 Because the sun never came up We've been up all night I mean all day I mean are we live here Are we finally live ready to rock and roll with everybody for a little bit of this week in science? Yes Can you see us? Can you hear us? live live live And I see gourd is in the chat room. I'm glad you made it gourd. Yes, Kevin. There was a day today There was a day. We're still living it. It is the endless day of days Blurs day becomes blurs hours and This is the this week in science podcast and we are broadcasting our live recording of our podcast here Wherever you are, I hope that you are able to enjoy the show I see Alex Troiano in the chat room over on YouTube. Thank you for joining us Yes, he wrote our song. You'll hear it in just a few minutes My internet decided to work again. Sometimes you just have to turn things off and then turn them back on again and then Maybe they decide to work and that's kind of nice Have we done that with life yet? Just turn it off and turn it back on the world 2020 turn it off turn it back on Okay, enough of that. It's time for us to actually start recording our show Identity Force says that we all sound great I'm gonna turn myself up just a little bit because I know I turned myself down earlier this week So just give myself a little bit of more of that gain action. Okay, let's start the show in three two This is Twist this week in science episode number 790 recorded on Wednesday September 9th 2020 How the West was burned Hi everyone, I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on twist. We will fill your head with pain bodies and jeans but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer Whatever you're doing right now wherever in the world you might be keep an eye out for something interesting Listen to a sound you might not have otherwise paid attention to or some detail in your environment that went up Unnoticed before look and listen observe the world of nature Life and all its many forms evolved over billions of years overcame every Possible earthly obstacle to exist. What could you learn from that? Look and listen observe the world of technology Accelerating our evolution with the first stone tools giving us the cutting ability of sharp claws that nature had overlooked and lastly with the ability to adjust the genome itself Influence if not control our evolutionary future Look and listen to the subtle creatures and objects around you and know that it's connected all connected to observations made long ago and being made now Observations yet to be made by generations yet to come and all of these Observations and noticings of things when backed up with a little bit of knowledge Connect to that first mighty kind real Eve with you and you with this weekend's science Coming up next. Oh Push wait, it turned on the wrong place Hold on You know, we have the writer I've got the kind of mind I can't get enough. I want to learn everything I want to fill it all up with new discoveries that happen every day of the week There's only one place to go to find the knowledge Science to you kicking in Blair and a good science to you do Justin Blair and everyone out there welcome to another episode of this week in science 790 10 away from 800 you'd think we were Burning it up To you know, you know, we should do for episode a hundred is we should probably all get together and do something really for oh wait Yeah, I had all these plans for a episode 800 slash 20 years of twists kind of get together and then I went This year is just a do-over The plans will happen we'll make it happen Internet togetherness is the thing It's fine that way Everyone thank you so much for joining us tonight. I hope wherever you are you are safe and you are You yeah, I hope that you are safe though. The West is on fire. There are so many fires right now and they're growing and they are combining and towns are being burned homes are being lost and I Did joke just a moment ago, but it is a very very serious situation and part of it is Climate change and the news has not really been discussing the fact that climate change is responsible In part for the heating for the odd wind Situation that we have up here in the Pacific Northwest that is fanning the flames Climate change is a definite part of the increased burning of the West and so that kind of Information is very important. So I I urge you to if you haven't yet after all our conversations on this show Let me take a moment to think about how climate change is affecting your local environment Yeah, so I mean climate change doesn't cause fire But it makes fires more common and burn longer and hotter and farther Especially with drought. It's there's more it just it burns faster. It burns faster. It burns farther So it's definitely yeah, it's I think that's why we don't hear a lot about it. It's in the nuance The nuance well what it is the nuance in the new nuance that nuance is like speeding up desertification of California is what it is no We have science coming for you. I have Science about what did I bring? I have I can't find my little little Little cube that tells me stories about stress. I have frigid birds. They're very cold and milk drinking Because it's something I can't really do What do you have Justin? I've got fish that can walk a new ancient ape discovery What makes people from Vermont the toughest in the nation? Goose eggs in the search for alien intelligence and what biker rallies and church leaders have in common. Oh Very interesting. All right commonalities. It's where you start conversations and Blair. What is in the animal corner? Oh, I have dead bodies. I have Naked deaf animals and I also have endangered species Thank you for bringing the fun That is twist If you have not yet Subscribe to our podcast you can do that anywhere podcasts are found look for this week in science We are also on YouTube and Facebook. We are almost to 14,000 subscribers on Facebook So if you're over there on Facebook right now, and you haven't subscribed yet Click that little little button and get the notification bell while you do that as well And you can find our website at twist twis. Oh Rg twist org That's where our website is with all sorts of information Now time for science quick science Stummaries Okay with all the stress lately. Do you feel Like sometimes you just can't sleep like I like I'm so stressed out and I can't sleep and I wish I could sleep Yes, yes. Yeah, that was me on what was it Monday night? I barely slept No, yeah I don't know why and it doesn't help anything because it just kind of makes it worse. Why? That's what researchers have been wondering and we know it starts in the brain somewhere and researchers decided to look at the neurons in the brains of mice they looked at the neurons in an area of the brain called the lateral hypothalamus and also looked at what are called Well, things are loading in front of me the para ventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus where? corticotropin releasing hormone neurons live Yeah, what they found is that when the mice were restrained That's stressed. That's a sweet a known stress Function on mice when they were restrained the mice Released they there the neurons that are in this area of the para ventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus the corticotropin releasing hormone neurons got active These corticotropin releasing hormone neurons they released corticotropin releasing hormone Which is a hormone that goes on to lead to the development the release of cortisol the stress hormone that we know additionally, they Signal to hormones litter called hypo cretin neurons and these hypo cretin neurons they Kind of elicit a hyper arousal and anyway the end story is they have found the neurons in the mouse brain That keep you awake at night when you're stressed out Well, actually when you say that but you say that it was like it's a joke But maybe it maybe there is a way to like earlier in the day Induce that stress release those neurons already. So they're gone before you go to bed Genetic modification There's that in the the case of these mice genetic ablation of the neurons that are involved or a Knockdown of the gene actually taking the gene out making sure it stopped working Counteracted this restraint stress induced hyper arousal So if you get rid of the genes you get those neurons so they're not activated Yeah, the response goes away. You can go to sleep at night Basically, they found that when they did that they ablated the neurons or got rid of the gene in the mice When they restrained them and stressed them out. They still slept like babies It was just fine was just But what you're not bringing up is that what they also found is that the mice found it had a tendency to follow sleep while driving Yeah, you kind of need that Would be great, right is just like a switch like okay, it's bedtime time to turn this off now Yeah, maybe No, no, someday it's just going to be Elon Musk's, you know little little insert Yeah, they also connected this specifically to a Change in the immune system They found by looking at the peripheral blood that there was actually changes to immune cell distribution and Functional changes in the peripheral peripheral blood Related to those immune change cell changes. So what they're finding is a connection between those neurons being Turned on in the brain the hyper arousal starting stress and lack of sleep and the immune system all being tied together So it ties together a mechanistic loop For all the complaints that we have about getting stressed out and not being able to sleep and then getting sick or not feeling good afterwards Yeah, I think somebody made a joke in the chat room, but I would be very interested to see what happened if they were dose some marijuana Maybe that helps to reduce that Look at you could actually test a bunch of home remedies for sleep See what works on that area of the brain? It turns out after much scientific study that moonshine white lightning I don't know if any of these things are gonna be like specific to an area of the brain They're gonna be just like and go to sleep now Yeah, but maybe there is an approach that would be more specific sometime in the future For all that stress, okay, so from stress, let's move on to pain Justin you have a pain story. Yeah, so okay actually on the today's date September 9th But 1776 the United States became the United States for the very first time Thanks to the Congressional Congress adopting the term officially Had been in the Declaration of Independence a few months prior to like Second and then published maybe July 4th, which is why it's kind of a big deal day But it was still at that point the United Colonies Not until the September 9th. It would became the United States and while the word United is Right there in the name America is rarely united around how it feels about anything and it turns out that also includes how it feels pain We as a nation of people feel pain differently state by state At least that might be one thing you can pull from the conclusion of researchers from Texas A&M University University of Pennsylvania Who looked into opioid prescribing practices across the United States? Specifically they collected data from around a hundred thousand outpatient knee surgeries nationwide and then they looked at prescription rates and dosage of opioids in those prescriptions what they found was a very wide-ranging variability and in both rates and prescribing dosages for instance, they found that prescription strength and number of tablets dosage prescribed was highest in Oklahoma out of all 50 states and lowest in Vermont out of all 50 states and Vermont was lowest in both number of pills and in dosage and Oklahoma was highest in number of pills and in dosage So very interesting With Oklahomans being actually prescribed almost twice the number of tablets and more than twice the dosage Or the potency of those those pills So, uh, that's sort of so, uh, which could indicate that science since people are generally expected to have somewhat similar experiences post surgery And that over prescribing can lead to addiction that there's a need for a strong national gag line for prescribing opioids That or some parts of the country are just tougher than others which it turns out Vermontans Vermontonians Vermontani Vermonters Turns out Vermonters are indeed the toughest people in the United States Uh, and Oklahomans apparently are the weakest which is kind of surprising because they get like 60 tornadoes a year you would think that would toughen up a people going through that pain and No, maybe maybe they're just hypersensitized So kiki the the map that you're sharing. I can't really see the the the key So what is the red and the gray in the blue? So gray is averages that means uh, based on what they were looking at these these are states that had kind of the expected amount of prescribing rates Uh for these opioids Blue is lower blue is there was less being prescribed than what they the sort of expected average would be And red is everything that's above. I see Okay California's below Texas is below new york is below a lot of these large communities these High population states seem to be on the low end. It's a lot of the rural map. It's a lot of the in between The only coastal looks like it's One of the like washington and one of the uh, I can't tell what that is My state's well enough. Is that a is that a west virginia? Is that what that is? That's in the red line on the east coast. I can't see on the map. Anyway, that doesn't really matter But mostly it seems like the rural center What you would call a flyover state, uh are being prescribed At higher rates. Yes. Yeah, and so the question is are these people Weaker do they have lower pain tolerance? Throughout or is there perhaps? Some other prescribing happening between yeah But this is also a very specific subset, right? You said this is just people getting hip procedures Knee, uh, these are outpatient knee surgeries. Yeah, so That's kind of a whole another thing is that perhaps The reason people are getting prescribed things are different in different states too So, you know, maybe vermont isn't having as many knee surgeries. Maybe they're having way more hip surgery You know, it's just I think there's there's something there I understand it's within this this subset of knee It's not just the number of surgeries, but I think it also it depends like so for example I just looked up the average age in these two states and the average age in vermont is 43 And the average age in alcohoma is 36. So, um That's older people. Other people have a higher pain tolerance. So maybe they've been through more, right? Yeah, so if you go into this study, they started with much more than 100,000 but they narrowed down to what they uh, what they ultimately pulled was uh, people who were Night and night. What is it naive opiate use like this is like the first prescription that they're they're being given kind of a thing like people who aren't already on Pain medications for chronic anything, right? So that was one of the things they limited people who were previous and then they did some for Uh controlling for age and education and things like this. Um There was I think a correlation between education and those are sort of the more educated the less likely Uh, you might be to be prescribed Opioids at the higher rates. So Interest but but part of that is the is the person doing the prescribing, right? Like there's all this thing about how Who prescribes opioids or over prescribes opioids target specific groups? So that is also part of this Yeah, there there's definitely going to be multiple factors that come in. There's not going to be one easy answer So why but I'm going to guess that overall there is over prescription happening But why that over prescription is happening may be different in different places Yeah, so so that's I mean I think that's also the point uh that they they make in this study is when you look at this Pain shouldn't vary that much From from from Vermont to Oklahoma. It doubles in dosage. It doubles a number of pills for the same procedure That shouldn't be right that a statewide doubling Uh, I mean not just say it's it's not like they went to One one doctor or one hospital. This is the state Average is double which means some Must be even more than that that are being prescribed for that to be the average, correct, right? This is Presumably half of the prescriptions were even more than double so that that speaks to a A training or a problem or potentially even like uh, somebody in the chat I'm suggesting maybe there's a pharma company who has a better sales team In that particular state or has more influence in that particular state or the way Or the way the insurance by state for sure Yep Yep, and uh and people have different jobs and different reasons or different like yeah different Different reasons that they need They could have jobs that are desk jobs. Yeah, or maybe they've got a job That's in a factory or they've got a job in a warehouse or a coal mine or you know Who knows what the jobs are and jobs are going to vary by state Maybe a job that doesn't offer sick time So I think what we can get back I think what we we can debate this but I mean the bottom line is we don't know the answer for why There is just a difference between states that is interesting. It deserves more study Yeah Let's talk about plants. I mean dead bodies dead bodies. So first comes stress, then comes pain, then comes death. So this is perfect. Yes. Um Long time listeners of the show will know that I'm obsessed with the body farm in Tennessee Um, so this is University of Tennessee's body farm. It's actually technically called the anthropology research facility But it's where they put dead bodies and watch them in various states of decay in different situations They look at What it looks like what decay looks like but also more specifically a lot of the time they look at what kind of biota grows On an in a body in different states of decay So that then forensic scientists can go and they can if they find a body in the woods They can say okay based on the types of maggots in this body Uh the shape that it's in etc This body is three weeks old Right. So then that helps with uh with all sorts of um Kind of the the detective work on the other side figuring out who the person is and what the circumstances around their death was and all that kind of stuff So that's really helpful. Um, but for the first time now Uh a new article in the journal trends in plant science is looking at plants and their role in the decomposition of bodies as pertains to finding missing human remains So that's the other side of this is that you can If you see a lot of a particular kind of maggot in a particular area of a forest you might say Ooh, something's dead around here and that might help you find someone you're looking for So this new Kind of exploration is looking at how plants can help us find dead bodies Normally when people go out searching for a body That if there's a lot of tree cover It's pretty difficult. This is um This is an area that you know, you can't survey from a helicopter Just doing a sweep a blind sweep is really you're gonna have a difficult time finding a human But you can utilize Tree cover in body recovery missions to your advantage They posit by detecting changes in plant chemistry as a signal of human remains So in this journal article, they outlined the steps needed to make body recovery using vegetation Something that we could do in the near future So they assessed they're they're planning on assessing how cadaver decomposition islands Which is the zone immediately surrounding a human that has died Changes the nutrient concentrations of soil Yeah, and how those changes manifest in nearby plants So the one of the most obvious things is you have a huge release of nitrogen into this lot of Nutrients in general. There's tons. Yeah, and so that can change Leaf color it can change a reflectance of leaves. Which I think is very interesting The the problem there is another large mammal like a deer dying in that area could have a similar impact, however The next step of this is to see how specific metabolites Like those from drugs or food preservatives things that we eat that deer don't Might have a specific influence on plant appearance. So not just a dead mammal, but a dead mammal that's been eating twinkies So So it won't find any vegans this way Potentially so this is the other thing they said is if they know anything about the specific person They're looking for and they know for example that they're a heavy smoker They could actually use a specific chemical profile that would trigger a specific plant response And that would make them easier to locate. Wow This is still pretty far out, but this is what they're hoping to get to So they're they're helping they're hoping to develop imagers to scan plants for fluorescence or reflectance via drone So that they could see like a chemical signature like hey something dead is down there and so um, this is just So cool. They think it's still a few years away From using plants as search tools and body recovery missions But this is a collaborative effort of botanist anthropologists and soil scientists And they are starting out at this body farm now So good want to find a body ask a plant yes uh speaking of plants alex uh in the chat room is pointing out that uh And it is great if you overlay the map of where uh, marijuana is legalized in the united states Compared to where those opioids are being uh prescribed It's pretty decent uh match for what's where it's uh illegal and where it's still considered a recreational So it's like opposite. Is that what you're saying? It kind of is. Yeah, where weed is illegal the opioids are being over prescribed Interesting. It's sort of in it. Yeah, like I can see the california doctor being like hey Do you uh, you should maybe try the medical thing. It's a little easier to get off of than these opioids. Oh, okay. I might try that um And uh fata is also saying No, that's not fata. Who is saying this uh, kevin and the uh, youtube chat room I think we should dump bodies in the water and not on man Look if you're trying to hide a body in the water, just a couple of things first bodies float Yeah, also You have to remove you have to remove the shoes because Uh shoes will float and eventually they It's okay. I'll do a little master class on how to hide a body at some other point on there Great. Thanks. Just record it and post it to youtube. Yep. Make sure you put it on youtube. That's right All of us probably have a pair of blue jeans In our closet if not one Maybe a stack of them. Yeah, I've got several I think Your blue jeans aren't just in your closet They're everywhere What? Yeah, researchers looking at Uh microfibers in the environment did sediment samples of the canadian arctic archipelago Valerantean great great lakes and shallow suburban lakes in southern ontario And in looking for these wonder fibers They found that 21 to 51 percent of all microfibers in the sediments were from people human modified cellulose and of those 40 to 57 percent of the microfibers they found were indigo denim microfibers What? Yes, over half or about around half of the microfibers they found are from our jeans But I thought jeans were made out of cotton. So it was okay It's cotton. They're microfibers a lot of denim these days. Uh it is Cotton some of them use stretch fibers that uh that come from um More polymers, you know bamboo, but that gets broken down and made into a plastic And that's a stretchy and then it's a polymer and So some of these microfibers are not necessarily great But what it gets at is Not that the jeans are bad necessarily, but they are an indicator of the Pollution that we are Spreading out into an environment. So they are what in the words of the researchers publishing in the environmental science technology letters they said Blue jeans the world's single most popular garment are an indicator of the widespread burden of anthropogenic pollution By adding significantly to the environmental accumulation of microfibers from temperate to arctic regions So this is a good time for me to let everyone know so, uh I know that i'm usually the one who's saying shower wash shower wash But actually denim isn't really supposed to be washed very often No, um, so I think that's part of this too is is uh, you know, they were Denim was originally kind of invented to never ever be washed Be durable. Yeah So you're not really you're just like spot clean them if that And so yeah, just a reminder that they don't need to be washed every week Maybe like every few months. Maybe just spot. I don't know But it is true all of our you might think that you're getting all of the The lint out of your lint trap and the dryer and those are all the fibers that are getting out there but what's happening and I think we've talked about it on this show before is that Little tiny fibers get into the wastewater from your laundry And those fibers make their way out into the waterways and are very obviously getting distributed around the globe So they're finding they're finding fibers from all your clothes out there But hey because jeans are the most prolific Garment in the world everyone loves jeans Field in the chat room. So that's why the oceans blue Yes It's true. If you read if you read the ancient greek text The ocean used to be crimson. We completely changed. We went straight past purple into So also blue jeans are giving us a blue ocean. Okay, if anyone is a child listening to this that is not how the Oh Very correct I just shared a link in the chat room But actually one of the things that you can do to wash your jeans if you don't want to wash them and put microfibers in the In the world is you can actually freeze them So you can put them in an airtight freezer bag and put them in your freezer for a day and that'll kill the bacteria I don't know the science behind this But this is what someone with a lifestyle blog says so we'll have to I'll follow up I'll follow up next week Yeah, we should test that. I don't know if that's accurate. Okay. All right Doesn't sound like fun, especially when you put them on The first time Chili jeans Cool your pants man. All right, Justin tell me about The publications of the astronomer good astronomical society of australia Tales of a radio telescope in outback western australia Which completed the deepest and brana's search at low frequencies for alien technologies They scanned over 10 million stars Wow Chinua trimble and professor steven tingay used the mercheson Wide field array telescope to explore hundreds of times more broadly than any previous search for extraterrestrial life Timberlake said the telescope was searching for technosignatures powerful radio emissions at frequencies similar to fm Radio frequencies that could indicate the presence of intelligent life in space Uh, the merches I'm gonna get this wrong every time Mercheson wide field array is a unique telescope With extraordinary wide field of view that allows us to observe millions of stars simultaneously She said Uh, that's uh, dr. Tremblay, uh We observed the sky around the constellation of bella for 17 hours looking at looking More than 100 times broader and deeper than ever before with this data set. We found No technosignatures No sign of intelligent life Uh, professor tingay said that even though this was the broadest search yet Uh, it was not shocked by the result As douglas adams noted in hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy space is big Really big And even though even though this was a really big study The amount of space, uh, we've looked at was the equivalent of trying to find something in one of earth's oceans But only searching in a volume of water equivalent to a large backyard swimming pool We have to keep looking So even with that 10 million stars looking for this signature It was just a very cursory observation So the current telescope look at yeah, there's a lot out there. So the current telescope is a precursor as All of all technology is is a precursor for an instrument that is coming next Uh, which is the square kilometer Or square kilometer array Ska an observatory with telescopes that are in western australia as well as uh, southern africa Due to increased sensitivity ska low frequency telescope to be built in western australia will be capable of detecting Earth-like radio signals from relatively nearby planetary systems said professor tingay with Ska will be able to survey billions of star systems Seeking technosignatures in an astronomical ocean of other worlds Which I think all aren't all other worlds astronomical in nature, but anyway, uh Yeah, so the next version of this coming is going to be able to really look at Uh, like a lot more It'll get us into Carl Sagan billions and billions of stars. Yeah, I mean it should be able to They're saying the new insensitive have to pick up, uh, like a fm signal like from a planet Like if it was just a regular rate, like, uh, even if it's not a very strong signal I don't know if I plan it so it's uh, very very cool that we're increasing this uh, this ability to look for life But so far goose eggs nothing yet nothing. It's not aliens out there yet I don't want to find aliens in 2020. We have to wait till we're out of 2020 to find aliens because something bad's gonna happen That's a great point. Let's not find them this year. Yeah, uh, yeah, like they land and they're like take me to your leader and you're like, no You we're gonna go hang out for a few months and then uh, maybe give me a ride. We can go to somewhere else I'm not taking you there. No way Uh-uh Well, other ways that we are planning on looking at the universe is with really big camera And there is a camera under development currently that's being built at stanford's slack facility used to stanford the Uh, stanford linear accelerating collider. I believe that's what the acronym stood for but it does no longer because they're not colliding things in there anymore but they do have a lot of amazing technology and what they are working on is a camera for the vira rubin observatory that will produce images for the l s s t the large Large synoptic squared Telescope, I don't know lots of acronyms in Astrophysics and I kind of forget every once in a while what all of them stand for but it's going to be a Really big distributed telescope that they are creating and the vira rubin observatory is the the eye of this Observatory with the camera this camera has the equivalent Of almost 216 megapixel smartphone cameras like if you took 216 megapixel cameras and you connected them all together and then took a picture with all of them together That's what this camera is doing. It is 3.2 billion pixels megapixels 3.2 billion megapixels in this image. It's uh massive massive image 3.2 billion pixels 3200 mega megapixels. That's what it is 3200 megapixels. I can do math And the images that are coming out of it so far during their testing are of Vegetables they've taken pictures of romanesco broccoli So it's broccoli all the way down. It's broccoli all the way down. Yeah Yeah, anyway, they are connecting uh around nine of these camera cameras together to make little Segments that then get connected together and all these things have to be connected together Within like a hair's width of accuracy to be able to create the final image for the camera This camera being tested in stanford will eventually Now that they've tested it and shown it's perfect It's wonderful and work they work out all the kinks for the images of broccoli They will ship it down to chile where the eventual observatory is going to be completed Which should give us amazing views of the universe And they should be able to spice up that broccoli really nicely in south america I think so. Yeah, nice spices. Yeah, a little lime. Yeah, you're pretty good Yeah, why not broccoli why not? I guess why not? You know You're gonna take all sorts of pictures of the universe. Let's test it on vegetables The uh, uh, this is glenn brady from the chat room saying interesting side note the ska that uh square kilometer Kilometer telescope when fully operational will transfer more data over the interwebs Than the entire world today You thought you had online gaming lag now There won't be a lot of data. Yeah It could be worse Which is which is also the problem like we we can have this technology Uh to grab all this data to take these high high resolution images But we still are working on the ability to decipher it once it's To even manage that size of data Uh to break it up to have it even to have the power of the computing power to analyze it Let alone the human time and power to do so No, we're we're getting to it's kind of awesome. If you think about it, we're getting to Uh, what is it choke points or whatever? where Where our uh ability to collect data has surpassed our ability to analyze it to analyze it Yeah, which is sometimes to view it these images from the vira rubin calendar Camera the observatory will take they require if you look at them in full definition The equivalent of 400 4k ultra high def tv displays displayed in full That's 3200 megapixels But it's a good problem to have uh, yeah bottleneck Well, because especially like since we're gonna be in stuck inside for the rest of our lives Some people will be able to analyze some data Sure from their home, which will be great Oh, yeah, it was great. That's not true. No, we Great problem to have because the opposite is like we have all this ability to analyze But we have no data like that would just suck we've analyzed everything and we're just waiting For another pixel to drop to analyze that this is the opposite problem This is we're going to have stuff that we can take pictures and do investigations and then research it for decades To come to find things. It's sort of like we're creating What we've talked about quite a bit on this show is that basement in the university or in the museum where all the fossils are stored And people are, you know 5 10 20 80 years later still making discoveries in these basements with this collected data We're starting to do that with our our telescopes now. It's just really an amazing fun time so many discoveries to make This is this week in science. We are here. Thank you for listening If you're interested in one of our shirts mugs hats Face masks head over to twist.org and click on our zazzle link and browse our store lots of items and ways that you can support twist Okay time for our covid update We're still at over a thousand deaths in the united states per week or per day. There's a lot that's bad It's not great, but let's talk about risk. Okay, everybody. Let's talk about risk today An interview some tapes of trump talking to bob woodburt woodward a uh a journalist Have trump saying Just today and yesterday some startling facts came out. It's not just old older young people too plenty of young people That's what trump told woodward on march 19th March 19th at the beginning of this pandemic Oops, and in the mean meanwhile over several months It has been a constant message as to how little young young adults have to be concerned About this pandemic and getting this virus. Well there is uh one of the There's a research letter that was published this week in the journal jamma internal medicine Showing that young adults can experience Substantial rates of adverse outcomes. Yes, they may not uh become as Sick as individuals as older individuals as often But an analysis of 3222 young adults between 18 to 34 years old hospitalized with covid 19 Indicated that 21 required intensive care 10 required mechanical ventilation and 2.7 died The researchers want people to know that young adults should know that everyone regardless of age is at some risk of a severe outcome from covid So just to know just to know take it seriously, uh, you know, you may be safe, but you may also Transmit it to somebody else who may not be obesity according to the first meta analysis of its kind Is a major risk for covid 19 and for uh hospitalization and problems with the disease in the Journal obesity reviews an international team of researchers pooled data from scores of peer reviewed papers Capturing 399 000 patients So this isn't a little study. They're they're pooling things together. It's observational This is probably not Random controlled trial, but this is Nearly 400 000 people they're looking at They found that people with obesity who contracted SARS-CoV-2 were 113 percent more likely than people of healthy weight to land in the hospital 74 74 percent more likely to be admitted to an ICU And 48 percent more likely to die. That's from uh science magazines news so There are there are things that predispose people to higher risk And the it's not necessarily obesity itself that pre predisposes people uh in the uh the article they discuss bmi Very often so very high bmi's seem to Be the thing that leads to these in an increased risk of hospitalization more likely to be admitted to a high c ICU and to die But it is factors that go along with that like obesity increases inflammation And inflammation is something that is a huge part of how SARS-CoV-2 affects the body. So if you're already Struggling with inflammation that's going to have a deleterious effect. It also leads to A thickening of the blood and a change in the blood cells themselves Which is a problem very often when people are Obese and blood doesn't move as easily or if there's uh, there is an issue with circulation So it's not necessarily Obesity itself because a high bmi on its own does not necessarily indicate obesity because there are many people who Have just you are tall. You are big. You are bmi. Bmi is kind of nothing Yeah, it's a big Measure but they're using it because they don't have a better one at this point. Um And so that's why i'm trying to make this This distinction that there are other health factors that are involved in it In changing the way that your metabolism works so Just be careful out More susceptible to other things too. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And now that we know that it's a blood disease that that makes even more sense Yep Yeah, so that's all I wanted to talk about for the the covid the covid corner Well, there's more news though. There are more there are more uh, there's more there's more just wait. There's more Yeah, this is a leader of the ukrainian orthodox church in kiv ukraine Spoke up about covid crisis back in march calling it god's punishment for the sins of men And sinfulness of humanity But he didn't stop there. He clarified. He did clarify. First of all, I mean same-sex marriage This is the cause of coronavirus So, please tell me he got covid not to be mean, but So, of course, what is this schadenfreude? So, yeah, uh, of course, of course he has contracted covid 19 and through the very real and effective Power of prayer alone has remained in stable condition at a ukrainian hospital The covid illness comes as a great shock to the congregation who had no idea the patriarch Was secretly married to a man, right and the uh sturgest motorcycle rally Uh, and one of the dakotas perhaps Uh, they drew a crowd of nearly half a million masquas bikers height of the pandemic New paper titled the contagion externality of super spreading event the sturgest motorcycle rally in covid 19 Published by isa which is the institute of labor economics. This is a german think tank Uh, they conclude that the rally was indeed a super spreader event that transmitted the virus Thousands upon thousands of times one of the authors of the paper joseph j sabia Who's also a professor of economics director of the center of health economics and policy studies at san diego state university Thinks the event could have infected more than 260 000 people all across the country Talk about super spreading Yeah, he and his co-authors estimate that dealing with a fallout from that rally alone would involve more than 12 billion dollars in health care costs Again spread out across the united states governor christy lin-nom Uh of whatever dakota that might have been was so concerned about the safety ahead of the rally that she told fox news We hope people come Our economy benefits when people come and visit us The particular dakota. I guess it was the south one now. It's been clarified So I 35 percent rise in cases post rally Counties in other states from which significant number of residents traveled to sturgis saw an average of a 10.7 percent increase That's substantial That's I mean, that's not nothing And that lady got covered, right? Uh, no not yet, but uh Uh I don't want anyone to get covered but the people who think it's nothing It just feels appropriate. That's all I'm saying So, so here's I don't want anyone to get it. Come on Here's the thing here's the thing a half a million people Uh, I mean I get like nobody's expecting bikers to be the Most responsible citizens amongst us I ain't uh, maybe on the road. Let me follow the road rules very well. They didn't reach out uh But but that large of a crowd is coming from across the country and they're going back out into the Uh, I don't know that anybody should be surprised by that Fall out from the event and and I do have to have to add the observation that I've seen people Talking about well, I haven't heard anything about cases rising because of protests or haven't heard anything because of You know compared compared disturbances And so I think that we need to make this point here about indoors versus outdoors and mask wearing Right. So actually this uh same think tank had looked at exactly what you're talking about previously they had previously looked at Uh, were the mass protests super spreader events And be for exactly what you just stated the fact that they were outdoors that there was uh, some Social distancing at a lot of them, uh, but that people were all wearing masks The vast majority of you look at those people, uh, I could just say majority. It doesn't have to be vast There's no difference between saying the word vast ahead of a majority anymore than there is saying vast in front of wasteland They mean the exact same thing uh People were wearing masks and so those two combination of things Uh what prevented those from being there was no evidence of super spreader events from the protests Because of that in stergis. They were not wearing masks. They were not social distancing and on top of everything They were having fun No, no fun having any That's that's the thing the pandemic likes least of all Is that you're enjoying something it's wrong. That's how you can tell at this point No, it's because they were going indoors to restaurants bars cafes in stergis and congregating indoors. Yeah Oh, what a week of news What a week of news Did you have one, uh One more story? Yeah That's right. It's uh, uh, so this is this is on the serious note Uh, there's another group that was looking at who is doing this is a group of researchers from syracuse university Uh, they were looking at the average daily increase in rural covet 19 mortality rates This is people dying and they found significantly higher uh rates of death in rural black and hispanic uh Community so we people tend to think of rural america is uh being just full of uh toothless white people People have good dental everywhere now. Thank you Um, but it's actually 20 of our racial ethnic minorities are in rural Areas geographically Uh, and what it was is compared to rural counties with the lowest black populations. This is the bottom quartile Uh, rural counties in the top quartile Uh of percent black have a 70 percent higher daily increase in their covet 19 mortality rates And in the same thing by applying it to hispanic populations Ones with the lowest versus ones with the highest the one the hispanic rural Areas have a 50 percent higher average daily increase in their mortality rate. So the research team Is not exactly saying what the problem is Uh, but is suggesting that we need to pay a lot more attention to the way health care is being distributed in america And that there seems to be they're not saying it, but I will a systemically racial sort of seemingly application to the way that we deal with us And who we see as us from political governmental spending Where those dollars go, uh, and how the prevention has been or not good Taking place Yep, I think that it that you mean that Gellicator is saying even people in britain have good dental. Is that true? I thought that was one of the things that they were just never going to do. It's nationalized, isn't it? I mean, I know they have health care, but does that include the dental too? Because Yeah I mean they have to go so To the dentist all right That does it for our kovid update. This is this weekend science You want to help twist grow? Get a friend to subscribe today. That would be fantastic Aruni or something Hey blare Hey blare, I think it's that time of the show That we love to call blare's animal corner. It's your turn now. Let's hear it from blare Oh just to hear to say it say kiki I can't start What's what you got blare? There we go. I can't start without it Where'd he go? um Hey, so I have a lovely story about one of our favorites naked mole rats So this is a study from the University of Illinois in chicago And we've already discovered that naked mole rats can survive acid and live where there's low oxygen content and survive cancer and all this other crazy stuff But in a new twist, um Something they're actually really terrible at is hearing Really they have terrible terrible terrible hearing so they're from east africa their hairless mammals They're bald. They're wrinkly. They have buck teeth if you have not seen them Search naked mole rat You have to search naked mole rat because mole rats are also a thing It's different thing. They just they look They just they just look like little furry things with giant teeth, but they don't look furry No, normal naked ones. Yes our furry. Yeah, so these guys are not furry. They live underground. They live in this crazy society that's kind of like a b Society they have soldiers. They have workers. They have a queen They use chemical signals to know who's coming where when and what their social rank is And the higher ranked individual climbs over the lower ranked individual and the tubes and are in the underground I can talk about it forever, but this study Is about um their communication because the most of the communication they do is vocal So as I mentioned, they use chemical cues too, but they do a lot of squeaking at each other To decide where to dig how to defend the colony how to convey the location of food How to take care of babies they're constantly chirping and squeaking But if they if they have terrible hearing what the heck is going on here? Um, so this new research Found that they had hearing that was so terrible And then they use technology Like used for human hearing so they preferred an auditory brain stem response test They had electrodes on the scalp that pick up signals That indicate sound being processed by the brain And the signals were so weak They have poor hearing They have hearing so bad that in humans hearing on that level would be suggested to wear hearing aids so Yeah, so they need hearing aids. Okay, so they're animals that communicate via auditory response And they have terrible hearing so why is this happening? So then they looked at the genes they found six mutations in genes associated specifically with hearing loss in humans So they have mutation. They have six independent mutations Showing like pushing them towards bad hearing So it looks like they're actually being selected for and they're that they're adaptive They're beneficial in some way to have to have this hearing loss Additionally they found out if the genes do that's what I want to know. Okay. Yeah That's a great question. I do not know but they also found out that the naked mole rats do not have cochlear amplification Which is for for, you know humans that don't have the little hair cells in the inner ear um or cochlear amplification abilities people now Can get implants to help them do that and hear and they pretty much can't hear without it. So, um Cochlear amplification is pretty essential in human hearing. So they have these inner ear kind of hair cells and they send signals to the brain and without these cells Hearings really hard and this is why like hearing loss in humans is kind of it degrades over time It's progressive. I've been to a lot of rock concerts My hearing is harder and harder is because loud sounds actually kill hair cells So they can't regenerate. Um, but these guys they don't even have them at all So What the heck is happening here? They actually found that the decibel level of these chirps and squeaks that these mole rats are using to communicate with each other Are so loud underground That if they had Functional cochlear amplification Yeah, they would be lethal to the hair cells. They'd lose all their hearing anyway That makes so this is the first thing I was thinking is like half they all have squeaky voices. Maybe they're just trying to tune each other out Yes, so so they don't have amplification because they really don't need it But okay, but here's the question then They're always at a rock concert But what came first like did they start did they have to start shouting louder and louder because nobody could hear them And so they developed a a louder squeak over time because nobody could hear them if they just talked in their indoor voice So that's possible or the idea like That the only way that would make sense is if as kiki mentioned These genes are linked to something else because otherwise. Why would you get six specific mutations to impact hearing? before Well, so so so So here's here's my here's the here's the what i'm pulling from I had this uh cousin Who I noticed at a very young age as we were growing up Was just so much louder than the rest of us and i'm going loud. I have a loud family. We're all loud She was a decibel or 10 Above that everybody else when she talked all the time It was just her indoor voice was shouting across a very very long distance Um, and it turned out she had some hearing issues So so that's kind of what I've pulled from and i'm thinking like wow, maybe it was Maybe it was just the fact that their hearing was you know through some random mutation that these were like failing genes And then and then it starts there like yeah, and then and then those who hadn't experienced this yet perhaps Uh had their they were just killing it off anyway So why spend the energy growing these dang hair follicles if everyone else is yelling all the time? So I think here's what we need to do Um, excuse me, uh, you receive Illinois. Excuse me. Excuse me. Um It would be great to do these studies on Non-naked mole rats just normal rig mole rats a ridge mole rats and then on other rows And to see if there's anything indicative in the genome that any relative Mm-hmm would have any similar mutations or anything leading towards that But also to check the decibel level of the squeaks of those other animals because for example normal mole rats they Go to the surface Sometimes these guys don't really so they go to the surface of a fair amount more and so they might Use I don't know a lot about mole rats, but they might use alarm calls They might be really they may or they might be really loud noise Or they might also be since they're going to the surface listening for predator calls So so there might be clue in the chat room. Uh, I don't don't know if it's true, but timid tenor Uh, says I remember hearing something about moles Using squeaks to freak out worms the worms scooted the surface trying to run away from the loud squeaks I don't know if this is naked mole rats, uh, but But this is that would be just moles. Yeah Yeah, but That would be a kind of funny that like you used it to get your prey and then it affected your Your own ability to hear that would be kind of uh, yeah, that would be a catalyst You know you need to do this to eat would be an interesting evolutionary catalyst for the loss of the hearing then And I I think that's why doing a comprehensive look at decibel levels across rodents and then additionally looking at The these genes and seeing if there's anything any artifacts anything similar in any other genomes That would kind of tell us which came first, but it seems like I would guess these guys moved underground Everything's really the sound is super insulated now Like they're they're pretty much 100 of the time underground super insulated that makes it super loud But why wouldn't they just start whispering? I don't know How far do they travel from each other how far do those calls have to go? I mean, there are all sorts of things that need to be asked here I do believe Yeah, so anyway point being um based on all of this research They actually think that mole rats might be a good animal model to investigate hearing loss in humans Because some of the genes that are similar They're the same genes uh related to hearing loss in humans one and two that this loss of the uh inner ear hairs is Is a problem that humans have so you could potentially Look into treatment through the naked mole rats Uh quick poll popped up in the chat room, uh Caroline Benoit is asking uh group poll if you had to choose between Uh your hearing and vision, which would you That's a So because I love this show so much Uh, I'd probably say hearing because then I could listen to the show But then it would be really hard to to prepare the show So then I don't know Do you have to get a really good um speech to text software? I have that but I still have to highlight the text, which is Right, but if you were if you were hearing impaired you'd have tools You know what? I think I would probably uh, yes. Yes. It's you know, that's a really tough one I think it might I might have to let the oh, yeah, ouch. I don't know Yeah, gold is either that is very rude. Does Blair's vision count as having vision? Listen, I might be nearsighted. I might have a terrible stigmatism. I might also be colorblind, but come on now I can see some things would I wear my contacts? He can see some of them All right, what's your next story Blair? It's just a really revolutionary study telling us that um This is from University of Queensland telling us that if we have protected areas Uh, it helps save endangered species What? Interesting mind blown. No, there's a reason this is actually an important study. So um We know that we have set aside protected areas in the wild to help animals Not have as much pressure from human development and hunting and all these other things And that they're essential to conservation But despite This intuitively making sense and the success to this point with those areas they Their popularity as a go-to conservation tool Comes and goes and right now it actually looks like it's starting to wane. Um, so There's this increasing debate around global protected areas And whether it actually helps with threatened species and I I think actually we did a study I think not too long ago. Who knows maybe it was three years ago We did a study on the show where they they looked at protected areas And as would make sense if you have a protected area that is small that is not connected to other protected areas It doesn't do diddly Because you can't tell a rhino. Just stay just stay over here in this half. Just stay over don't go over there So that is part of the problem. And so I think there's there's some debate over how best to do this, but we also know that Blair likes to orate about how you can't save species You can only save habitats and those habitats save all the species that depend on it You can't say I want to save rhinos and just save the rhinos Really the only way to save the rhinos is to save the space their habitat that they depend on and the The positive there is all the other animals that use that space also get a place to be saved. So Saving habitats is key to species conservation but They have to be well funded. They have to be protected and they have to be well placed And they have to be big. So these are all like very big caveats, right? But um this study looked at the efficacy of these areas And and found that they are in fact very effective overall So 80 of mammal species that were monitored in protected areas in the study Have at least doubled their coverage in those protected areas over the last 50 years So their time spent in those areas has doubled So that means it's helping they are choosing to spend time in those protected areas and 10 of those species That they analyzed lived predominantly on that land. That was their main space. So yes, they're very smart They figured out where it's easier to live and in these cases, it's easier to live in those protected areas They looked at 237 threatened terrestrial mammal species from the 1970s today They measured changes in species ranges and overlaid them with protected area And specifically they did as I mentioned they looked at greater one horned rhinos rhinoceros unicornus So good Which is now 80 of its range is now in a protected area so um That's something, you know It's it's working is basically the point. So without protected areas Some species like rhinos like tigers like mountain gorillas They wouldn't have stood a chance and so we gave them a space To hide out to feel safe to lower their guards. These are all important things, right? And so if you can recognize that and you know Instead of saying that these two studies that the study I mentioned previous that are on opposite sides of this argument They're not they're actually both contributing to information that could help save species We need better funded protected areas. We need more protected areas and most importantly We need corridors between them Yeah, which is really the thing so then they can move around right if we know that animals are choosing the protected area That's great news. That means if we put a corridor between two They're not going to walk higgledy-piggledy all over the place if they recognize that as a protected space Over time they will choose that corridor So that yeah, possibly news possibly The the first reaction I have to this is Uh, those are the protected areas and so the animals that are staying in those protected areas might be the less wandering Uh inclined because the animals that were more likely to wander have long since been killed because they left a protected area And it made me immediately think like uh in a in a decades time as this pandemic progresses It could be we're left with a planet full of introverts And that the all the extroverted people who like to go out and socialize and just can't help themselves All right, I'll get felled by the virus Uh, but it made me sort of think like maybe you know Maybe the animals that are just like less Explorer to the nature are the ones that are still left There they'll survive humans They'll survive the humans exactly So it makes me wonder though if the corridor thing Uh, would really if they would really take advantage of this Versus so it does work where they are still this is something to work currently in practice Yeah, so like in south america they have these Poles with a wire over them that go over freeways So that monkeys and sloths can cross above a freeway and not get hit by a car in uh in california We have salamander tunnels that go under highway 101 that the salamanders use so animals will avoid The dangerous humans If they can if they're given the opportunity Most of the time they want nothing to do with us So we're we're binocular vision bipedal scary stuff. Stay away. So we have cars and weapons and things and yeah So anyway, um anyway, this is just this is showing us that we're doing good work here The focus on habitats and protected areas is working and this is important science because This is the science side of conservation right making sure it's actually working instead of I think Checking that it's really and checking that it's really working because the thing that stands out to me is that So many of these species have lost more than 50 percent of their range since the 1970s So this is all they've got left And so we need protected ranges to work We need something to work if we want to conserve them. Yeah, so, you know, make sure that they don't get Put a pipeline through it or new development on top or Keep them More actually and the most protected areas and stuff too all of it more don't go This is this weekend science If you're just tuning in we just finished Blair's animal corner and we've got a little bit more science to come Thank you for listening to this weekend science really appreciate the fact that you're here with us this week And you know every week we bring you this show We try to bring you good science and good conversation around the science Try and delve into issues with curiosity and spark your own curiosity And it's with your support that we can really do this With your support, we're able to keep bringing you twists week after week And if you're interested in helping Continue to support twists and keep us going head over to twist.org click on our patreon link And choose your level of support ten dollars and up per month And we'll thank you by name at the end of the show if that's what you'd like Be a part of sharing science and maybe a more sane perspective with the world Thank you for your support. We really can't do it without you Fish out of water We're back. Oh, yeah And we're back Oh, yeah, we're back the more this weekend science Yeah, I was waiting for you to do it Is he gonna do it? A fish out of water Is a floppy gasping mess of a creature Uh, unless you're a long fish a mudskipper Yeah, you may have a couple exceptions to this rule another being the blind cave fish Cryptotorothamichola Also known as the cave angel fish Which is of the loach species which lives in caves this one with fast-moving water Can be found climbing cave walls at times Going from one place to the other And a new study research analyzed the bone structure Of this and nearly 30 other hill stream loach species fish Describing your first time three categories of pelvic shapes Based on the shapes of shape of the bone that connects some loaches spines to the pelvic fins The team found that there's 10 other species of the loach That shared the cave angel Fishes unusually hefty pelvic girdle This is quotey voice from biologist Zachary Randall Fishes don't usually have any connection between their spine and pelvic fin Uh, but before uh, so before the idea was that the cave angel fish was totally unique So they developed this uh, this girdle of a pelvic bone on its own What's really cool about this paper is it shows with high detail that robust pelvic girdles are more common than we thought in the hill stream loach family meaning that when this Blind cave fish ended up in this cave Was maybe pulling from An a previous adaptation That allows this this species to adapt to something like this environment Uh, it says that though more than 100 species of hill stream loach are found throughout southeast Asia the cave Angel fish is the only one whose walking capabilities have been observed and studied It has a salamander like wiggle powered by enlarged ribs bolstered with stabilizing muscle attachments uh on its fins which are uh were first described in scientific reports just in 2016 Randall says the cave angel fishes walk is a key adaptation for surviving fast flowing cave streams It can grip rocky stream beds and move between habitat tats even up waterfalls As water levels fluctuate in the dry season Cable cave angel fishes increase mobility and help it access well oxygenated stream regions with fewer no occupants Still little is known about the species including what it eats and this is also something very fascinating It's a blind fish So it doesn't have vision Uh, so how's the climate? Does nowhere it's good Well, it doesn't have vision to find prey. So usually when that happens Those fish are using some sort of chemical signatures in the water to track prey Because they're living in these fast moving streams where water's constantly going past In the dark is in the dark. They don't also have what would normally be considered like this pool Where these chemical signatures are allowing them to track down prey So not only did they not know what this thing eats. They have no idea how it would find anything to eat It's missing It's missing all of those things that they assume Have found in the past allow fish to find blind fish to find prey so Uh, blind or fish that live in very low light environments even so that having the combination of no site and fast moving water This is a very confusing fish And it can come out of the water. So this is this Uh, but yeah, it says they convert. Uh, this is uh lead author PhD candidate Callie Crawford These loaches have converged on a structural requirement to support terrestrial walking That's not seen another fish the relationship among these fishes suggested that the ability to adapt to fast flowing rivers Maybe what has been passed on genetically over time. So Yeah, it's a a a a huge mystery fish Big mystery Yeah, it's a very uh, so Randall and his team most recently observed the Cajun real fish on a 2019 cave excursion in northwest Thailand Uh They were and they were surprised because it's so rare. They found six of them Cleaning to the bed of a fast flowing shallow stream Uh, among glittering stalagmites in one of the cave's chambers Okay, so listen Amphibians came from a fish ancestor right so In the hundreds of millions of years since that occurred Uh, nobody else tried it really This is what I'm not getting is like especially considering amphibians can't go everywhere fish can go necessarily um There are Unutilized niches that would require getting out of the water It's I it's it's crazy to me because like fish out of water That's the whole thing fish or fish and amphibians are amphibians and fish don't go on land and fish don't walk and all this kind of stuff But also But that's where they came from I mean we have like uh, what is it the mudskipper is uh an insane creature. It has like a water lung Basically like it does the opposite of what you do when you go underwater swimming when you take Big gulp of oxygen and you go under the water It takes a big gulp of water and then comes out of the water And can sustain itself for for a time before having to go back and refresh So there are strategies, uh, that yes absolutely mimic Different progressions out. I like the fact that they described its waddle though Like is saying like like a salamander Uh, as it's living underground. It's it's found a similar Motility to something that's been very successful at it. It's because of their pelvis That's a little disconnection. It's either the wiggle in the walk or the giggle in the talk Oh my goodness. You got it. That's a lie, right? Was that no? No No blur Missing link missing link has been found between modern-day gibbons and its ancient ancestor Has been this has been found in india, which is sort of interesting because uh gibbons in africa are thought to have originated in asia, I suppose maybe it's the other way around Uh, I guess it would be the other way around but they found this one in india and like sort of the halfway point or Well, that is asia. I guess it is Hasn't always been anyway This 13 million-year-old fossil is from an entirely new undiscovered ape It is now the earliest ancestor of the modern-day given Uh, the discovery by christa racy gilbert from hunter college feels According to this a major void in the ape fossil record It provides new evidence about when ancestors take gibbons migrated to asia from africa. Thank you. Yes, of course Uh, this fossil isn't much It's not much. It's just a tooth That's all they have. It's a complete it's a lower molar Not much to talk about except there is there's a lot to talk about just based on this one, too It belongs to a completely unknown genius of and species which they named capy Ramnagar Rensis Uh, this is a first new Ape fossil fossil of a new ape found discovered in the What is a pretty famous fossil site at ramnagar in india in nearly a hundred years? So they found lots of they've identified lots of ancient apes Lots of species from here, but this is the first one in a hundred years and it's the first gibbon ancestor Uh, gibbon team members were climbing a small hill in the area where a fossil primate jaw had been found a year before While pausing for a short rest gibbert spotted something shiny in a small pile of dirt on the ground So we dug it out and quickly realized he found something special Quoty voice we knew immediately it was a primate tooth But it did not look like the tooth of any of the primates previously found in the area From the shape and size of the molar our initial guess was that it might be from a gibbon ancestor But that seemed too good to be true given that the fossil record of lesser apes is virtually non-existent There are other primate species known during that time and no gibbon fossils have previously been found anywhere in ramnagar So we knew we would have to do our homework To figure out exactly what this little fossil was And so this is this discovery of this fossil was in 2015 So it's been five years of studying and analysis and comparisons that's been conducted For them to finally come to the ultimate conclusion that their first guess was correct It is a gibbon ancestor I mean, I guess it takes five years to build an entire animal out of a tooth Yeah Uh, let's see So yeah So there it is ancestor of the gibbon found this is a published in the proceedings of royal society b If you haven't just been pursuing I love science then the science like this where it's a tooth and they can Identify because of the shape of the tooth ridges on the tooth aspects of the tooth the morphology of it Okay, this is a gibbon, but this isn't a modern gibbon. This is an old gibbon. This is a gibbon that we've never seen I mean the idea that they can put all of the things together Is I mean the The scientific forensics at play are are astounding Yeah, so this and this is also sort of uh It's uh, it's also showing A migration of apes into southeast asia Uh, that's uh clarifying so so there are uh, gibbons and reigning things in southeast asia This is they and they found in reigning ancestors. I suppose in this area is uh previously But so now this is sort of at the same time. They're also now finding gibbons They first example of a gibbon in this area so they can sort of see that they all were transitioning together Uh, that this it wasn't just the reigning things from here and then some how Uh, a gibbon ended up there much later. They're showing it's sort of a a natural radiation Uh that took place Yeah Radiation is good I mean Not when you're in outer space, but you know radiation leaves leads to mutation Mutation is good. Yeah Mutation is great Mutation maybe leads to genetic change And the change in your abilities. I've got some stories about Abilities one of them is an ability that I do not have I don't have the ability to break down lactose Mmm You would think with my incredibly northern european heritage That that would be something I would have inherited But no, I'm one of the few from the north Who did not get the particular genes involved in Uh digesting lactase, which is the sugar in milk Well a team from stony brook university They looked at some bones from bronze age skeletons from Uh a battle that took place around 1200 bc They're findings looking at these bones and the genes in the bones that indicate Lactase persistence and the spread of the ability to digest lactase Are published this week in current biology Nobody like really humans are kind of special because we can drink milk as adults Or at least there's a subset of our population who can And that's not always been the case and at one point in time We did not have the genes to digest milk, but then farming Spread through northern europe And people started drinking goat milk cow milk milk all the milks And not just in childhood, but into adulthood to get nutrition And so there was a spread of lactase persistence as a result of this spread in farming But they thought it took place over like several thousand years And they looked at this particular pile of bones They had soldiers probably about 4000 warriors from this battle From the banks of telenz in germany And it's a really big battle that occurred in the bronze age A quarter of those 4000 warriors probably died So these bones are like 3000 years old They got the DNA and the researchers looked into them And found that Most of them did not have genes for lactase persistence So that means that if you look at the gene bank from 2000 years later in the medieval period 70 to 90 percent of people in the In central european countries had the ability to drink milk And so over so basically it went from like Nobody one in eight warriors had the the genetic variant to Almost everybody over 60 percent of adults able to drink milk So is this going to be mutation or is this going to be natural selection? I mean, is it going to be that if you couldn't handle the new High energy food source that was showing up in these agricultural villages Are you going to be more sickly less likely to like who's going to want to marry you if you're flatulent every time you simply have But that's part of it and so the researchers think that the only way that this would have spread so quickly In a matter of 2000 years from almost nobody to almost everybody That in 2000 years that it had to have been positive selection so a case of The genes for lactase persistence Positively affecting survival in some way. They don't know exactly what that means, but it could be that maybe Parents who did have the genes were gaining enough nutrition to be able to have stronger offspring Who were able to survive better? maybe there was some nutritional benefit or a benefit that You know kept their immune systems stronger You know, was it something that something allowed them to survive better? And that's what they think happened They they don't think that there would be any other real explanation Other than something tied to a positive selection drive during that time period that would make it happen so quickly Yeah, and it's something else to keep in mind whenever we're talking about the ancient past like whenever you see these movies You know the the 300, uh, you know the the spartans the Warriors these vikings these whatever shows they show these very big strong muscular people going to battle so to be a superior specimen of Physicality in the old world Basically just meant that you weren't malnourished because most people Most people had horrible diets that couldn't sustain muscle building Like nobody was lifting weights in the old world. That was ridiculous So when they talk about these heroes that they weren't giants They weren't super muscular strong fit people, right? These were just people who Had had, you know drink milk occasionally and we're like Maybe got to eat some meat. Here we go Made occasionally and weren't like spindly and bent over from malnutrition and broken at age 20 Like that's all it took to be a superior physical specimen warrior in the old days I was like, isn't having decent meals once in a while so So that just drinking milk could be that big separation between a fit society And one that is easily conquered because all you've had to eat work is rice for a century, you know, like it's just uh, yeah I'm just thinking about how the barter system and dowries and things like that Based on goats and cows and stuff Not be very helpful if you could not drink milk I give you 30 goats to milk for your dowry. Uh, yeah, I'm not gonna let her anywhere near it because I like to be But it is interesting that it is stuck around and it hasn't the genes have not kept up the I mean probably has to do with ag modern agriculture and the spread of the availability of food, but The genes have not uh kept up their spread globally. Uh, still people Definitely a large number of people Have lactase persistence, but a very large number of people do not but Well, you could expect that number to increase for those who don't have it because I don't feel like we have an agricultural based society that is expressly Reliant on any given food source at this point, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, uh, that you you Yeah, uh, those people those people are no longer going to be drummed out of society for not being able to eat ice cream No, you can't eat ice cream Get out of town You go live in the ocean All right, uh, my last story for the night has to do with Surviving the cold cold nights We've talked before on the show about torpor flares talked about torpor. We've talked about it's not hibernation It's torpor. It's the the body's metabolism Decreases the heartbeat is still going. It's not quite the same decrease in temperature that hibernation entails There are some birds that do it Humming birds are among them and a new study out of uh Out of new in university of new mexico in albuquerque researchers have looked at a number of I think they have 26 hummingbirds from six different species. Yeah, that's what it is six different species of hummingbirds That they collected in the andes the researchers wanted to know how different hummingbirds Use torpor at different higher elevations. So They're up in the andes where temperatures get really cold. They collected a bunch of hummingbirds and Then they put them in little enclosures near the campsite and put a little temperature collecting wire up their cloacas To see what would happen because how else are you going to record temperature? It's science. You got to put a wire up a bird's cloaca Anyhow this wire tracked the body temperatures overnight and every species Of the six that they had went into torpor One species they had a number of different sizes one of them was the giant hummingbird Which is about double the size of the 12 centimeter long metal tail hummingbird The metal tail hummingbird its body temperature dipped to 3.3 degrees celsius, which is about 37 degrees fahrenheit Almost to freezing Yes, no Yes, it is one of the it is the lowest temperature that has been recorded in the bird in a non-hybernating animal So, okay. So what's interesting there is that that's like a temperature you if you were going to uh, take a bacterial sample And you want it not to grow Uh, you want it to you're not going to freeze it. You're not going to kill it It's just gonna put it in cold storage so that you slow it put it into a G zero state where it's not it's zero growth is taking place you do that under About 40 degrees you do it at about where Uh, this bird has put itself which is very interesting And the birds they they look as though they are Dead they don't move you can pick them up. They're they don't do anything They're just kind of dead, but then in the morning when the sun comes up They warm back up again And they fly away and they are happy and they think about their alien abduction and how strange that was So over overnight this change happens because like overnight I think about the extreme temperature changes In bears because they're like the obvious example, right and they're they're lowering their temperature steadily for a while and then they stay at that lower temperature for Weeks two months and then they raise it back up. It seems like it wouldn't be Beneficial to spend all the energy to push it back up For only one night that seems crazy It does but it is what they are doing. It is an overnight change. They drop that substantially Uh, some some of the hummingbirds do not drop the majority of hummingbirds didn't drop that Substantially the average was reaching body temperatures of five to ten degrees Celsius, which is Still not, you know, it's not that low but it's significantly lower than when they're active and The interesting thing though in terms of the trade-off In the Peruvian Andes the birds are going to be Roosting up in a tree up on a in a crack on a ledge They're going to find a place to hide For the night to and not move but there are not a lot of prey species or predator species Predatory species that are going to come and take advantage of it. So they may have sufficient food and nutrition to be able to Support the metabolic metabolic costs and since they don't have the predatory cost Then it might be an adequate trade-off No, but it's pretty amazing. This is the most extreme hummingbirds. They're extreme Really dropping their body temperatures and now like we've talked every time we talk about what a cool animal is doing in extreme situations How can we now apply this to humans? How can we apply Understanding how they drop their temperature and raise it back up again with no physiological Negative effects that we can see how do they do that and how could we do that for say surgeries or for You know any yeah any kind of healthcare procedures that we might need to use it for Hmm Yeah, in the chat room goldisator is asking how much energy it would take to maintain Temperature all night for something so small and that's actually a very good question because it could be That is the trade-off because hummingbirds take so much energy To maintain their metabolism Right. So if you think about they're so small So easier to just lose that heat, right? So a bear is really good at conserving heat because they're big So their surface area to mass is it allows them to conserve energy But yeah a teeny tiny little hummingbird their surface area to mass is very different. So Yes, they're they're gonna lose heat a lot faster than a bear would Yeah, but it still it still is a huge metabolic undertaking to push your internal body temperature back up after going into trooper Yeah, it's it's amazing hummingbirds these little teeny 12 centimeters long That's tiny the tiny little animal who's like i'm gonna freeze Okay, i'm fine now Okay, okay It's amazing That does it for me for stories does anybody have anything else they want to talk about No Nothing else All right, everybody if you have questions for us you can ask questions We will take your questions and try to answer them if you have questions Send them to me on facebook facebook.com that slash slash slash this weekend science Or kirsten at thisweekandscience.com for email And we will answer your questions on the show. We'd love to get your questions I think that does it for us does it do it? It does it yes, i'm hoping for a less pumpkin spice sky tomorrow Fingers crossed Yeah, fingers crossed for everyone on the west coast who is affected by the fires. Yes, let's have Let's have a good night. Let's have the wind die down and the flames Drop to little embers and Homes be saved and the skies return to blue If uh, hey mother mother nature if you want to throw us some rain that would be helpful That would be awesome That would be wonderful. Just no lightning. All right None of that Just some rain Thank you for listening to the show I hope you enjoyed it. I really really do hope you enjoyed it Shoutouts to fada for your help with our show notes and for social media help. Thank you to gourd for Helping to man the chat room making it go go go and for identity for for recording the show And I would like to thank the boroughs welcome fund and our patreon sponsors for their generous support Thank you too Donathan styles aka don stylo john scioli giome john lee alikoff and matty paren gaurav sharma jaziah zaynor Mike shoemaker sarah for far donald mondes jerald slurrell's steven olberan deril my shacks jupalic andrew swanson fred s104 Corinne benton sky luke paul ronovitch ben bignell kevin reardon noodles jack bryan kerington matt base joshua fury shonanina lamb john mckay greg riley marqueson flowed gene telea steve leesman ken haze howard tan christopher rappin richard brian minnish brendan minnish melizond johnny gridley flying out richard reporter christopher drier mark bizarros artyom greg briggs john atwood robert rudy garcia dav wilkinson rodney lewis paul matt sutter philip shane curt larson craig landon mountain sloth jindred poh sarah chavis alex wilson john ratna swami sue doster jason olds dav namer coasty ranky matthew litwin eric nap e o kevin parochan erin luthin steve debel bob calder marjorie paul stanthin paul disney patrick pecoraro gary s ed dire oh stone tony steele ulysses ad kids brian kondren jason roberts and david friedel thank you for all of your support on patreon and if any of you are interested in supporting us on patreon you can find information at twist.org click that patreon link on next week's show i have a thing written down here that's not true okay here it went on next week's show we will be back wednesday at eight p.m pacific time broadcasting live from our youtube and facebook channels and from twist.org live hey uh want to use your your your hairs to listen to us as a podcast just search for this week in science wherever podcasts are found if you enjoyed the show uh get some friends to listen with their ear hairs too for more information on anything you've heard here today show notes and links to stories will be available on our website www.twist.org and you can also sign up for our newsletter that's right you can also contact us directly email kirsten at kirsten at thisweekinscience.com justin at twistminion at gmail.com or blare at blarebaz at twist.org just be sure to put twist twis into the subject line or your email will go into torpor fall asleep and we'll never read it nope you can also hit us up on the twitter where we are at twist science at dr kiki at jackson and fly and at blairs menagerie we love your feedback if there's a topic you'd like us to cover or address a suggestion for an interview a haiku that comes to in the night please let us know we'll be back here next week and we hope you'll join us again for more great science news and if you've learned anything from the show remember it's all in your head this week in science this week in science this week in science it's the end of the world so i'm setting up the shop got my banner unfurled it says the scientist is in i'm gonna sell my advice show them how to stop the robot with a simple device i'll reverse all the warming with a wave of my hand and all it'll cost you is a couple of grand this week science is coming away so everybody listen to what i say i use the scientific method for all that it's worth and i'll broadcast my opinion all over the air because it's this week in science this week in science this week in science science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science i have one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news that what i say may not represent your views but i've done the calculations and i've got a plan if you listen to the science you may just get understand that we're not trying to threaten your philosophy we're just trying to save the world from jeopardy and this week in science is coming away so everybody listen to everything we say and if you use our methods that are rolling and die we may rid the world of toxoplasma gandhi i because it's this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science i've got a long list of items i want to address from stopping global hunger to dredging Loch Ness i'm trying to promote more rational thought and i'll try to answer any question you've got the help can i ever see the changes i seek when i can only set up shop one hour a week this week in science is coming away you better just listen to what we say and if you learn anything from the words that we've said then please just remember it's all in your head because it's this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science. This weekend science, this weekend science, this weekend science, this weekend science, this weekend science. Science. Oh my goodness. Cause it was it was all day, all day today. It was all day all day. My cat is down here purring and shedding. She says come pet me in clouds of cat hair. Thank you all for watching for being a part of this tonight. Thank you. I saw the hyenas and the pup in and out. Thank you for being a part. Alex, Troyano, Goldisator, Eric Knapp, Hot Rod, Identity 4, Gordon MacLeod, who has noodles. We got all sorts of people. We've got all sorts of people. Thunder Beaver, Eric and AK, Gorov, Fada, the people who are the people in our neighborhood. You are. I saw Gorov post petition to make Ed Dyer and a permanent patron of the show in the name list. Eric Knapp seconded the motion. I think that we have a, I think that would be good. I can do that. Permapatron Ed Dyer. Yeah. No, we're right here, Yens. That's right. Hot Rod. Let's see. What are you doing over there? You guys over in the web chat on FreeNode are talking about Discord and talking about Lime Chat. Yeah, people kept getting booted, including myself. I got booted out of our chat room four times today. Yeah, I saw at some point you were Blair66 and you're all sorts of. Yeah, I was Blair96. So many different Blair's tonight. So many Blair's. So many. Yeah. Yeah. How is Dave Friedle around anywhere? Oh my God, I've got the yawns. I swear I held them in mostly during the show and now they're like, it's time to yawn itself out. Yeah. Yeah, I really am hoping for not another day like this. How many days has it been? It was really bad today. Today was the only day was dark. So, same thing. So he said I woke up this morning thinking my alarm went off early. So I woke up late. I like had trouble getting out of bed. And then I got out of bed and I looked, I like walked by my window to my balcony. I was like, what? What? So yeah, so it looked like it was still like 5am outside. And then I looked up the air quality because I was like, Oh, this isn't good. Like there's a tint out there. And it said it was fine because San Francisco, the Bay Area has a marine layer. So this is the cool thing about the Bay Area is we have our upwelling right here. So that pushes the cold water up. And that also means that there's air, cool ocean air being pushed towards the shore and that gets pushed over and up. And so that means that all of the smoke was high enough up that it was blocking out the sun. But our air quality was actually pretty good. Oh, so like I was able to go for a run today. The air was fine. How weird, really? Just red. Yeah. So the air quality was fine because none of the smoke was down here. Yeah, you're coastal. You have it at the main. Yeah, the entire Bay Area had this very weird thing where we were blacked out. We had this like blood red sky. But then we had, yeah, our air quality was fine. But yeah, this is the only day that it was dark. Yesterday it just kind of looked yucky. Yeah, we didn't get smoke up here. Really, it has been off and on hazy, but we really got smoke up here this evening. I watched it get darker and darker and more and more orange because there's a fire that's really not that far from southeast Portland. Because according to the President of the United States, Portland has been burning for decades, apparently. Right. Yes. We've always been on fire for so long. And we just need to rake. So that's really our point. It just needs to get out the rakes. Go rake that forest. Yeah. Let's get out of rake. Let's go do that. Everybody, grab your rakes. Yes, Alex, 2020 is such a year. Everybody, everybody, we've all gotten to the point where we're like, you just, it's like, oh, something else crazy and terrible. Of course. Of course it is. Every time I'm like, okay, okay, I think I've got a handle on this thing. Okay, I think I found a new note. Okay, I think I have a plan, even not a new normal, but I still have a plan for the next 48 hours. I think I can figure this out. And then something else happens. Yikes. Oh no, identity says he thinks his old apartment burned down last night. What? That's no good. At least you weren't there anymore. Erick in Alaska has had the fun of a gray sky caused by volcanic ash. Wait, where did a volcano spew ash? Is this currently or in the past? In the past? I've been so focused on the fires. I'm not paying attention to volcanoes. What's going on? Yeah, there are these poor guys riding horses coming down the street. One of them had a flaming sword. Okay, years ago. Okay. Yeah. Good. Thanks. Wait, I can't do it. I mean, I expect it, but oh god. It's gotten so bad in Denmark that they are talking about closing bars at midnight now. Oh, is it starting to ratchet back up again? Of course it is because of the lack of cases over a prolonged period of time, having shut down and dealt with the cases so significantly. The traditional Danes get a lot more vacation time than Americans. A lot more. And it's traditional to take a summer vacation, which apparently a lot of the population did in other countries, which have not the problem as well. Hey, it's a pandemic. Excuse me. Okay. So I went to one of the biggest malls in Copenhagen over this past weekend to get the eye test and to order some glasses. And was one of the only people wearing a face mask. Nobody working, the population going through, nobody's wearing a face mask. And I felt like screaming at the top of my lungs. Like a mole rat, like a naked mole rat screaming in the cavern of a mall. And then everybody else would be like, what? I can't hear you. That's kind of what it felt like. I don't know what you, I can't hear you. But because it's, you know, there's definitely, they've definitely done, the government and the people have reacted properly early on. And there's definitely not been the caseload that you've seen in other countries. But with that has come complacency, I think as well. So the, you know, they are still being affected like anywhere else, not to the degree yet, but recent spikes have started to cause people to take a few more precautions. Still not the level I think. Yeah, you know, I mean, again, we've talked about this before. I was suggesting three, I've heard as much as six weeks of just global time out, just everybody stop. Yeah, it would be, that's what, that's what our, our, our guest doctor, Faust, Faust, what he, yeah, he said, he said more, we've like six weeks. Yeah. Yeah. And actually what he was, and it wasn't very, it was, he also wasn't saying it was specific, but up to six, but it would depend, it would depend, could be more depending on the severity and the situation in different areas. Tim and Tenor says, even back in April, I feel like somebody saying six weeks of shutdown, people would be like, no, no, that's too long. But even now they'd be like, oh, we've already been shut down for so long. No, no, no, six weeks is too long. But then it would actually make it shorter. But I feel like it's, it's this thing of like, you know, I don't want to invest more now. It's like, no, I can't spend that much money on a burrito. I'm going to buy this burrito out of the street and then pay for it later. You know, you just, you just get it, you get it over with. I may inform to the, the, the recent spike in Denmark is mostly amongst students, it's mostly young people congregating, you know, the thing that we've been seeing. It's also happened in the United States, all these colleges that opened up, you know, and one of the worst initial reactions, I can't remember which university it was. They had dormitories that were, you know, they had cases break out. And so what did they do? They sent the students home, which sounds like, okay, we have COVID problems, send everybody home. Problem is, they just sent them around the country. And then there was apparently like, parents coming to collect the clothes, and so they're walking down hallways, passing each other, collecting all their goods, and these clothes, dormitories, like this is insanity. That's taking place. But it's been brought up, but the brand up herd immunity is being brought up in the, one of the chat rooms here. Um, to get to herd immunity in the United States, you have to have over 50% of the population have it. And when you get into that, you're talking about then, uh, somewhere in the neighborhood of three million people would die to get to that point. So that's, it's, it's Can we not do that? It's a possibility, but it's not the good one. Yeah, it's not the good one. And can we, can we try and postpone it to get a vaccine? Can we try and push it off? Can we, can we just try to do that? Please? Yeah. And can we also make sure that it's a vaccine that's, that's ready to go and is not being pushed forward based on, uh, political deadline? That would be great. So, so we've talked about this a lot in the Russian vaccine. Apparently there is a story on ours tech, ours technica today or like within the last day or two about the Russian vaccine saying that the original phase one, phase two trial that they published where they actually published their results, that it looks like, and they're saying, they're not saying they found bad data, but what they are saying is that it looks like, like one section of the data looks very similar to another section of the data and it shouldn't basically, there's like a copy and paste in there and that the similarities are just a little bit too strong, but they haven't, they don't have their data to look at. So, yeah, so everything's fine. Yeah. Well, yeah. And then there's our leader who has said that, uh, magically we will receive a vaccine just before a very special date. Or after. Oh, but only if, only if I'm reelected. So, so here's the other thing. Uh, keep in mind when we're also talking about, uh, again, herd immunity or recovery rates or all of this sort of stuff, we're still just getting glimpses at long-term effects, which sound in some cases extremely severe and persistent. So it's not just like a cold that you get over, apparently there's long lasting side effects to this going forward. So even those who, who end up with the herd immunity because they've gotten it aren't necessarily going to be healthy afterwards. Yeah. It's, it's not good news people. You should take it seriously. It's not, somebody was reminding me that I live near a whole bunch of volcanoes. There's a couple of people, Kevin and Eric and Alaska and fault lines telling me that I live around a bunch of volcanoes. And every time I think about all the volcanoes and the fires that are happening right now, I just think to myself, I live in a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down, playing with fire. And I burn, burn, burn, the ring of fire, the burning fire. The taste of love is sweet when hearts like ours. I don't know the rest of the lyrics. I need to learn the rest of the lyrics. I feel for you like a child. Oh, the fire went higher. Oh, I thought it was wild. The fire was wild. Oh, maybe that makes more sense. Yeah. Actually, I saw a really cool, one last thing about the vaccine that I thought was really interesting. I saw a really cool thread on Twitter and I wish I could find it again and retweet it off to look. But it was about how you measure the efficacy of a vaccine. And the way you measure it is you actually have to multiply how effective the vaccine itself is times public trust. Because if you have a vaccine that is 100% effective, but only 50% of the population trust it, it is only a 50% effective vaccine. If you have an 80% effective vaccine and 50% of the population trust it, then it's only a 40% effective vaccine. Something seems wrong with your algebra, but other than that, the time-zinging thing, I don't understand. But it's okay. It's times 40% if 25%. If it's 100% effective, and 50% of the population take it, because we trust it, there's only a 50% effectiveness of that vaccine. That makes sense. If it is 80% effective and 50% of the population trust it, it's only 40% effective. Yes. Good night, Brian. Good morning. Is it good morning? Is he starting his day? Good morning. Yeah, so trust is an important metric in the efficacy of a vaccine. That actually means that the disseminating of information and the way that a vaccine is represented to the general public is actually an important metric in how effective a vaccine is. Therefore, going out as the leader of a country and saying, I'm going to get you this vaccine by election day impacts trust in a vaccine, and therefore actually impacts the efficacy. That's a great point. So it is very interesting. Especially actually messing up any vaccine that's brought forward, because people are going to be the people that would trust a vaccine are now going to be skeptical of it. Yep. Yep. We don't and we don't need that. He's no fumble, fumble, fumble. HNK said, I am working at a college dorm route door. I can't speak. I am working at a college dorm right now. They've already had one positive case. Yeah. If I mean, it depends on how they're taking care of it, because some colleges it seems are managing this, these issues better than other colleges. And I mean, we're really hearing about the ones where they're not handling it better. But I hope that I hope that you are able to stay safe. And I just, I just want to tell people I've been drinking bleach for years. I still get colds. So it's it's not going to don't try it. Don't listen to Justin. Don't do that. Don't do that at all. Bleach is dangerous. Don't drink at the bleach. It's not good. Don't drink of the isopropyl alcohol either. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's not good for you. Nope. Ammonia. The only way, the only way to effectively put light inside of your body is to open up your body like during a surgery. I did once know somebody who refused to believe that their partner went to the bathroom and just said that white light came out of her. He refused refused to talk about bodily functions. White light, white light. Okay. I think that might do it. Hey, uh, say good night, Blair. Good night, Blair. Say good night, Justin. I can't say good morning, Justin. Good morning, Justin. Um, and good night. Good night, everyone. I put a little poll up on the Science Island Facebook page for those of you who are interested in getting together to celebrate Ed Dyer's life and how we knew him. I will put a link for our online Science Island space associated with that in the Science Island post. It looks like Sunday at 11 a.m. is what the majority of people have responded will work for them. I know that doesn't work for everybody and I apologize for that, but if you have messages or anything that you want to share, you can send them to me and I or Justin and we can, I don't think Blair will be able, maybe Blair might be able to make it depending on whether things get better on the fire smoke front there. But yeah, send us anything that you would like us to share at the gathering and we will do that for you if you're not able to make it. But it looks like Sunday at 11 a.m. and I will share a link on Facebook for the twists and Science Island pages. Alrighty, um, so some of you I will see or hear in our Science Island space on Sunday and others of you. I hope that you have a wonderful week. I hope everyone stays safe. I hope I really have said it before and I'll say it again. These West Coast fires are they're a lot. So I hope they're not putting people over the edge. Take care of yourselves and keep listening to the science because it does bring a little bright spot and a little curiosity and a little inspiration in what otherwise seems kind of bleak at the moment. So thank you for letting us be a part of your week and we'll see you soon. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Talk. Bye.