humor and the anti-maskers The correlation that they found between the use of humor and being uh pro or anti-masking I found Or for more misinformation Slightly revealing. Yeah. Yeah. So I just did a quick quick search and there's a a paper in the journal humor Chimpanzee and gorilla humor progressive emergence from origins in the wild to captivity to sign language learning And it examines is from 2018 Examining mainly anecdotal evidence related to the experience of humor among chimpanzees and gorillas in the wild Um humor is defined as one form of symbolic play Uh, what do they say? Positive evidence of object permanence cross modal perception deferred imitation and deception Among chimpanzees and gorillas is used to document their cognitive capacity for humor Playful teasing is proposed as the primordial form of humor among apes in the wild Uh, this form of humor is commonly found among signing apes both in overt behavior and in signed communications A second form of humor emergence emerges in the context of captivity Consisting of throwing feces at human onlookers who often respond to this with laughter This early form of humor shows up in signing apes in the form of calling others Dirty a sign associated with feces Oh, wow So Anecdotal how about, you know, it's just reviewing stuff, but that's funny Of course, now when they're throwing feces, it's funny to the apes Possibly because they're getting that they're getting the reaction, which is also interesting. Yeah I've got this whole train of thought of like, uh, of like, is there a correlation between Having a sense of humor and critical thinking and I think there probably is This is my my But I've also then thought about the perception of intelligence With uh with humor like I think I assume funny people Are more intelligent than they are I think I have this this innate sense and and And I may this is just a train of thought thing going on ricketry base Who I think is a very intelligent person I am just now analyzing my own appreciation of him as he's not only something who tells funny jokes that are like well-crafted at times But he's somebody who's who has Preventing to laugh at his own joke while he's telling it Which then also sort of shows a form of intelligence because he's getting the joke Yes, he already knows it and he's the one telling it But he's also laughing at it because he gets why it's funny in the same time So that might be that combination of laughing at your own joke Might make it somebody seem more and doesn't could just be good You know crafting the absurd but I think it does this there are not good Somebody was mentioning it in the chat before. Yeah, there's not really good conservative comedians Because especially modern day conservatism is very It all depends on what you find funny Because there are conservative compete comedians that people find funny It's just you're not you're in it. You're in a different echo chamber chamber. Yeah. I mean, I guess outside of like, you know Like what it just seems like when I've heard conservative comedy attempts It seemed to be like It seemed either ill informed About the constructs of the jokes that they were telling or just meanness They're just it had like this base like Attempted meanness on some sort of social pretext that I didn't agree with that's all I want to I want to find Yeah, I don't like mean humor And there and everybody there's like a ton of mean humor I've already said but it seems like a very specific Like I feel like there's probably a lot of great craftsmen of jokes Out there in the conservative community, but you know, how many racist jokes do we really do? Dude, none. We need none That's not I don't really know Aside from that, I don't know Yeah, I don't know that there's Um on another note. Do you want to hear about what mealworm flower is made out of? Yes, okay, everybody's been waiting the whole show to know the answer to this question Blair. Okay, great um mealworm flower includes yellow mealworm powder 100% It's all mealworm how to make mealworm flower using prepared mealworms Toast them. Yep. Put them in a food processor. Yep. Let cool Yum, that's it mealworm flower. Where's the gluten? No glupin No glupin. No, um here. I want to look at mealworm flower replacement Do you have to add? I mean, I guess eggs. What are the binding agents? So you yeah, that's like an egg or a banana Yeah, yeah, you would do that Banana Mealworm So I'm trying to figure out is it one to one? um mealworm flower On to one. I have never baked with mealworms. I will say it right now admit So I have no idea what the What the conversion ratio is um Insect flower I don't know if it's because they're actually they're tasty. Actually, they're bland. Well, but isn't the flower like It is nutty. It tastes very nutty. Yeah And if it's a plant that probably means you just it your recipe needed more in it It depends on what you make it like if you're making cookies, it's mostly sugar and butter anyway So it shouldn't even matter what kind of flour you use Cookies should just taste good because of all this sugar butter so this says You can use cricket powder In a ratio of one to four with normal flour to goose up the the protein in your Just replace it entirely. Yeah, but also cricket flour can be a one to one Okay, so you can beef up the protein in your snacks your sweets your sweet treats or Just just do it wow as um I tried to get my mom a mealworm cookie once and she wouldn't do it. I was like what you eat shrimp They're basically the same she didn't like that Um kiki did you update our website? What? It just looks different. I did like months ago. Is this the first time you've been to it? No. No. No. I keep meaning to ask you Okay, yeah months ago. I'm like wait. I'm gonna ask you about it Wait, hang on. Wait. When did we get a website? Thanks, Justin. Sure. Sure. Sure Waka waka waka Oh Charles says fried insects are a nice snack with cold beer Yeah, I mean, I'm all about putting them in the flour. I just don't I don't know if I could handle it Every time I've eaten them as is it's like I feel like I can feel the legs And I know I probably can't I know that's probably not true Or maybe you can and you should just probably not off of them Or you could I mean a little bit of um A little might be a learning on a cricket that might be tasty Little lime and habanero I've tried to eat chicken like I hear all these people like oh chicken's great. I love chicken But wait, I can't I love feathers Like oh you keep choking on I keep choking on the feathers when I eat chicken. I don't understand See like this may be steps that uh, are you gonna cook them? Oh my nobody else cooked them All right, people talking to you like fish Yeah, I was like all the but all the bones and the scales are like crunching going on. I forget it Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck It might be I'm gonna go down a humor rabbit hole. I've like I'm like, oh research papers on comedy and critical thought Yeah, I want to see that this paper published in contemporary political theory comedy and critical thought laughter as resistance Well, because there's all these like there's a bazillion uh comedy political satire Shows like every every late night show is now doing like the john stewart type political comedy satire Uh, it takes on the news all this stuff. It's like It's you can't do You almost can't do it. What are the shows without having that there and they all have a very strong fact basis Yeah, and their approaches The I haven't seen the the right wing version of that Why aren't there a dozen shows where they're using comedy from the right to talk about the news Yeah, so the so this kind of gets this kind of gets at it a little bit is um, so There's a few paragraphs here. Um one here Uh, so I saw talks about a suggest the suggestive conflation of um Subverting uh, so people laughing together often seems threatening signifying a kind of antisocial Collectivity a point of view not commonly available is subverting of the normal stitching of politics This suggest suggestive conflation also underlies the power of the medieval gesture the coyote trickster the greek cynic The literary satirist and in her own time the late night television comedian all of whom possess a tremendous power The ability to say the unsayable to confront hypocrisy to kick the Can I say that on youtube? I must not say that word, but it's in a it's in a paper anyway But it goes on to talk about how you have to take in for Humor it has to take it you have to take into account. It's profoundly reactive qualities The laughs the laughs also serve to keep others in their place the subjects of jokes jokes are often Minorities more often minorities than governments the cutting edge of wit can exile and humiliate Teenagers mobilize humor against the misfit the nerd the overweight the already outcast This would seem an odd fit for critique cruelty against the weak does not comport with the uncovering of the truth from the exigencies And productions of capitalist cultural consumerism Comedy also punch down Yeah, comedy also operates under a second set of procedures which misfit critical thinking Critique requires distance from its subject whereas humor operates through immersion And it goes on to say comedic tropes in uh in contrast to I'll see you I keep trying to skip stuff, but then there's good stuff Discovery the procedures of seeing how things operate and the actuality the structural truth of oppression in any given situation Underpin critical thought what is behind the curtain is real the curtain itself must be abolished comedic tropes in contrast revel in the play between reality and tensionality and meaning irony sarcasm exaggeration slapstick critique operates structurally and narratively while humor sobriets surprises and undercuts so they're kind of anyway Critical thinking very important for comedy, but they maybe Are two sides of a coin? Anyway, I'm fascinated by this. I'm like what's in there now rabbit hole for kiki Humor is it funny? Is it funny yet? I remember our lord there was a right-wing show in the late 90s early aughts. What was that? The Colbert Colbert That was I mean that was marketed as right-wing, but the the joke was that Yeah, and and what was funny is that there were people who couldn't tell Yeah, yeah, like the Chinese news outlets uh they republished a story about the leader of north korea being Being voted a fashion icon in the west Which was an onion story, but they didn't get the joke Yeah They did not get the humor part Yeah, paul disney to successfully make fun of the thing you must understand a thing Yeah Yeah, I mean I think I think I like test tickles joke Yeah, that's funny Yeah, test tickle. Yes Uh, uh, what is it? I don't like uh political jokes Usually frowned upon political jokes most of because they keep getting elected But oh Very funny. I like it Yeah, I don't know if there's an algorithm. You might be able to teach ai to slow down misinformation uh anti-vax messaging Um, you know, yeah, but I mean that would be a bot farm Most likely twitter tries twitter tries to get rid of bot farms So I don't know how far that would go unless it were specifically uh Twitter managing it and they may be using algorithms in In addition to their human Filters, wait, who is it twitter? Uh To be timid tenor timid tenor was saying about the twitter analysis Um, and the research is developing an algorithm to identify anti-vaxxers Yeah So so what was also interesting, uh, this is a side thing, but it was in the disclaimer. I mentioned, uh, china Posts 500 million pro-government, uh, social messages a year Uh with fake accounts They actually don't use bots. We actually have humans people. Yeah that are sitting and writing Those messages, uh, the russian system tends to rely heavily on bots Yeah, which can make it more confusing like Ah, congratulations on a tremendous victory in the ukraine over the Oh, but wait that just came out before the Before they invaded. Whoops. Oh, well Timing timing is everything. No, but there is also there is uh, uh a misinformation campaign from russia Which has been exposed and some of the people who worked in it have talked about it Where they would be managing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of of fake name accounts And posting they would get sort of these things that they were supposed to post about and it would post Often having that conversation. You know how we said which you're making these points for your own audience They would create this back and forth with their own creating the sense of audience about it Where they were creating an echo chamber Which they would then insert information into it was one of the interesting things too like the chinese government will also like specifically be like we need You know 20,000 tweets about this event. We're gonna have this celebration over we want it and so they can actually make something seem like it's news By having oh gosh, all of my fellow country people apparently are All talking about this amazing thing and all of it's manufactured I need that I need a science communicator army That's my bidding Discussing science everywhere Test Tickle has another joke What You're full of the jokes always full of the jokes Oh in our discord charles is showing pictures of the fried insects and Cold beer and says blare is right though. They are leggy So you'd either have to pull the legs off or um, or just eat them They just yep, they look like little little fried crickets That's what that looks like there When do they have spices on them? I hope they would have spices on them That would be delicious salty crunchy leggy snacks maybe you can blare you could um Get in early and start like the doritos of the um fried insect chip world They have curb chips It'll be it'll be called leggy No, it'll be called chirps chirps That is what they're called and then instead of instead of like crumbs at the bottom of the bag. It's all the legs Yes, oh my god, I know Yikers yeah, chirps chips Wait, what is it? What are they whatever they call it? chirps Oh, see they missed it. They should just call them chirps chirps. Sorry chirps chirps. I can't talk anymore I'm done. I'm talking blare's done chirps Chips chirps. Oh By the way for those who are just listening via the podcast Uh Blare is now heavily drinking. Uh She's she's gotten into the bourbon and she's been now. She's taking shots after shows not on the podcast silly It is for the patreons It is I didn't know that temporarily out of stock. Oh, yeah patreons get the after show In in audio format in audio format I didn't know that because some people don't want to go to the youtube through the twitters I mean or the twitches or the yeah, it's all full of misinformation I hear Eat bugs. Ooh, I want sriracha sriracha cricket chips. Yeah, I had that one. It was pretty good I kind of want to eat that Yeah, but see that's like that's just sriracha you're eating at that point because these people put that on everything I don't really care for it It's fine because I don't have to put it on my thing. Thankfully. It's not an ingredient. It's just something you can put on a food But yeah, it's like, oh, yeah, sriracha ice cream is great. No, it's just stop. Just drink just take it just make turn it into a drink Just drink sriracha and don't even bother putting it on a thing. That's just unnecessary I I just uh, I I now just eat sour cream I don't even put it on a thing anymore. I just I'm gonna have mexican food sour cream sour cream Put it on anything. No, I don't need to I don't really need to It is a dojana chair kind of go Yeah She likes her chair What I wish I wish I could show you what my cat looks like. Did she get a new dog? What do you mean? That's not saty What's saty? What are you talking about? It's a cute tiny little pappadini dog. What is that? That's a full-sized dog. She's two and a half What are you talking about? I don't think I've seen like uh, saving a full shot for her for a year and a half or something. He's like a whole dog now Yeah I thought you were like one of those little pretend dogs No My cat is chirping at me from a floor from the floor and showing me her chinchilla belly Tell her she's not a cricket. Yeah, no church She's she goes She has cat chirps No chirps no chirps We're just holding hands don't worry about it Oh somebody points out tim allen is a conservative. I see ones in Tim allen yes, but I can't I can't picture any of Tim Allen's comedy. I know he did comedy. Maybe the hill was 20 I don't really What do you mean though? You think Mike judge? Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't know. I think like uh Yeah, maybe I don't think king of the hill was conservative. I think like no, it definitely wasn't that show is definitely it made fun of Yeah, I think it was more just like Not all people with southern accents Are conservative is really what that show was about Well, they ain't gonna talk about that ain't gonna boom hire me. You know, we're talking like this make it fun I knew somebody who talked like boom how are For a while. There's a chirping cat, but she's not gonna chirp because she's annoyed because I picked her up Okay, go look cute over there again. It's because you got the cat the cat vaccine. I'm telling you when you when they At the vet it turns them into socially I want to go see the aurora in alaska. That would be great I would love to see the aurora borealis. I've never seen that larry the cable guy I like larry the cable guy. He's just he's a nice guy Never seen it larry's a good good cable guy Here's falling out Let's see uh charles wants to know are we watching raised by wolves sci-fi show I watched A lot of the first season Just kind of was a bit too dystopian for me there was a bit much like There's a spot now that I find I'm not going to say anything. It's it's interesting. It's an interesting show. Um Yeah, I enjoyed it for a little bit and then I was like, I'm done now Which happens I a lot of dystopian sci-fi. That's where I find myself is like I don't need to watch that because It's a little too real or possible seeming. I don't know even though it's tough I prefer recently. I'm just delving into supernatural fantasy. Give me vampires witches like, you know I don't want anything like no pandemics No super intelligent ai Nope. Well witches vampires werewolves. Just I'll take that. That's good. That's good. Yes, exactly. I live this Why would I watch it are and lore? Yeah, except for science. I mean, you're not This is real good stuff. Not dystopian. We're talking about things here, right like chirp chips Yes chirp chips Are and lore I think I've seen that video that you linked in the discord and since it's in discord You also linked it. I know you linked it in the in the twitch chat. Um, I will try and watch it because I think I've seen it before But I will I will watch it It is titled why is conservative comedy so Not very good Ha ha ha ha ha So I'll check that out. Do you need the link Justin to the video? Yeah, he's slowly trying to transcribe it Hold up. This is gonna transfer you. Do you want to go there? Yes I'm gonna turn that off and then I'm gonna take this and then I'm gonna copy it and then I'm gonna Oh, I can't I don't know how to send it to you Justin. I'm done. The internet's hard Wait We're just in go. Oh Did he just leave? I didn't see him Say or do anything that would make me think he would just leave I didn't do that to him. Did I no, I don't think so What happened? He's like, yep, then he was gone He's like, I'll take that cue Okay That's great Oh, no, I'm sorry are and lore What happened? Uh, he lives in pennsylvania where dr. Oz is visiting to pick up endorsements. Oh boy Oh Yeah, maybe just oh there he is. What happened? Hi. What happened to you? Hit the wrong button. You hit the wrong button. Okay. I was wondering like what happened I Have a go says you yawned off I did Yes, who's yawning now We could make a song for that All right, what was this video obviously? What am I supposed to see? Where's my link? What am I done? I don't know. I don't know how to get it. Just look for Why is conservative comedy so not very good, huh? And then watch that Oh, Star Trek strange new worlds sounds like it'll be fun. I'm looking forward to the new Tolkien. Uh, oh, yes So what are the rings thing? What's it called? It's called it's the it's the book. It's the pretty cool Something or the ring? I forget what it's called ring time ring time fun time My time fun time That's not what it's called Somebody sent me that link is the news daddy. That's my new daddy. That's cody. Oh, cody. That's your news daddy I don't understand. I was pretty close. It's called the rings of power The ring daddy, uh ring time fun time Yeah Yeah, that's like that's like My favorite show actually It's the only reason I have the youtube's. That's still installed What show? The cody shoddy That's the cody shoddy. It's the cody shoddy with the news daddy cody Who's always talking about uh some more news and and it's also it's like it and there's warm bow and there's time travel involved in Um, it's really the best show that's ever existed All right, I have never watched Maybe I don't think I ever watched cody before. Maybe I'll have to try cody Yeah, that's it's my favorite. That's the show If you want to know where I get all of my material about what's going on in the world Uh the the insights you are not The insights that just now it's this youtuber guy who says all these things And it's he's amazing Uh, right about everything That's my news daddy right there Your news daddy. Oh my goodness Um in other news ring time fun time. I even got the merch. I even got the merch. It was a panic didn't last very long actually Wait, what's ring time fun time? Oh the lord of the rings the rings of power And you're you're sad that it's not called ring time fun time, aren't you? I'm just gonna keep calling that but it comes out september 2nd 2022 so I want it sooner. I know me too. I'm looking at the cast. I actually don't Really see any Super familiar a list faces, which I'm really happy about I thought there were A list faces. I thought that was part of the big deal Unless I'm I'm not recognizing someone from this list Like I recognize some of these faces is just like oh, I've seen you around but not like Oh, yeah, like, um Not Nazanine Boniati. I've seen her in things but um Not much thinking of then Because I saw like something maybe there's um, maybe there's something else Oh kev b wants us to make characters Get some star trek or sci-fi dnd game. Oh, you're talking about what's it called? But that's what you were talking about What's it called chat room come on The the sci-fi dnd called star or something. I've played it before There's an expanse game, isn't there? Yeah That's it. There's a famous one star finder says yeah, correct. That's what I played. That was very fun Yeah, we were talking about dnd last week Let's see fantasy TV Shows 2022. What do I have to look forward to? Actually, oh, I want to see uh, the legends of vox machina Yes, it's great That's a dnd campaign that they turned into a show and it's um It's pretty fun because you can tell Like when someone fails a roll or something, you know, because like that's obviously not baked into it, right? It's like a half hour tv show The cartoons, but yeah, you can tell like, oh They tripped and fell they rolled a one on that like it's just kind of fun If you played a lot of dnd then you can like see it and you can kind of put yourself in the position of how How it would have played out great because it like it really gives you an idea of of kind of your theater of the mind Uh gordon says just don't let the kiddo watch I was watching the oh really? Yes. Okay. I just thought that it had a few f-bombs No, it's very bloody and there's also um nudity and sex and Oh There's some really heartbreaking, um gory stuff in it Oh, okay. Okay. I was thinking that we could we could watch it, but no in the star trek thing No, not a star trek. No The chat room and I thought you're talking because that's a star trek adventures also looks this is gordon chat room star trek adventures Also looks very good. Just don't let the kiddos And I missed the thing where you were talking about something else the legend of vox machina Uh, but I gotta roll the dnd campaign come to life, which is what we were talking about Ah, that's the name of the thing. I missed the name of the thing I got a roll. Uh, I will see you guys hopefully in the next one. Say hello to the To the family the bundle Yeah The bundle and the mama say hello. All right. Well, I appreciate the uh the feedback on the The appropriateness of the show. I would have been surprised Suddenly and gone. Oh, no Yeah, so I appreciate that Everyone ready to have the good nights. Yeah the morning the good mornings Say good morning, Justin Good morning, Justin Say good night, Blair Good night, Blair Good I'm already asleep. Good night, everyone Thank you for joining us for another episode of twists and our after show Always a fun conversation. We hope you have a wonderful wonderful week And that you stay safe. Oh Uh, stay curious and you can join me friday at 11am for a conversation Um with Anna Manchin who has written a book about the science of love So if you would like to just like to hear about the science of love I will be broadcasting at 11am with a half hour interview So anyway, stay safe. Stay curious. Stay well. We'll see you next week