 Well, hello everyone. Welcome to another podcast broadcast of this week in science We are here on another Wednesday evening to talk about all the science fun things with you And we're so glad that you are here to join us in the beginnings I must let you know that this is a live podcast broadcast that I'm doing right now Maybe you're watching it later, but we're doing it live. So mistakes can happen problems can occur Things happen the podcast gets edited and hopefully all that stuff is not in the podcast version So you're watching the full Monty right here Mm-hmm. Yee-hee of science. We are ready to do this. Are we all yes? There's ready Justin's nodding My phone is buzzing all the nonverbal communication because this is the video only portion. Yes I just like to get an idea that all of our audios are at the right levels and that everybody can hear Mic check one, two, three, one, two I'm gonna start this show Starting the show in a three, two This is Twist this week in science episode number 926 recorded on Wednesday, May 17th 2023 how can a failure be a winner in science? Hey everyone, I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show we will Hey everyone. I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show We will fill your heads with heat holes and you but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer think back way back all the way back to the first science subject That really got your attention the first time you thought hey, this is really amazing or whoa This is really weird or nah. That can't possibly be right Whatever it was whenever it was hold on to that thought that moment way back whenever maybe when you were 7 or 13 or 39 that moment when your curiosity spoke up when your curiosity was heard when your curiosity got answered for the first time That is what we're trying to bring every week to this show you the human listening now Thanks for coming that insatiable curious questioning voice in your brain That's who we heard that's who we're here for in fact That's the entire reason for this week in science coming up next I Got the kind of mine that 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 I seek. I want to know Good science to keep you where and a good science to you too Justin and Blair and everyone out there welcome to another Episode of this week in science back once again to talk about science, right? That's what we do we we like the science we talk about the science and hopefully we get to enjoy it with all of you And you enjoy the conversation as well. Oh, we've got some good stories on tonight's show. I have stories about black holes that aren't confusing comets and magnetizing your brain For science Hmm, what do you have Justin? I've got Parkinson's disease causation More doctors prescribing multiple drugs this time the right way How climate change is causing the hottest days to be even hotter and a The the future of materials Might be mushrooms That that yeah, we'll put that all in your head Blair. What is in the animal corner? I have bee sweaters I have Hammerheads holding their breath And I have zebra finches on oxytocin I Can't wait that I love them I love the little zebra finches and I hope everyone is looking forward to all of these stories and more Because there's gonna be a lot in here as we jump into the show I want to remind you that yes every Wednesday 8 p.m. Pacific time We are here talking about science on YouTube Facebook and twitch We are twist science on twitch on Twitter. Yes, I know still I don't know Instagram and the universe and on and If you I don't know want to find us find show notes and all those fun things you can head to our website twist.org And you can subscribe to us we're a podcast we're on all the podcast platforms, you know, that's the thing subscribe hit the likes Help us hit the algorithms in the most positive optimizing efficient way possible share us with your friends, okay? That's enough of that time for science. Let's do it. It's time for this Yes, okay first I want to start out with a little bit of a confusing comet It's not that confusing, but a couple of weeks back back. I could add a few I guess it was back in April I believe April I talked about an asteroid that was acting like a comet where there were a lot there was lots of off-gassing and stuff that was coming off of it and And how that Asteroid was actually the cause of a big meteor shower annually and all this stuff. Okay Asteroid from the asteroid belt. You're like great. We get this that makes sense Did you know that there is a class of comets that exist in the asteroid belt? That do not exist exist in the outer solar system in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud Okay, the asteroid belt the asteroid belt. It's like near near Earth Mars asteroid belt. We got there are comets there and You have a questiony face Justin. Well, I mean what is I guess I guess I'm just fundamentally I don't know the difference between a comet and an asteroid because that means an asteroid should be a big rocky thing or Gravely thing and a comet is a big clumpy icy thing, but then when I'm thinking about it Well, you know a lot of the asteroid belt I would assume had icy cold things in it. So yeah, maybe I don't have a good definition of the two and they seem to Now get that definition is a little bit fuzzy So we have seen but the one main defining feature of a comet is that it has the halo or that Streaming tail behind it that we can identify. So when you think of a comet Drinking through space not not a meteor streaking through our atmosphere, but a comet streaking through space is that it is a long streaky And that's water, right the water Yes, and it is yes sublimating ice water ice. Yes And for a long time we weren't really sure about what was going on, but we got a look at you know Mass spectrometry with chromatography. We're looking at all this stuff. We're like, oh comets This tail is water ice coming off and so we've gotten a good picture of that. It was just interesting, you know Wow, there's an asteroid that's off-gassing. We it's not a comet. Oh, wow. It's an asteroid. This is interesting But now we have this whole class of comets. We think of comets as these very old early solar system Leftovers they are like the ones in the Kuiper Belt, especially the ones in the Oort cloud Those are leftovers from when the solar system was formed. So they contain all sorts of old stuff and we have Hypotheses that Comets are one of the main ways that water might have been brought to earth in the first place And so now we have this small population There's really not very many of them that we've identified yet that actually hang out in the asteroid belt and nasa's been looking at them And one this particular comet comet 238p read is a main asteroid belt Comet and it is pretty it's just if you were to put your Telescope on it when it's no telescope comet season You would see a little hazy halo-y blue-ish dot and that blueishness is also has been artificially enhanced to kind of be the the water part of What's happening there, but what it has been identified by the James Webb Space Telescope with its near cam This last September taking a picture of it and was able to identify that this Halo and the coma It is a comet. It's certainly a comet not an asteroid. It has it so it's definitively now a Comet in the asteroid belt lots of water ice that is vaporizing and An interesting aspect that they've also noticed that there's no carbon dioxide coming off of it as well So the question now about this curious comet is what is this little pot this? Comet doing the asteroid belt in the first place, wouldn't it have melted already? Close to the Sun when did it form is it as old as older stuff? If it's like other comets other comets from out in the work cloud They release a lot of carbon dioxide when they come past the Sun and they sublimate and they give off all their water ice Is it because this particular? Comet has been warmed too many times and the carbon dioxide is already gone Huh, or is it that it never had carbon dioxide in the first place because it formed in a place close enough into the Sun that? Only water ice could form and not carbon dioxide not Not not because it has to be colder freeze carbon dioxide, right dry ice Asteroid comet not an asteroid but a comet only raises more questions Indeed and I I love that right we get a picture. We're able to raise more questions and we're you know as a picture a Picture can tell a thousand words in this particular case maybe a picture Increases in the number of questions that scientists might have Yeah Yeah, nobody brought the story but the James Webb also Found some really big galaxies in the early universe. Yeah, and people were already talking about Hey There's gonna be some there's a little bit of Contra like hey It's challenging the model of the age of the universe and everything because these are bigger than they're supposed to be No, and they're more and they're more definitively formed like spiral galaxies They shouldn't have that kind of structure yet, but they do Well, they just re-looked at it And it turns out that those those galaxies that they thought were like oh too big And you know are actually ten times larger than they thought they were initially Amazing and that it is both providing us with asteroid comet hybrid mysteries near Earth and Age of the universe tension So this brings up kind of a question I have about the process with these photos So I feel like it's really common when we get these new photos of our universe to get two waves of information We get the initial release of here's these cool photos This is what we think they mean and then a few weeks later Go, okay, so we have some updates Is that because they're releasing the photos to the general scientific community and more people get to take a look at them? Or is it because they're telling us too soon? Too soon because there's a there are layers of analysis that need to take place based on it's a way it takes pictures also it's a conglomeration of images right and If this was I think it wouldn't have been too soon I think the assessments would have been very easy if this was a near galaxy That they had because then the faint and the bright stars aren't competing as Intensely in terms of number of stars and that sort of thing, but I think you're talking about a 13 billion light-year-away object becomes I Mean I think in all these areas, you know any data That's released as it's collected which even Includes visual images that have merely been placed together what it comes with initially is the speculation that what what researchers think it might mean and very often I don't know with National Ignition Facility with The gravitational wave detector with you know any big physics experiment and lots of lots of science actually they People have to hype up their results before the results have actually come in to kind of keep Keep everybody interested and keep the machine the lights on at NASA. Yeah Yeah, and Very often I mean they are exciting these images and the data and this stuff is super exciting and I think it's neat when the speculation is less or is it you know, I guess more conservative than what the actual result ends up being but it's not always that case and We often see it's not just a few weeks later Sometimes the papers that accompany these images or the first releases stuff does sometimes months to a year Sometimes more than one year before Paul the analysis is done. So yeah I just think it's very different from some of the other science that we cover on this show in because of that because there's these public releases of images and And and yeah, there's this initial Speculation it doesn't work that way with my hammerhead shark study for later. They don't go. Hey We collect all this data about hammerheads. We haven't done any data crunching yet. We haven't written anything But here's a picture of a hammerhead We'll get back to you on what it actually means It's just very different It is very different. Yeah And I think that's an interesting way interesting way of looking at it But I wanted to jump forward from this for Blair's Quite question about this into also how sometimes things can be seen as failures and then return later And you've got this cool study Justin. Oh Is that the did I put that one in? Are you telling me now that you put it back the deed you to put it in the rundown in the right place? And I just saved you to the wrong story. I might have accidentally got my my layout here Opposite of the rundown, but yeah Last week I talked about doctors behaving badly Experimenting by prescription by Giving people multiple drugs without clinical trials. So I thought this week. I saw this story. I said, okay Here's an example of researchers who are doing clinical trials first So I thought I would bring this this is our patients with a type of cancer Known as Heptosevular carcinoma They have a tumor type that Can can be surgically removed it can be removed by heat and then they wait they wait Because there's a high rate of this cancer returning within the first couple of years so Just because you went and you got the surgery you got the treatment and everything's fine now High chance that you're going to have cancer again in about two years. So They're they're finding that there's a class of drugs that had been seen as a Failed revolution in cancer therapy. These are angiogenesis inhibitors. This is I remember, you know, this is from the 90s These were the idea is they would shut down all the vasculature Growth of a tumor so that that tumor that was trying to expand and get blood and grow would Have all these the the access to blood reduced Well problem is that's when they got into the the the deeper layers of the trials That's not what happened Like life finds a way so do tumors and in fact there was even a study that had shown that Compared to the normal messy architecture of a tumor's vasculature with these leaky Things that it's trying to create to grab blood Use of this drug actually sort of clean things up straighten out the blood vessels in a tumor Made them less leaky may allowed more blood to make it in to the tumor So on in some cases they might have worked and in fact they they still are prescribed for like late-stage Some late-stage cancers They they're not very curative. They just prolong because they actually do slow Some of the aspects of okay. So anyway, this whole class of drugs Got basically canned After after trials didn't show that they were effective. However Now they're coming back. They're getting a boost from a new set of drugs That are checkpoint inhibitors these unleash immune system T cells to attack tumors so what How that basically ended up what it basically ends up happening is because the angiogenesis inhibitors Kind of clean up the vasculature around the tumors and Allow more blood Into the into the tumor they allow more oxygen into the tumor. So the tumors the T cells when they get into the tumor Survive better Are not themselves inhibited by the horrible conditions within the tumor Also, it turns out by by making things less leaky around a tumor. There's less metastasis Anyhow, they're discovering that the combination of these two drugs is Working really well So there are currently about 200 drug trials underway to test various combinations of the types of these checkpoint inhibitors and the angiogenesis inhibitors In combination guess what some of them aren't working some of them are having toxic results And some of them are having a really nice effect. The point is the researchers are testing this in Trials ahead of just prescribing it to patients to see what all happens Which is a good thing. That's how we want science to work It's a great thing. I mean, that's what you were definitely asking for last week And and I mean, that's what we that's the way that we hope that the science will work that will go step by step To make sure it's safe for people And that we don't give people drugs that don't work or give people drugs that work just a little bit But have all sorts of terrible side effects that make it not worth it, right? Yeah, and there's versions of the drug Each of these drugs that are having differently my favorite part of the story one of my favorite parts actually was that 25 years ago a Harvard researcher is the one that kind of discovered that this drug that everybody was hoping was gonna You know, sort of be the silver bullet to fight tumors was having this this effect of Cleaning up the the blood vessels In the tumors and it was very it was very unpopular story because of course it meant that maybe This wasn't a panacea And it's very unpopular story But actually if it had been paid more attention to 25 years ago, they might have gotten to This this idea of being able to utilize that as a benefit But because everybody saw that as a negative for what they thought the drug was what how the drug was going to be effective Went away, so But it had to go away on its own as a treatment and then people had to go back to the drawing board until it became that oh But what have we put it with this? We already have this thing that does this and now we could and so, you know It's the combination of stuff and I think we're seeing a lot more of those interesting combinations happening you know drugs being used together that like for Antibiotic purposes where you know one old antibiotic doesn't work anymore But when you add it to this new thing it suddenly works even better or you know There's all sorts of combinations that are happening And then like you said the different variants so now we have like the molecular analysis, so we've got the amazing Computer machine learning programs that can go through and go this molecule with this slight difference right here might be just a little bit better It's all cool things But now Blair you want to tell us about I really love the idea of bee pollen sweaters a little sweaters for bees I have a feeling this is not a good news story. Well, it's normally it's fine Yeah, it's not like sweaters for penguins, right? This is a North Carolina State University study They found that carrying pollen as bees are want to do Increases the body temperature of the bubble bees The pollen packets that they carry can weigh up to a third of their body weight while they're carrying them and After they accounted for environmental temperature and body size the the body temperature of bubble bees were found To go up when they were carrying pollen They rose about point zero seven degrees Celsius for every milligram of pollen they carried So fully laden bees were two degrees Celsius warmer than on laden bees. That's a pretty big difference. Yeah, again normally That's fine But There's this thing called climate change that's happening Darn it and so It's just a it's a it's a concern it's something that has to be considered With our pollinators because obviously we're worried about pollinators anyway with climate change This is a whole extra kind of level to look at Bees are usually very good at cold tolerance. They shiver to warm up when it's cold But there's very little research on how they tolerate heat. So this could be an interesting impact on bee populations and or Pollinator activity because of course if you think about it a little bit further down the road, okay If bees that carries much pollen as they normally do overheat and don't survive Then those traits will not be passed along. What will be passed along will be bees who get less pollen So it will be evolutionary beneficial to be less productive But then we all die correct because we Or or bees to pollinate all of our crops or the plants the plants decide to produce more pollen Oh, no probability of catching a pollinator Yes, so the the the question is will they carry smaller loads of pollen will they forage for shorter time? Will overall result in less pollen coming to the colony With less plants being pollinated in general will be populations decline These are all questions now that come from this study recognizing that the pollen sweater Does impact their body heat So there you go Let you destroy my sweater. No, um, yes this Only they could hold that thread as they walk away as they walk away exactly poor bees I mean, it's good for the bees. It's good for the plants. It's bad for the bees. It's Can we just stop making the planet so hot? But that would be great That would solve a lot of problems that we talk about on this show But Justin wants to talk about that later. So we're gonna just tease but Justin has something to say about our Our warming planet coming up and I'm sure it's good. I'm sure it's great We can you know, bring the bees back in circle it back as we get in there um, okay I would like to talk not about bees not about climate change um, I want to talk about black holes in space and The erratical physicists and the ideas that they come to when they try to imagine the universe being constructed in a variety of ways and uh, well Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that there are Giant collapsed stars that become black holes that there are singularities in space time that are infinitely can be infinitely massive hold infinite mass Or or they're infinitely dense Is I I guess I should it should say more more clearly but We haven't been able to figure out how infinite density can happen and we haven't been able to actually like Figure out how black holes all really work. And so researchers like Okay, this is another part of Einstein's theory being incomplete. We need more information And so of course we need a better Idea of how gravity works because that would tell us everything And so researchers have been coming up with all sorts of it. There's the mon theory. There's this we've got, you know just the standard theory of every and string theory so this particular story researchers have been considering the concept of string theory which would make steam space time made up of infinite amounts of vibrating strings and these vibrating strings can pop into and out of existence And then they get all wrapped up together into weird topological confirmations that your brain would explode even trying to figure out how they work They're microscopically small and can be infinitely complex and so we're technically technically There isn't a microscope That could see it. Thank you very much for clarifying it. And if you've ever tried to untangle necklaces after Packed in a bag for a while and oh, it's even worse than that and it's even smaller. You need the tiniest tiniest tiniest pair of Tweezers to be able to get those things apart. Anyway, just stop trying to imagine it. You're gonna hurt yourself Just don't just stop imagining and let me just tell you about this this story They published in physical review d in which they identify A different option for black holes the black holes aren't really black holes That they're a defect in spacetime and this defect in spacetime is called a topological Soliton They are What they say stable a matrix a glitch in the matrix stable defects So they're just they're not gonna get any bigger not gonna get any smaller They don't require any other matter or forces. They are fundamental to the nature the natural fabric of spacetime. It's like whatever topological solitons and they should be all over the place and Researchers have determined though that because of the nature of these topological solitons in their theoretical string universe That they would bend light and they would act exactly the same way that black holes do except that they would not have an event horizon Because they're not actually a singularity Their bench had knotted up strings of infinite density So but but then they wouldn't have attractive or repulsive forces either, right? This is the question of the gravity and the mass and they are definitely dense and So it just wouldn't have an event horizon And but so the interesting idea of this is that you could Look at a black hole that you think is a black hole and maybe one day with if we have the right tools To test it. We could actually find out whether Event horizons do exist and you know, maybe someday we could just like walk right up and just hold Topological soliton in our hand and go oh look it's infinitely dense and I didn't get destroyed probably not but Yes, the the idea is that So far string theory has not gotten a lot of support from Evidentially And it all Standard models seems to be working really great general relativities. We've got a lot of support We've got a lot of actually there's a lot of support for like maund. I think but there's We're still looking for stuff. However, the ideas of these topological solitons and other What could be considered very exotic objects could Give opportunities To scientists who may potentially want to Compare the ideas and test them So maybe there will one day be experiments that we can actually do To understand the universe better and how these ideas of infinite density may be rectified at some point What if they're both right? What if some of them are black holes and some of them are topological solitons? And that could be true. Maybe it's a both and yes Everybody's right until we can prove it. Otherwise, you know what? You're all right. It's fine. We need no until we radical It's all theoretical at this point, you know until we can actually, you know Test string theory. This is still but I love the idea of you know black black holes glitch in the matrix It's a topological soliton. It's just a bundle of Micro infinitely dense knotted up strings Yes, it's fine. It's fine. It's nature Everyone or not. We haven't tested it. I'm actually I'm actually Concerned with the the concept of not being able to test At this point in time not yet. Well, it's theory. It's theory. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The math works Sure Here's the thing The math works in a model fine What you then do is you find all the ramifications of that math Elsewhere so you don't have to stare into the abyss of a black hole You can look at the motion of a distant galaxy Right to see the gravitational effects or how that would have to how would this have to affect its neighbors? And by looking at that throughout everything The idea that black holes don't grow Or don't accrete or stay the same or I don't know that didn't make any kind of Sense the simple farm boy like me But what if the strings are dipping in and out of our universe? We're dipping in and out. Stop it No, you can't keep making up new rules That's why I don't like that's why I don't like playing uh checkers video You keep all these like oh now this piece didn't exist. You can't jump it. Oh wait a second And then put it back on the board and I see what you did there Right and in the end this all comes down to you know at one point fine men got mad at an at a interviewer who wanted him to explain something and he's like no look I can't explain it to you. I don't understand it really myself But to explain what I do understand I'd have to teach you all of everything That anybody knows for you to be able to understand it That's the level that we are we are discussing this at at this moment in time There is a lot of math and there's a lot of theory that is underlying this entire concept That uh, there are experts who really really do understand this who can answer these questions much better Maybe and even if we got them on the show to talk about it. They still could not explain it to it Well, and we I think our brains would explode by about minute five anyway I don't know So at some point at some point though, they were you would have to get to a point like well if this is if this exists Then there's no such thing as gravity waves Okay, wait a sec. We have gravity waves We still do and they said because of the way that light passes and the way that spacetime Is deformed around these topological solitons the uh, The event horizon telescope the gravitational Detectors that we have they can't tell that they they at this point still can't tell the difference So there's no Nothing we have at this point in time that could tell the difference. It's just all in the map Right and that's kind of my point about like they could all be right is how much of this is actually mutually exclusive in terms of theoretical physics I would guess a lot of it because they all have fun talking about black holes and they can't all be right about that But some could be some things and others are there other things We know the black holes are there. So are all the black holes the same right like to your point Blair are some of them Well, and could the standard model exist and string theory also be true Okay, so here's what we do. We take all the physics different ideas. We give them each their own universe yeah This this is kind of my point at this point. It doesn't matter. You're all right I think I think we get you know instead of instead of their own universe. We just give them their own magic eight ball Yeah Oh, I think you need a prediction and I think you need to be able to verify it in any form of science Absolutely. Well, yes, they're verifying it theoretically No, no, you can't no stop it. You can't create your own universe to verify your hypothesis. That's not fair Tell me and and with one of those we're justin takes a hit to all theoretical physics We're we've we've actually had this conversation before I think Yeah, I think we have you want to talk about something real world Justin. Tell me something. Oh, whatever I got. What did I talk? Okay, so this is uh another mystery currently Parkinson's disease Very much a mystery disease. We kind of know how it uh manifests but it's But overall it's our knowledge is not great And it is also likely the fastest growing neurodegenerative disease in the world Having doubled in global prevalence over the past 25 years It's also not great although It's kind of interesting because I you know in some reports it seems that the new accumulation rates are slightly lower Then then so you know in the population of the planet doubles about every 25 50 years, I don't know anyway There's been some indications that have found some early onset affecting neuronal tissue of the gut ahead of migration into the spine There's there's some forms that are associated with rapid eye movement sleep disorders Actually majority of them are which may be a precursor some others don't have that as a as a problem The root cause that was unclear 90 of Parkinson's cases cannot be explained at all by genetics They don't have markers or risk factors that you would have for for cancer or for some other drug or for some other disease There's about 10 where they found a link But then if there's only 10 percent that seem to be linked genetically Makes you question whether that 10 percent is actually linked genetically even like that even then you start to go Well, wait, how can you have a disease that is? So they're you know, they could be susceptibilities. They could be that sort of thing But if it's only 10 percent of the cases then it's not a clear signal. It's not a good Place to attack. Okay So that pushes it into the direction of an environmental cause and there have been associations with microbiome that could be associated people have tried to associate diet to Parkinson's There's been a lot of attempts to associate different things an Epidemiological study Epidemiological study published in epidemiological Epidemiological thing Study published in jama neurology by researchers at the university of california at san francisco Has found at least one environmental signal That seems exceedingly strong exposure to the chemical solvent trichloroethylene Which apparently is common in soiling groundwater Uh Is is they okay? So what they did is they found this There have been some lab tests in the past on animals that show that this This uh trichloroethylene can be associated with symptoms that are like Parkinson's They found that there's a military base a marine core base uh lehune in north carolina That had a massive problem With trichloroethylene in the drinking water To the point where they've shut down the wells At the base they stopped using the water, but for about a decade at least uh Those that they're they're studying here. They have 10 years of people who Trained at this base bathed in this water drank this water were exposed To trichloroethylene They have a 70 higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease Compared with similar veterans who trained elsewhere Camp lehune contingent had higher rates of dissentance such as as erectile dysfunction Boss of smell that are early harbingers of parkinsons so So I just googled trichloroethylene out of curiosity and it says that um, it's already known to cause kidney cancer And uh is Also associated with eye and respiratory tract irritation cardiac dysrhythmia Um, and is has been found in typewriter correction fluid. So that's part of your Reduction in parkinsons in later years paint spot removers carpet cleaning fluids metal cleaners and varnishes. So um, if it's already known to be cancer causing that also Probably means it's being used less I would hope So that that would indicate these kind of numbers that you're talking about of the parkinsons cases being less over time Yeah, so exactly. So uh, so also it's heavily used in degreaser's it was oh gosh, there was It was used in something that was used on children Okay, I don't have it here. Um Yeah, this is a study. This is a great study of people who they know were exposed Uh health records of nearly 85,000 Marine Corps navy personnel who were stationed for three at least three months at the camp these many decades ago also this 70 percent have this 70 percent higher rate so But yeah, it's one of the tricky things too because there's always there's always attempts to correlate Parkinson's to other things to whether it be to nutrition Or to diet or to relationships to other diseases The problem is if it's an environmental cause and these other diseases are perhaps Have a have a genetic basis or a genetic susceptibility risk and parkinsons is is more directly and environmental trigger Then then you're going to have increasingly difficult Comparisons of oh well, it's correlated and you know, it's strongly correlated in this study over here in this area Where where there's a lot of it in the soil and it's not correlated at all in this other study where it's Where there's tons of right and so then you start to have and it this is what when you look around at parkinsons Correlative correlative studies They can be vastly different When when you're trying to compare it to other diseases or diets or other things so Have it knowing that it's it can definitely be an environmental factor Untethered from genetics. It is an important for sure. I think that's it. I think that's one of the biggest parts and As far as I know, I think our our government is looking it's already been noted as cancer causing and in something to read To use less in products, you know that products shouldn't have it in it. I think it's been Is starting to be reduced as far as I as far as I am aware. Tell me if I'm wrong here But says it's banned in the european union Yeah, and has been banned in minnesota and new york in the u.s. But not by the federal government not federal government Okay, but it is uh, yeah here one third of us drinking water is uh, it's detectable and um You know, but it's not just the fact that it like so many like PCBs and so many other persistent molecules in the environment the fact that we we have lots of Jobs where people are using these volatile compounds, you know degreaser's and detergents and various things to to get you know And and they're working in these jobs possibly in the heat and without the proper respiratory protection And if this is something that you're doing day in day out, you know Yeah, not just it's in the ground or in the water, but you're doing it for your job. And that's a job hazard Also, it was it was used previously for making decaffeinated coffee which I thought so so that's something that's interesting because I remember I thought Gosh, it wouldn't have been parkinson's May it might have been parkinson's or or maybe it was Alzheimer's but there was like this this strange correlation between neuro-generative disease and people who drank decaffeinated coffee and This might be this might be part of that. Also, I found the thing it was there was an uh, so probably not a very common exposure but there was a surgical anesthetic anesthetic used for children and women during labor That uh that also contained Yay for awful noxious things that could cause us harm Come on people Let's get it together Let's clean up our act here Not with bad things, but with better things that are sustainable not degrease Don't do we really need to degrease that badly? But the great thing the great thing is when it's an environmental issue It can be avoided It steps can be taken to limit exposure, which if you if it wasn't genetic disease, there would be nothing you could do Basically, yeah at this point Um, I don't know how long ago that study was that you were looking at about decaffe coffee But I'm seeing stuff much more recently that shows that decaffeinated coffee improves brain energy Metabolism may protect brain health. Um, you know who's putting that out Yeah, you know who's putting that out Big decaf So actually there's a couple things there's also a chemical that they use that apparently uh to make decaffeinated coffee that's also used in the production of um, what is it uh methamphetamines the drug So these so these these places that we're making decaffe coffee, you know, we're all getting raided and broken into in uh, you know early 2000s or whenever the long time ago was So now now they're using technique mostly they've converted to uh, high what is it high something fluidic CO2 extraction Which is room temperature CO2 super fluidic Something or another That's toxic free They're not using chem it's not a chemical based separation pressure or So so maybe now decaffe coffee is fine But the oldie time method of making decaffe used to be trichloroethylene and it was that a lot of other nasty chemicals Yeah, yeah, not so great. Yeah Yeah, for a hundred years TCE was used to de to you to decaffeinate coffee And that caffeine that's extracted from the coffee was what was put in soda So then there's probably trace amounts in that as well. What was it really repurposed? I had no idea. Yes. Yes. There's that Oh, yeah, and then there's the coca. Thank you super critical of course the new jersey to make the uh, Cocaine that they don't use in the coca-cola. That's a whole other story Let's talk about how You are everywhere I am everywhere. You're everywhere. We're on the internet. We're in the whole world right now Wait, you're not just Detectable on the internet though. Oh You You're detectable in the air You're detectable in the ground. Oh, we talked about environmental dna Yes, yes, we I mean if we can tell which fish are in the ocean then yeah, I would assume you can tell where I'm at Exactly, but not just that they uh, research teams are now, uh, talking about what they call human genetic bycatch so when they go sampling the environment for Microbial dna for fish dna for bat dna, whatever it happens to be and like people We're everywhere. We're all over the place and we are genetic bycatch Mucking up the works for the researchers. However, we could also be adding a lot of information and giving advances to fields like conservation epidemiology forensics and farming So for instance being able to I don't know be able to Track ancient dna and old footprints. I don't know if it would it wouldn't be preserved that long, but it's just a fascinating idea, but Researchers have just published their work On uh human e dna and they've they have collected samples from oceans rivers urban rural sand beach sandy beaches They did the air as well. They went to a remote top along a river winding along a remote mountain top in ireland rural villages out to sea There were towns of thousands of inhabitants and the only place they didn't find the human dna was At the very beginning of the tributary where that river started There was the only spot that they could not actually find human dna, but the the interesting part is From some of this dna. Yes people can be identified if we could put enough genetic sequencing together to be get big be able to get big enough and identify Identifying types of pieces of dna. We could be able to identify people individuals even which is an ethical aspect to how this work Could impact things, but the big buddy at a crime scene just pulling a a plastic bag is through the air Right, but it's not so easy. Yeah Exactly. It's not so easy as all that. I think this is definitely going to over represent people with allergies Sneezing everywhere People with dry skin also people with dry skin People with people with allergies Yeah Maybe just people who talk too much. Maybe that's also. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What did we learn during covid laughing singing? Yeah, projecting projecting big spitters Yes Um, but it's just very fun. We're shedding. We're coughing. We're flushing our dna all over the place and we are Definitely having an impact on the environment not just with our activities, but also just with existing and we are part of the that collection of genetic information that is out there in the world and researchers are going to have to not only just get used to it being there but also Learn how to take advantage of it and speaking of spitters might just I don't know if you can can you hear the background right now? Can you hear I heard some I heard some water Yeah, my child decided to come down here to finish brushing his teeth and spit in the bathroom that's down here Thanks Interesting choice Interesting choice to make a lot of noise while I was doing a story kiddo That was not quiet I tried to be quiet mom, it's okay Uh, but yeah. Yeah, anyway, I think it's very neat to be able to sequence dna They were able to sequence dna from people that volunteers left in the sand And it even yielded part of their sex chromosomes according to the researchers See originally when I was listening to this story, I was thinking like, okay fine It's time for me to just get my 23 and be done and and figure out what's going on because it's everywhere So it's I can't stop it but now hearing the complete story I'm actually thinking the opposite that it's better to not give the world my dna on file because We are heading into a strange direction where where somebody could figure out where I was If I really really wanted to if the stalker wanted to track you that badly and was into that kind of Genetic analysis. Yes But I mean you don't even it's like it's like facebook Figuring out who you are even though you're not on facebook, right? They could that's how they're finding all sorts of criminals. Yeah, you're digital footprints. You're right. Yeah My digital footprint is out of control. Ridiculous. Also. Also, I would just Just just say um Are you planning on being some kind of criminal? Are you trying to get away with DNA crimes? No I just also know that these things are Imperfect and I I don't want to show up for someone else's crimes. That's actually what I'm afraid of here's what you do If you're going to be if you're going to commit a crime and want to get away with it with your dna Here's part of what you do You go to the you go to the dumpster Next to uh, one of those hair Cutting places, you know, the more popular the better And you just grab a bunch of the the swept up hair samples And you do your crime scene and then you take that and you sprinkle it all over Now they have a bunch of unrelated people Whose hair volgules and dna are at the season of the crime They've really got so many suspects now that by the time they get to you You'll already be old That's my point if the criminal goes to the salon and grabs my hair trimmings And does that my dna is on file then I get identified. This is exactly what I am afraid of That's really is Thanks for giving the criminals all the ideas where No, it was just it just it did it. No. No, this is your idea I was just trying to create the scenario in which your You went to the hair salon and ended up implicated in the crime because of the criminal using that that technique So, but I this does this this all does, you know, generate the edna Question. Yes, we're finding human human dna all over the place Who like who should be using this information? Who should get these genetic databases? Is this public information? How's it going to be used? What's happening? I mean the biggest question I think for most researchers is going to be how to get rid of the human contamination So they can just make sure they have the signal that they're looking for and I think dragonflies not humans Yeah, right or make sure that you know because we're the right if you're the humans doing the work How you have to be able to take out your dna make sure you're not contaminating it, but what other people are All sorts of things that are involved big thing that people should Think about is if you ever bought a jar of air That was advertised as being containing the the the breath of Marilyn Monroe or You know the exhalations of Keanu Reeves or whatever it is You know that this has been a product for sale like since no I have never I have never heard of anything. Oh, come on. This is like since pet rock days people like Yeah, jarring up air with celebrity. This contains air that was You know that some celebrity breathed in it now we I have never heard of this The closest I've ever heard of that is there is a fart in a jar on bass man on earth Well, I bet you can find any of it on amazon. Oh, man That is wild. So you're saying you could test it. You could see if it was yes Is there human dna? Is there any human dna in the air in your jar? And then maybe if you have a sample of like the celebrity you could figure it out somebody this this is a whole new business model testing those jars of air If you if you bought a jar of air, you don't want to know I don't want to know you're buying you're buying unicorns and rainbows at that point. You're not I'm buying belief. I'm buying I'm buying it Oh boy And we hope that you're buying what we've got bring it what we're bringing you here on this weekend science Thank you for joining us for this episode. We are part way through the show and have a bit left to go And as we head forward, I would like to remind you that we are listener supported And if you are interested in helping us continue to bring you our jars of science then We'll be great if you headed over to twist.org and clicked on the patreon link and decided to Support us through our patreon community $10 and more we will thank you by name at the end of the show $15 and more and we will send you stickers so you get some stickers every couple of months, which is kind of nice and We really can't do this without you and if you can't support us through the financial helping Sharing us with others would really make a big difference. Make sure you give Big give give us the shares on the youtube's and the facebook's and the twitch's and all the places the hearts and the likes and that in itself Is a great big big help forward all right This is this week in science and it is now time for that wonderful part of the show That we love to call Claire's animal corner With Blair What you got Blair, I'm gonna start with a zebra finch story Meet how kiki how do zebra finches learn their meat meat Loot-loot-loot I think the meat meat comes naturally Bird song that is learned they have to learn it from a tutor Yes, you're exactly right. And so um, you passed your zebra finch test key So this study is all about how young male zebra finches learn to sing Via listening to an adult male tutor It's an individual that they choose to pay close attention to Usually that's their biological father or it could be a foster father who nurtures them And so in a laboratory model, they wanted to see what the neural underpinnings were for social vocal learning Overall Uh, they find that oxytocin Is what it's about It's uh the love hormone. It's the attachment hormone. There's a million kind of nicknames for it But it's it's basically a social hormone. I would say And so it essentially tells them to pay attention or when you remove it from the system It prevents them from paying attention And so their hope was because the way vocal learning works in zebra finches has been compared To many different animal species including humans That they could look at the neurochemistry of the social bonds happening with these zebra finches particularly during language learning and potentially apply some of that learning to studies on autism So Yes, very interesting leap So let's get into the the study itself a little bit So, um, what they did is they had zebra finches In the lab now up until around day 50 when they're babies They are making little cheaps and warbles what they call them subsong and it's very similar to baby's babbling This is not real words, right? It's just kind of similar to the language that they're trying to get to and during that phase The male zebra finch will pay closest attention to the song of their father or foster father Basically the male that they are closest In connection to They can hear other males nearby, but they don't pay as much attention to them So in this laboratory experiment, um, what they did is they impacted oxytocin and so On day four, they removed these fathers from youngsters So they were raised only by their mothers the cages were enclosed in chambers that prevented them from hearing other birds Beginning at day 27 They were exposed to a series of tutoring sessions by different male tutors They had never heard before the tutors cage was placed next to the cage of the young bird And when it was exposed to one of them, they were given a substance that blocked oxytocin And then when the bird was exposed to the other they received a control substance That allowed oxytocin to function normally and after completing a series of sessions The pupils were presented with the two different levers to decide who to listen to And so they picked the one where they had normally functioning oxytocin oxytocin that showed that early in development the juveniles are actually picking who to listen to They also found um an IQ better Yeah, they also found that uh In previous research that the they're whoever they had a stronger preference for they they um If they had a stronger preference for their father their song would sound more like their fathers when they were adults Makes sense Yeah, so basically if they mimic the father more they became The they that song became more intense by the time they were About day 100 when they were adults. So Yeah, so the hypothesis would be that with the fathers you'd have more oxytocin because that's a caregiver and so that would Probably influence the offspring learning from the father more than other individuals Yes, exactly. And so by taking the biological father out of the equation and putting a foster father in You confirm that it is a social attachment. It is not a genetic attachment, which is very cool And then the the next stage of this was to actually physically Augment that they're oxytocin receptors. And so from there they found that the oxytocin was this specific mechanism that was queuing them in to pay attention And so overall Their suggestion is that the oxytocin system is involved in how animals decide where to focus attention when they are young and therefore This is an area potentially of study for uh, the the partnering, um, autism research Facility in this study, which I had identified and looked up and lost um, but it is this this, um Uh emory university was partnered with An uh a university uh and specifically a research lab focused on autism and so they will be working now on exploring these avenues of oxytocin in social learning In children with autism. So that is something that they can kind of explore as that has to do with their ability to learn and mimic and receive uh social information Right who they were receiving it from that would be really interesting intervention It's some oxytocin therapy for sure It'd be pretty interesting to see also what the receptors look like in individuals with autism, right? Are they functioning the same? It's a very I think that's a really interesting question. There is Another study that's out right now and it's I don't believe related to autistic individuals, but it is Related to a disorder in which the gland in which the pituitary gland in which uh, vasopressin and also oxytocin are produced That vasopressin is not produced And so they have all sorts of behavior that the kids that develop have all sorts of developmental issues and other things And they can supplement vasopressin with a nasal spray or a synthetic version And it gets rid of a whole bunch of the Problems with blood pressure and other metabolic aspects that vasopressin is involved in But there are other issues related to anxiety and mental health that are not corrected And so there there's a big question there about Um oxytocin's role in that as well So it could be really interesting to see how all of these things kind of tie in together Especially that developmental aspect. Yes, absolutely Which is describing if there if this nasal spray thing is being utilized by an adult Then maybe it's uh, the whatever You know benefits are there are only affecting The the current state and not that whole architecture Yeah, the architecture exactly Right and so and of course there's also, uh Crazy advancements in being able to Diagnose children at younger and younger ages who are on the autism spectrum And so if you can come in with interventions that will help Them cope with their development Biologically That that can really change things for an individual And help them to function Um much more effectively as an adult so Yeah It is a very then you have this really interesting nature versus nurture question Which is if you can intervene And create architecture Yes Is the is the you know false you know synthetic synthetic nurture I suppose Does that create an architecture that overcomes the the the nature aspect of it, right? So yes, so that's exactly it. You don't have to um It's wrong to say cure autism right because that's not what's happening um People on the spectrum just their brain works a little bit differently So if you can figure out exactly how it functions differently And they can learn how to adapt to that different functioning brain throughout their childhood Then it sets them up with a whole different set of tools as an adult So you're not you're not like fixing anything or changing anything. You're just giving them tools to be able to learn um Social constructs easier as they grow up, right? So very interesting Yeah, uh, and uh my Yes, my my second story for the animal corner Is definitely one of my favorites. I think I've seen this year so uh hammerhead sharks They they have something in common with uh marine mammals any idea what that might be No They live in the water true It's all right, you're never gonna guess it they hold their breath when they die I just i'm picturing another like two sharks like in a far side And one of them is holding his breath when he dives and the other one's like, hey, uh You know, you really don't need to do that. Yes, so it turns out they do Oh gary larson needs to yes. Where is it? Yes, but they do need to hold their breath This is what this study has found out. This is a study published this week in science by university of hawaii manoa And They found that scalloped hammerhead sharks hold their breath Not because they need to It's they get oxygen from the water they have kills. It's because It's cold down there. They're from hawaii at the surface Waters are very warm. They're very pleasant But when they dive down down down where deep sea squids live to catch their dinner It's very very cold. Yes, basically and so um the The gills Are this huge membrane that just like our nasal turbinates. We can we can heat or cool air through that So when uh when the water crosses the gills, it's all this crazy surface area And so that can rapidly cool blood muscles and organs They have to close the gill slits during deep dives and cold water because As deep as they go They can they can be as cold as five degrees celsius or about 40 degrees fahrenheit Um, which is a lot colder than the water at the surface around hawaii um, and so That is a huge temperature gradient So in order for them to be able to dive down there and come back up and not lose a bunch of energy Like all the energy that they got by the food that they're diving for to begin with They need to be able to hold their breath to hold on to their body heat And so they have a feeding strategy that ultimately is similar to marine mammals Because they go on these diving trips. They hold their breath for about 17 minutes. Um, and they You can actually see through monitoring that I they did and videos that they took that they They actually respond to how deep they're going and then all of a sudden their body temperature dips when they get towards They start to get towards the surface because they're like Like they finally get to open up their gill slits and start doing some gas and temperature exchange And so their their their body temperature dips not when they go down to the deep depths But when they are coming back up closer to the top. Yes, absolutely That's it's fascinating. Yes And so the reason that this is relevant besides just the fact that it's so cool and oh my gosh What other fish hold their breath when they dive? I need to know this immediately I'm sure all other ectheologists need to know this as well. Yes This is fascinating. I love it. Um, anyway, besides just wanting to know that for general biology's sake The other thing is if you have these sharks diving and they are holding their breath they are already at kind of a time dependent and high-stakes scenario while they're diving but When they are diving they are also coming across Other issues that we have Um like deep sea mining large scale fishing Um all sorts of things that we do to disrupt The twilight zone where they are diving. So if you're yeah hammerheads They like to hang out around the very mineral rich Uh, the the the seamounts they'll go from seamount to seamount very often. So they're going to be definitely coming in contact with a lot of that Yeah, absolutely. And so if they are Coming in contact with human impacts in the twilight zone Will that does that have an impact on their conservation? Does that have an impact on how effective They are at finding squids and other um mesopilagic fish In the short amount of time they have they're only at that bottom death about four minutes So in the four minutes they have well, they're they're holding their breath and they're in this ice cold water Is human activity Spooking them away from a space that is a good feeding ground or is it Scaring away or changing the behavior of the fish. They're looking for these are questions now that impact conservation of species like this Because if you know that they're holding their breath, you know that the areas where they dive Are exceedingly important to protect Yeah, because you're gonna hold your breath and go nope. I'm out of here. I'm not gonna hold my breath that long Yeah, you'll be you'll be Really impacting their ability to survive So let's stop mining the bottom of the ocean. That'd be great Hey buds, that'd be great That'd be nice, right? It wouldn't be wonderful. Let's protect everything and I'll live in harmony I've decided I'm just going to be mable from gravity falls forever Oh That's that's a good one to have Where's your sweater with with the with a fun graphic on the front of it should I know I need I need a collection You're loud earrings. Yeah Yes I have pictures of myself with those sweaters and loud earrings for me. I love it Fo sho All right, Justin as the Yes, this this animal corner is coming to a close. So What do you have? I'm gonna speed it up here a little bit. Yeah, I get through my last couple of stories so we can keep this tight 90 research led by the University of Oxford Has found that climate change Is causing the hottest days in northwest europe to warm at double the rate That average summer days are getting hotter. So The maximum temperature on the hottest days the more extreme heat Is increasing at twice the rate that the maximum average temperature is meaning that for You know, we were talking northwest and this is the england wales northern france areas like this current climate models are Pretty accurate in predicting the rate of warming for average days They have massively underestimated What the extremes the extreme heat of hottest days of warming are going to be So if this is an early indication of what is to come It's going to be bad But just isn't the Gulf Stream going to collapse and then uh, Europe will be thrown into a Wintery hellscape anyway, so it's fine. It'll cancel out. It could be part of the Yeah, that could be part of it, right? It's gonna be hot first and then cold. Yeah. Yeah Fire then ice A lot of people talk about oh, you're talking about whether or not climate because that's what we know You actually we're at the point where we're talking about both at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking about both at the same time Yeah, and I do keep wondering with you know the la niña el nino trends going back and forth I mean even here in the pacific northwest We had some of the most scorching summer temperatures that we've ever hit during la niña which is supposed to be the wetter cooler version and then it And el nino is the hotter one which is supposed to be Is it the next couple of years are going to be hotter and I just could Yes, this is the weather and the climate part as it comes together. Yes And and the other thing is too, this is a very problem. I mean I I've not spent much time in the In the north of france or the north or south or east or west of england or any of this But uh, I assume that they probably don't have a lot of air conditioning. I have a Denmark now Nobody has an air conditioner Almost nobody has an air conditioner because it's never hot enough And so when it gets when you get a heat wave That's when you hear about like oh a heat wave of 90 degrees killed a bunch of people in europe where it's in california summer That's not even the hot Those are the cool days. Those are the days you go out in parts of california In some parts of california. No one has air conditioning either and they are also having trouble. Yes, right San Francisco is one of those odd places that That doesn't have air conditioners. So So when you get these extreme heat in places that really don't have the infrastructure for it Means you can have refrigeration problems. You can have all sorts of everything problems Anyway, so that's bad news And a little bit of good news Yay Bees letters We're in this part of the show researchers from the university of sydney had developed a biological growing process that uses mushrooms That can take some organic waste and make Compostable products at low cost As a sustainable solution Alternative to plastics by growing everyday products using the unique properties of edible mushrooms They start with a mold no not that kind of mold the kind that you cast things into like a Not the fungus, but a form They have a form that they will they will create maybe 3d print it And then they have a myco material mushroom material That can be a mixture of mushrooms and say sawdust cardboard remnants Then they allow this material mix to grow Filling out 3d printed forms They say it's lightweight Compostable biodegradable Sturdy enough to be used as a replacement for many plastic applications The mushroom varieties that they've been experimenting with are the types that you can buy in the grocery store So they're they're edible types And they they do a good job binding together this organic waste matter into a network of roots as they grow creating structures known as mycelium networks So we know we've they've got the mycelium networks We know that fungi can be antibacterial depending on the Fungi that you're talking about but if you're creating this thing is are they all dried out? And that's why they're good as plastic replacements or are they anti are Like are they gonna grow bacteria? I mean, can can you wash it once? I don't know. Is this the beginning. What's this beginning of if it's compostable? I'd imagine you can't get it too wet Right and and I mean can I use it? Do I make it at home in the old yogurt maker that my mom like I don't had from the 70s and then you know every morning. I have a new coffee koozie So yes Is that is this the way it's going to be and make it an answer the answer is yes uh to one aspect of this which is that While they develop this whole thing in a lab using, you know design software and 3d printers and all this sort of stuff Uh, they actually have are provided in this paper in the paper or at the website Uh methods for making it at home Okay, you're making the the the the basic uh mushroom and Growing the mushroom and combining it with uh, you know a blender and some other You know stove top kind of stuff like Yeah, you can do this at home So they're they're they're playing around with it because this is you know right now They've got this material and it's a matter trying to figure out What to do with it So they created a flower pot With they grew it around sensors electronics So they created a flower pot that has sensors built in that automatically monitor and report the moisture Uh of the soil content They have they say oh gosh. Hey, this has got some pretty good Uh thermal properties So they made a coffee cup holder because it insulates it They have a textured pot plant that can decompose as the plant is getting ready to grow into a larger pot So they're they're really playing around with this and of course they're also working now on Getting a version of it that itself can 3d print What? So that they can make materials 3d print materials With this myco material, uh, you know mushroom-based Uh material Right it would have to somehow yeah connect. What kind of what kind of glue do you use? What what is the stuff that makes the mycorrhizal stuff stick together in the first place and uh, okay? This is interesting So I will say at first I was I was kind of wondering what was new about this because I know Mushroom packaging exists. We have it. It's available on the market I wish it was used more But I definitely have bought things on the internet and they've shown up in mushroom packaging and I get very excited, but What this sounds to be? innovative around is like the The use of it for first of all, uh things that generally speaking you need to use plastic for And second of all things that are incorporated into other technology. It's not just a static thing And so that seems very exciting Although they did say that one of the highest and best uses of it probably will be packaging. Yeah. Yeah, which is replacing Yes, let's get more of boxes and More of it. Yes. The the basically the idea is This is something that is sustainable renewable decomposable unlike plastics Uh, that could also that also doesn't require cutting down trees and this sort of thing It's not if you're using the decomposers in the compost Mushrooms are decomposers So you're it's actually not just decomposable. You are adding decomposers. You're enriching the compost. Yeah You're making it more. Yeah. So the the level you know, pry it up put it on a burger. No the level to which You incorporate it with other materials like maybe it's this the sawdust or the the You know cardboard or whatever is Uh can be based on longevity. So So you might have an electronic device That is the sort of thing that well, okay, there's plastic Humidity detectors. They got plunked in all of the the plants in the house. Okay So those could be maybe replaced the the the plastic packaging or plastic wraps around packaging to preserve it Like there's a bunch of different ways. Anyway, right now. They're just playing with the the possibilities but there's I like the idea that they are are creating A version of this or a recipe of this for people to try at home Yeah, that's very cool Like we have we have some ideas, but yeah, yeah here. Here's the here's how to do it Go out there and come up with more Do more things try new ideas. It did look there's a video that went along with that story that Looks as though they're using lost wax casting to be able to create some of these forms Which is pretty fun in itself. Uh, just you know being able to use Lost wax casting for mushroom stuff people are going to live off the grid in a very wonderful way someday Um, Eric nap asks is this bad for people who are allergic for much to two mushrooms and probably I would imagine I don't know that is probably yeah If you're allergic from touching mushrooms, it depends how how allergic you are I think it's a thing It's a thing it is a thing. Um, moving forward I have a story about, uh, Uh, magnetizing your brain So in the past we've talked about trans cranial magnetic stimulation and people use it for a number of different, uh, things the primary use that people are interested in it for is In the treatment of depression depression and some people use Trans cranial magnetic stimulation And they do bits at home. There's a actual clinical trans cranial magnetic stimulation that is done that Has a number of sessions can be done like daily for 10 20 minutes And it seems to be a fairly intensive Production to get involved in the treatment of what's going on and some researchers at stanford university wanted to look into How this is this this Neuro stimulation targeted magnetic neuro stimulation is actually working in the brain or What is it doing? in the brain and so, uh Their paper was just published this last week in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences and uh, the this is an FDA cleared treatment that they looked at known as stanford neuromodulation therapy and uh In effect, they were able to combine Transcranial magnetic stimulation With an additional this stanford neuromodulation therapy that does high dose magnetic pulses And it changes it so you can do fewer sessions Just 10 sessions a day for five days. So you don't have to do it long term It's shorter term. It also made it easier for them to see if it worked for their study and okay, anyway the idea is that normally in the brain you have Sensory information coming in sensory information gets processed by the amygdala and then the amygdala and other areas will Push out to the cortical areas and the cortical area goes. Hmm. What should we do about this? And then you then you get the information coming back telling you how to respond and everything is rational and nice and Not overly emotional and everything's great. However, in the case of depression what has been uh been kind of seen to occur is that And especially when they looked at their data using fmri Imaging of the brains as they had people In in in this treatment. They saw that people for had an area this interior insula and the amygdala it was integrating the sensations and Instead of in in people without Depression it was going to the cortex and it was great Then but the but the depression the people with depression it was as if the Cortex the deciding part already had its mind made up already had a mood And was putting in for pushing information back To that insular cortex. So Instead of information information going From the sensory out to the deciding and then back to the sensory It was just like the deciding part was like no We're depressed. We don't like things. It's bad. We're pushing it down pushing it down pushing it down pushing it down And so they showed in their treatment That when they Treated people with this transcranial magnetic stimulation with their neural modulation They showed that they were able to reverse the currents of Neurological activity within the brain so that people with depression who um had this kind of reversed set of uh Of neurological signals that that subset of individuals were really really impacted by the magnetic Stimulation and that their depression started to alleviate and they actually showed a complete change a switch in the direction of the the energy flow within their brains So, okay, so I missed one part of this I get with I get that the amygdala which is this primitive reactionary sort of all of it in there. Yeah, all of it they insular cortex the amygdala. Yes So you got this amygdala thing and it sends out the signal because amygdala is also uh Highly implicated in stress and anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorders and this sort of thing Because it sends out like an alert of some sort Now it gets to the prefrontal cortex. It's supposed to decide whether or not this is useful information But it doesn't talk back to the amygdala very well It can't really tell it like hey quit sending the signal. I got it The amygdala will just keep sending and sending and sending and sometimes it's like Is this silencing the amygdala or is it? Yeah, it's not that yes silencing those sensory areas that are Um, yeah, it's like the the like you said the cortex area is Sending the signal Trying to send it and basically it's as if the brain's mood has been decided already And it's just like nope We're the cortex the deciding area is ignoring This other stuff this other stuff that might potentially make us happy Or this other stuff that might potentially make us want to do something This other stuff that would potentially be Stimulatory to what our life is. Nope. Nope push it down push it down push it down push it down and the it's But what the the take home of this is is that it's not something that They're not saying that this neuro modulation through magnetic Treatment like that it should be something that everybody should get who has depression what they're saying is that they actually saw these Basically the signals within the brain within a subset of people who were depressed and that those people who had that kind of reversed Reversed activity in the brain were the most likely to Have the most positive result from it and have and have their depression Have their depression alleviated, right? There's different causes of depression And so yes, so this is identifying a very specific cause and a very specific Treatment and a very specific treatment. Yes. Yeah, right. It doesn't get rid of oh, you know My dog just died or you know, the life things that happen that go on to cause Some aspects of depression. There is all your serotonin receptors are broken. That's not going to fix that Right. There are so many so many things, right? There are internal physiological metabolic Psychological sociological. There are very many aspects. This is one particular subset And it happens to be that they can see it In an fmri and that once they see it they can go this this treatment could really work for you So I think this is a really interesting point about treating depression in the future And and that like this could this could help get us there is that currently It's it's much more complicated than this but essentially if if if a professional says you are you have depression They say let's try this drug Okay, that didn't work. Let's try this drug. Okay, that didn't work. Let's try that, right? So it's kind of a it's kind of more of a Based on what you're telling me. We're going to make this best guess on your treatment plan But if you could actually identify Mechanically what's causing your depression? You could have a tailored treatment that is much more likely to act Effectively and quickly and without a bunch of weird side effects Yeah, and there was a there was a weeks ago. I guess, uh, I had a study that had a microbiome Yes, in fact, which of course because the gut is lined with the gut is your brain cells Yeah, your gut is part of your brain. It's just it's part of your brain Wait, what do you say? Yes, your whole gut from your esophagus down to when your poop comes out Is is lined with neurological cells which Are really are connected through the whole central nervous system and everything else too so Yeah, so we're we're brains all the way down So what affects the gut what's affecting the brain what's affecting the sensors what's affecting all of these things And so it's it's all a spectrum of Of order and disorder within each human It's yeah, the the medical technology Is astounding and it saves many lives and we have come so far And I am thankful and grateful for all of the things that that medical science has done to this point. However There's still a lot of symptom-based Guesswork. Yeah. And when you have actual biomarkers that you can look for Absolutely Yeah, and that's what like modern science is getting us to is actual mechanics Of what's wrong in your body is the more you can tailor medicine specifically to a body The better treatment's going to get is I think it's really exciting I think it's very exciting And uh speaking of I don't know this isn't tailoring anything to anybody's body But in case you were wondering whether that pandemic brain fog that you maybe thought that you had for a bit in there Um, you what I just I can't think of things and I'm just not as clear to my decision-making ability is not that great and what's Well, Ohio State University researchers Used a small group of students comparing The results in decision-making from their 2020 Group of students the 2020 fall semester group of students who were that's like just Yeah, these are these are students in the thick of it probably doing online College, you know, they're oh for sure. Yeah fall 2020 everything was shut down It was shut down, right? So they compared the decision-making of students participating in their research to the decision-making that students in previous years Had the abilities that they had had and they found That the hypothetical hypothetical situations that the researchers put in front of the students in 2020 they found that those students were more likely to kind of go back and forth between either just Going with their gut and just being like whatever they're just going with their gut or really really just be like agonizing Mulling over thinking about the things depending on how things had been described to them the researchers say that What the big important finding that they That they came to is that the stresses of every but everyday life can wax and wane And they can potentially overwhelm your cognitive resources And you can see real downstream effects on everyday activities that require your energy and your effort The study provides additional information to understand why students may have been having difficulty Coming to class focusing on class and getting things turned in because there was this global event affecting every part of their lives and so You know, so they this data That they have come to report from their samples of about 722 undergraduates Compared to the 161 who participated during the 2020 fall Semesters that pandemic brain is it is real was real and that There is a real reliance on in decision making depending on um The energy that you have whether You're going to be looking at a scenario as like is this a win or a lose scenario. What is happening in this scenario? and And that the researchers are Not researchers but students or people are not necessarily adequately perceiving risk because They're thinking about things Either just going from the gut because they don't have the energy to deal with it or you know basing it only on their Experience and the researchers said that despite there there were some inconsistencies between the 2020 cohort in the earliest and they said that Regardless of those inconsistencies researchers researchers the students In 2020 were just as confident as pre-pandemic students in their decisions Even though they were making them differently And I think I'm still trying to figure out how I ended up with pandemic brain decade before The pandemic hit like is there any explanation for so this is so this is what I am taking from it That I think is the very important message is that for the first time We were really seeing the large societal effects of massive stress on lives and the ability of people to make decisions Whereas there may only be certain subsets of human populations That constantly exist in those situations those in poverty those in In poor health situations or there's I I fully believe that the pandemic Brain that people are talking about is we're talking about it It's just the brain and it's the brain on stress And it's oh goodness everyone was experiencing the same stress at the same time and the people who are talking about Oh, suddenly it's online because oh people in media who write are talking about it Intellectuals are talking about it teachers and their students on suddenly it is a societal thing that Yeah, it's a universal but in any one moment Before or now you don't know what Fighter flight scenario an individual's brain is going on is having going on inside That is unique to them. And so in this in in this particular situation Everyone had their own fighter flight with no place to fly to We're all stuck We had no actions to take but we had a constant fighter flight signal going in our brain for months And so somebody else might feel similarly in a different situation But you wouldn't know to look at that the same way because it's very unique to them But this is this is also the joke about why millennials are so anxious and can't make decisions Is because they've spent their entire adult life moving from crisis to crisis It's just one more Yeah, so like Older millennials came of age around 9 11 and then there was the housing crisis And then there was a jobs crisis and then there was it's just been something ever since every few years And that's why gen z is like, you know, the third child and is just like whatever I just can't even Wait, what are what are we I forget what generation i'm supposed to be You're gen x right next to gen x grew up thinking that the world was gonna end from nuclear war anyway And and all decided to just go party and we were all latchkey kids. You know what Hey, we don't know when Things gonna mushroom clouds are gonna be popping up everywhere any day now Let's go listen to some pop music at the club. That's pop. There you go pop music Have we done this? Did we do it? Okay, yeah Yeah, go watch some pop-up video We're done Remember that I remember that pop-up video What are you talking about? What are you even talking about pop-up video? VH1 played it and it was you would you would watch music videos and little Little little bubbles would pop up with facts about the music video and the artist I remember I do but that is She was seeing pop music which is I think what they used for the the theme song for pop-up video That's where I and we were talking about gen x and it's just you know, it's all there I was gonna say that uh, I'm just gonna say as well I was robbing was it robbing? Ready to go. I was like There's also an endless number of studies relating the pandemic to other things The fact she used other things the pandemic to other things It's because we all have a shared time point event that we can agree on We'll start here and study from here to there Uh, it's it's going to be so much noise from us. I can't wait until it's like so long ago That you know three or four more pandemics have happened and we're done talking about this one Who cares anymore? That's just that's such old news. Yeah But next week there will be More news more new news more new science I think we come to the end of the show Yes, we certainly have and I definitely want to say thank you to everyone who has joined us here today In the chat rooms. Thank you for talking about The science with us And for being here chatting really love that fata. Thank you so much for your help with social media and show notes Gord are and Laura others who help keep the chat rooms. Happy clean fun places to be Thank you for being there and doing doing your chatting as well identity for thank you for recording the show and Of course, Rachel as always. 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I use the scientific method and i'll broadcast my epic in science This week in science This week in science science science This week in science This week in science I've got one disclaimer, and it shouldn't be news That's 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 that understand that that would not try to show Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no And justin has walked away as he does during this musicy time and i We're instead of saying the Schwartz child radius. He said the Schwartz radius and now all i could think about is Is space balls? That's what i thought. Space balls. Yep. Yep. Your Schwartz is as big as mine Yes, never underestimate the power of the Schwartz Yep, that is what i heard That's okay. Good. I'm not So forever. I was saying there is that intentional It may or may not have been but it is forever etched into my mind What? You said the Schwartz radius Isn't that what it's called? Schwartz child Yeah But you said the Schwartz radius remember Schwartz child. Yeah, that's the Whatever Schwartz field radius. What was it called? What is it? I think it's Schwartz child Schwartz. Yeah, Schwartz child Schwartz That does not sound like a german name Schwartz child Maybe Schwartz field. I think it's Schwartz is there Is the is the guy who did the calculation Yes, there was the name of the guy who did the calculation and the Schwartz field radius Schwartz field Not the oh, yes Oh, yes, you're an old man Schwartz child No, Schwartz child radius also called gravitational radius is the radius below which the gravitational action between particles of a body must cause it to undergo Irreversible gravitational collapse Schwartz child. Okay. I was not wrong You're right. I knew it. I was right You have trust the good doctor. Don't make me doubt myself But forever. Okay. Now that you've said the Schwartz radius. It's all going to be space balls. Yeah From here on out How is the lucky lovely Felix today he's doing good What's he got? What's he got in his hand behind your back? Oh, you don't want you don't want it. He's hiding it Is it a panda? No, no, no with a panda. That's where I'll allow it. I'll allow it. Okay. That's what Blair's baby's getting as a present Panda costumes panda stuffies pandas nappies panda Oh, it's gonna be all pandas Pandas and squirrels, huh? It's gonna be pandas all the way down Blair. Oh, oh, no When he grows up, he's to be like, what's what's with all the pandas mom? What's well, let me tell you In the squirrels as well All right, my uh, my uh, just in child radius It's uh, it's uh, time to go get breakfast. Oh, yeah, breakfast time. Felix. You gotta go get breakfast Yes, I'm I'm getting kicked in the ribs. So this is a great time for me to go lay down also getting very short after show It's 10 o'clock I hope you don't get kicked in the ribs too much tonight and I hope you're able to rest player I'm glad he's uh, he's thriving and he's having fun in there Yeah, it's a playground throwing a little party and that's you know what that's all right. You enjoy yourself bud Oh Felix is happy now, where'd that binky go? You don't need a He's got a panda a blinky and a bink All the things Nope, okay. Nope. No, dear. Uh, no got me. Eat me real food Say good morning, Justin. Yeah, is it time to do this? Good morning, Justin Good night, Blair. Good night, Blair Good night, Kiki Good night, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this wonderful mystery tour through the world of This week in science. We'll be back again next Wednesday and we do hope that in the interim you are happy safe healthy curious and Yeah, that's That you come back next week. Yeah that that Felix Don't get kicked in the ribs. Have a good one