 No, it didn't do it There's some other extra button that needs to be a hit Well, I do what button that was I always feel like it's a countdown to another countdown anyhow Not really 20 Hey For those of you who joined us right away when we went live That's just a little button on showing you behind the scenes that there's lots of little things that Kiki does normally that I Don't have quite the finesse that she does for doing it every week We are without Kiki this week. She is about to get on an airplane or is currently on an airplane. I don't know But she is off doing fantastic things Justin and I are holding down the fort and this is the part of the show that does not end up in the polished audio Podcasts so a lot of the show a lot of the show in fact doesn't end up see normally when somebody does these Podcasts they sit around and they say a bunch of stuff and they go. What do you think? Ah, I don't like the way when we said that Oh Say something I meant to say and then they redo it a couple of times and then they you know splice it all together And that's the polished podcast you like always slipped over that that word or the name of that Institution I'll I'll scrub that and I'll I'll resay it polished in this. No, we're not doing none of that What you get is raw unadulterated us talking live Lost art of live broadcast It's as if you're at like a science conference in the cocktail hour And you happen to cross us just chatting about the latest findings and science Say you have a question, but it turns out to be much more of a comment. Yeah Sure sure yeah, just as walking around in the different papers the poster presentations going I Have a question Now did you know that? Okay, so we're actually gonna start the show now. I was just buffering to let people know we're getting started to Do the countdown we should do the countdown Now that we're ready for it. No, no, no, okay So I'm gonna start the show now We're gonna do the the kind of Paula show and then at the very end We will we will have a little bit of an after show as well. All right, so are you ready Justin? I am ready All right, so I'm gonna say the things you're gonna do a disclaimer. I'm gonna play this the music. I Don't have a fancy switchboard apologies everybody. All right in three This is twist this week in science episode number 882 recorded on Wednesday June 29th 2022 smells like fresh science Hi, everybody, I'm Blair Bazerich and today we are gonna fill your head with chimps smells and wood but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer in 1873 a federal law was passed the United States the Comstock law of 1873 the law made it a criminal offense to sell or distribute materials that could be used for Contraception or abortion or even to send Information about such things through the mail the American medalist the American Medical Association spoke up in favor of the law as a collection of bright-futured old men who could point out a fair portion of the lady parts on A chart that was missing some really important ones by the way They felt that not only was abortion a danger to women But also that reproductive control raised the risk of and I quote a woman Overlooking the duties imposed on her by the marriage contract while contractual Ignorance of marital lady parts and misogynistic laws restricting the rights of women may not yet be a thing of the past the important thing to remember is Actually, I'm at a complete loss for finding upsides on this one What has occurred is nothing short of barbaric willing cur real and immediate suffering worse generational outcomes has no reasonable place in a modern Society and the decision is entirely lacking Incredibility that said we now turn to a subject with far greater integrity than a legal opinion This weekend science Coming up next Science to you Blair. Yes, it's me Blair. We're Kiki Tonight without the net and the producer and we are Yeah, happy day of science to you Justin I'm glad we have some science to bring everyone today to kind of reground ourselves in what has been a strange week We have lots of good science though tonight Kiki is Absent, but we will be rejoined by her very very soon on this week's show What do I have? I have the chimps. I mentioned before I have singing and dancing. I need to talk about that one yet and Insect bites. What do you have Justin? I've got doing away with sunlight Doing away with water Things that happened in a cave long ago and Where have all the beneficial bacteria gone? Where have they gone? It's a little sounds very dire, but this it's not as dire as all of that sounds Well, some of it is you'll have it back is fine. Anyway, so as we jump into the show I can't wait to jump into all of this and focus on on science for a couple hours It has to be great as we jump in we want to remind you that you can subscribe to twist as a podcast on your favorite podcast platform That's YouTube Facebook Spreaker what else did Kiki used to say always Stitcher? Apple it's all the things You can listen to it all sorts of places you can watch us after the fact you just want to rewatch that whole episode a twist after you watched it live, right and We publish those episodes every week just search for this week in science on the internet somewhere or go to twist.org but now Justin I have are you a musical person feel like I don't I don't I can't recall You know while driving while driving Okay, I am the most musically adept person I can sing on key And then as soon as the car stops and the engine dies and I lose it Okay, so This is about multitasking and and and music. So this this is kind of related. So Also, this is a study about the brain. So Kiki. I know you're listening after the fact. I'm sorry. I wish you were here to help me understand this but This is a study from the Center for Music in the brain at Arhus University Looking at how your brain can handle some juxtapositions of multitasking and not others So if you tried to count right now a measured One two three four one two three four Well simultaneously clapping the rhythm to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. Can you do that? No, because it's in a different time signature, right? Okay, but if you did the opposite if you tried to clap one two three four and hummed the rhythm to Sergeant Pepper's could you do that? That's what all musicians do when they tap a foot they're tapping One two three four while they do other things that are off rhythm with a music instrument or with their voice and so It that based on that you would think you could switch it back and forth really easily And I remember from trying to learn how to play the drums on a drum kit that trying to do different rhythms with different appendages was Not impossible for me. It was very difficult. Some people could figure it out, right? but what they wanted to look at in this study was why some rhythms can be taken on by some parts of your body and In relation to others and others cannot so what what is happening here? Why can can we do it in one direction, but not the other direction and so What they found was that there is a hierarchy in your body Related to your voice your hands and your feet The voice hands and feet are organized into a hierarchy that determines which combinations of rhythm and beat are easy and which are difficult And they also found that this applied across musicians and non musicians They took 20 professional musicians 22 amateur musicians and 18 non musicians Everyone was right-handed to try to remove a variable there They used rhythm and beat in an assignment for them to have different combinations of voice hand and feet Performances for rhythms and beats simultaneously They found that there is a hierarchy in the body with five levels left foot right foot left hand right hand voice It's easier to perform musical rhythm and beat simultaneously if the beat is on a part that is lower in hierarchy Than the one performing the rhythm. So that's all you can tap your foot And sing a different rhythm. That's why you can clap and sing a different rhythm, but you can't do the opposite um, and so This is interesting because it it breaks a theory about the how the brain works and how the expectation was that it was a hemispheric issue But it doesn't appear to be it has it appears to be this body-based hierarchy And Yeah, so this is part of that that makes kind of sense. I mean When when when you go running for instance, I feel like you don't pay a tremendous amount of attention Left right left right left left. Oh no, I'm falling like it's sort of it It's given a bit of autonomy to keep that cycle of left right running The feet movement going operating a bit autonomously. You don't really have to concentrate on but clapping I think does at least require Me to concentrate very hard to clap slightly off of the beat each time Yeah, I think it's I was just trying to think about it in my head too, but um That's a good place to start. That's a good place to think about anything is in your head for sure No, I was thinking about the the example where you had to clap And then sing sergeant peppers and vice versa and um, and yeah It is I tried it when I read this the story and I I could kind of do it And I do have a theory that if they got people who played a drum kit, they would be better at Well, yeah, I think there's a certain amount This is certain like if I look like I guarantee you the drummer for the Ventures, is that the first drummer that came to my mind? But that uh, if you take a drummer David Grohl, I think that's a more current the kids will know who that guy is Uh, drummer musician singer guitar player does all the stuff. I feel like they Have got to be at a point when that's not a problem I think picking it up. I think doing this mostly with non-musicians. I would expect to see that larger effect You're saying this was even amongst musicians that they were able to Yes, so if they measured the museums against the museums If they measured the musicians Oh lord, I can't talk and broadcast at the same time today apparently When they measured the musicians against non-musicians the musicians did better overall But within their the the individual of the musician They still had more ease with these things based upon the hierarchy. So so yes A musician particularly somebody who can do the drums or something Um Might do better and do very well But it would still be more taxing on the brain and and more difficult to go backwards in the hierarchy It's kind of the point of the study So I think this needs a much bigger sample size Um 60 people is is not really enough in my opinion to decide how a brain works, but Um, it is definitely a very intriguing start And as you mentioned it makes sense that the feet Would be a kind of on autopilot hands would be next and then vocal Vocal anything is going to be the most complicated because we speak So that's definitely going to be the most complicated thing that we do with our body is what's happening with our tongue all the time when we talk Yeah, outside of I'd say maybe the last third of this show at times Uh, I don't find myself speaking automatically You know, that's that's a sort of that's very much a concerted effort thing that you you think and then Do as opposed to the rest of it because You know, I you can't really run off subject. I guess Are out of context. I mean you certainly when you're an autopilot you can accidentally run to the wrong place Because you're used to going that way. I don't know. Anyway, uh, Justin, tell me some science Oh, good grief. Let's see here There is if you have not noticed, uh A thing going on that is global warming Uh, and one of the things global warming is doing away with is Fresh water reservoirs and doing so apparently at an warming rate the lake mead Outside of las vegas, which I've actually been to a few times and most people have never heard of Uh until it was in the news recently Lake levels there have dropped the height of the statue of liberty Uh the They have created an easter egg hunt of sorts of dead bodies being found as it recedes Uh, which is also troubling that there's dead bodies in a fresh water reservoir, but that's I guess that's just nature It's near the mob from from vegas Yeah, it's very close to las vegas. It's on the outskirts a little ways there and it is the largest water reservoir in the united states And it is is shrinking dramatically Many places experiencing above normal temperatures Low average rainfall ever changing climate We need to get a better grip on what's happening to the water that we count on and published in nature communications There's a study led by hulan gao the associate professor at texas a and m university The researchers there created a global lake evaporation volume data set g lab It leverages modeling and remote sensing to provide the first long term and monthly time series for 1.42 Million individual natural lakes and artificial reservoirs worldwide Some of the things that they found from their initial study here The volume of water loss to evaporation is increasing with global warming evaporation of evaporative water loss From reservoirs has been increasing at a rate of 5.4 percent per year The volume of loss currently is 15.4 percent larger than previous estimates And the quantity of reservoir evaporative loss is equivalent to 20 percent of the global annual consumption of water use So this is and then they've got what they're what they're calling of course reservoirs is both artificial and natural lakes that people draw water down from on a regular basis to wet communities Now we've talked a little bit about this before and I and I've I still have I get very uh I get a little pernicious about the whole water conservation efforts that are aimed at consumers There's a state of california was asking people Quite often we'll do this. It'll ask people. Hey, don't don't water Uh on these days or you know, don't wash your car because we're in a water shortage and But the consumer the the spraying the driveway down to wash it washing your car watering your lawn Doing your garden your shower and your bathing your dishes and all of those things In the within the state of california at least which is a good 40 million people It accounts for about 10 percent 10 to 11 percent of the water use of this state massive amounts go to other places so But it's very interesting that they they're finding such a a large and increasingly large loss from evaporation the city of los angeles tried to do something by By putting these like rubber or plastic black balls in one of their reservoirs to try to shade it from the sun in retrospect, they may have just added a Huge dose of micro plastics, right? Might be the only thing they accomplished But this does make the case for at some point needing to move the water supply underground somehow Disquested underneath for at least Not the natural reservoirs, but at least for the man-made ones Perhaps that could be a better option than just leaving it out in the sun to evaporate away well in the case of vegas and la two options that you give there, you know Naturally very dry places so even before climate change These things are going to have huge evaporative loss if you were doing above ground storage. So Knowing what we know now It would have been safer to do underground water storage in both of these situations, but and that is one of the things right in california gets discussed all the time is Transporting northern california's water to southern california by creating a 600 mile underground tunneling system because right now the water is just open Yeah, and it's putting the concrete channels and just sort of flows down and evaporates all the way along as it goes The aqueduct Yeah, but but also, you know, there's there's so much that's going to be It's such a dwindling resource. It's such a thing that people are going to be forced to focus on Yes, the entire southwest the entire State of Arizona if you fly over it's all swimming pools and golf courses It's ridiculous. It's the middle of a desert These are all things that people are going to have to address very soon although the export of water Through farming and manufacturing That makes up 89 Percent ish of the water usage is really Where it needs to start where the focus needs to start. I don't think Nobody should feel bad for having a garden that they water right right. Yes. You're not the problem You're not you're not causing the problem and you're not contributing to it either by watering your garden You're an insignificant. It's not even that it takes a community It's kind of the thing. It's you're even the whole community isn't the problem It's we need grass and lawns to be devalued as a society That is important. I agree to a great extent. I'm not a big fan Yeah Yeah, everybody having a patch of Useless grass. Yes, but if you wanted to put a vegetable garden We're using water like it's endless like it's an uh An endless resource and on top of that we are causing climate change and those two things are eating themselves and so It's a compounding problem. It should be an endless resource But I this is one of the rare things out there for the water thing John Oliver on his I think just the last show Did a a work up on water? Uh specifically, I think he talks about the colorado river a lot And how they they've been divvying up a pretend portion of the amount of water They they they've been divvying up an amount like okay, here's how the river here's how much water it is And here's what different states are going to be allotted from that But that number is for a number much greater than the actual river produces to begin with just to start the problem I'm from the absolute wrong foot to begin with and then it goes for the downhill from there, but it's a it's a good watch if you're interested in Oh my um Well, I need to use water to to keep nice and clean so that I smell nice Um and that way that I smell making sure I smell nice every day helps me make friends. Did you know that? Oh, well, that's why I don't have any friends Yeah, yeah. No, actually it turns out that your own personal fragrance Could influence who your friends are Other smelly people Yes, indeed But what do you mean by smelly? So we know that there are lots of different animals and particularly mammals Close relatives of ours who depend upon smell to identify each other and assess each other for all sorts of things for illness for Where they are in their mating cycle for uh, what they've been eating recently for All sorts of things, right? So the hormones lots of different things can be released by smell Sometimes microbiome can be influenced by smell a lot of the time actually So anyway, all that to say other animals do it. Why don't we well as you might expect I'm about to tell you we do A recent study tells us that people who smell smell similar Are more likely to hit it off as friends Since people seek people who are similar to themselves a lot of the time The hypothesis was that humans might subconsciously smell each other and estimate body odor similarity To judge compatibility not as mates, but as friends So to figure this out they collected samples from pairs of same-sex non-romantic friends Who described themselves as having clicked at first sight that is To mean like it was it was friendship at first sight They they had a friendship sense of friendship that formed immediately Before they knew too much about each other just kind of clicked We found 20 pairs of these friends It took a long time to find these people and find people who are willing to do the study I'm going to tell you what it took in a second Half of them were male half were female all of them were aged between 22 and 39 years old In order to take out as many confounding variables as possible The participants of the study had to follow a strict protocol which included avoiding pungent foods No garlic for you and sleeping away from their partner. They had a domestic partner and pets In a clean cotton t-shirt that was provided for them Then they were put into a ziplock bag and tested with an electronic nose Which that's just a fancy way to say it was sensors that analyzed chemical composition, right? It was the shirt that was put into the plastic. Yes. Yes. Okay, not the person Ah Yeah, um, they found that the odor signatures of friends that clicked right away were statistically more close Of a match than odors between non-friends So they were like, all right. This is a good start. This is I love when studies do this next step Next step. What do you think the next step was Justin? Oh gosh, I don't know smell tests, of course the team recruited human smellers They devised a set of tests to check the validity of this result from the t-shirts in the plastic bags The human smellers are presented with three odors two from a pair of click friends as they called them and one outlier They successfully identified the pairs Rejected the outlier said these two are similar. This one is not those were the friends then they wanted to kind of Shoot down the possibility that There's that the reason they smell alike is because they spend a lot of time together Because they're testing people after they've developed as friends They've self identified as close friends. So how do we how do we make sure that they didn't just Because that was my first thought was like, oh, you're setting a lot of time together Maybe you share a beverage. Maybe you do these other things hang out sweat near each other You're sharing microbiome. You're gonna smell the same, right? But how did they figure this out? So next They Wanted they recruited 17 strangers They had them interact with one another in a test called the mirror game. They stood half a meter apart So that they could subconsciously smell each other And then they were asked to mimic each other's hand movements for two minutes without talking to each other. So they were just like Trying to Do the same thing At each other very silly, but they weren't allowed to talk They found then they this is also this is also by this is also the first day of mime school Sure. Yes, absolutely Very similar They found that the closer people's smell were to each other the more they reported liking each other Understanding one another and feeling greater chemistry between each other Yes, this was 77 percent of cases cases were six were mutual clicks as they called them So they self they selected each other 77 percent of them and 68 percent of those were predicted by scent So this suggests that human same-sex non-romantic friends smells similar to each other More so than would be expected by chance And of course the recent one of the researchers says We think our results imply That we may also be more like other terrestrial mammals than we typically appreciate The age old oh, we're animals Yeah, so, you know, that's the thing is because that that is very logical and there has to be a majority of human Absolutely hominin history Where we relied on Our olfactory senses to navigate to get clues from the environment to tell what was going on But in this day and age All the different artificially smelly things and All that sort of stuff it it doesn't seem like because nobody talks about smell in this way You don't go to it's like oh, what do you think? Oh the place, uh, gosh it has this Smell nobody makes smell art So I guess I guess a perfume or uh We would disagree they're making smell art all the time, but Yeah smell museums. I don't know So I would be interested to see if somebody if somebody been friends for a really long time If They use different products now And their smell is significantly different than it was before Has that changed the relationships? and Are where you click friends with people 20 years ago And now you're click friends with people that smell completely different So I think that's that's what would be interesting is to see because Depending on the products you use I can tell you right now based on the five products that are in my hair because I have curly hair That probably dominates my smell And so, uh, that's not that's not all natural smells. That's not how I would be if I was out on the planes as a wild animal I wouldn't smell that like that. So it's definitely, you know, and some people have different hygiene habits and all these things kind of play socially into how they smell in a way that Just your average Mammal does not have we have all these tinctures So it's a little more complicated, but regardless the nose nose Yeah When it comes to romance as we've discussed but also friendship It just occurred to me that like this is about a month ago I'm sitting next to somebody And I just But I didn't know it was I was all of a sudden I smelled Uh sandalwood like Oh, that smells good. Is that you and it's check up this guy and I really like this person. I had this great conversation Now I'm thinking maybe maybe it was just because they smell like sandalwood. Do you smell like sandalwood normally? Yes. Oh interesting. Okay. Well there you go Yeah That's like that was and I didn't think of it at the time, but but yeah, I uh I have like that's the one ingredient that the one smelly ingredient that you can find in like soaps or deodorants Or shampoos or whatever that I'm like. Oh, that's the good That's the good smell Everything else is terrible. Well, and I'm just thinking I don't really know about your smell profile because I've met you in person less than 10 times probably and it changes It changes depending on Whether you know got out of it So I go and take a shower to start the day or if I go, you know I showered. What was it a couple days ago? I'll be fine I don't have to go to work today. I'll just you know, sit around there smelling that but you know a musky odor Musky. This is another thing. This is a whole other and I'll stop sub-tangent because this is all gets cut out anyway Yeah Hi kiki So yeah, I know so so smell preference. Yeah Who likes a musky smell that is in male colognes and deodorants? Who likes a very perfumey flowery scent in a lot of female perfumes And it seems like if you're get putting on this cologne to attract the other Sacks those people do when you go out to a club Just stand outside of a club as people go in and you'll just get Wafted by too much of one thing or the other. It's just oh, why did you have to? But like like I always had this idea that if I guess if you if my There would be if you wanted to attract the opposite sex and they liked Perfect, you would go Chanel number five and you'd be like doing this You would want to smell like the thing that they like and would put on their body Well, but okay, so Justin, hold on. I have to do really there Because there's a difference between friendship and courtship. So I'm talking about courtship, right? friendship similarity courtship difference In courtship you want genetic difference And in courtship when they've done all these smell tests for For courtship Compatibility it's always been who smells the most genetically different from you Is what the result ends up being and so It's a completely different metric. Yeah, okay. Well, that makes that that helps a lot that actually solves The age old question of why men don't wear girly perfume and women don't wear musky Lumberjacks, well, if you're me you just put a little vanilla You smell like It's perfect. Okay Justin tell me your other beginning of the show story. Oh, this was it my turn. Oh gosh, okay Uh, which one does it say there because I got a couple of it says plants without the sun Photosynthesis we need the sun for photosynthesis. You can't have plants without photosynthesis That's technological feat that plants have evolved to do turning water carbon dioxide energy from sunlight electrons Turning the plant biomass the tomatoes and avocados and everything else that we eat that's a vegetable And our fruit even this process according to researchers is very inefficient It's only about 1% of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant Yeah, you do better science and good old nature Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found a better way to do it. Oh wait By passing the need for biological photosynthesis all together Creating food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis three search published in nature food Uses a two step electro catalytic process to convert carbon dioxide electricity and water and to acetate the form Of the main component of vinegar The food producing organisms that they they apply here then consume acetate and the dark to grow Combined with solar panels To generate the electricity to power the electro catalysis. That's a little bit cheating using the sun again The hybrid uh organic inorganic system could increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight to food up to 18 times For some of the foods it's not like, you know, my first reaction to this was like, okay, great, but we don't have a sun shortage We don't have a we don't have a lack of sunlight that we need to make it more No, but so you were saying so the so this is using UV panels But they're saying that it's more efficient So if you used a solar panel to charge the UV panels, you'd grow things faster and bigger than if it was under the sun Okay But is that what they're saying is that it's it's more efficient than using the normal sun That yes that uh that they're using more of the energy captured on these solar panels than in this process now So we do we do have well, we don't really have a food shortage. We have a distribution problem, but still it's If that can if that can help reduce I guess Cost and make things easier to grow where there's not So there's there's really some neat applications. Yeah, let's hear it. Let's hear it. Okay. So this is quoting somebody corresponding author Robert Jinkerson who I think has a wonderful name I like that name and never heard it before Jinkerson a uc riverside assistant professor of chemical environmental engineering With our approach we sought to identify a new way of producing food That could break through the limits normally imposed by biological photosynthesis So in order to integrate all these components the system used Something called an electrolyzer Was optimized to support growth of food producing organisms And let me jump down to the experiments they had producing they were able to Use this acetate rich electrolyzer To grow things including green algae yeast fungal mycelium that's mushrooms Producing algae with this technique is approximately fourfold more energy efficient than growing it photosynthetically Yeast production is about 18 fold more energy efficient Then how it is typically cultivated using sugar extracted from corn. That's really interesting. That's got a maybe some Very intense biotech applications We were able to grow food producing organisms without any contributions from biological photosynthesis That's technology is a more efficient method of turning solar energy into food. But again, we're talking We got plenty of sun. It's not it's not a wasted Or you know finite resource But here's where it starts to get really interesting. That quote by the way was elizabeth hann doctoral candidate jinkerson lab co lead author of the study They can do this on mars They can do this on a Space station. They can do this you can grow this Use this this system Underground you can build an agricultural center this way In the basement of a large building in downtown san francisco My bunker I see Yeah, it says we found a wide range of crops could take the acetate We provided to build into major building blocks an organism needs to grow and thrive With some breeding and engineering that we are currently working on we might be able to grow crops So that's it is extra energy source is an extra energy source to boost crop yields This is marcus harlin dunway also doctoral candidate jinkerson lab Yeah, so getting rid of the sun we have More control over the growth process too so that if this If this synthetic farm is in a place it's getting hit by droughts or global warming is creating Very bad problems with the weather Whether it's increased cloud coverage or no rain or whatever it might be This creates a controlled environment to be able to continue to grow at a sustainable fixed rate So that you know what your agriculture is going to produce By again the dark so not everybody wants to eat mushrooms and algae But they were also able to do I think Oh, I don't see everybody was tomatoes and maybe even avocados Which is all the that's all I that's planning right there Uh, I live off of mushrooms. That sounds great Yeah, so uh as as many things Are going underground. We may need to put our water underground and our food sources underground as well How do they taste? Huh Would they taste any different? No, of course not. It probably tastes better Maybe it tastes better without all that I think about how soil quality impacts uh Plants and how they taste And if it's growing in this acetate medium, it's all kind of uniform, right? I don't know. It's just something I thought about. I don't know. Uh, so they don't they didn't actually mention Maybe that's maybe you just hit on the thing. Maybe that's why they don't bring it up. No They're like if we don't bring it up, no one will notice. No, it's uh, yeah, I don't know. I think it's interesting. It does seem like um A disruptive to use like a tech term right like a disruptive method for growing plants. Oh, it's interesting Here's the other here's the here's that list I was looking for of things that they investigated that they were able to To to grow in the system cow pee Tomato tobacco rice canola and green pea were all able to utilize carbon from acetate when cultivated In the dark grown in the dark Did you say cow pee? So Yeah, it's pea. Okay I I got so confused. I was like we were just talking about cow pee last week to fertilize plants But we were also talking about cow pee last week was uh, there's a virus that attacks the cow. Oh, oh my gosh Guys, call it something else call it something else Anyway, okay, I get it. It's fine Yeah growing plants, uh in space on mars In a bunker. I love it. Let's do it in the in the middle of an urban area where you have you don't have You know the the Acreage to dedicate to an open area farm You can grow uh plants with that soon. Love it All right. Well, if you just tuned in You listen you're listening to this week in science where we're just done with the quick stories halfway through the show Um, I'm blair basher. That's justin jackson. Dr. Kiki is off this week. It's just the two of us If you would like to help support twist get a friend to subscribe today Just tell somebody about our little show and uh, have them plug in join the fun Justin, do you want to talk about any covid news this week or can we skip it because there's enough other bad news going on? So I the only story I was gonna bring and I didn't Bring it was about a cat that gave a vet Tenerian Covid okay, and was apparently that's the bring that I didn't bring it because it's not a study Right, and and it was And I'm gonna talk about it because it's not a study Ah, you can't take the one off The doctor's like very sure that he got covid because the cat sneezed on him while he was testing it Right, but he also went to the grocery store recently Well, also the entire family that has the cat that brought the cat in also has covid currently. Oh, interesting Why I don't know And it's a one-off thing So That's why Yeah, definitely debatable sample size of one. Um, no causality interesting. Anyway, just to be safe No, don't say it yourself moving moving on Um, it is time Where's my music? It's time For that part of the show. What part of the show is it Justin? Is it time for Blair's animal corner with Blair? Yeah, Blair. I have so many fun stories. Okay, so first of all, I want to talk to you about wood Okay, I know it's the animal corner But I want to talk to you about wood They're not animals But animals need them and I want to talk about wood in streams So, uh, this is a study out of oregon state university looking at How wood is treated in streams by land managers? now for a very long time Before the 1970s specifically pretty much the whole time there were White people in the united states before the 1970s land managers Recreationists and the public saw wood in rivers and they thought it looked it kind of like dirty and messy undesirable Uh, they thought that it would kind of create log jams create flood risk impede navigation and transport if you're trying to use the stream as a way to get from point a to b Just look like debris. They wanted these clean Flat glistening rivers And so the way that land managers are seeing where this is going the way that land managers took care of these they removed deadfall from rivers As is often the case When we walked on the scene we were like i'm gonna fix it all Turns out there's a reason that these things are that way There's also a reason that the original stewards of this land The the native americans Understood these things left them as they were right. This is a this is a conversation We have in relation to fires and all sorts of other things related to land management If you want to learn about land management talk to the original land managers, right? anyway Since the 1970s land managers have then they then realized Actually pieces of wood in streams are important for fisheries It's an important piece of fish habitat creates shade Creates cover It does all slows down water does all sorts of things to help fishes survive And so they started putting large pieces of wood back in streams for fisheries But this recent organ state university study wanted to see How wood in streams impacts terrestrial animals How does that impact birds and land-based animals? We know that it impacts fish. But what do these pieces of wood do for them? You can probably guess they looked at a year of footage for motion triggered videos That they set up near multiple large log jams um in a creek just west of corvallis And they found the hidden role of wood in streams What did they find? What do you think? I don't know. Ah, that's good What do you think they're using the wood for birds and land mammals? Uh Places to land to get a drink of water. Absolutely. What else? Oh more else uh place to hang out while they're bathing Sure. What else? Places to go over to swim Well, so they don't need the wood to swim right because there is the water What but you want to dive off of you got to jump off of it So the number one is the food source collection on there That is a big one But the number one use of log jams is movement. They have to traverse the streams So they're using the wood to get from one side to the other They've observed 40 species species during that period mule deer raccoons kingfishers chipmunks deer mice western gray squirrels opossums robins they observed all sorts of animals movement was 68 percent of the occasions rest 18 percent just going on a nice float Food handling and eating nine percent that was one of the ones that you brought up and so um They saw all this diverse use of this space that is essential to survival So that means this is important information for land managers moving forward Because there is this additional value of restoration projects that involve Placing wood back into streams. So yet again here we are going. Oh, we messed it up. Let's put it back like it was and so so we're putting wood back in streams to provide not just space for fisheries to thrive but also bridges for animals feeding platforms Rafts for resting any number of things Yeah, and so uh, this is a really good example of examining conventional wisdom and finding evidence to see why nature had it like that it's There's been around for a long time Streams and logs have been around for a lot longer than we have so if they're working this way There's probably a good reason for that Yeah, it's also interesting because uh, a lot of those immigrants that came to the united states that then decided to You know fix the rivers Came from places that had heavily polluted rivers In waterways. I mean there was like it was a real thing There was like die-off like fish were dying in the rivers and britain run Uh urban areas because it was just A just horrible right well and if you think about rivers in an urban area Like think think about the Thames in london. You don't see a lot of logs floating in the Thames It's because you're not in a forest Yeah, that's why it's all clean and clear even though it's like pretty gross. I think Um, but it's it appears that way If you're pristine because there's nothing to fall in it, but stuff falling in there is part of Nature turns out you know, it's a part of part of nature. Justin Oh a lot of things is I got I would have a big list if I just started. Yeah, how about getting bit by an insect? Oh, yeah, that's the part. That's one of my less Favorite things about nature. Yes. Well university of bon in germany Researchers found it very important to discover how hard insects can bite Um, yes Some more than others. I was gonna give them that that is uh, Some of you don't even notice you go. Oh look. I have a mark something must have bitten me I don't know what it was because I didn't look in and then other times You know, they it's like they're gonna take a limb Right and so I also want to make sure before I go any further to remind everybody that there's a difference between bite strength and pain Those things are distinct. There is actually a good amount of data. Thanks to some crazy scientists who didn't mind getting bitten and ranking bites and stings on a pain index We have quite a bit of data on how painful certain bites and stings are But that is not always a direct relationship with how hard they're biting Sometimes it is the way they bite if they pinch Um, it has to do with venom It has to do with all sorts of kind of different factors that figure into how painful they are But there is hardly any data available on how hard insects bite That is important to know Because there's a whole bunch of different morphology when it comes to insects They have different types of mandibles different musculature different head shapes And all of those have evolved to meet different challenges from their environments Sometimes it might be advantageous to bite hard because Biting hard might save their lives if they are using this protection It also might directly relate to what kind of food they eat But if they don't need a hard bite It might be better to evolve a softer bite because it has a lower energetic cost The more you use muscles the harder you bite down The more energy you're spending And so the bite force of an insect actually has really interesting ecological implications And conservation implications So these researchers wanted to develop an apparatus to test insect bites They hold an insect up to a sensor It defends itself by biting down on two metal plates And then they transfer the pressure To a crystal the crystal generates a low dependent voltage that is transmitted to a laptop via an amplifier And so they have these differently sized interchangeable bite plates the system is better powered It's kind of like one of those uh those grip tests or those love meters that you'd find in the old fashion arcade You grab the thing and hold it and then it would Tell you how your date was gonna go Exactly. Yeah hot stuff Here let me I wanted to show you a picture of this apparatus But it's it's really hard for me to do both things at once. So I'm gonna vamp vamp vamp. Here we go. So here is a beetle A stag beetle biting the metal plates of the sensor And so again this thing is battery powered so they can bring it out to the field And I love this for stinging insects. They didn't want to get stung while they were holding the insect So they have a vial that can attach to this thing So that the whole insect isn't a vial except for the head and mouth parts Which protrude from a little hole then they can poke it up at this this metal plate Usually when you hold an insect up to these metal plates, they're like what's coming at my face bite But if they don't bite right away Then they just stroke the insect heads gently with a delicate brush and that just kind of irritates them into biting So it's not invasive, which is great. Um, you can pick an insect up measure their bite and put them right back down in the wild I love it. Um, but yeah, so from this you can extrapolate information on what they eat um potentially what predators are they're defending against and um conservation wise If a particular food source is disappearing knowing what an animal is adapted to eat can help identify replacements So that's also really important. Um, but yeah, I I think this is such a cool Um, innovative way to study something that hasn't really been looked at before Yeah, that's pretty neat. Oh insect bites And last I have a story that I know Justin's very excited to talk about. Yes. This is I think my favorite story of the The week even this is a story from university of kent and university of st. Andrews And it is a story of chimpanzees digging wells So talking about water storage under water This is a strange. This is a one-off case that i'm just gonna uh Kind of tell the story of so this is not um Any sort of empirical study. This is not something that's that's you know, there's a hypothesis being tested This is something that was observed That is wild that requires further research now So this is um In y birak the y birak chimp community of the east african chimpanzees in uganda There was this chimp that was introduced to the community called On yofi and she was a young female who arrived in 2015. She was immediately very Good at digging wells She So the expectation is that perhaps she grew up in a well digging community We don't know she just kind of showed up started digging wells for fresh water Since then several other young chimps in her community in her new community um And adult females have been seen digging wells But no adult males Yeah, this is right. This is uh, no, no, they're just gonna wait till the the well is dug and then Oh, they've used them the males use the wells They just don't dig them. Yeah But see that's another thing. I love that this one shows up with this skill this technology this this practice that it's Gonna dig down and get it some of that water that's underneath the the soil for the fresh water and rest Start picking it up. They watch they go. Oh, that's a cool trick. Didn't know you could do that And now they're mimicking the behavior. Yeah, no, absolutely. And so, um There's a few very rare instances in the animal kingdom of animals digging wells to access water But Usually that is in a very arid or desert region. This is in a rainforest this is the first time it's ever been seen in rainforest chimps and The what's really interesting is in a lot of cases They are doing this Near another water source Really close to open water So either this water is better filtered and they know that or what I think is the more likely option is that it tastes better The the water tastes better And so they dig for it because they have ample water accessible to them, but they will wait diligently while While on yoffie is digging until she's done And then go in for drinks. They'll actually what's really interesting is the males will Wait, they'll wait patiently for her to dig a well and drink before they go ahead and drink from her well, which In chimp culture, it would make way more sense for the male to kind of like shove her aside as soon as she's done And then take a drink, but they're like, no, no, no, no. She's our well digger We have we have to treat her well Whatever the well digger wants Exactly. Yeah Yeah, and so she's been um Carefully watched by both young chimps and other adults So this appeared to be a novel behavior when she showed up and what they really want to know is What is going to happen in the next generation? What's going to happen when these young males because young males have have learned to dig wells from her It's just the old The old ones that haven't haven't bothered to to learn new tricks Right. Are the young males when they grow up, are they going to continue to dig wells? um And how will information continue to be disseminated? Are they all going to teach the next generation after this how to dig wells and use this new strategy? and I think um Aside from this just being a really cool thing that happened um And a really cool example of how smart chimps are and animals are in general this is I think A good reminder that if we understand how new skills are learned within an animal community We can actually use that to our advantage for conservation. So For example If animals are from a an area where water was always prevalent And as we previously discussed in the show Water sources are drying up If we can teach wild animals how to dig their own wells Will that help their survival in the time of climate change and and by teach we mean, you know Like transplant an individual who knows how to do it and they can teach each other and all that good stuff Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's such a uh, I mean, that's not it's it's not an intuitive technology The only thing I guess I could I'm trying to think of what What I've seen that does that and I'm thinking it's uh I think elephants Elephants dig out a well in an arid place. I think to get to the the groundwater I think I've seen that Gosh, but I don't know what else can really do that, but it's it's I want to know where's this other tribe. She she came from Yeah, I know I want more information about that. They honestly might not know Yeah, um Because it'd be interesting to see if they're still or if the reason is they're They're their water sources full of predators You hang out there and so they're just afraid to go to their water source and it turned out this Oh, we'll just dig our little wells here instead of going over there I like the filtered idea that makes that makes tremendous sense too because it's That's probably gonna be a lot That's the most filtered water in the world. It actually is stuff that springs up from underground and is considered pure spring water It goes through all that Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So I think yeah, this is a this is a very cool Example of another way that that apes are really smart um And I know fada in the chat room asked Is it possible that these chimps have interacted with humans And saw humans digging wells and are imitating that behavior. It's possible Again, we don't know where she came from so so we so I Have no idea if that's something that she was taught from a human or from other chimps or it is If she came from an arid region, I think it's very possible that that's just normal chimp behavior where she comes from So I don't know more study is needed as is open space Yeah, and it could have been a completely accidental chimpanzee discovery Digging out a termite mound or something. Oh, absolutely going down far enough to like. Oh, hey, if you keep no idea get the water Yeah, what I thought was interesting that you didn't uh Touch on is that they had crafted metal shovels to do the digging for the well, that's the part you left out I thought that was the It was the shoveling bucket technique that they oh, yeah Well, you know chips and tools they're they're good little tool makers So it's terrifying about them. Anyway, that's all I got for the animal corner tonight Hey, if you're interested in a twist shirt or mug or another item of twist merchandise Usually with animals on them head to twist.org and click on the zazz a link to browse our store Now, Justin, what science do you bring me this evening? Oh, I don't remember what we're not doing next But I think it's gonna be the cave story the cave story The cradle of humanity Is in africa this is this a long time ago when the first hominins started to show up Uh about 84 years ago. No, it was way before that but about 84 years ago a cave in south africa was discovered To contain a rich history of early hominin fossils. It's actually got It's just one stop shopping for an anthropologist there One area there was fossils of early homo. This is the earliest of the human line Be it ever so winding Dating back 1.5 to 1.8 million years in another spot in these caves is stone tools and later versions of homo along with paraanthropus, which is a a distinctly More ape-like group of early hominins was also there at around the same time These date between 1.1 and 1.6 million Years ago, so we have this nice transition from early homo to kind of a more modern homo and even some of the a side by side or possibly intermingling There as well And yet another area there was discovered Australopithecus africanus the most Ancient of all human species dating back from About 2 to 2.6 million years So there's now millions of years of evolution here in this one cave as hominins evolved So did their technology and latest discoveries thanks to an evolution in technology and tactics previously The Australopithecus in the cave system was dated in relation to the calcite and a flowstone It was presumably Covering some of the fossils and material And this is sort of typically a kind of thing that is done When when dating really really ancient sites fossil sites like this you can't just test The fossils themselves to get a date. It's that old so Very typical of ancient dating techniques It's not always the direct object That you wish to date that gives you the range, but there's something else in the environment something that covers it layers of soil In the specific type of growth the rock like You can get some some of that calcite that they look at One of the techniques that they use is is when water flows and creates these these calcite these deposits inside of a cave It brings the uranium with it but leaves the throwing behind and so you just have A a half life countdown clock of uranium at the site things like this There's all sorts of things that they have to use Uh new research presented in the paper published in the journal. P. Nass re-evaluates the age of these astrophithecus because One of the things that they had kind of been aware of or become aware of is that the flow In the calcite that they were measuring is not as old as the rest of the cave So they found a new technique the new age is Based on radioactive decay of rare isotopes aluminum 26 and beryllium 10 in the mineral quartz According to the university of wit waters strand professor dominick strafford director of research in the caves the new age ranges From 3.4 to 3.6 million years indicating that hominins were contemporaries of other early astrophithecus species Like astrophithecus afarensis in east africa So that's like lucy. That's like the oldest house. So and this has sort of been a thing You have east africa where they've got three and a half million year old Astrophithecus and then south africa has two and a half million years So there's a million years of astrophithecus running around To the point that the astrophithecus in south africa Was thought not to be a human ancestor because The early homo species showed up. They thought too soon In relation to that So it must have been sort of a dead ender, but that also happened to run into The evolved hominin later on Yeah, with this new dating technique The astrophithecus gets pushed back a million years In south africa and now fits Actually the rest of so even though even though it's a radical pushback In timeline It's it's actually a very It fits the rest of the puzzle pieces that had been laid out over time So it's not really a a radical discovery in that sense A new new evolving techniques better observation And we get more accurate dating This is why we keep this stuff, man Like This is this is I report on this kind of stuff in the animal corner all the time that like These museum specimens we've had for a hundred years were identified as the wrong species And actually it's this other thing and we learned this item about it because we have Whale pelvises from the past 100 years from a bunch of different speeds, you know, like it's just As science gets better, we're gonna hone in more and more and more on what actually came before us and It's yeah, I love that it fits the story so much better. That's great That that means we were on to the right track there Yeah, and it was also It was also just sort of interesting because in this one cave area You see all the sort of uh landmark points of evolution Showing up was a popular cave. Yeah popular cave. It's a great place to hang out apparently Until it wasn't Until you can't get caved in and became a time capsule And now it's a great place to hang out again if you're an anthropologist But but the it looked such like a such a transitional linear transitional location for it to uh not have been That linear linear again. This is this is also not far from you know, but in the latter. This is all braided stream anyway It's all everything And my final story of the night is also looking at Oh gosh, we're gonna just we're gonna be taking this if we're going back to the chimps Another point. I love it. Take me back to the chimps Human gut is full of beneficial bacteria assisting our digestion our immune system nervous system or cognitive help even some of these passengers on spaceship earth, although They're not really passengers are they they're more like the crew Some of these microbial crew members on spaceship human have been associated with our guts since before humans existed We share certain gut microbes with almost all primates suggesting Then that they first colonized a common Common human ancestors common ancestor with with even before hominins Then a common ancestor with all primates Humans Have lost many of these helpers found in other primates and may still be losing even more as we move from rural urban environments To cities and change our diet and get involved with antibiotics and the like Those absent gut microbes What were they doing? How do they affect human health? Were they good? Were they bad? They just don't need it anymore So the microbiome is we're talking bacteria fungi viruses other microscopic life That inhabit an individual that individual can be a person a plant to worm human microbiome, of course we talk about the gut The more Biologists study these gut microbiome the microbes the more they link bacteria To functions of the hosts and humans again, that's immune system responses Allergies whether or not we have an allergy They interact with our brain it affect mood cognition things Andrew molar Evolutionary biologists Cornell University and colleagues reported previously that human gut microbes Are very similar to those in other primates suggesting the presence of predates the evolution of modern humans And in follow-up studies they found that human gut microbiome has become less diverse Than the gut microbes of our current primate cousins One study found 85 microbial genera such as bacterioids and such in the guts of wild apes 85 but just 55 Genera and people in the united states and living in in u.s. Cities Splitting the difference people unless developed parts of the world Would have between 60 to 65 of those bacterial groups so It's it's there's a a shedding of Of the familia microbial as we become more urbanized and probably go to a very different Less less farmed a table. I would assume diets less dirty also. Don't you think? that's We hyper clean everything Don't you think that would impact our our microbiome depends on what you mean by clean so All is a lot less alive in processed food than in processed food. Yes Fresh food. Yes, but if you if you if by defining clean, you're like, I don't want any chemical additives Oh, well, I don't want any plastics in my body. Well, I mean this is I'm talking about bacteria That's what we're talking about bacteria. Yeah, I know But there's other things that are getting into the body that you might consider clean like micro plastics Oh clean micro black. Let me get a lot of those. That's exactly what I'm saying is that you talking about, you know There's a lot less Creepy crawlies on our food, which is actually probably the the the crawlies are good for us the bacteria We need some of those maybe Maybe I mean all our food is still grown in in A manure Yeah, but we don't eat so much raw meat is the thing We well some people do but yeah, uh, I don't know that people but people think Who's eating the raw meat? Who are these raw meat eaters who you're talking about? Oh, yeah, they don't cook their food yet. No, you gotta have a conversation. That's what I mean That's what I'm talking about the microbiome, right is it's all We cook our food We flash freeze our food. Yeah, we you know, you know, it's funny treat our food Yeah, you know, it's funny though. I was I was literally not thinking about the the intersection of of uh, modern human versus champion chimpanzee when you were when you were saying these things I was thinking of Uh city dweller versus world dweller Because city girl because I'm still a little raw when city girl was soon by a little town of davis I mean 70 miles inland was just chicken coops and wandering cattle. Yeah, that was Just take a bite out of one that passes by I'm like, we don't eat raw meat just because we live 70 miles from the city. We also have paved roads and even the streets like got put in But you're in my microbiome not that different Yeah, probably not very different. So, yeah, they're pointing to like, oh, there's all these things. There's the there's the urbanization There's changes in diet antibiotic use stress hygiene. They point out better hygiene possible contributors loss of human get microbes Uh So there's there's all these factors moment colleagues Looked at genetic markers and broadly identified what genera bacteria and other microbes were present Now they want to they've taken a closer look at exactly what microbial species have gone missing From the human gut to try to compile the full genomes of the current gut microbes and our closest relatives And he says here, yeah, you can tell what went extinct by looking at what's in other primates So they collected all this they got uh chimps bonobos themselves Sequencing the dna feces to see what's there. They also accumulated another Other samples of gorillas and other primates from from researchers. They even used some ancient dna From from human populations and Basically, they say that humans have lost 57 Of the hundred or so branches or clades of microbes currently found in chimps and bonobos It's not happening the groups They were able to estimate When some of the human gut microbes disappeared few a few were lost thousands of years ago And some have disappeared much more recently with again city dwellers having lost most Already efforts are underway to collect and preserve microbes from people who live far away from cities In case they have conserved some of the missing microbes Kyle Meyer a microbiologist at uc berkeley argues such losses are not necessarily a problem Maybe we don't need them he points out but molar the researcher Conducted this study says We are really doing some scary stuff to our microbiomes. He warns so depending on what What opinion you have? Yeah, it's not a big deal. It's probably just stuff we didn't need or Now this is why we have Asthma, this is why we have so much stress. This is why Whatever could be there could be like all sorts of That, you know, there could be microbes that are that we used to keep us healthier Or they might have just made it so that we could drink puddle water But by collecting these Seeing their interactions testing at learning and oh very important preserving and identifying and preserving the missing members of the current human microbiome We can the the researchers plan to be able to See what their effects were Whether or not they are beneficial and then you could of course create a probiotic based on a bonobo Yes, give me it Please give me a bonobo probiotic the bonobo probiotic. I don't think they had tummy aches as often as I do Give me it Oh boy all right, well Justin do you have any final comments? No, that was that was it and we did we didn't finish though. You still got stories, right? No, I'm not done. That's it. Did we just oh look at that. We are right at a tight 90 Except we started late. So we're actually under time So we're just so what we do is we do the end of the show Yeah, extra slow. Yeah. Yeah, that's true take our time Well, I hope you enjoyed the show tonight. Justin, do you have any final comments you want to add? No Okay, great. Well shout outs to fata for his help with social media and show and show notes shout outs for show notes Gord for manning the chat room identity for for recording the show rachel for all of the assistants Especially thank you very much this week rachel for all of the editing assistants And I'd like to thank our patreon sponsors for their generous support Let's see if I can do this as effectively As the great kiki. Thank you too Teresa smith james schaefer Richard badge kent northcote rick loveman pierre velezarb ralph e Figueroa john ratna swami carl cornfield karan tazi woody ms chris wasniak david bun vigard schivstad Hal snider donathan styles aka don stylo john lee ali coffin gaurav sharma ragan derrick schmitt don mundus steven albert albaran daryl Stu pollock andrew swanson freddes 104 sky luke paul ronovitch kevin reardon noodles jack brian carrington matt Bass vote betto for texas john mckay greg riley mark hesson flow john telier steve lesmond aka zima ken haze howard tan christopher rapid dana piercin richard brendon minnish johnny gridley remi day flying out christopher drier artyom greg briggs john atwood rudie garcia dav wilkinson rodney lewis paul philip shane curt larson sue duster jason oldes david neighbor eric nap e o kevin perichan erin luthan steve debel bob calder marjorie paul disney david simmerley patrick peccararo tony steele and jason roberts That is a lot longer than the last time i read patreon supporters and that is awesome Thank you for all your support on patreon all of you if you're interested in supporting us and joining the crew You can find information at patreon.com slash this week in science Remember, I don't know if we even brought it up last week. There will be no show next week Two out of three hosts will be in limbo therefore No show next week, but we will be back on wednesday july 13th at eight pacific time Broadcasting live from our youtube and facebook channels and from twist.org slash live Want to listen to us as a podcast? Just search for it this week in science wherever podcasts are found if you enjoyed the show Get your friends to subscribe too for more information on anything you've heard here today Show notes and links to stories will be available on our website. That's at www.twist.org And you can also sign up for a newsletter that I will at some point, right? You can contact us directly email kirsten at kirsten at thisweekinscience.com Justin at twistminion at gmail.com or blair at blairbaz at twist.org Just be sure to put twist somewhere in the subject line otherwise your email will be spam filtered into a chimp well That's right. And nobody wants to go down there looking for that. It'll get all soggy You can also hit us up on twitter where we are at twist science at dr kiki at jackson fly and at blairs menagerie We love your feedback If there's a topic you would like us to cover or address our suggestion for an interview, please let us know We will be back here the Next next week. Yeah, two weeks captain two weeks Hope you'll join us again for more great science news And if you've learned anything from the show remember It's all in your head That's the show Justin ran away But i'm still here He'll be back soon. I hope everyone enjoyed that. I hope it wasn't a little too short Surprisingly, I felt like it was gonna run long and then it It kind of just all wrapped up which was nice Nice tight 90 for kiki. How's everybody doing tonight? She said to the silent chat room I'm gonna open discord. I think that's what I'm missing. I need to open my discord buddies Yes, fada. We're not trying to go under 90 kiki needs 90 She needs a full 90 not too much not too little What do we have in the twist discord today? I have not opened this In quite some time Oh, yes, I don't know if any of us want to know what our smell profile is That might be a little Little too revealing. It's very subjective. I think Are there someone it's what their smell is all about I don't know gourd's very tired Yeah, I think I'm tired too gourd. It's just everything I'm tired Aren't we all Yeah, I do wonder also what that cave was for. You're right. Was it a dating cave? Was it a nightclub? That's where all the the skulls were in there Really it's from a wash pit, right? You gotta Get all those head injuries Anyway, is everyone doing good tonight besides gourd who's tired and me who's tired There he is He's back and we're in the after show. We certainly are Yeah, how are you doing Justin? I'm gonna sit down How am I doing? Oh, what kind of a question is that? How am I doing? Uh, uh, just fine Just fine. The uh, the weather here has been hot Muggy it's been hot and muggy in Denmark interesting It was muggy today actually here Yeah, actually, this is it very much reminded me of a hot san francisco week Where you still have all of that that moisture In the air from being next to the ocean and all and then there was no wind And just it felt hotter than it was I think because it's it's a sweaty heat Which is coming from 70 miles inland. It's all it is It's a it's a proverbial Desert basically where agriculture thrives Uh, not used to the the mugginess of it all And it's it's also it's also I think partly even though it's Denmark. It's it's very warm because it's the sun Is shining uh on the isle of of denmark Seasoning here all the time Yeah, when does it get dark there? When does it get dark? I think it gets I don't know what it is now. I want to say it's like 10 o'clock And then the sun comes back out at like 3 in the morning somewhere around there. It's they're very Yeah, you should google it. I I haven't really It just doesn't seem Like it's ever The sun is 10 p.m 10 p.m. Goes down sunset 4 30 a.m 4 30 a that's wild Yeah, yeah, it really is and that's that's I mean and it's it's light at 3 30 I can I can say that like it's already The glow is there the birds are waking up doing their whole early morning thing Uh before even 4 30, so it's It's very strange. Yeah All right, how is everything how are you doing there? And uh, is everything has everything back in the states do you guys keep everything? Oh, yeah, everything's doing great. I don't know what you've heard Nothing there wasn't like a major downfall of modern society in the last seven days or anything don't even trip about it Yeah Yeah Yeah, it's upsetting. It's yeah, I don't Well, I'm disheartening The only thing the only thing that uh, I can I I really My main Comment that has been stuck in my head Is that This is this is what they said they were wanted to do For a really long time. No, this has been a this has been the plan since the day That verdict was passed in the 70s Yeah in the plan since day one. Well, but it has it hasn't I mean it increased considerably over time the amount of effort and focus because Because the the one thing that also that you have to the when looking at Why changing a precedent like this is such a big deal is these particular justices are saying Not just that they have reviewed it And talked amongst themselves and decided that this should not be a precedent anymore that this case was ruled on But they're also disagreeing With all of the previous justices who have upheld it So they're saying we're not just we're not just a group of Of four out of the nine or five or whatever six. Was it six to three? I don't even know what the final Or yeah, I think it was because it was a super majority. Yeah, it's it's it's this six versus You know 20 other previous supreme justices. It's it's that energy of someone who walks into a job The very first day After that that workplace has been operating for hundreds of years and they go Nana I'ma change all this Oh, it's it's it's definitely it's definitely new coach new manager syndrome They get get the reins and there's like now we're gonna run things the way I want it actually we hired you to maintain Yeah, yeah To mention they all said under oath that they wouldn't do it and then they did it anyway, so Yeah, so there's all there's lying to congress was involved, but there's There's also there's also when When you know, there was a provision in NAFTA that prevented California from Was it mtbe's what was the there was an additive to the fuel that turned that was supposed to burn cleaner To make the fuel less polluting that was getting added To fuel in california And it turned out that this particular additive, but I think it's mtbe's was the camera one Was eating through the hulls of the the fuel containers underneath gas stations and creating leaks So california is like oh, we got to get rid of this but under NAFTA chapter 11 There is this provision that if you pass a law or change your laws That negatively affects The contracts that already exist in a business You could be you would be liable for not just the losses, but future earning potential losses, too That you would be you'd be on the hook for all of the losses of the company going forward based on that That thing that you changed it got used There so california ended up phasing out slowly over a very long time as opposed to just banning right away like they should have It also had some weird implications for mortuary services and the way that they operated Like there's all these weird places where this law would show up Where even though you passed a law that changed Use of formaldehyde and wood or whatever it was companies could sue to keep those things there Other or you'd have to pay them an exorbitant amount So I part of me is like well, okay This is this is a change in law that is forcing changes in contract It is a contract then to raise this child That's a contract that you have to enter into as a parent not just to be pregnant and give birth But then to raise this child the ones it is here This is a contract that the government's legal changes about they should be on the hook for every dollar For every penny of that child food clothing health care education everything Which it already should be That's one don't it don't start with shoulds right now That's a long list Justin, but that's that's one that's one way I would I would at least try to attack the law But it's still a right. It's infringing on the fourth amendment the right to privacy It's a medical procedure infringing. It's you can't There are so many situations where people will be in real medical peril And they will be denied health care Aside from the fact that it should be 100 of a woman's choice Anyone with a uterus should be able to make that decision for themselves right That all aside It's a medical procedure that saves lives Yeah, and so so the the folks, you know, we we talk about we we get this gets framed a lot as a religious And so the whole if it is if you are going to say that there's a religious objection Then the separation of church and state Just right there should prevent that from being law Justin the the supreme court just allowed prayer in schools. So don't even It's not none of it. It's none of it's there. None of its constitutionally should be upheld, right? So there's that as well Also, we have to look at the other side that's supporting this, you know, we're a big, you know We didn't really get into it but part of the support for the Comstock law working on ways to limit abortion and in contraception And they ended up being laws against divorce that were being passed as well a lot of that Momentum that was anti abortion was also replacement theory Was also white supremacy was a much bigger Spoken about reason for opposing abortion Back in the 18 late 1800s Then it is day. I'm telling you it's still motivation today. It's just not the part. They're gonna speak out. They're gonna they're gonna say it's the religious objection And not the white being pro white supremacy, but that's that is Still very much part of why this is. Oh for sure. And then And then and that's this is arguments that are that are Casting aside the fact that we have decided to limit rights for a specific category of people But we already do that Justin Right, and I do that for lots of groups. So this isn't new but yeah It is it is scary when things are taken away. It's frustrating when you can't get rights for specific groups It's especially frustrating when it's suddenly taken Yeah I think that's the part that's especially shocking is like when you can't pass reforms to help with racial equality and to help improve the financial situation of oppressed people and all these certain, you know Fixed policing and all these things when those things aren't passed. That's frustrating and it's it's infuriating in its own way But this was I think this took so many people by surprise because this was a win That was taken away A right that was taken away, which is not something that you're used to having happen. No As an american that's usually are going to and now they're focused. They're gonna they're going to keep going They're not done. This is you're talking. Yeah prayer in school came right after Now you're gonna get uh, you're gonna get limitations of other rights for other select groups And they're gonna come for everybody eventually with all this until it gets So we throw out the supreme court and just do away with it. It was a bad idea It it would have been fine if everyone was actually impartial if it wasn't a politicized office Oh also in the fact that you know, we got what is it four? Is it four or five of the justices now? Were put in oh by people who didn't win the popular vote Their popular vote for the election Yeah, and and you know laws that are that are being used to block by states that don't have a population large enough To sway an election on the national level as well But still get representation It's not a it's not a true democracy in the united states and and I've been answering questions here Who cannot but Europe cannot believe The draconian Authoritarian I want to hear more about that. I'm not hearing the discourse from other countries Oh, we don't get that here. I want that I want to hear. It's not fun discourse I have to keep saying I know it's not fun But I feel like that's what's missing is we need to be publicly shamed by other countries Yeah, but there's so much like I have deflected that shame immediately. Well, I'm from california so This is my she's like you have to realize the united states is just united under an umbrella like the european union, but you know You probably have a few european countries That don't have the the same ethos But if they did this they would be sanctioned is the difference That or just you know, but they wouldn't have the sway over all of europe And that's the weird thing that the united states has done is given It has given the senate The ability to do things they have the electoral college Which is such I like that's not that's the first thing you learn about When you're when you're studying civics and politics and and how it all works in the united states where you go Well That that doesn't seem right or fair democratic. That's the first clue that you get that like something's not Something wasn't designed correctly here That you have this thing called the electoral college that actually chooses a president three different times in the last 20 years over The popular vote over the will of the people And it's absolutely ridiculous and the united states needs to fix that to call itself a democracy Well, and then you have justices and congresspeople making decisions that don't mirror the actual opinion of the people that they're supposed to represent Which is also the problem Which is supposed to be a representative government, but it's not representative because they're doing whatever they want And and so but that's but that's okay, but that's okay That should be fine and it really should be you shouldn't just The that's what the supreme court is kind of supposed to be it supposed to be the heavy that says I know you politicians want this law And I know the people voted for you and the people might even be in favor of it, but it's It's not constitutional it's not it's not something that we can have as a law because it's it harms specific groups and infringes on their rights There's supposed to be that bulwark that sort of defends The constitution what we have instead though is this is this is now we have political ideologues But justin who made the constitution? Well, hang on before you before you get to who made the constitution. I know I know a long time ago, but But you have people who are also supposed to be updating it The the justices are supposed to be impartial to the political Sort of this but are supposed to reinterpret for the modern era that we live in Right, but they're reinterpreting for the modern era To a certain extent based on the will of the people because Because Go ahead Okay, I I don't think it's necessarily to the will of the people See, I think that was the whole point of them having lifetime appointments and being immune from politics And we've had supreme courts that got it right and got it wrong But we're you know had a had a vigorous debate over these as core issues Of of law now what we have is people who've thrown that out and that's what we've always tried to prevent Justin, I'm gonna I'm gonna push back on that. I think you're totally wrong I think the will of the people the majority of freedoms that we have gained in this past century is because The majority has demanded it It is a new freedom that has been demanded by the by the people That's what I mean is that there is a time when the majority of people go No, this isn't right fix this problem and it gets fixed And the majority of people did not want any of the things that happened this week And that's what I'm saying is that when you're talking about When you're talking about awarding freedoms that have been ignored in the past That is usually because of public pressure. It is not because the supreme court decided, you know what now we're gonna change this thing Well, but uh to an extent To an extent, it's not that in the past that they've decided to but a case comes up That isn't necessarily popular like I don't know If the civil rights movement didn't happen Then brown versus board of education would not have happened Loving versus virginia would not have happened. It's because of the civil rights movement. It's because of the will of the people Yeah, yes Yes, but it's it's uh the reinterpreting It is reinterpreting for the modern age always But there's also a lot of laws that I think could have gotten struck down a long time ago The one we were talking about the comstock laws. They were also There was also an anti indecency Uh aspect of it where they were he was the guy was going after it actually became the inspector general post office He became the inspector general of post office and was persecuting people You know, he bragged about how many people committed usually women committed suicide after being facing federal prison for marital sex guides that they sent through the mail for helping couples have Uh, they started to finally like push back on him when he was trying to get art removed from galleries from famous artists to Painted partial nudes or like, you know, you started this is this is putting a drape over the statue of david kind of stuff Like oh no, there's a human body part. We can see this it got it became censorship very quickly. There's of course it was to begin with Uh, it wasn't till 1983 that uh miller versus california and I'm remembering this right was uh overturned it And one of the things that overturned the being able to send things through the mail and contraception information through the mail and that sort of thing And one of the justices at the time who was looking at it said, you know, you cannot there's nothing We cannot limp have a law that limits The american citizens access to education or to information limits it to the uh Reading materials to that uh appropriate for a child All right, we can't we can't dumb down the information that people are allowed to have access to Uh, it just wouldn't it wouldn't be right and that's a right decision But it took almost it took like a hundred years for them to get there And so I feel like that decision could have been made Correctly the first time but maybe you're right. Maybe it's maybe they do look more to the The political will of the people Then I think then I think that they they would need to Should gay marriage have been legalized way sooner than it was? Yes Should it have ever been illegal? right But it took public pressure to make it happen In fact, we had to illegalize it a bunch of places before that freedom was given Very dumb anyway Yeah, I basically tell people I'm from california We don't have those laws there And then I in the back of my head. There's this yet Yet one election can go the wrong way Now and then that's it Uh But I mean, you know like I I feel also like Especially having been here in europe where everything's odd. That's that's literally everything's awesome all the time Uh america's got so many things wrong already Like the way they handle everything from housing and healthcare education Wealth disparity all of it You know now women's rights prayer in school soon lgbt community marriage rights like Yeah, wake up. This is this is your country. This is how it's been going and I and I the The overriding thought is who raised these people On the other side of all of these issues who raised them Who has taught them that any of this is acceptable? And how come they don't look at outcomes one of the one of the states where they're about to have the trigger law That's gonna have barshan already has some of the worst outcomes in child mortality already At a defunct Foster care system already has all of the issues that they've ignored That they're going to add fuel to in doing this The who raised them who educated them? Where what what world what world are they are they what fantasy? land Are they making decisions in? that is so Completely devoid from the reality that the rest of the world is living in it doesn't matter their concern is Getting votes so that they can be paid by lobbyists. That's all that matters That's what this is. It's a polarizing issue. It can bring people to the polls. That's it Well, we'll see how that works out. Yeah. Well, so this this is the other problem then is that like I need to call every friend. I have every friend and relative before the next election say did you hand in your ballot? And for those of us that are really truly freaked out Now is the time to make sure people vote If you have money to spare Donate to organizations that can support people who are looking for care that they can no longer receive Do it. You can do some googling. They're they're nonprofits that this is all they do Is compile resources to figure out how you can best spend your limited time and resources To help people in these situations and we're gonna have to do what we can until this gets fixed and I have to hope And maintain faith that this will get fixed I don't know how The the court's gonna have to have to get stacked or There's gonna have to be some we're gonna have to control the senate And pass a law instead But it's something has to happen I have to hope that something will happen Because this is not this is not the future that I intend to see Yeah, uh california is doing something interesting which I suggested that they do Well gavin was listening I guess you are gavin listens to the show by the way Hey gavin But uh, they're doing the thing that I said they should do which was take that texas abortion law with the bounties and all the things Where that that work around that? When they when they needed one Uh to make abortion illegal by not making it the state but making it so that anybody could sue through some sort of bounty hunters funding system Uh, they're doing that uh for guns in california And what's interesting about it is you could very well see Then you're like, okay. Hey supreme court. Who do you like more? Uh, which one of your lobbyists which one of your special interests congress is is really the idea really care about The guns of the abortion thing because they both Either will stand or not be able to stand Right, you can't have Oh, well, we're gonna decide a case like this in one state, but and I thought they should do it right away I actually but my the idea for for it was that they would have to shoot it down Because it's guns and they don't want any bands on guns apparently because that's makes people sit like That liberty is way more important What is I it's like, what is the outcome? What is the outcome? That you're looking for and all of this stupid Money from the nra. That's what you're looking for, but it can't be that can't be enough. Can't it just money from the nra? They're broke anyway What is the What's the end game of having unrestrictive carry access to Guns skyrocketing so again, we're gonna have to do this one day We're one day. We're gonna have to sit down and do a show that's that is Just showing outcomes of of these policies in places where they've been implemented and show what the statistics are because I don't think people realize The rate of teen pregnancy. I mean, I think it's it should be obvious but but pointing to Tennessee and showing the rate of teen pregnancy that's highest in the nation after outlying Sex education showing the rates of suicide going up in states that have Increased gun ownership and less restrictive. Let's do let's do an election show We should we should we should do a preview Yeah, like the week before the election night Yeah, uh Oh, you don't like this book that book or the other book to be in your school, huh? How's your educational systems outcomes as it is? Oh, they're terrible. Well, maybe you're not the one Maybe you should model yourself after a state that's doing really well by its students and not tried to come in and Continue to mismanage you say and also, uh, everything you could look at is something like welfare I'm still on I think I think Justin left. Not me Yeah It's me. It's it's not me. It's it I'm gonna remove Justin for now Well, here we are Oh Here we go. He's back Well, anyway, I got so upset. I just you got so upset. You you shorted everything out. I shorted out the wi-fi I can't talk about this anymore. I'm getting too upset. It's very difficult to you don't have to live here right now It's very difficult for me to wake up in my stupid bed and go on my stupid run And make my stupid breakfast and go to my stupid job and eat my stupid lunch with this stuff going on So can I can I give you can I give you some words of encouragement? I guess you can try you live In a state that has the majority opinion represented in its politics you live in a deep blue state and in a city that also Even within that deep blue state is one of the deepest blue cities and that deep blue state in a lot of ways Not anymore Not anymore. I know it's a no. I don't know. I don't live in San Francisco anymore Oh, I was gonna say San Francisco. Wait, the point is the point is You're you're probably as if not more progressive state than most of europe or anywhere else anyway california is Going to prove That its policies work and are effective and are better when we do this when we do calif- We'll just call the whole thing california verses And it will take on a bunch of states Yeah, but but justin you're this is all based on your assumption That the reason i'm bummed is i'm worried for my own personal self No, no, no, it's not it's not it's like I get I get what you're I get why like, you know I The people in and those red states have been dying from poverty Worse health outcomes so higher suicide rates higher murder rates. It's been Bad for them all across the board already and is now going to get worse. I I feel you. I feel you I do however uh california is a seat of power in the united states unlike most other states and has It is going to push back and is going to be fighting and the fight the way that they fight Is going to affect change In other states, so it's been need to look at everything from the environment To labor laws and everything else california has really Pushed that envelope for the rest of the country and will continue to do so So I think continue to actually there's usually the california standard and the texas standard and you're allowed Both for a lot of things for a while until people realize this is ridiculous and then the california standard becomes the thing Hasn't worked for textbooks for the last 100 years This is true. It's this and this is my other problem is sure. Maybe it'll be better in Five years or 20 years But how many lives are going to be Irreversibly changed or generational or just it'll be generational It'll be generational hardships How many people are going to die? because of this so uh midterm election midterm election midterm election it was it's less than five years that these changes need to be codified By a congress and a senate that has that majority that can get it done That's what you need and then they need to actually do it is the thing So That's the piece That scares me Is that is that once it's how I I have some I have some hope But how many times have you voted for an issue? And then somebody gets in into their seat and they go too risky And then they don't do what they said they were gonna do and this is something where We as a people need to be loud and make noise and make it clear that this is something that they can't they cannot Mess up the follow-through on this has to be followed through on this They have to keep their secrets and if they don't they need to hear from us immediately Yeah, yeah I I completely agree. I completely agree with that And it needs to be sustained people need to stop for forgetting everyone's well Well, I mean, I guess they don't win the popular election. So it's a little bit like I'm I'm accusing them of getting it wrong even though they continue to get it right by not voting in a a A national level republican. They just keep getting in from this electoral scam Uh But you can't let the this is this is the This is what they said they were gonna do Stop letting them have letting them in and I feel it's also like this is also part of the problem being in california And it's like I I don't understand why Don't understand like how It's because it's it's a rigged system. That's why They're not even really winning that's the gerrymandering is so insane That that it's almost impossible for them to lose Term limits on supreme court justices. I I think that's a great idea. Actually the there was I don't know where I heard this but there was this idea that if you put in If everybody had if it was a 12 year Is that right? Was it a 12 year or eight year term? I can't remember what the now I got to do the math to figure it out But basically the idea was every time somebody won the presidential election They got to put in a supreme court justice They get one and that person would do their 12 years, but then you know The and then the next election cycle somebody'd be out and somebody'd be in You know, it's something I can't remember exactly how it worked But the idea was the idea was it's constantly evolving and people are constantly being being somebody can't end up with three And one of them stolen which also was not enough of a fight when it happened Like oh, well, they said it the word shall Was in there and not should have to so I guess they can do What did you think was at stake? Democrats party still seems to be playing By like well, we'll go in that their policy wants. Yeah going in their procedural. They're playing by different rules That's the problem. We're playing by rules that's on either side and yeah, exactly. Yeah And the other side just doesn't count is hitting every nuclear button possible. Just think about lifetime justices just think about would you let Like think think about just like a Like a bunch of grandmas and grandpas Would you let them tell you what to do with your body? I certainly wouldn't Yeah, there's gonna be a generational disconnect there. Isn't there? Uh-huh. Yeah Well, you know, we ran a presidential election with you know, a couple of 70 year old Uh Yeah, hey, that's the direction our country needs to go grandpa Which although to be fair when when it's in criticism when it is in terms of criticism Like the right has demonized Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Oh, those are terrible people Those are like grandmothers Those are grandmothers, you know, like you're like your biggest enemy is grandma and then they go after AOC It's kind of interesting. They only seem to pick on women. Oh, what is that? What is that right wing? Why are you always demonizing women and grandmas? Yeah, well, I mean, that's this is a cyclical conversation now. Why are we where we're at right now demonizing women? Anyway, um, all right now that you're angry and can't sleep. Yeah, good night. Good night, Blair. Say good night, Justin Good night, Justin. Oh, it's morning though. Uh, good morning, Justin. Good night, internet We won't be here next week. We'll see you in two weeks on july 13th Have a good week without us Stay safe if you're in the united states and you decide to celebrate I don't know why you would but if you do hold on to all 10 fingers. Okay don't Don't set off any fireworks while holding them And don't drink too much if you're operating fireworks. Okay. Love you everybody. Bye