 My foot. I have to do so Blair. Yes. I don't think I have a way to play any music. That's okay. I can play it from my phone Awesome. Just so we've got a little something to these people and then I'll fix it for the podcast for the audio. Fix it in post That's what we do. Oh my goodness you guys I am now running off of my My mobile hotspot Really? Yeah, so the internet came back, but it's it wasn't reliable It was like up and down and up and down it was off for almost completely off for about a half an hour and then once I got it back it Was was fine for like half a second and then it wouldn't even load the chat room and I was like that's not cool I gotta be able to see my chat people Hey everybody in the chat room Yes, so as opposed to using my new beautiful amazing computer setup We are using my laptop and hopefully you know I'm telling you this is better watch. I mean here it comes ready one two three What was that you couldn't figure out in the in a count of three you couldn't figure out Holding my phone you could not figure out One hand to the proximity of the other hand and do that that was just too hard. I didn't want to hurt my phone I don't want to hurt my fingers One two three go You are not helpful Justin. I am trying to approximate I'm trying great song by uh Was it pavement from ages ago? I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying Is that good? Oh All right, hey, oh, that's one of my how are we getting lower tech with time? The longer we do the lower and lower the tech goes Oh my god to listen to twist get a very long string and a paper cup and hold cup to your ear There's gonna be a lot of strings around the world you guys That's right paper cup internet around the world So I'm I want things to work better, but okay, we're cool. Let's just have fun here, right? Are we ready to do the show? Let's do it. You know the audience is ready and we are way Behind So far behind but we are going everybody says we're five by five for audio and I trust Is there no way to turn up my audio? Yeah, I can turn it up. I'm turn it up turn it up Turn it up I can even Now we just need to talk it two times and we'll catch up I'm I'm okay I need to chug some coffee and then I can talk it two times. Am I loud enough you guys? Too loud now too loud now No, not too loud. You're fine. Am I fine. Am I loud enough? If I talk like this That's right, let's just have Perfect sound, okay My volume is No, everyone says my volume is too low. No, it doesn't No, it does not Your volume is not too low your volume. It's perfect. Okay A little bit louder now a little bit louder now That's right. I guess I just need to turn myself up and make myself Labanin All right, everybody who wants me to read them audiobooks now, we're gonna do a podcast starting in three two This is Twis this week in science episode number 667 recorded on wednesday april 18th 2018 Sticking the landing with science Hey, everyone. I am dr. Kiki and tonight. I am going to fill your heads with space diamonds moles and ants but first disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer An end user license agreement has been generated for the show's content by an artificially intelligent attorney algorithm Though at the time of airing this episode the algorithm is still generating exceptions conditions and ludicrously unlikely lack of liability caveats Still it should be known that the following hour programming is not covered any under any form of host listener privilege of privacy If you or anyone, you know has engaged in unscientific activities Please report to your local science news podcast for reprogramming In fact, as long as you are here, we might as well start the treatment immediately with this week in science Coming up next Science Science to you Kiki and Blair and a good science to you too Justin Blair and everyone out there Welcome to another episode of this week in science We are back yet again Oh technology thought it could foil us, but it is nothing Compared to human ingenuity Oh, yeah, and you think i'm just talking about this podcast, but i'm not because in reality Today spacex launched another nasa spacecraft the tess spacecraft into orbit around the earth And they scrubbed the mission on monday. There were technical errors. They said nope. We can't do this We got to go make sure everything's good and today Boom test is in orbit around our planet And it's going to be taking the next step from where keppler the keppler mission left off And so you know what technology You don't rule us People and our smarts we rule you that's right for now For now watch Don't get me down Blair Don't bring me down Oh Everybody we have an amazing show put Put together for you for tonight all sorts of sciencey tidbits and wonderful news. I have stories About space rocks about old space rocks and old planets a space What else do I have I can't read I'm all I'm all a flutter flizzid or jizzle about a plastic plastic eating enzyme And brainy brain implants Justin what do you have for us? I have a really big mole. Oh great. Does it have air to the hand or toes nose? And cutting edge tattooing technology Nice I like it and Blair. What's in the animal corner? Oh, I have animals on tv I have animals in zoos and I have ants and how they are rather similar to us And rather similar. Yes, we like the ants who are rather similar. All right, well Let's get our ant leg bodies Marching into the science stories. We're going to start it off first By telling everybody that you can subscribe to us the twiz podcast on itunes at the google play podcast portal Stitcher speaker and tune in you can also find us on youtube and facebook Just look for this weekend science and you can always visit twist.org and hit that subscribe button But now it's time for the science. So first space diamonds space diamonds Right well, all right So researchers did not find a planet made of diamonds floating in space But I think they found one of the next best things researchers reported in nature about About diamond inclusions These are little tiny fragments of diamond that are created under high heat and pressure That were found inside of meteorite fragments That were located here on earth So the researchers found these meteorite fragments. They're just sitting there out in the desert and they're like, oh, look meteorites Let's take them back to the lab. Shall we and see what's inside? Well, they checked them out. They found Indeed they had diamonds inside of them little tiny any little tiny bits of diamond and those diamonds had impurities Of iron and sulfur and other things that can only be formed Not from little tiny impacts Like one meteorite running into another meteorite but no much larger amounts of pressure and heat would have been needed to create these diamonds with these bits of iron in them and so They realized that these meteorite fragments that were found in a desert here on the planet earth came from An ancient planet that once was in orbit around the sun And doesn't exist anymore Yeah The the pressure necessary was more than 20 gigapascals, which you can really only get in the interior of planets Can't get that amount of pressure and heat from an impact Or at least any kind of impact that would you know, you would expect from Meteorites of any size hitting each other. So they think That these chunks of space diamond little bits of space diamond that they came From a planet or at least a proto planet That used to the orbit around our sun But it's not there anymore So so the first the first uh suspect that jumps to mind is uh, is this one of our like where does this meteorite come from? Is this one of our own because like we had the whole Moon earth collision thingy that or the thing that hit us that turned into the moon, which is from us With this other object that was absorbed. There is now like hard to tell who started what but is it is it from that? Or is this like some sort of orc cloudian planetoid that existed once and is no longer Right, so maybe it was something further out I mean they think that the planet could have been the size of mercury or mars So a fairly large body and um, I guess from the Minerals that were found in this These meteorite fragments. They don't think they came from earth origin So this is something that was that was further away and probably existed within the first 10 million or so years That the solar system existed Yeah So I just I love that, you know, oh, let's just pick up these meteorites and Check them out and see see what we can find. Oh look there used to be another planet that was destroyed at some point in time I mean the history that I had the sleuthing the forensic sleuthing that's going on for this story to me Just blows my mind Well, and not to mention now. That's the coolest engagement ring you could ever imagine Here's this diamond from space A good planet Yeah I got a whole planet to wear on your hand. Well, what's left of it? Anyway, what's left of it? For you my love. Yeah, um in other news this amazing story came out this week that I Seriously, it's a brain story that blew my mind um one of my the biggest names in Brains and neuroscience is fred gauge and he's I've talked about him before he's one of the researchers behind the original discovery that That people could have new neurons born in their brains Going into adulthood and not just be people wouldn't just be born with a number of neurons They have when they're born although this is obviously we've talked about it on previous episodes Still up for discussion and through and through research we're finding out more But his most recent paper that came out researchers at the salk institute including gauge have taken what are called organoids brain organoids I mean you could call it a mini brain They're limited by How big they can get in that if they can't grow very large because Blood vessels aren't available to grow into them and to keep the cells in the interior alive So once they get to be a few layers thick or at least they reach a certain size And then they start dying because they're just not getting the nutrients that they need So These researchers are like, huh, how can we get around this? Oh, I know. Why don't we take a human brain organoid? So these are cells stem cells from humans Turned into a little tiny mini brain a little you know It's supposed to model what brain cells do when they interact with each other and we're gonna We're gonna dig out a little tiny piece of a mouse brain And we'll stick our human mini brain into the mouse brain And see what happens Well the mini brain Integrated into the mouse brain and they started creating connections the mouse brain And physiology vascularized this little mini brain the mini brain continued to grow and thrive and Was talking to the rest of the mouse brain they could see interactivity between the different brain bits and so the What they really have shown here is they have a model for potentially Growing these human brain Little mini brains and keeping them alive for a substantial period of time in a living organism To be able to test disease states So they can huh or or there you go Blair. There's your singularity Right there. I'll live in a mouse It although they don't live very long, so I don't know if that really is my singularity Um, this is exactly why people have these caricatures of mad scientist exactly things like this Uh, but so the idea is they could test Quote-unquote human brain In mice. Is that kind of the end goal here? All right, because you can't go. I mean we can only go so far in how we can Uh, you know use crisper or gene editing to to mess with neurons And and as it in a dish and we can't do that in living people, right? There are lots of reasons why you don't do human research and in Anyway, you can take a mouse and if you can get these cells to survive and to behave Um, you can see where deficits Maybe occur in their way that they integrate and they communicate you can maybe see what changes to genetic instructions lead to disorders or of connectivity You can actually test a lot of ideas about how neurons Wire together and communicate and so there are a lot of really interesting research Potentials that are going to come out of this. It sounds super sci-fi frankenstein, you know, you're taking a human I mean I introduced it in this kind of crazy sensational way, right taking a human brain and put it in a mouse brain This is not all about making mice smarter They did behavioral tests and no the mice were not any smarter than regular mice They're all they were all about the same level actually So the human cells didn't take away from the abilities of the mice To do their normal business and their brains to work but they Didn't add to it either and so that's actually a kind of interesting and good result on its own So it didn't add to it. So Originally, I was thinking oh, man, if you had brain damage, maybe you could carve that out You could put some of these mini brain stuff in there replace your messed up brain Segments, but if it didn't actually help them at all Maybe it wouldn't work that way No, yeah, I mean and You know, there's a potential here. I mean, maybe there is a potential for This technology if they show that it works really well in mice, you know, also like oh, maybe we can do More substantial brain Transplant, you know, like taking a bunch of human organoid cells and transplant them into into human diseased brains Like maybe we can take areas of brain that have been damaged by stroke And and and repair them. Maybe we can do transplants a tissue transplants I mean, this is for you know, there's a lot. There's a lot of there are a lot of issues to deal with or you could take really critical high-use brain areas And implant them in areas that aren't utilized as much in a perfectly healthy brain to make somebody Super smart, right, right. Yeah, then you just have to expand the skull a little bit All the unnecessary bits like oh, where are my keys and What was the name of that sports ball team that won that the carrot of all of that junk? And just you know, you didn't know where your keys are just put in an additional like Uh-oh for tax but dedicate it to doing math or something somebody call the office justice is not coming in tomorrow Oh my goodness, but you know the fun the the fun thing here that I you know I think is it especially cool is the the idea that you know this This is gonna this could potentially lead to some really neat developments in neuroscience and You know, I think that around Joking aside and everything, you know, you can take neurons Have kind of specific Maybe local epigenetic instructions or neurochemical instructions, but a neuron is a neuron It's a wire that takes instructions from one place and responds to them and sends instructions to another place So if you take neurons from one souped up smart area of the brain and put it in an area that you think of is not So smart or not being used those neurons are probably still not going to be doing much more because it's not it's not The location is important, but it's not as important of this as effect as these are just neurons They're not going to like take over the brain. That's why you don't have like one area of the brain Taking over other areas of the brain. I mean, there's plasticity, but Within bounds Well, let's try it and see what happens I volunteered what could go wrong. Oh, Justin volunteered I'm volunteer And my final opening story is super brief, but I think this is a really big deal We've talked about ebola on the show many many times and a couple of years ago Uh researchers began a trial for a vaccine for ebola for one particular strain called the ebola zaire strain of ebola and Two years in they are still finding antibodies to the ebola zaire strain in volunteers blood, which means That the vaccine is still working And so that means that this vaccine may have the opportunity to provide long-term protection You know as long as two years and possibly even longer For uh people who are in areas that Where these outbreaks of ebola occurred that however, this is you know one particular strain and there are several strains of ebola um But this is super promising which is very exciting Yes Yay vaccines Vaccines are good Justin tell me a story cancer It's one of those things people get that they're seldom happy about One of the reasons people don't like finding out that they have cancer It's because it's closely correlated with death Uh In part because by the time a doctor can tell that someone has cancer The cancer is typically pretty far along meaning that when diagnosed It's not so much that you just got cancer But that you've likely had it for a really long time Early detection Is linked with better outcomes? And so researchers working with martin fuzenegger professor at the department of biosystem science and engineering At eth zerk and basal have been working on a way to detect cancer as early as possible their solution mole No, not the small velvety fur mammals gathered together in a cave grooving with pic and not the cancer resistant furless naked moles either And not the naturally darkened skin birthmarks hairless or not But a synthetic gene network that turns on when it recognizes the four most common types of cancer prostate lung colon and breast cancer And they it does this recognition at very early stage When level of calcium in the blood is elevated due to a developing pre-term or tumor So the implanted gene network initiates upon response to this calcium production of the body's tannin pigment melanin And the genetically modified cells which forms a brown mole That is where previously there was none so You could have like a spot right you got to like, okay There's no moles here And I don't know that like they've thought it through this much But you could put like you could maybe even design it to like form a question mark Like oh, I have a mole in the shape of a question mark That means it's time to go to the doctor and find out what that is for right, uh yeah, so Researchers used calcium as the indicator of the development of four types of cancer as it is regulated strongly in the body Bone serve as a buffer that can balance out Concentration differences. However, when too much calcium is detected in the blood It's a pretty good sign that one of those four cancers is running amuck somewhere in the body Uh, it says here breast cancer Uh, if detected early has a chance of recovery that is 98 percent If it is diagnosed too late it's only got a One only 25 percent chance of recovery. So The sooner you can find out and if that little mole See I would and again I would engineer to look like a question mark because you might Did I have a mole there before maybe I just didn't notice and then like come on Especially if you're like me, I've got like enough moles that like a new mole could show up and be like Is that new or is that always been there? I can't tell I don't know. Um But if you can imagine then Having it be really good news, right? Oh, I got the question mark. That means I have cancer Which is great because I'm catching it so early that I'll be able to avoid the correlation of death Which is something I yeah, you'd want to you would want to avoid Well, just think about other things like tb tests, right? You get that little shot right under the skin and And that's something that they're trying to catch nice and early because then you can take care of it real quick So it's that's just a normal test. So if you can develop a regular or Normalized test to catch these things early. Absolutely. That's often how our Our healthcare system works once we start to get a beat on something So this is still this is still being tested. They tested this on mice and on pigs and it worked uh One of the problems thus far as I understand it is that this biomedical tattoo as Pusan Eger is describing it um has about a year's Time in which you would need to get another one Yeah, so just like a tb test. Yeah, it would be like a yearly like you get the thing Let me look at my cancer tattoo. See you later Uh, and it's just because I guess the it's that's how long you it'll last right now But you know, they're working on maybe making that a longer duration Um But then yeah, it could just be a yearly thing. It's one of the one more shot you get And find me up. That's great. Yeah, I'll I'll volunteer for that one too Seriously, that would be I mean Once a year, I'll go in and that's not a big deal. Do it. Take care of it. Yep Is that all you're gonna bring up right now? Yeah, that's all I got Loaded for the uh first part. I could I could keep talking All right, let's move on from Who's to Blair's animal corner? Is it that time again? With Blair hey Blair what you got? I have a really interesting story about animals on tv And in the media and in magazines and just everywhere Animals are really commonly used to market things. They're used in in tv shows and movies And It's because people really love animals, you know, I'm not the only one that really likes animals, but they're I'm not the only one I'm not walking through the zoo all by myself every day. There are other people there to see them But this new study Looking from Oregon State University is looking at the most quote-unquote charismatic animal species my I had a professor in college used to call them charismatic Macrophana and so his his whole idea was that Pan does get a lot more attention than beetles Even though they they are both very interesting and both deserve protection in different ways So these charismatic animal species particularly the ones at high risk of extinction Have trouble getting their story across because they are represented often in media So, uh, this new international study started at Oregon State looked at the popularity of different quote-unquote charismatic animals and they Used a combination of online surveys school questionnaires zoo websites and animated films to identify the 10 most charismatic animals any guesses Pandas lions Yep tigers Yep so Yeah, you're you're doing great. So the top three were tigers lions and elephants Tigers lions elephants and then after that they were followed by giraffes leopards lots of cats on this list pandas cheetahs polar bears gray wolves and last gorillas So What's so interesting about this is that every single one of those animals is currently threatened with extinction And almost all of them that one of their main issues is poaching Yeah, so These are the animals that people are most excited to see and are most often used in the media. They are also animals that are actively being Eliminated from this planet What's interesting about that is that the frequency that people see these animals in pop culture and marketing materials creates a quote deceptive virtual population Because they see it so often there is a public perception that these animals are more prevalent than they actually are like unicorns Right, absolutely We have daughters, which I do every at some point. It's like Kind of have to have a little conversation about this Yes, and when I worked at the aquarium everyone wanted to know where the mermaid tank was it's it's a thing But so for example the average french citizen Sees more virtual lions through photos cartoons logos and brands in one month Then there are lions left in the wild Which means yeah seeing these animals in media Creates a false perception of prevalence It makes people think they're not at risk of extinction and they're not as in need of conservation because you see them all the time Additionally, it also promotes this idea that they're being taken care of Because they're in the spotlight already, but what actually happens is people are not as likely to support conservation organizations for animals that they see all the time And you know lions are kind of commonplace to people at this point So to tell someone lions are disappearing if they still are seeing them every day somehow in the media Then it doesn't feel as urgent So But are the messages that are going out along with these images? I mean are they just you know pop culture images or are these images about because I have to say When I see images of stuff sometimes on social media it has to do with Oh look at this elephant that was was poached and killed by You know such and such a hunter for a trophy. They want you know, or look at this lion You know, there was the big thing about um that male lion That everyone was trying to save Yes that one Yeah, so this is taking into into account all of the things even like toothpaste brands that might have an animal on the front So they're saying that uh in addition to this Nearly half of all the non teddy bear stuffed animals sold in the united states Were of these 10 charismatic animals And in france an example 800 000 Sophie the giraffe toys if you've ever seen those the little teethers were sold in 2010 And that's more than eight times the number of giraffes left in africa so That what they are encouraging is exactly what you're saying kiki And I think that we're not a normal selection of what people see because we run in kind of conservation science Community and environmental minded groups already But the average person just on the planet doesn't see as much of that as they should so the recommendation from this research Is that if you're going to have Appearance of these charismatic animals in stores and movies on television somehow in advertisements They need to somehow pair it with either conservation information Or take some of those proceeds that they're getting from capitalizing on that animal's charismatic nature to actually help with conservation projects Yeah, perhaps both both i'm in yes Do it what what does what does giraffe taste like? No, so it's not for food It's it's one of the big the big Five I think it is that people trophy hunt in africa, but it is not for food They do it to to say that they have hunted a giraffe because giraffes are so hard to find Well, I understand that but what I what i'm suggesting though is that if if it turns out the giraffes make a nice steak I mean we've got I you can't drive uh in any direction from my place and not run into a pastor full of cows So here's the problem When something is food There's a lot of different things Giraffes eat acacia So you'd have to have enough acacia to feed a thousand pound animal to make probably as many steaks as a cow would make Well, I mean you probably need less giraffes. I think they're bigger So their midsection is probably pretty similar in terms of flesh you could eat to a cow I can't have that that that neck and those legs are are there's not a lot on there But point being The point i'm trying to make at least and and and last ditch effort to prevent an animal from becoming extinct You know the animals for food I mean would would would chickens be surviving in the wild in the numbers? That that they have taken cows have both evolved as a result of domestication. So you wouldn't find them in the wild exactly And that's what and they are the products of domestication. So this is they are not they're wild cousins, right? So if you were if you're reading giraffes But but this is the point maybe we should look at domestication efforts on because because obviously This line of trying to keep wild animals wild and preserved in that manner is not working Justin I think you're getting bogged down on the idea of saving giraffes because giraffes are cool But the idea is that you're trying to save species to keep ecosystems intact So each animal in an ecosystem serves an ecosystem service So it's not just that people think giraffes are cool It's that the african savannah depends on giraffes Clearing areas of acacia to keep trees alive that then feed other animals So and there's sea dispersers. It's all of this kind of stuff. So it's it's not about finding ways I get that I get that however the reason the one of the animals the gray wolf Is is often killed the reason for it is because it threatens livestock And in or it is it has an impression of whatever If all of a sudden giraffes are livestock They will be protected from the poachers by the people who want the giraffes to Live long and prosper up to a certain point in which they are turned into food I think we have to address the elephant in the room Uh, the the 800 pound gorilla, which is neither of those animals But it's the humans we have to we have to know that there are going to be humans In wherever there's an ecosystem So the thing that would preserve them is is make them a viable commodity to other humans But they're not going to be because they they are as blair has brought up They are very specific in their diet. They play a very niche ecological role And they're and their habitat is uh decreasing because of encroachment from human habitation And I doubt horses spend a whole lot of time eating hay and oats Back in the day. So I mean, I think I think this is going off on a tangent This is going off on a tangent and and this is argument is going to go on way too long because I think we're We're talking in parallel to each other um Yeah Don't agree with me yet And I don't think we will Because I don't think you're right at all and and we're also looking at this You're looking from a consumerist perspective and we are looking at it from an environmental service perspective, which are two very different things. So Let's move on to the next story Which one will be on the planet longer? That's all I'm gonna say that has nothing to do with what I was talking about But let's go ahead and move on to the next thing. Maybe instead of food. Justin What we need is like, um, what's the show where you go to the island and you have to do Different things and get kicked off the island. Um, are you talking about survivor or naked and afraid We could do we could do survivor animal style Um Giraffes gorillas elephants and pandas who will leave the island first They're huge entertainment factor. Now you're doing gladiator Now you're like cage matching I think my idea is way more. Hey, should we talk about ants? No. Yeah. Yeah. Can I get my corner back? animal quarter time so speaking of food Something that ants and humans may in fact have in common is that they have similar Motivations for eating and it is not always Just for nutrition A new study from the University of Regensburg in Germany Wanted to see What black garden ants did in relation to food and hard work They set them up in a lab and they had them go through either an easy stroll or a difficult hike Each was followed by a tasty sweet drink They wanted to see if they liked their sugary drink better When they had to work hard to get it basically question being I know I much prefer A cold frosty beer after a long hard day's work But that's exactly what they were looking for here when the ants went for an easy stroll They just had to walk through a horizontal pathway and at the end they got a sweet lemon flavored syrup Then they went on a hard hike ants had to go up a vertical runway And then they received a rosemary flavored syrup Researchers then made the ants choose between either rosemary or lemon scented pathways and found That ants chose the rosemary scented path. Uh-huh. I know what you're both thinking ants must love rosemary I think they don't like the citrus. They got the actual scale They repeated the study with new ants and switched the syrups They placed the rosemary syrup at the end of the easy path and the lemon syrup at the end of the hard path And indeed they picked the lemony path Um, so hard earned rewards Feel better for ants Other animals like mammals and birds have be found had been found in the past to be pessimistic and using the path of least resistance Which makes sense. It's a tough world out there, but apparently ants. They're just workaholics They really like a nice refreshing drink at the end of a long trial So it all boils down to how you feel before you get that treat. Is there a rush of dopamine or some sort of reward to your system Right before you get that treat and is it because you've accomplished something good or you finished out something hard So it seems like for ants and for many of us Things taste better after a rough day or a hard day of work rather than a day lazing about So I I'm wondering though, you know, this is the they had to climb the harder hill, right and They're expending a lot of energy. So how do they know this isn't just I mean, this is a syrup, right? So does it have nutritional value? Is it? How do how do they know that this is just a I deserve reward? Yeah, that's it's definitely an anthropomorphization I take I believe I agree with you there But what's weird is that they would pick the harder path So Why wouldn't they just choose the easier path and drink less of the syrup? Why would they choose the harder path on purpose to get their sugary treat? It's it's odd Right when they can get the sugary treat from the lower if they choose it themselves, right? So, yeah, I would want to test hormones. That would be the next thing that I would want to test Yeah, so do they have any change in any stress hormones? Is there a change in what what is modulating the effect? I mean, yeah, I guess the interesting thing here is that they are Because they're laying down their pheromones on the trail Toward the on the higher side. They're basically like there's a treat up here And more ants are gonna follow that path. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I I wonder if if you could get enough information from their Their wad of nerves Not exactly a brain uh to figure out, you know, the whole reward center idea and try to find and Kind of a parallel to what would happen in our brain and see what's going on there because I don't know a lot about human brain related studies or human reward related studies with this whole idea But it would be interesting to see Yeah Yeah, absolutely The idea that the answer that the answer rewarding themselves and enjoy that that's Yeah, what? Oh insects You bring us enjoyment. You're more much more complex than we ever ever considered Yeah, there's just so much going on mm-hmm Yeah, and that the other ant the ants would be like hey you guys is a really good reward up this hill Yeah, this one's the better reward even though they're really the same Mm-hmm Anti-actions Oh, we've come to the end of the first half of our show you guys It is time to move forward to the break and then we will come back with a bunch of science in the second half I have some I have got a plastic eating the enzyme and some other fun stories. So We will be back Stay hey everybody. Thank you so much for joining us tonight on the show. 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Thank you for your support And we are back with more this weekend science taking this show Through the break into the second half. We're glad that you're still here with us right now It is time for this weekend. What has science done for me? Oh, yeah This is a letter from minion andrew union andrew writes The clock works I was fixing my clock listening to the show and realized all the science that has been applied to making my simple wall clock telltime Here are just a few Metalergy to purify and produce metals and metal coatings that resist corrosion. So the fine gears keep cooperating Physics to balance the 12 inch clock hands. So the tiny motor turns with nearly no effort Chemistry in the battery to tease out a way to hold and slowly release electrons to power the clock And a bunch more between the plastic creation and molding and the printing of the numbers and on and on The more I think about it the more I see the fruits of science being harvested in this everyday gizmo Thanks for a great show with tons of variety and levity Oh, that's great. I love that. I I'd be lost without my watch Right our clocks the things that keep our worlds ticking That's a wonder. I just like sometimes you forget about the little things the things that you just kind of walk by pass by Take for granted, you know, we of course on the show in this segment. We've talked about medical technologies We've talked about iPhones or you know smartphones and different gps and these fancy fancy gadgets and technology, but The wall clock Even that Is a product of science And and speaking As someone who was born 15 minutes late and has been rushing to catch up ever since The clock is definitely my friend Hmm The clock is your friend the croc the clock is my eternal nemesis nemesis Would you rather just go by the the sun and the moon kiki? Oh, yeah Absolutely, I would sleep when it's dark. I'd be awake when it's light. Yes Like the sun's up there. I think it's time to eat time to eat now. There we go Okay Andrew Thank you so much for this reminder of the little things in our lives and how they are also products of science And that we should all keep an eye out for these things I hope other people take a look around them and find inspiration in these objects in their world every day Everyone out there remember we need you to write in to keep this segment of the show going because this is produced by you I can't I can't just come up with this stuff It's yours. This is your time to talk So keep writing to us. Let us know what science has done for you lately Leave us a message on our facebook page if you do the facebook still facebook.com slash this weekend science Or you can send me an email kirsten k i r s t e n at thisweekandscience.com Yeah, if you don't submit something it'll just be a weekly segment where I talk about how much I love dishwashers Yeah, right Okay, please keep that from happening everybody write us letters Justin tell me a story Neanderthals so much like us and yet kind of not they were shorter on average And stouter and more muscular They had a pronounced brow a much larger nose a longer face which jutted dramatically forward And yet we both have a common ancestor. So why so different neanderthal? How did 400 000 years of separation from our uncle cousins Manifest in this way One of the answers may have just been published in the april fourth edition preceding to the royal society b international research team led by professor at the university of new england in australia With the aid of an autonomy and fluid dynamics expert at ny it college of osteopathic medicine at arkansas state university And how they went about it makes a lot of sense. They started with a neander ancestor homo heidelberg ensis and focused on the divergent features So they've got a common ancestor well an ancestor that's further back that's closer related to both of us They applied some computer simulations to compare the physiological behavior of those features versus our own And quotey voice while our data found neanderthals to be somewhat less efficient at conditioning air than today's humans Something i would not have guessed They greatly out rivaled today's humans in their ability to transport large volumes of air Through the nasal passage into and out of the lungs says jason bork phd assistant professor anatomy at nipcom homo heidelberg ensis providers with an evolutionary compass he explains It allows us to figure out what neanderthals inherited Versus the novel anatomy Their species evolved this approach permitted the researchers to ignore neanderthals strong brow ridge, which was an inherited feature And focus more on their enlarged nose, which was very unique to the species so some of the existing Theories have suggested that the large face structure was because They required a stronger bite. We do know that they used teeth as sort of like a third hand to hold things But this is kind of combating that a little bit. They're saying The biggest functional difference Would have been the amount of air intake and output so this is uh, in fact They're suggesting that neanderthal noses were able to transport twice as much air to the lungs Then modern human noses would be able to do That's fascinating. I mean they were also stockier and maybe had larger muscle mass as well so maybe that You know made the balance out the efficiencies So yeah, so so part of it they think is because these are big game hunters uh, they may have had to put out a lot more physical exertion and exertion and sort of tracking or combating the prey Also would have come in handy In colder climates. Yeah, that's another thing warming the air maybe bringing it past warm blood vessels Yeah, I mean one of the one of the things that's theorized that uh, our Our human ancestors did is we would we would do this, uh This overheat run At prey so humans are really good at sweating and you know handling temperature And so we'd run really long distances and and like chase a deer and eventually they would overheat and collapse from like heat stroke All right, well, we're still just jogging along jogging along And and that was one of the the hunting methods that it's theorized that our direct ancestors used but For the neanderthals, uh, it seems like there's less evidence that they would have done that sort of that sort of tactic um, but may have had a much more sort of muscle strength and aggressive Uh, nature to their their hunting so So yeah, so they wrestled the the game down Yeah, well, they yeah, they didn't like throw something or chase them They ran right up and stuck something sharp into them and then hung on so, uh And so to feed those muscles in that sort of High-strength environment you could imagine meeting a lot of oxygen to keep going to those muscles to power them right there Then and there in that moment Yeah, I love I this is fascinating. I mean we've talked like you said there's so much conversation about The prominent brow ridge and what does that signify but like you said that's that wasn't necessarily theirs alone the brow ridge was a thing for a lot of home of of hominid species Right and there is oh and I didn't bring it so I can't really uh, I can't talk about it but there was there was something that I browsed or browsed through or or looked at which was talking about the importance of human evolution of the eyebrows Uh, because they're so expressive That this is like a really fundamental like human communication Uh attribute is our eyebrows. Yeah, you know, you gotta pronounce brow Maybe that was just you know early humans. Maybe it was a pre-speech adaptation to be like Inquisite say I gotta take the glass of inquisitive Unsure surprised angry like you could tell a whole lot Just looking at some eyebrows Um, so yeah, and I thought they were just uh hormone catchers Eyebrows, yeah from a sweat When you sweat out, you know pheromones it catches in your eyebrows. That's one of the reasons you have them Interesting. Yeah, so you can you know exude It is chemical signals Or it's also, you know, like a good it's a good replacement for a headband Also true. You keep wet and maybe channels it out along the edges as opposed to into your eyes Yeah There's a very good reason we have hair where we have hair. It's fascinating I don't know that explains that place There's an explanation for all of them. I guarantee you I really want somebody to test this somehow eyebrows as pheromone catchers versus sweat Channellers, maybe it's both. Maybe it's both Ah, this is fascinating I love it But who cares about big brow ridges in theanders? It's all about There's sniffy noses The nose nose. Yeah Well researchers two years after discovering a bacterium in the dump in japan on plastic bottles Eating those plastic bottles Mm-hmm researchers have published their findings Of the specific enzyme that makes it possible So they've been studying the bacteria for a couple of years now And they have come out to say that yes indeedy they have determined The compound that this bacterium Creates that it makes that allows it to eat holes Into the plastic in its environment and they have been able to engineer the enzyme to improve polyethylene terphthalate degradation and that They can also degrade important polyethylene terphthalene replacements And so this is an enzyme that could potentially be used in plastics recycling to make the process more efficient Better maybe help get plastics out of marine environments So are they saying they're breaking it down into Past just teeny tiny pieces of plastic. They're actually breaking it down into separate chemical elements Yes, biodegradation Because previously we've talked about worms and other things that they said. Oh, they digest plastic turns out they actually just Poop out smaller bits of plastic, but this is actually tearing it apart. That's fantastic It's a digesting enzyme that tears it apart doesn't just make A micro plastics. No Yes, this is digestion That's fantastic. Yeah, so this this bacterium ideonella sacchiae And cis 201 f6 Had this ability to grow on pet PET, which is polyethylene terphthalate They acronym for it. They use the carbons in the plastic And also just use the use it as an energy source So this is very exciting. It's a big step forward and Um There are Other polyesters other plastics that it does not degrade. So it is more specific in nature Kind of pet specific. So yeah, but this is exciting okay so before we go like Breeding it and dropping it into that floaty plastic island in the ocean Does it degrade it into micro plastics? Isn't that would Yeah, I just asked about Did you really because I said my season's running out like it's just like wouldn't that be like The same problem only like now on the micro can go everywhere scale Yeah, so that was my question So it sounds like it it actually breaks it apart into its chemical elements So it is not making it into micro plastics. It's actually digesting it because it takes out Carbons and uses them. So yes, the molecule is being broken apart. All right. Let's fill the ocean with this stuff Or you could just line those those trash catching Vessels just line all of the filters with these guys except those are made out of plastic Not always could be made out of metal We'd have to yeah, bring back bring back the metal trash can So that we can digest our plastics. Yep. Absolutely There you go Yep, so this is this is this is exciting exciting exciting stuff for plastics Maybe but still support a bit Still support your plastic bands in your local elections. Oh, yeah, that's still a good thing to do That's still very important, but we have a mess. We also need to clean up at the same time So this is great A step in the right direction not yet a solution but a step in the right direction Okay, Justin take us to Tatooine Ah, yes Tatooine as any moisture farmer on Tatooine will tell you every drop counts And while we earthlings have but one son to deal with Water supplies can still become strained for those who live in arid climates year round Water shortages can be a thing that you have to live with Recent research by researchers recently reported that they have happened upon a way to harvest fresh water from fog With what is being hailed as a harp technology Now my first impression of this is like Well, if you've got fog are you really some place that doesn't have fresh water? Yeah, so there are places in israel where they do this. There are their entire Yeah, they're basically moisture farms where they look like giant fly swatters Yes that catch the fog and collect them down in a vessel. Yeah, this is the thing that they're doing in israel already Right, so this is this is the current technology. It's setting out mesh netting Which is like a throwing a net into the air and catching water with it that then falls into a collector This is this harp technology that they're calling it is a an improvement on that design So the researchers made three harp prototypes with just the vertical wires So they they aren't doing the cross-meshing, but they're just doing long vertical wires To catch the water droplets which also then fall into a collector When they compared their harps with the meshes that had nearly the same thickness water collection efficiency Was as much as three times greater And I guess what a couple of things that happened if if the if the meshing if it's too thick You don't collect enough if it's too thin it becomes clogged like the the the tensile strength That was not tensile strengths. What's the that's the the strength of a water droplet. What is that called? It's not tensile strength surface tension. Thank you surface tension Creates clogs in the mesh if you make it too fine so Yeah, so they created these just vertical lined with different tensioned wires And they found that their thinnest one was the most effective So cool that you actually got to see one of those in existence. I had actually not ever I mean, and I've seen a lot of different types of water collection methods Uh, that's not one I'd ever heard of before this this study Yeah, so they also had a dew collector which looked kind of like a giant metal leaf That the dew kind of just yeah It it poured down the the vein of the leaf into a collection pot. Yeah That was really neat Things you do when you live in a desert Yeah, but this is uh this they they're collecting a significant amount of water with this particular method The the efficiency has really increased Over previous instances of it and it looks I mean looking at it. It's like these little tiny strings This is something that anybody could make This isn't like oh specialized technology. No, this is showing that a very simple engineering solution can have a huge impact Yeah, and and they the model that they made of this is a meter by a meter Uh They're like you can really scale this thing up as as tall as your imagination will allow you I can't help but wonder though if you put a whole bunch of these or a huge one up If you would just start to see plants dying all around it because you'd be taking The fog that they normally use to survive like when you think about deserts, right? Plants get so little moisture That that fog and that dew that's pretty much all the moisture they get all year long So if you're regularly taking that fog What's going to happen to those plants? And then and then you also have the problem of like birds and bats like Running into your heart. Yeah Yeah Oh all these considerations and then all That's what we need to do. We just need to turn our oceans into potable water. That's what we need to do Pull that salt out desalination. That's the way to go and actually and actually to the point though About the fog. I kind of thought about this. I actually don't I actually wonder if It would affect the immediate region's moisture Or if that moisture that's going passing through his fog It's just like the next area over which is always enjoyed A seasonal drizzle More and rainfall that just went away, right? Yeah, it'd be really hard to guess how it's going to affect The ecosystem Yeah, I have a couple of stories jumping off this into You know Things that you can kind of guess how they're going to turn out. This is my this week in face palm science Okay, great. I love it home um, so there was a study this last week in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences, um and It's looking at the transmission of respiratory diseases colds flus On transcontinental airline flights so basically What really is the probability of transmission of spreading your sickness if you go on a flight And you're and you're sneezing and coughing and everything. So can I guess Can I guess? I just want to guess that That it's not any worse Then it would be anywhere else because from what I've understood that that this that the air circulates on a plane Just as well if not better than if you're in any building anywhere else on the planet Yep, pretty much and uh this this research group in testing this they they got People on 10 flights across the united states. They looked at behaviors movements of individuals They started looking at airflow in the cabin They simulated transmission during flight based on the data and they Pretty much didn't really find anything because they went on these flights expecting that they would See some sick people and in all 10 flights There were like two people who had any signs of coughing or sneezing of any kind But nobody was really sniffling nobody was sick So they didn't bring a sick person with them That's ridiculous So they couldn't actually Really say oh A sick person moving around all they could really find out is well Airline attendants have more contact with more people during a flight And so they're the better vectors for transmiss transmitting any disease They also considered that the standard This is the one interesting thing is the standard they saw was that The expectation is that aerosol particles that droplets from a sneeze or a cough can Travel up to two rows of seats away from you So that person who's sneezing constantly behind you is actually getting you sick your seat is No protection Yeah, and so and there and what they determined is that two seats is actually pretty lax There's was much more conservative one row away is really that is the hot zone for transmission So if somebody right behind you is sick, you're getting Potentially getting sprayed by stuff But this whole thing I just thought was kind of funny because they were really they were looking for Sick people transmitting stuff and they didn't really see anybody and then they came like in there in their discussion They're like, well, we didn't really see it on the flights And so we think that the highest probability of transmission occurred maybe at the airports themselves So Folks I'm glad they started looking at this, but you know what face palm What that didn't tell us anything this didn't tell us anything more than we already knew Well, yeah You should have some hand sanitizer sterilize those seatbelt Buckles before you're using them and touching stuff sterilize your little table area And and and just hope but I I will come to the defense of the face palm Because because they did at least look at it and they didn't go aha Obviously, this is why which tells us that that's not an obvious answer. And yeah, like you said best Protocols apply like anywhere else in this world. Yeah, and then my other kind of face palm science story for the week is published In relation to animals predicting earthquakes Oh Okay, this is always coming up. Yes. It's always coming up and people say Animals started acting weird Right before the tsunami the earthquake the fall of the the uh wall street market Yeah, as always know everything except whatever it is exactly And so some researchers published in the bulletin of the seismological society of america And they looked at a bunch of studies. They uh, they they looked at Ports of abnormal animal behavior related to 160 earthquakes And these reports some of them were months away From the earthquake events Yeah, like preceding an earthquake by a month or two and people were linking that strange All of the birds left at one It was right before winter And they suggest from their study that actually Nobody's really studied this and that most of the quote-unquote evidence that people quote It's just single observations and anecdotes that haven't been tested rigorously And that um, one of the main things is what really is abnormal animal behavior Absolutely. Yeah, that's just silly The other thing about it is maybe a mouse startled that Animal and then they moved funny and then just but you didn't see the mouse You don't know the the reason the reason it's hard to study though is obviously because we these are events that we don't know We can't predict the timing of them Yes, so we don't know until it's retrospect And then and then you know you have to remember And then of course you're going to connect anything you saw immediately before to that event Which if you'd seen some birds leaving a tree all of a sudden and there wasn't an earthquake you would forget it immediately Well, that's the problem is what's your control. So for at first I'm thinking Oh, well, you actually probably could gather some data because there's enough animals in zoos for example that are on 24 hour watches for health or or birth You know expectations or whatever it is that if there is an earthquake You could probably pull up some video footage of animals right before an earthquake Yeah, but what would your control be? That's the problem Well, you would have to have those animals in the city that's likely to experience Earthquakes on a semi somewhat frequent basis Well, I just mean there's enough of them out there that when there is an earthquake There's a high likelihood that some animal will be in the area when it happens that has been Videoed you you could find some That was I was trying to be subtle But but being that you work at a zoo in San Francisco Which probably has animals that are monitored Can you not dial back the video to the last earthquake and see? Proceeding the earthquake if there was strange activity or that's a great question And we probably could have but nobody looked for it right and in a place like a People would know what the big behaviors are normal and not Yeah, but Blair now you're on notice Now the narrow seriously the next earthquake of you know a five plus sizable feeling That there's the earth is shaking in san francisco. You need to be like Hold the roll Back up the footage not overwrite the old beta max vhs. I don't know what you are Why are you assuming anyway? I don't know because these are old and I'm like I don't feel like you have a big text budget, but I could be wrong This is my question is what's the control? That's the problem is you're you're measuring this video right before an earthquake But are you then going to see okay? I saw this goat jump around Erratically right before the earthquake. Well, how often does that joke? The does that goat jump around erratically in a day, right? So there has to be a long-term monitoring Of the behaviors and determining what the different behaviors are what what I disagree right? They're done. No What no no no and and this is the problem you need to have a control and that's an anecdote is is not a control Not an anecdote, but a in fact you are You will have not just that one animal. It's not like there's one animal in this So what you get multiple animals, right? You look at all the animals like a reaction point if we looked at Time, you know five minutes before is there some sort of tremor some pre-tremor to the earthquake That we can see seven animals all at the same time Or around the same time reacting like nor they were sleeping now They get up and they're pacing about like you would have a number of animals that you could sort of look at and see Are they seeming agitated? So but this raises another question though about different animals perceptive abilities And so some animals might be more perceptive than others. They did find in the data that there was A force there was a clustering of four shocks the slight tremors that occur before an earthquake And abnormal animal activities. So the researchers say that there could be a sensing of p s or surface waves that are generated by four shocks by By certain animals and but this is not known. So there's there's a little hint in the data, but At this point, you know the the numbers and the sample size and the actual consistency of how it's being measured and monitored Is is not up to snuff. It's not good enough. And so it needs to get more more rigorous research Totally I believe that they will find something because on the biggest earthquakes that I have been through I woke up in the middle of the night Out like wide awake out of the blue totally wide awake and then Not too long after bam big earthquake hit and in an unusual way like I felt like in a couple times I felt like something's weird. I don't know why suddenly. I'm awake. I'm gonna go maybe four shock No, no, that's exactly what I think. I don't think it's esp. I think there was there was enough of a Something that I noticed that those around me didn't Or and I didn't even notice it. It just happened and like got me agitated like when I had been completely asleep So I don't doubt that that's that's possible But I love the fact that blare is not only at a zoo But in a zoo in an earthquake rich region and can now track this I'll get right on it. Yeah, this is this is your new project. This is what you need to focus all your time on blare Just a lot of money Any time in it until there's an earthquake and then you go look at the footage just dial it back But that means I have to set up cameras everywhere aren't there Okay, moving on from this and the cameras Have you guys uh heard have you guys heard of the kissing disease? Uh I've heard of the kissing bugs. Is it monos are gross monos. Oh monos. Okay mononucleos Yes, this is caused by a virus that is called the epstein bar virus and I never got once you get it It doesn't ever go away It just your body kind of Puts it away somewhere and it But it doesn't ever go away from your body once you're infected. You are infected And so there's a paper that was just published in nature genetics looking at This disease the kissing virus it's it's spread by swapping spit And so a lot of teenagers tend to get it because like, oh, I'm kind of tired and what teenager isn't tired And then they go and they kiss their tired boyfriend or girlfriend and oh then you and it gets passed along And then there are these cases of mononucleosis that get passed around um through the body fluids so This research Uh Was trying to reveal that contracting Uh They revealed that contracting the virus doesn't just give you mononucleosis It increases your risk of getting seven other major diseases Yes So if you've had mononucleosis the epstein bar virus increases your possibility your probability of getting systemic lupus Arithmetic arithmetosis multiple sclerosis rheumatoid arthritis juvenile idiopathic arthritis inflammatory bowel disease Celiac disease and type 1 diabetes all of them immune related Disorders Yes And so the epstein bar virus even though it's not active is having a genetic effect that can predispose you to other disorders that occur later in life I mean genetic effect. Yeah, because it produces a protein called it's an epigenetic effect It produces a protein called eb from epstein bar eb na 2 and it binds to regions of dna that are associated With those seven diseases Huh, and then the body that a bit of dna is closed up, you know, the epigenetic instructions Uh, or block they block the transcription and translation of that area of the genome And so dna from those areas gets encoded incorrectly and so disease might come from it And it affects this eb na 2 affects many of the body's 1600 transcription factors That are related to uh increased risk of disease in addition to this finding which is um Pretty interesting these 1600 transcription factors are also linked To abnormalities involved in over 200 diseases Including breast cancer and so Not just the research where they're like oh this epstein bar virus increases your possibility of this They're also opening up this research and hoping that other scientists are going to take a look at these transcription factors And what makes them special to maybe um Develop drugs that can be used to target those specific other 200 other diseases So you go in for the kissing disease and you come out with a whole bunch of other diseases Teenagers keep your hands to yourselves and your mouths If your if your friend is sick, don't kiss him Do not volunteer to man or woman the kissing booth No, don't do the kissing booth. No, don't don't don't do it. Um, another really interesting study Norovirus another sickness Lots of kids bring it home They go out they touch things and then they they bring it home and suddenly you find yourself attached to the toilet, right? uh, well researchers looking to hopefully find a A treatment or a cure for norovirus to get rid of it That'd be great. They haven't figured out that much yet But what they have discovered is the particular cell type in the body that The virus targets and it targets what's called a tough cell and the tough cells are chemo receptive cells in your intestinal tract And uh, they're involved in the immune response So certain chemicals show up the tough cells respond to them and they produce a compound called interleukin 25 Which is result uh results in in an inflammatory response We don't know they don't know It's not necessarily the interleukin 25 that is Resulting in the results of norovirus, but there's something going on In that relationship of norovirus and the tough cells That researchers are trying to figure out because that's going to potentially lead to many happier families Wouldn't it be great the second it takes over because you realize so fast All you have to do is call your advice nurse or whatever it may be Stop by the pharmacy and in just a few hours The nightmare is over It would be amazing Amazing. Oh my goodness. Yes um Yeah, but there are links also from this research Similar to the epstein bar study There are links in this research That link the tough cells potentially to inflammatory bowel disease colitis and the other gastrointestinal disorders So there are other things that this will lead to potentially and finally last study that i've got Don't drink so much alcohol What don't drink too much Alcohol correctly the mirror am I just inferring that? Now just in general don't drink so much alcohol of an international study of 599 912 drinkers They combined the analysis of these individuals That were in 83 different perspective studies combined all the results and they found That the current national recommendations for how much you're supposed to be able to drink Are too much too much alcohol consumption with the minimum mortality risk related to it is At or below 100 grams per week for all people Men and women normally recommendations allow men to drink twice the the amount of alcohol that women drink Um, but 100 grams per week is approximately seven drinks. That's ridiculous Nobody can survive on seven drinks. I was gonna say that's that's probably i'm safe That's good. I'm i'm being healthy. I think good job for you. Yeah. Yeah, uh, so looking at these individuals um If they were drinking between 100 and 200 grams per week that it lowered life expectancy by approximately Six months between 200 and 350 grams per week lowered life expectancy One to two years in between Or over 350 grams a week lowered life expectancy by four to five years So Note to self a drink a night is still fine Less than that Just save up your drinks justin just save them up and then you can binge That's right That's right. Blair. Do you have a final story? I do. I have some good news um, I've reported on the past uh in the past on Research on how zoos and aquariums affect public perception and willingness to make change when it comes to conservation and the environment And it is positive. It is measurable. It does make a really big difference on the public A new piece of research from the university of illinois looked at the research output from zoos and aquariums and it is astounding A lot of people don't realize that zoos and aquariums as a part of the association of zoos and aquariums the aza Have to follow through with research and conservation projects And this study found over 5000 peer-reviewed articles on conservation zoology or veterinary Uh research over the past 20 years 5000 coming out of zoos and aquariums. Yes So this is the very first quantification of research productivity of zoos and aquariums And it was off the charts higher than they anticipated And they found that zoos and aquariums are in fact Players in scientific research and have helped contribute to our wealth of understanding of wild animals and ability to try to save Animals through conservation projects. This did not quantify the other Direct impacts on conservation like actually doing breeding programs And contributing funds or staff to conservation projects out in the field but zoos do that as well but so this is a really interesting start and looking at Like I said, there's been a lot of research on The outreach side of what zoos and aquariums do and the measurable impact But this is on the actual impact on the scientific community, which is awesome This is amazing. Yeah Don't hate the playa Give the zoos a high five. Yes They're doing research there behind the scenes. They absolutely are. Yeah I mean, you've got these and they probably have not only their own research programs going on but also partnerships with universities Absolutely. I know that there are lots of primate studies that have happened as a result of collaborations between universities and zoos, so Yeah, when I was a zookeeper, I had to put different. I had to put glitter in one Animals food and I had to put bird seed in the other animals food so that I could identify which poop I was picking up so we could send it to a A university because they were testing steroids in poop Sparkle poo Oh my goodness. Yes carnivores cannot process the glitter or the bird seed so it came right out Yeah, you could identify which was which neither can people. Yeah. Oh, okay On that note, I think it is time for us to say We are done with the show. We have made it to the end once again Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you for joining us for another episode. Thank you for Those of you who have watched live for being up with us this late tonight And keeping and letting us get things working and going Thank you to fata for your help doing social media and the youtube descriptions Thank you to identity four for recording the show and brandon For helping to simulcast to facebook and to our youtube donors Thank you gordon for your donation this evening and thank you to our patreon sponsors Thank you to richard onamus jibberton latimore paul disney harrison prather ken haze charlene henry joshua fury andy groves Steve debel alex wilson tony steele ed dire craig landon john ratna swammy mark mazaros matthew litwin jason robertsville k bob calder time temper three one nine kyle washington eric nap richard brian kondren Sean bryant sarah chavis jacklyn boister richard porter rt omrick ramis paul john mckady jason olds brian karrington christopher drier lisas lazuski jim drapoche greg riley shon lamb ben rothig steve lesmond curt larson robert astin 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You did not have it, buddy. Come on, we made it. We were talking about this on the show where we did the science eventually. We did the science eventually. Yeah, I have to find out what happened. Wait, go back to that website that you were just on. Our website? Yeah, you had a website that was up. Our website, twist.org, our website. OK, so not this, but scroll down. Where was that video? That, that Blair right there. Uh-huh. That Blair? Reminds me of, and I'm so bad with names. This is the thing I'm really bad at. This is the thing I'm terrible. But it's the, the, the girl like, there's another rotten egg. Alanis Morissette? Alanis Morissette after, like, in her comeback where she's like, I always wanted to, like, do my hair and wear makeup and have earrings. But like, that, go back to this, wait, well, OK, it's up. Hang on, I'm just not clear that. You've got this, like, Alanis Morissettiness in that still shot screen capture there that I don't normally attribute to you. That's like, that picture does not. I don't really see it. I don't, I don't know what it is, but that picture is, like, not as Blair-la-y as a. Not so Blair-la, huh? Here's Alanis Morissette. I'm not seeing what you're talking about here. Yeah, yeah, there it is. It's all over the place. OK. That one, there. No, it's over on the left. This one? No, on the left. Left down the row. To the right, to the right. No, keep going left, there. No, wait, where's your, I'm looking at my own cursor. OK, down, OK, over. It's in the middle row all the way to my left. Which would be your right. That one. That one? No, no. No, the other end. It's the other side. That one. That's the photo. I'll take it, I guess. The subtleness of the Blair-la photo. All right, well, I'm not often told I look like any celebrity, so that one, I am happy to get. That's right. But just in that photo, the rest of the time, you look like Blair. Which is much more beautiful than Alanis Morissette ever. All right. Thank you. Thank you. You were actually downgraded in that photo to being more a lot of more set like. Okay. Okay. I'll take it. I will take that. Store it for later in my cheek pouches. Squirrel it away. A compliment chipmunk. Yeah. Oh my goodness. So a quick shameless plug. I did it in the chat room when Kiki kerploded earlier. Next Thursday, the 26th, there's this organization called Taste of Science that's in all over the United States. So Taste of Science SF has me speaking at one of their events next week. It was it was very funny. The kind of it took almost a year for them to convince me to speak. Because every time I talked to someone about it, they were like, Oh yeah, we have people come and talk about their research like in a fun way. And I said, I don't do research. And so then they're like, Well, maybe you could just come and talk about the zoo. And I'm like, Yeah, I can't do that. I'm not a PR representative of the zoo. Could you talk about that time that you worked at the Jerusalem Zoo? And I was like, Well, I guess, but I don't know. It's kind of just going to be like, click. And here I am in this exhibit. Click. And here's this animal. Click. And here I am in this exhibit. Here's a Martin. Doesn't it look cute? Yeah. And here's the stickers I got from that cute Martin. Right. But don't ever trust a Martin. So I got creative. And I invented my very own talk that is basically the story of how I ended up here, the kind of convoluted pathway that ended me that ended up with me being first and foremost in my own personal identity, a science communicator and a scientist. And so I basically just have I set it up kind of like a photo album and I kind of tell a story about my own personal journey. And it includes some pictures of animals and some pictures of me and animal exhibits and some silly pictures of me as a child and stuff like that. But I'm really excited for it. I think it's going to be really weird and different from most of the other talks that they have as part of Taste of Science. You know, people love it or relate it, but I'll be there. Yay. Next, we win. It is on Thursday, the 26th. And I just shared out a link to the event page on Facebook and on Twitter as well. I'll share it too. I'll try and get my friends to go see you. Yeah. And yeah, so that it's I think it's like, like $7 or something. It's very cheap. And it's at a place called the Red Vic on Hate, which I've never been to, but supposedly they have very good cocktails and foods. So nice. Really good. That'll be great. Yeah, I'm excited. Like I have I have a desk that goes up and down by itself. I've always wanted one of those. That's great. Man, I was just you know, I was walking through Ikea with Brian and they said someday when I'm a real adult, I'm gonna have one of those sitting standing desks with the buttons. Blair, I'm finally a real adult. You did it. You gave me hope. You gave me hope that I could someday be such an adult. Someday, you too. May 2nd. A show on May 2nd. That's two weeks from now. Yes. Of course, Justin isn't here as I'm going to say this. I don't know where he went. I am not going to be able to do the show. Okay. I can't do it. So it's going to be you and Justin. Okay. Yeah. Yes. I will be I will be at a workshop, but I just don't think I'll be able to get away to do the show. So. OK, that's fine. So here's my question. This is something that could lead to more great things. So. Great. Excellent. On a scale of one to ten. How important is it for me to find my sound board in my boxes so that I can pump in proper sound versus doing what I did tonight and then I could be edited later? Yeah. Well, I edit it and I will take the music out. So if, you know, that's what it'll be on YouTube. But for the podcast itself, when I get my time, when I get back and I'm able to edit and all that kind of stuff or maybe when I'm traveling on Friday. Yeah, I'll have the music. I can do it. So I'll just I'll just swap the music out. So OK, if you don't want to go into all that yet, don't worry about it. OK. Yeah, it's if I if I get there, I will do it. But thank you for your flexibility. Yeah, I still have boxes around. Yes, it is good. And then it's just it's the normal thing where you have to like I have to see if I can remember. You have to it's changed several times. But so you you log into Google first or YouTube first to broadcast on air. I can't remember. I log into Google. OK, and then I use Google to log myself into YouTube. OK. But then you start it via the events page on the YouTube. Thing. Yes, right, because that's I think that's what I did wrong. I'm streaming, you go to the YouTube that this week in science account, live streaming, OK, you do events and I will actually make sure there's an event in there already for you. So you don't have to make one. I will have made an event for you. So all you have to do is start it. OK, yeah, because I think that's what I did last time is I forgot that since Google gobbled up YouTube, it became that right. So I had tried to do a hangout on air. Like a simulcast to YouTube through the the Google stuff. Yes, I had forgotten that it was all on YouTube. It's all I got real confused. Yeah, you just yeah, it's in YouTube. I think I can handle that. Do it. Don't go through Google Hangouts. Yeah, yeah, through that anymore. Right, right. That was my error last time. Cool. All right. Can do. Yeah. Good night, Fada. Fada already went away. Oh, Ed from Connecticut says best standing desk. And it is the Jarvis, which is what I have. That's what I got. Ed, I got the fully Jarvis bamboo desk so far so good. I really like it. Jarvis bamboo desk. Yes, it's a bamboo, a bamboo top. The desktop is bamboo. That's rad. You know, I wanted something that was really stable because I have a seven year old boy and I figure, you know, he climbs all over everything and he touches things he's not supposed to. So I need something that's not going to fall over and it's amazing. Yes. And it turns out fully has an office, a place, a display place here in Portland. So I was able to go look at their desks and go, oh, but I like it. Look at that like standing pad underneath the sitting standing desk in the picture. All the standing pads, all the stuff. Oh, it's great. And but the hot rod, the high chair. This was a chair that was given to me by a friend. Yeah, I know. It's not the best. It's it's supposed to be ergonomic, but it's a little big for me. I feel like, oh, what was her name, Lily Tomlin? You know, do you remember Lily Tomlin, who had kind of had a little girl act and she like sat in this little dress in the big chair? Yeah, this chair kind of makes me feel like that. I have another one as well. It's very high backed, makes me feel like Dr. Evil. I got to work on my chair action. I was trying to find a picture. So, Kiki, you'll appreciate this because we've been talking about this for forever. But I'm starting in the you missed it because your internet was up. I'm starting in the genomics department tomorrow. You are. I'm going to it's a part time job within the part time gig. It's an add on hours across training kind of a thing. Nice. But they're explaining to me that, like, you know, because I'm like, I'm, you know, my idea of sequencing is kind of outdated. I have a cartoon in my head, which is kind of like playing fish and explain me, like, like, to know what's in the in the DNA that's come by. I have to say, OK, I have. Do you have any sixes? I can only ask you if I have a six, right? Right. It's like the game of fish. But I understand that, you know, these things have progressed. He's and he's like, yeah, we have one piece of equipment that will just read the DNA. It'll read it like it'll just and it can do it in real time, which we actually don't have a use for yet, but it can do it. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I would love to see that. I can't wait. And he's like, well, here it is. And it was kid you not like the size of a candy bar, right? Like it's got a little USB. It's straight up lab on a chip technology, real time read. And, you know, there's a little bit of media prep or something involved, but it works out to like what is like 33 cents a genome? Like it's redunculous. Is that the new one that everyone's talking about? It's the is that the because it there's a new sequencer that's supposed to be super small and it's. Very affordable, too. Not so expensive. This is a nanopore. Yeah, nanopore. That's the new one. They put it on the International Space Station, too. It's like, yeah, you can put this in your pocket. It's just like, I wonder what this genome is. So there was I reported on a story a month or so back where they were using the nanopore and there is a problem with like it's, you know, the efficiency or not the efficiency. Efficiency is great, but the accuracy. It can get it can get I can get I guess a little bit fooled by epigenetic. Yeah, so so what they did is in the paper is they showed this technique for increasing the accuracy to like 95 percent, 98 percent or something like that. So it's not but what it does is they it has to do a lot more reads. So it takes a little bit longer. But then you take all those reads and put them together in the data. And so but it but it's a method that they've made open source. So you might be using it. Yeah. So it's so ridiculous. Like, yeah, I can operate a thing by clicking a mouse. They can read a whole genome of a thing. I mean, it's a longer form read to then is is typically available. So yeah, next thing I know you're going to be smuggling your own genome home on your laptop flash drive. Well, he's like next thing. I already did that. That was provided to me by the good folks at twenty three in me. That's right. But they haven't given you your genome. They haven't given you have. They don't have the complete. But again, they've done the single point mutations. And that's it. This is still a thing that we need to. And actually, I would I haven't done the ancestry one, which is which is newer. The ancestry genome one. Maybe we should we got to reach out to somebody and do a thing on this show or we talk about it and have our genomes. Because I and look, there's people who are excited about doing this. There are people who are not excited about doing this. My initial assumption is anybody who's not excited about putting their genetic information out there to get the feedback from it is because they've committed a crime somewhere in their past that they are up till now gotten away with and are afraid of providing any genetic information to the world. For those of us who do not have crimes in our background, this is just freaking awesome. It's amazing. It's amazing. Yep. What was I going to say? I don't know what happened with my Internet tonight. Oh, congratulations on your new job part time, though it is. That's awesome. It's actually it's adding on to what was a part time job with more hours, with more hours, extra extra extra part time. Cool. And then I don't know what happened with my Internet tonight. I'm hoping I might be terrible at it. I don't know till tomorrow. Tomorrow is the first day of this new thing. Like it might be that I've done everything fantastic. Up till now. And then it's like, I don't know how make work like that could happen. You're going to figure it out. That's not going to be a problem. I have. I have deficits. I have deficits. I'm not arguing with you about that. I have cognitive gray areas. But I'm like, I can do all of this, but that is not something. Actually, the good thing is I'm not actually going to be in charge of anything. And I think as long as I'm in a position where I'm not ultimately responsible for making other people do something, I'll be fine. If I just, if it's just here's what you need to do, I'll be good all day long. As soon as it's like, I need you to coordinate and plan for, ah, forget it. I give up right now. But you're like, what? Planning? Those are my, like my favorite words. Coordinate and plan. Coordinate plan. Minor, I know we had something scheduled, but instead we're going to do something completely different that we've never tried before. I'm like, yes, that's me. Put me in there. I just spent, I spent a half an hour today picking out my academic planners for the next year because I want to be so organized if I just the right one. Do you want to know? I actually, I think I, I, I go out of my way consciously not to plant things. I, when, when my, when my socks come out of the dryer, I refuse to spend any time whatsoever saying, okay, here's the blue sock. Where's the other blue sock? Let me find your friend. I don't do that. When I open the sock drawer later, I refuse to spend more than the initial three second momentary observation and awareness to find two socks that look alike. I could care less. There's, there's certain things that are not worth our time on this planet. One is matching socks and the other is taxes, which I really need to get on pretty soon. Oh yeah, I get on those taxes just like Donald Trump. Huh? But my socks have cats on them. Kitty socks. I can't bend that way because I'm standing, but my socks are polka dot and have a mini mouse on them. Actually I have one foot that's polka dot and one foot that's striped. Noodles. I am in trouble from the second I leave the house. Lock the door. Good. And then wing it. And then walk back to the door and make sure you actually locked it. Oh my God. Identity four just said he has sloth socks. I am so jealous. He has sloth soaks. Sloth soaks. I want sloth socks. Man, I don't have sloth socks. I do have red panda socks. Would sloth socks, sloth socks slow you down? Saying that sentence would slow you down. I think we're almost we're moving on out of here pretty soon. We're with you. Say good night Blair. Good night Blair. Say good night Justin. Good night Justin. Good night. Good night, Kiki. Good night, everyone. Thank you guys for a great show. Thanks for putting up with my internet woes. I will hopefully have this, I don't know, I don't know how to figure this stuff out. I'm going to figure it out somehow by next week. Anyway, I appreciate it. I appreciate everyone being here and we'll see you next week. Have a good week in between.