 Hello everybody and welcome to the broadcast of the this week in science podcast. We are here Yeah, we we we we we We Blair Justin and myself we are here to talk about science all the science news from the week and We're gonna get right to it. What is in the podcast? May not be all the things that we say here tonight, but it will be a very good representation For sure So New in the podcast. This is yeah, no, probably nothing everything tonight will be in the podcast There may be things tonight that don't show up in the podcast That's exactly missions not additions is what we're dealing Happy happy additions no emissions. Hopefully we will not admit anything important But it is time. So let us begin the show. Yes, we will do this in The whole countdown of a one two this is Twist this week in science episode number 868 recorded on Wednesday March 23rd, 2022 What should astronauts eat in space? I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show. We will fill your head with replication entanglement and mind control, but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer there are parts of your brain that are not you it's your brain and you are your brain So yes, it's part of you but the part of you that thinks that it's you is not the whole brain That's just one piece in the brain puzzle That's the cognitive reasoning active thinking impulse controlling list making order of operation part of your brain To notice how to make breakfast the rest of your brain is that of an ape a great ape mind you I really fantastic ape even There are far more connections within the human mind than any other creature We know of a far greater processing powers available to We are walking talking supercomputers with amazing powers of observation But behind it all just beneath the surface always waiting to put us in our place Is the brain of an animal the brain that is used to being the thing that's running the entire show Telling the rest of the biological machinery what to do where to go when to fight when to flee and when to fall in love Right now that part of your brain is telling you to fall in love This week in science Coming up next And this good science to you to Justin Blair and everyone out there welcome to another episode of this week in science We are back again With science we didn't bring anything else. Well, maybe we brought some conversation We brought some good friends But we have all the science We're ready. We're science stop. Are you are you ready? What did I bring? I brought um, I brought stories about RNA evolution entangled protons and totepotent cells Totepotent, what did you bring Justin? I've got just good news COVID addition The second code is I think I've got remote controlled mice PTSD goes clubbing and the original people of San Francisco The original okay, I'm interested in that. I want to know Blair. What is in the animal corner? Oh, I have monkeys and Ruff's type of bird and then I also have a quick story about lettuce space lettuce specifically Space I'm really excited. Oh The space salad yeah anti-gravity microgravity. It's how you toss it anyway Mm-hmm as we jump into the show here I do want to remind you that if you are not yet subscribed to this week in science You can find us all places that podcasts are found We also broadcast weekly at 8 o'clock p.m. Pacific time on YouTube twitch and Facebook you can find us look for this week in science on twitch and Twitter and Instagram We are twist science T. W. I. S. C. I. E. N. C. E. And our website is twist.org where you can find show notes links to podcast past podcast episodes and all sorts of information about the hosts and things generally to do with the show But now let's dive in to the world of RNA So DNA the RNA world the RNA world this is like the idea, you know, there's this idea that RNA could have been the evolutionary step prior to DNA and that RNA may have Had some mechanisms that similar to what we expect to happen through Darwinian mechanisms natural selection genetic mutation all sorts of things occurring through the evolutionary processes that are present in our DNA that affect our phenotypes the way that we look And that those might have come from RNA that DNA might not have been the thing To start it all that RNA might have gotten everything started which is that would that mean that The first life form and I'm doing air quotes there slightly because it's always debatable Would that mean that like viruses Could be the first form of life on the plan Right and that and that's the question. So what do we include in this idea of what is alive? Does it have to have DNA? Can it be an RNA based organism? so researchers in tokyo have for many years been looking into this question and several years back they They Created RNA molecules that could reproduce And so it's like, all right, they're not living but now they're reproducing They're copying themselves. And so that was like the first step and it it it supported the idea that Okay, if it's not just RNA there this molecule in the wild if it has if it could have had this Ability to copy itself then that could have led to other steps as well And so then the big question the the big question is But how would it have evolved was there mutation involved could there have been Molecular steps that could have led to the actual Darwinian kind of evolution that we think of in in DNA but in RNA and so they created A situation with RNA with RNA replicase molecules these molecules that replicate themselves an enzyme that allows that replication to have to happen And they incubated them for about five hours at a time at 37 degrees celsius Which just happens to be human body temperature 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit added nutrients and they added a whole bunch of solution that mixed the proportions of different populations of RNA that were that were in this mix And they repeated it over and over and over and over again 1200 hours of experiment And the RNA molecules through what they determined to be something of a predator-prey relationship where one RNA molecule would mutate to a form that Took advantage of the molecular capacities of the other RNA molecules It would take over and then it would shift back because it had to it would it would overbalance the population And then it had to had to shift back And so they'd flux back and forth these RNA kind of physiological chemical predators would Boom and then bust and very interesting, but the big take home is RNA mutated diversified over time and they wound up with five different RNA Lineages that came from the single RNA precursor And again, this is why We only have one life form on this planet Right why we have a single basis for life because we've talked about it before like whoa What if there was a new microbe that somehow had had Uh, you know been the a new creation of life that that came to be on this planet Why don't we see that all the time if evolution can happen like this or if life is this Omnipresent in the universe we talk about Every niche of the microbes being filled now it turns out you even go down to free floating RNA and all of those niches are filled So there's no where do you even start if you wanted to be in you know a startup life form on planet Earth where you started from scratch and did the whole you got you have to you have to mutate and evolve some elbows make elbow room Lots of sharp elbows in there and you're coming in billions of years after the thing started It was like ah, we've seen that before There's nothing you don't have there's no new acts on the RNA stage right, but I the you know the big the big Thought here is that if this yes, this is a laboratory experiment. It's simulating it was You know put together in a particular way that led to this result But the fact that it could happen that the molecules do RNA molecules do have these Perpensities to respond to particular situations in a way that allows for mutation and diversification This takes us back to this you know this idea of Okay, let's put some more support in that are at early RNA life hypothesis But maybe that's where it came from early molecules chemical competition to RNA RNA competition DNA replication competition The hunt for resources and on and on and increasing complexity Until we have this beautiful world that we live in Yeah, there's something. I don't know how related it is to this, but uh, uh, there is something in the Good. Well, no, it's it's because it's post it's post this stage of RNA just fiddling with itself Giant giant viruses have been found to to create novel segments of RNA within them, which is something we didn't think they they could do for a long long time and then discovered in some of these really giant viruses that they were essentially just coming up with somewhat random RNA Sequencing that they were creating as part of it. It's like, why would you do that? Well Part of it could be maybe that's like just happened into a lucky mutation at some point But then it occurs to me if they're in a community that are able to take my maybe find an advantage In this that's from a different, you know From a different virus that might be the whole reason for it. Then it's like a sort of self sustained feeding of innovation Whether it's that the the virus that's generating it or some other viruses taking advantage of it I think I'm getting more and more in that and that virus first camp and then Then there's so many RNA viruses. It's great Yeah, out of the pandemic stuff. We're like, oh gosh, maybe we're the invasive species And after all that's right. I mean everything is just framing right who hated what where I what It's tough because you know viruses can't survive on their own So it's they would have had to the virus ancestors would have had to be more complex, right to be able to support themselves It's I think about how How there's so many evolutionary mysteries that eventually come to light because of fossils We we're not getting fossils here That's not an option So we have to find another way to reverse engineer a timeline to try to figure out the most likely way Yeah, that things progressed, but there's never going to be a smoking gun, you know, like people thought that whales were from an aquatic vertebrate that you know parallel Evolution towards a million life, you know people thought that for so long And then oh no wait fossil record says it was it was basically it was practically a tiger It was like a completely land-based thing that went back to the ocean So right and we only figured that out because of fossils. So this is something where It's the the task at hand is so much harder to figure out what came first and And all these things because there's never going to be a clear Until the time for the soft stuff the only the only thing we can use is The genetic record right rotational clocks and the genetic record to try and get ourselves back there. Yeah Yeah, but be careful when you say never we have that we have again We have the ability now to do ancient dna And finding there, but we're still not great and everything else in the soil. It's getting there getting. Yeah, it's getting better I mean seriously Let's move on to the story. Yes. Just good covid news Okay If you have been looking for silver lining And devastating covid 19 pandemic This is it maybe Report in the british medical journal open finds that in the uk The covid 19 pandemic reduced gastrointestinal infections The number of reported gut infection outbreaks More and these are outbreaks. So these are clusters right clusters of cases More than halved in the first six months of the covid 19 pandemic in the uk Compared to the previous five-year average and lab confirmed cases ones that actually got sent on to the lab cases fell by a third This is in the again open access british medical journal open So the data were split into different phases. They had uh the pre outbreak was a phase one and then Phase two was early outbreak phase three was locked down Then there was early lockdown Late locked or pre-lockdown early lockdown late lockdown lockdown easing I think as they were doing this that you know It's and then further easing phase was phase seven This is what we got a seven phase thing because of how this thing went down But anyway during the pre outbreak Notified outbreaks were comparable to the past five years. Uh first, you know pre outbreak, you know That's pre outbreak then the early outbreak now. We're getting the news. We're being told wash your hands. There's a virus thing out there 22 lower than the previous five years That and the trend continued to go down and drop drop drop until we got down to 87 lower rates of gut infections by the late lockdown phase And and reports have remained substantially lower than historically observed numbers since So breaking it down by cause okay starting with the pre lockdown. They had uh reported viral outbreaks fell by 62 Parasitic infection outbreaks Fell by 94 That's huge. So what so Virus we're worried about we start taking precautions washing hands wearing masks social isolation Not only did uh, did did these other virus? Attacks fall by 62 per cent parasitic outbreaks Think that we weren't even targeting fell 94 And bacterial infections fall by about half So it's a correlation between lockdown and rates of severe tummy trouble But as a correlative so as a correlative study, we're not actually talking about causality in any of this But there's plenty of good guesses that can be made researchers point to improved hand hygiene is having a key role Uh, people started washing their hands. Maybe for the first time ever Huh, I mean that was it. Uh, they also think that people may have suffered through some of the cases at home We're afraid to visit hospitals because yeah, I was gonna say there's that COVID yeah There was a reduced social contact social distancing There was more cleaning of environment. So there's a lot of things my guess which isn't specifically signal not in this paper Restaurants Well, people were still getting delivery. Well, I think not at the beginning. I was thinking about this and YouTube in the chat room 00 or 00 says home cooking. Yeah, and he's he's that person is basically saying the same thing that that you are just in which Yes, uh, I know I waited months and months before I treated myself To take out because it felt scary. We weren't touching the mail And then some other you know, so somebody else touching our food Yeah, and somebody else who's out there in the world Interacting to do this it's touched the food Right and early in lockdown people weren't even going to work restaurants were shut People were not working in kitchens. They hadn't figured a whole bunch of stuff out yet. Yeah So people were just cooking it. I I I think I've blocked it from my memory at this point That first six months feel like a couple days now, right? Because it was so it was monotonous Fada in the chat room is also bringing up another really good point One of the symptoms of covet is gut problems Is you know diarrhea or vomiting or nausea? And so it could be that it was being reported as a covet symptom and not as any of these other problems Yeah, could be Very often when it comes to gut infections It it there's drink fluids replace the fluids that you're losing try and minimize the Discomfort and there's not a lot until you figure out exactly what the problem is There's not a lot that can be done So the treatment is fairly similar regardless of if it's covet or if it's You know something else that's caused it, but That this is that's interesting. They're probably many many Factors that went into it. But and again, these are these are reductions of clusters of cases too. So that's also Pretty amazing. So but yeah, if you've ever wondered where your stomach issues have been originating from And wondered if it had something to do with the food truck outside of the bar you went to after a night out At your favorite restaurant You might be right It might have been something to do with one of those good news here is the things that we do to reduce infection Work And yes, even though we are focused on one infectious threat Because we took those protections we reduced others core prevention measures worked on a myriad of problems And I think what we're continuing to see now that people have started People are going back to the doctor They're they're not as afraid to go to the hospital go to the doctor anymore for problems and there is still a reduction So yeah, I would I would say that there are still a lot of Things that we do interventions That are still working keep it up people It's good for your gut Blair. Yes. Yeah. Did you want to talk about something next? Yes. Let us Talk about space flight shall we? Oh Let us let us Let us please talk about space flight. This is a study out of u.c. Davis college of engineering And they were looking at what happens to bones in space flight Bones are constantly balanced between growth and resorption But in microgravity it disrupts this balance tips it tipping bodes towards resort resorption And that's why astronauts lose bone mass Is it resorption not reabsorption? Resorption to say resorption. Okay. I feel like that's a made-up word It sounds made up for sure. I agree with you. Um, but so all words are made up at some point in time You know what? I think I grok that actually anyway, um Looking at fixing the bone problems with lettuce The currently how loss of bone mass is dealt with in space they have to Inject pth Parathyroid hormone into astronauts regularly to prevent this from getting out of control If you're thinking about long-term space flights, that's a problem for a couple reasons one being ideally You wouldn't want to be doing a bunch of injections in space if you have to you have to but It would be great to be able to do that orally The other problem is that if you're talking long-term space flight like to mars it will expire on the way Oh, uh, right. So how do you fix this problem? Lettuce So you see davis genetically modified lettuce to produce this drug that protects against bone density loss in microgravity They uh, they they developed a transgenic lettuce that expresses a function protein combining pth With part of a human antibody protein The fusion protein is designed to be stable in the bloodstream and to allow astronauts to potentially purify that drug from plant Extracts. So their hope is that For one you get to grow lettuce in space, which In general, um growing Food in space actually is a morale booster in on the space station. So plants greenery and plants are also involved in cleaning the air and oxygen production and Yeah, all sorts of stuff also usage. Yes for your digestion So plants in space is good just for the the brain and the air but also for reducing the amount of time that you spend on the space toilet all that to say Fresh food is good for astronauts, but on top of that they think that they will be able to Figure out how to engineer this lettuce not only To create this drug but to have certain parts of the leaves that have this drug Certain parts of the leaves will be usable for food And so it'll be kind of a double whammy on top of that They're hoping that they can figure out a way to synthesize this because of the combination of the pth and the antibody protein They think that they might be able to make this an orally available drug so you might actually be able to take the lettuce and and digest it Orally so that you can get your pth instead of via injections As they have it currently they definitely know That you should be able to extract from the lettuce to purify the drug to inject in their latest version of the lettuce So they've they've made a huge Breakthrough and they're they're still going to keep going to try to figure out if they can use it for food and drugs But also to be able to make this drug orally available. So yeah, one of the issues with Orally available drugs is that our gut likes to break things down And so if you just have a molecule that's in the food It somehow has to make it past that digestive process all the High acidity in our stomach the mixing and the The digestion that goes on to be able to get into our bloodstream to get to the places where it needs to do The job it needs to do Normally something like that It's going to get broken down into lots of precursor pieces and our bodies will use it But it won't necessarily be turned into the thing that you want it to be turned into Right. So step step one is that this drug is Stable in the bloodstream from the lettuce But now you just have to get it into the bloodstream and make sure it is delivered appropriately from the gut So yes, that's so right now with right now what they're doing is they're taking the lettuce And then they have to put it in the food processor Right and extract the drug. Yes, and then and then inject it which even if that was all they got out of this it would make Long-term space fight possible in a way. It's not currently because of the expiration date on drugs So this fixes that problem alone if you can then Figure out how to turn it from an injection into an ingestion And you can use it as food and then you can apply this process to other drugs That would be ideal if you could have a floating pharmacy On this on the spaceship that would be perfect We already do this tobacco plants here on earth are used to produce all sorts of drugs Not just to be tobacco, right? So there's this is but taking this and making it work in space is That's the key. There's something there's something of the if you're if you're a hammer Every problem is a nail About this too is if you're an ag school The solution to every problem is lettuce lettuce lettuce and cows But yeah That that that ag school approach to oh you're trying to preserve something that's gonna last over months and months Can you put it? Can you make a plant grow it? Yeah, and then there you go There's your your sustainable solution. Well, you want to put humans in space You want to give them the tools that we've had forever Well, you want to make something last for a very long time and be powerful and one of the components of all molecules in the universe Make sure you've got entanglement Oh Oh, is that like My tangled hair Oh mine too. It's just I got these split ends. I need to get my hair cut No, not entanglement like your hair Okay No, this is the quantum physical process of entanglement in which uh, the probabilities of Certain occurrences are linked between subatomic particles now researchers from Mexico and poland have published in the european physical journal c their theoretical model which is now Supposing that uh That physics Happening inside the proton involves entanglement So, uh, they did some very interesting experiments in which they Shot photons at protons Which sounds like a pretty fun job to me So if you're interested in physics, maybe someday you too will get to shoot photons at protons photons electrons when electrons Which are negatively charged impact with protons which are positively charged You have an exchange of charge and you have an exchange of energy and photons are released and so really What these researchers were able to do is use electrons and the movement of photons released during these These molecular subatomic impacts to look at the trajectories of the photons figure out what was going on inside the protons now when I grew up all the textbooks They only talked about three subatomic particles The proton the neutron and the electron, but oh no no no there are many more subatomic particles inside each of these subatomic particles is Our numbers of little tiny particles in inside protons. You have gluons quarks and anti quarks And these things interact in their own physical ways And the researchers wanted to know What is the what are the forces that determine how they're mixed inside of protons? How did these how did the mixes happen what happens in there? And so by using the photons they were basically able to take these little pictures of The quarks gluons and anti quarks inside a small part of a proton And by able being able to see that little tiny part of the interior of a proton They were then able to use probability to determine That the rest of the proton was probably made up in a similar way And so what they've come to say is that the interior of protons is maximally entangled Suffice it to say this means that now if you see one part of of the inside of a proton This means that you can predict what the rest of the inside of the proton is like If it's minimally entangled you couldn't make any predictions Maximal entanglement means that that probability is linked very very highly So what you see in one part is also happening in another part and so They're using little balls of light little photons to illuminate the interiors of protons to give us an idea of how they're made up What kinds of particles are mixing together how often? And this can give us even better ideas of the physics that are at work That is at work Inside of everything And it also links to things like the inside of black holes, which is another crazy Concept because stuff going on inside of black holes is also entangled and there's all this crazy stuff going on There was another study this week that was just just mind-blowing two studies in which researchers were uh Supporting hawkings Ideas, uh, well actually not supporting they were going against the black hole paradox where We know that energy or there's entropy right there's uh There's a loss of mass and we know that stuff is leaving black holes but we don't know how and so now they have come up with an imprint based on A mark left in the gravitational field By matter collapsing into black holes that they call quantum hair So now we've got entangled proton interiors and quantum hair from the little scale to the big scale It's all connected I require a rebrand. I do not like quantum hair. No, you know, no But it's entangled I can't hear I can't hear quark without thinking about the send forward The this and star trek Do you see sign? Yeah When I was in high school, they were up quarks and down quarks Yes, there still are okay. They're not the same as quarks and anti quarks Anti quarks are are anti. Yeah, those are different. There's different. There's down Up down. Yeah There's like what is a lot more than so you were saying you just had proton neutron electron They threw in the up and down quarks for me But that's all I got. This is all new Oh boy Yeah, but anyway, there's like there's a lot going on I mean you were talking just and about never say never and our techniques and our abilities to See into the past are improving but also our abilities to see Inside of the components of matter are improving the fact that we are able to utilize photons to be able to shine a light on protons is It's just Yeah, and things just are operating so differently at this scale. Just go google how a gluon works And operates it's the most insane like counter-intuitive thing. It's not like Elmer's glue. No, well, no, no, it's uh This is I think Finman Has this rubber band example, but the the further apart you try to poke quarks the the stronger their attraction to each other It's like an elastic band that becomes get stronger Yeah, the further apart that things There's there's like we Fundamentally cannot picture what's going on at that level Which which means it's very likely it's not just three dimensional interaction, right? There's another dimensionality to it that is just impossible For eight brains to visualize I'm just thinking about how in in high school when I was first learning about the up quarks and the down quarks That's also when you know, my my teacher would say, okay, so light is both a particle and a and a wave and I would go why and my teacher would say it's Because it's we don't know it just is it does that and it seems like the closer we We get to to the There's always another dimension deeper, right? And like we're gonna start to be able to build these very comprehensive answers We know the way things are but to your point, Justin We don't know why fundamentally why for everything in the way that this stuff works And so the deeper we look the more we'll actually be able to answer the question of but why Yeah, we can't answer things that we we can't sort of visually we can't we can't uh We don't have an answer for why gravity Right, like why is gravity? Why does it even exist? Why not but thank you shoot us into space And it's that's something on a planetary scale that we understand very well We can we can predict for the interactions of matter with gravity not a problem f equals ma Is somewhere on this mug not a problem. That's it. That's we've had that one for a long time But we don't know why it works really or what's the the mechanism of gravity is still right So and fata is saying what you know, it there have been documentaries and other things this quantum hair isn't new The quantum hair is on the event horizon of the black hole and while it while this particular concept itself may not be new the researchers who have published these These stories though is that they've demonstrated they've demonstrated that with this Paradox of having the quantum hairs with having this connection between the interior and the exterior of the black hole information is not necessarily destroyed that Researchers originally thought that it would require and this is from one of the researchers who said that it it would Require a huge paradigm shift in physics forcing the potential reformulation of either quantum mechanics or general relativity What we found is that this isn't necessary So there there's no separation between the interior and exterior of the black hole In the classical theory the horizon acts as a perfect one-way membrane Which has not let anything out in the exterior is therefore the same for all black holes Of a given mass and that's the no hair theorem However in the quantum theory With hair the state of the matter that collapses informs the black hole continues to affect the state of the exterior In a way that's compatible with present experimental bounds Quantum hair No bold black hole Justin do you want to tell me about mind control? Laser beam Why not I'd like to hear about that. That would be great. I'd love it. I told you to tell me that I did I hit the button and she and she said it Neuroscientists neuroscientists. These are scientists from neuro The end of neuro neuroscientists we years have been messing about with optogenetics Which is the technique that controls the activity of neurons using light One problem we're doing this sort of research is the need to get the light To the cells especially deep within the brain Where you want to do the the activation This requires some extensive invasive implants to be inserted and is Generally considered uncomfortable To or to do if you were to scale it up from a a animal research model To a human So scientists at the woosai Neurosciences Institute at stanford university I have developed a method to excite targeted brain cells by making the skull completely the skull and brain completely transparent So that's going to be a nice benefit Oh completely transparent to infrared lasers Research is not a super villain. Got it Zhang Hong Explains that biological tissues including the brain and even the skull are essentially transparent to infrared light Which makes it possible to deliver the light much deeper into the brain Since existing opogenetic tools don't respond to infrared light Hong's team turned to a molecule that had actually been in biological evolution used to detect heat By outfitting specific specific neurons in the mouse brain with a heat sensitive molecule TRP v1 the team found that it was possible To stimulate the modified cells by shining infrared light through the skull and scalp From up to a meter away So this is That's oh three feet. Yeah, it's a good distance That's a good distance. Yeah All right, and this is you know, this is a They were able to So there's there's still some steps here that makes it sounds like it makes it A bit on the invasive side because you got to get this molecule to the right neuron But then they also have this Other aspect so let me go on over here. So t prv is a molecule heat sensor that allows us to feel Heat related pain as well as spicy Stuff burn of a chili pepper that kind of thing. That's these the this molecule is involved in those sensors and and us There's discovery of which was a no-goal prize in 2021 Similar receptor gives rattlesnakes and other pit vipers their heat vision in a recent study Succeeded in giving mice the ability To see in the infrared spectrum By adding trpv one to their retinal Cone cells, which isn't really part of this story, but I want to try that. Yeah, give me I know I'm missing normal color vision. Give me that Oh, yeah, you first. Yeah, you're like half blind. So new techniques also allow uh Rely on this engineered transducer This is another molecule that can be injected into targeted regions of the brain that absorb and then amplify the infrared light penetrating through the brain tissue So it's a it's called mines for micro macromolecular infrared nano transducers for deep brain Stimulation mines. So there's another step that sounds a little bit invasive currently Honk's team first demonstrated that their technique by adding the mines and the channel the t tp trpv one channels to neurons on one side of a mouse's motor cortex With the infrared laser and The mice started walking in circles Driven by the one-sided stimulation of the motor Cortex another experiment researchers did the same sort of stuff, but they inserted the trpv one channels to the dopamine expressing Neurons in the brain's reward center. Okay, this is this is gets really interesting, right? Now. They've now they've got this Uh, this heat sensing molecule on the dopamine expressing neurons in the brain And they set up a maze That had a beam of infrared light just in one section of the maze Guess where the mice hung out the whole time they were in the maze They spent the whole time under the infrared beams that were exciting their dopamine expressing neurons under the disco ball Yeah So this is also You can you can picture the uh vast array of potential treatments just something like this could have by being able to Locate these In specific parts of the brain that need additional excitement or engagement And a non-invasive way at least when you go to visit your doctor to figure them Uh, one things you might have to really how do you avoid natural infrared light? Perhaps it just needs to be avoided to a degree You know like I think going outside in the sun probably wouldn't necessarily trigger it But the little having that little laser within a meter Good. There's all sorts of great, uh, great ramifications for A dystopian future society where everyone is laser controlled in their brains But we're we're not there yet Hong Kong colleagues are also developing they're like working to figuring out every aspect of this. This is amazing Also developing nanoscopic beads that convert focused beams of ultrasound into light which can be injected directly into the bloodstream and Should be able to go to targeted areas of the brain Which then can and also sounds like they They might have even have a way of moving them from one location to the rest of the other So that they can change the targeting Of their experiment In real time. So this is one of the things that they've developed I'm squinting my eyeballs and scrunching up my face because I'm thinking about How unlikely that would be how are you going to move little photo beads through the brain without damaging a whole bunch of tissue Right. So it's not it's not I guess not necessarily that they would be moving the Maybe they're moving in the bloodstream But that so it gets to the bloodstream and they can target where it's supposed to end up in the brain that parts of the thing I don't know they don't they're not but they're Uh, but it's not that I think they would move the beads around in the brain once they're in there But that they can adjust where they're refocusing the light Just put beads throughout the whole brain, right? Picture a little like That's the disco ball. I mean the disco a little disco ball That that can shut down some of the mirrors, right? It shuts down most of the mirrors and then light comes in here and then you can focus where in the brain It's gonna go. Yeah, so they can do some very One of the things that they they they their first plan on using this for is then to be able to study the brain of animals While the animals are exhibiting a behavior So the idea of this is real time monitoring Not not and you know the experiment where we're doing remote control making the mouse go in a circle That's just a proof of concept that you've got the interaction there But this would be used for real time monitoring of brains. So when you're doing the rat experiment Uh, instead of having to it on some level anthropomorphosize Or uh, try to put yourself in the mind of the mouse. What was the mouse thinking? What does this mean that the mouse ate the cheese? You can actually Register in real time what areas of the brain are being activated? What those processes what cells at least are being triggered in their interactions? So really interesting Very cool minds control silly minds It's mind control, but because of their accurate acronym and all that I have robot hands You do since when? They have they have been replaced. Yes, um researchers are working at Carnegie Mellon University to Create a new system to teach robots how to use hands And to do it they are guess what? Going to youtube Because lots of people show their hands and do different things using their hands in videos on youtube and They discovered that it's a lot more efficient to just come up with an algorithm that figures out what hands are doing And picks a bunch of movies and shows them to robots than actually having real people Doing movements with hands to teach robots what to do. So it's much faster if you let the machine learning Make the learning happen. Yes This is this is not this is not an interpretive dance. This is if you ever go They're doing interpretive dance to those of you ever go to disneyland and look at the animatronics They're on the whole. They're very good, but their wrists are way too fluid. Oh And so That's that's what I was doing. So those robots needed some some time to learn how to use their wrists Yes Yeah, so the robots um Like normally the researchers say that prior work in this area relies either on gloves motion markers or calibrated multi-camera setup instead our system works using a single uncalibrated camera since no calibration is needed User can be standing anywhere and still successfully tele operate the robot. So They've trade they've published this in archive.org and uh, they're YouTube trained robots Are then able to be used by people and are pretty good at the actions at the movements that people use so Now for tele robotics for people in different locations wanting to manipulate objects through robots in other places over the internet The robot Isn't necessarily connected specifically to that person But they've learned the general movements that hands make And so that is the the paradigm in which a user can come in and stand in front of a camera And try and pick you know make some hand movements and cause a robot on the other end of the cable To make similar movements and achieve a goal On the other end of the cable out of it because it because once there's an interface That interface can be you know Right next to you connected to your hand or cable or it can be half a planet away or on mars Yeah, there's a little bit of a delay there. So that might be a little bit of a delay But yeah, but still this is the kind of thing that astronauts could use it is the kind of thing that people in Clean labs could use you wouldn't even have to go into the lab To do some of it from home You can work from home to do some of the dangerous research that you want to do But then isn't that also like there's no All of those jobs that that robots still couldn't take because it required humans to at least Have nimble fingers to do things now those are going to go away too But they're not going to go away. Yes, they will really fast I mean, let's just take I just I just want you to take a look very quickly and For the for the podcast audience, you're not going to get the full value of this video But uh, there's a video shared of the movements that the robot that the robots make the telek robotic telekinetics And in the video on one side of the screen you have a person making Motions into the air and on the other side you have a robotic hand with fingers and a thumb moving to pick up and manipulate different objects and although The user hasn't necessarily been trained how to use the robot and the robot hasn't been trained in This one person's movements. They're very similar But I will say that the robot does seem very clumsy I'm going to say that our jobs are safe for the time being Yeah, that's tough. I also think it'd be really hard if you told me to Do something so a robot did it, but I can't touch the individual items Right, you're not able you're not actually touching these things. You're just moving your hand in the air Some of the clumsiness might be from the robot. Some of it might be from the interface human Yeah, because if you're just if you're making it up Miming the action if you're not precise in your miming action Yep Well the way that person just just poured something nobody pours like that That was cheese cubes That's they poured it towards their chest, which I recognize because that's the orientation of the arm But that's that's so that's so awkward. No wonder It seems very it does seem very awkward, but it's uh, I don't know Internet and robots Best friends forever It feels robot clean my room this could be top or learned like like sort of like You have to do you have to give you can't just tell uh ai at some point early. You couldn't just tell it. You show it one uh One coffee mug And then you could put a bunch of other cups up there and it wouldn't recognize them because it's not this coffee mug it's only recognized this coffee mug as coffee mug and This one the second coffee mug makes no sense to it. No idea what it is And at some point you showed enough coffee mugs that it can kind of put it together I feel like this thing just needs a learning curve and then it won't need the human interaction part You can then just tell it, you know I am very excited. I mean I have I have waited for this day when I can lie in my bed lazily and tell the robot to pick up Pick up the clothes off the floor robot I don't and all I have to do is lie in bed and shoe my hand at them I'm just really scared to see the boston dynamics robots with hands. That's too much for me Yeah, let's not go there yet. No, I'm not ready. I'm not ready either but You're ready for more science because this is this weekend science. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of science news discussion. We hope we are bringing you the fun of the science The insightfulness the curiosity. We hope that you're learning and that you go out and learn more But in the process of that, we also hope that you tell a friend about twist today Make sure to help spread the word And as we come on back here, I have to get my little robot It's not a cube my rectangle my robot rectangle to uh Get ready here and play some music because Is it that time for it's time for it's that time. It is that time. It's time for Blair's animal corner with Blair Oh What you got Oh, I have some monkey business for you or rather some monkey play This is a study Spain, Brazil and the UK This is all silence of the lambs on us. This is a laugh. This is a silly laugh. I'm in a strange mood Oh no, anyway, okay monkey business Um get to it a team of international researchers from Spain, brazil and the uk have looked at play In howler monkeys they look specifically at two subspecies of howler monkeys the mexican howler Alhuata paliata mexicana and the golden mantled howler alhuata paliata paliata And they wanted to see how play varies with age And the availability of resources They measured the amount of time adults play with other adults and with juvenile monkeys within their groups All based on other things going on in the group like what kind of food was available What kind of food they were currently foraging and how How prevalent it was And they found that howler monkey play involves individuals In very specific situations and that play might actually Take the place of something like grooming. It is a social behavior It is something that is used to establish dynamics and potentially diffuse tension So when howler monkeys play the hang from their tails, they make facial expressions and signals They shake their heads looks very silly But this research makes us think it's not so silly after all it's not frivolous. It is in fact Something that has a very particular use This is particularly interesting because play is exhibited in a lot of adults and howler monkeys And so it's not necessarily a A way to learn social behavior or a way to learn Techniques of you know hanging from tails or or balance or anything else because they're they're fully grown adults that are doing this And it is a very energy costly activity Howler monkeys are herbivores They really don't spend energy They don't have to because they're getting all of their energy from plants They have to eat way more plants than if they eat meat And so that also means that every calorie they spend and every moment they are not foraging There should be a reason for that So that leaf-based diet really limits their availability to do frivolous things So looking at seven different groups of howler monkeys in the rainforest of Mexico and Costa Rica They found that the amount of adult play Is actually linked to the number of potential playmates Increasing in line with the size of the group. So the more complex the group the bigger the size the more play happened They also found that adults spent more time playing with other adults rather than juveniles So it was not a mentorship program And adult females actually spent more time engaged in play than adult males, which is not what you would expect You would expect females to play less because they have the very energy costly experience of growing a baby So basically reproduction in females is so costly energetically That it can't be a frivolous behavior. And they're just eating they're just eating their vegetables Yes, they also found that play amongst adults increases in line with time spent foraging on fruit So at first you might be thinking, okay, so They would actually just play more because when there's more fruit, there's more energy But in fact they're their research found that that was Not actually what they so that basically the fruit-based diet If it provided them with more energy compared to their typical diet They should also have observed adults engaging in more play with all members Not just other adults But the fact that the juveniles don't pose a threat or provide competition Means that the reason the adults are only playing with each other. That's likely a diffusion game So that they don't get in fight. Yeah, exactly. It's a disagreement over fruit of highly Valuable resource that they could diffuse that with play Just like you would diffuse something with grooming in another primate species So they think that play could be a mechanism for solving conflicts That would also make sense for the the increase in female play because there are more females than males and there is more competition For resources, space mates, all this kind of stuff between females than in males in a howler monkey group Usually there's way less males. Yeah so, um It sounds Like despite our own perception of what play is and what it means and what animals do it for This is actually fulfilling an important function in these howler monkeys In a way that we haven't really seen in other animals So we we want to kind of associate what we see as silly behavior As a very specific thing But it's us imposing that on there, right in reality This is just a form of communication and it could serve a really important role in their society Well, it just makes me think of you know our Formal play by way of sports. So we have In our our humans is definitely, you know expanding this idea to to humanity, but You know, we have sports in which teams from different Counties different countries can play against each other and potentially diffuse tension not that the olympics did that this year, but you know, you have that possibility of people looking at things from a different perspective and The the sporting match being able to diffuse whatever resource tension is going on So that you don't actually have to fight Another thing this makes me think about is humor instead of play where You know, you you make a joke in an uncomfortable situation To diffuse the tension. Um, it sounds it's kind of similar to that. I've never done that No Of course either Yeah, so there you go play play could mean a little more And has uh has evolutionary roots that are pretty important I think I mean, yeah We we should be looking at this more. Why is it and why is it? I love the delineation between the adults and the adults and juveniles like why that differentiation and There's definitely social reasons. There's evolutionary reasons. These are social animals There is a specific reason and it's Kind of neat that they're starting to dig into that for this species and it, you know, of course May not be applicable across all species, but it is for this one and Yeah, maybe that's why siblings fight over monopoly. So they don't get in fisticuffs So you don't end up actually hurting your sibling. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, yeah, so play games Humor this could kind of extrapolate to all of those things to let you know There's there's evolutionary reasons for those things cool Yeah, um, yeah, so moving on from the very straightforward story of hey plays kind of important to a pretty complicated one So so bear with me here But I wanted to talk about rough um Mating rituals r u f f. This is a kind of bird. They're a kind of sandpiper actually And uh, this is out of max plank institute for biological intelligence looking at The super gene variants of roughs So you may or may not know that roughs they have these vivid examples of interest specific diversity So they have these males that have Very elaborate plumage And they have females that look very drab as is often the way in birds And they have these three different morphs. They have one that is extremely dominant about 94 percent Of the birds and those are called independence is what they call them Then they have satellites which are a a small portion Um, and then they have about one percent of the species make up what they call fader morphs So roughs cal calydrus pug naks very good are um Have they have lex so they have these huge mating arenas where males Strap their stuff They perform and the bigger the lek the more females come to watch and they kind of observe They take some notes then they go That one and they'll go and they'll pick a male to mate with based on this large arena of displays So the the independence the more dominant one, um, they have these huge feathery Almost headdress looking situations that kiki's pulling up right now and so this is the dominant because this is the Selected trait. This is the thing that the females pick that they find desirable for whatever reason It could be the the sexy sun hypothesis, which is why we have peacocks. It could be that it's a demonstration of Burility or strong genes there could be any number of things, right? But so they they select for the bigger more beautiful more dramatic Plumage on the head and neck The satellites they have lighter plumage. They are smaller And they usually hang out near a sad uh an independent So they they hang out near one of the big pretty boys And then they can be like a consolation prize if somebody else beats the female to the independent that they wanted fader males Look exactly like females So you guessed it They sneak around the edges of the mating arena Unnoticed and they can every once in a while win over a female Might just be a nice and sneaky So they're they're like they're like the sneaky wingman. Yes. And so what? Uh the reason for this study, there's a couple reasons So one is how do you have this drastic difference within a species where you have these dramatic plumage Showing up in the males and then they have you just have random males that just look like females They found out about four million years ago That a super mean super gene emerged through a genomic accident A dna fragment broke off of a chromosome and reinserted itself in the opposite direction Which made the fader morph it made the morph of this bird that looked like a female and so um You would think That that would die off really quickly. It was a genetic mistake It was not very successful And so you would think it would die off. It has not Four million years this thing has stayed. So why is it not being selected out? Why is it remaining in the gene pool? Because it's successful. It's able to sneak in there, right? But in a pure numbers game 94 of these birds are the the Independent morph One percent are the fader morph one percent. How can you possibly maintain numbers over four million years? One percent of the population And it's because they found out through this study That there actually is an impact on females from these different Variants so before it was expected that it was just a sex link trait But through this new study they found that it was not sex linked. It was not anywhere on the chromosomes relating to Sex so based on that There should have been an impact on females And they did find yeah that the females had less mating success less survivability of chicks So it's actually a lower reproductive success of females With the fader genes so now we'll ask again Why didn't this die out not only is it only one percent of the population? But the females have a bad time reproducing so they do reproduce along Probability just is it just probability? It's a combination of things So it's the fact that it's just this small small number that just maintains But in in additionally it makes the fader morph It engineers it to be a small number So they actually found out through modeling that if too many of them were this morph The males wouldn't get mates because all the females would go for the fancy boys And the the ones who are sneaking around wouldn't be enough to maintain the gene pool But because it is self selecting to be exclusive those males actually have a very high success rate in relation to their population And that is the reason that this can continue Yes, so the the genetic conflict between males and females is what contributes To the maintenance of the fader variant the less common faders are the better their stealth strategy works So yeah, and the fader and satellite gene variants are not viable on their own They have to be paired with independence. So that's the other piece there is that a fader cannot mate with a fader variant So these these independents are carrying these other variants Just by occasionally dipping outside of that specific variant Which would also then mean that Their effect on the population overall would be greater than that one percent difference because now you have this growing population So so it's really interesting because this this sounds like also, uh, an effective strategy then perhaps of population control I wouldn't Take it directly to neanderthal, which is of course always how I have to do these things Neanderthals, you know, we look at the neanderthal genes in the current human genome and say, ah, these are associated with Fertility issues where it's harder to have children Which if you're neanderthal was a great benefit if you're a hunter-gatherer in a small population You didn't want to be pregnant all the time. Yeah, you don't want to be pregnant You don't want to be carrying children everywhere at some point, you know They got this man was like, well, let's go hunting. It's like, well, who's going to watch the all these dang kids There's too many we can't put anybody down. So so it's actually a a great, uh Sustainability and survival strategy for that to have happened neanderthals It might be something of a population control within these birds I'm kind of been curious about their environment and if there was, you know, a time in which Overpopulation was it was a thing that was was affecting Them in some way and then if that's this variant as it came along stabilize the population Well, it's I don't know about population size, but it definitely would help with The gene pool remaining diverse, which is it which is another really important piece, right? So and the other thing they throw in there Is that the the independent variant this 95 4% this this dominant beautiful variant of male Um, they have kind of run away with themselves in competing with one another They want larger. They want more aggressive. They want prettier. So this is this is all about Um competing within each other They have become quote-unquote operation blind To the other variants that are operating in the left the females Yeah, yeah, the female choice and also the other males Yeah, the the kind of the the smaller looking satellite males. Oh, I don't need to worry about him, right? And so this allows for it to continue And so one of the reasons I wanted to bring this story is that I don't remember what we were talking about last week But there was all sorts of conversation happening in the chat room about well, doesn't evolution tidy things up Isn't that the whole point of evolution is to get closer and closer to to perfection And to kind of narrow down what's best for a niche. No Evolution is really messy. It's actually about diversity. It's about trying all these different things and seeing what sticks Something sticks. Some don't it's it goes it goes out and in and out and in and out and in and so in this case diversity Created a better system For these birds than having one particular type and that in fact Some of the research say there is no such thing as the fittest Which if you think about the whole evolution thing, that's one of the main lines This is survival of the fittest. There is no fittest. There are a bunch of different tactics that can manipulate or Take advantage of a niche successfully and there's room for different types When there are different ways of being effective if there's one that's way better than the other It's going to push the other one out. But there is in a lot of cases room for multiple strategies Yeah, and and so that's also important to remember when you're talking about fittest It's it's really strategy that worked Yeah And it's it's a gene that flipped upside down accidentally and it actually created something helpful Yeah, I love that they also figured that out. They're like, oh, it's this gene that did it That is the morph that is this is the thing that causes this male morphed spent to look like the more like the females and Somebody put this lego in upside down, but it still fits together. How funny Still works This show still works. I hope this show still works for you This is this week in science. We hope we're the upside upside down lego in your podcast feed I would love to be that And if you love the show, please consider supporting us on patreon head over to twist.org and click on the patreon link and Support us monthly at a level of your choosing $10 and more a month and we will thank you by name at the end of the show We really appreciate your support and cannot do this without you Let's come on back with Justin You guys in science, don't you I do scientists report on a phase three clinical trial Of the drug mdma aka ecstasy or molly When combined with psychotherapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder ptsd preliminary data that this is uh of a Phase three clinical trial therapy works Yeah, even in categorically hard to treat patients Yeah, and it apparently works twice as well as psychotherapy alone beginning in the 1970s Some psychiatrists use mdma to enhance psychotherapy Despite the fact that there was a lack of formal clinical trials or u.s. Food and Drug Administration approval Uh back in the 70s for those of you who don't remember People would hear about a thing and then they'd just try it There was no really good access to information on internet And so people would just try the thing that they heard of which might explain My so many people of a certain age bracket have been trying the alternate treatments for covid Maybe there's just kids from the 70s who were like, yeah We used to hear about a thing from the kid down the block. It's like, oh, I heard from my I don't know. Yeah, okay but uh Yeah, mdma. This is uh Mitchell who is uh, one of the is at the university california san francisco and researchers involved in the studies is mdma is really interesting because it's an Empathogen It causes the release of oxytocin in the brain which creates feelings of trust and closeness that can really help any therapeutic setting Which is sort of interesting because then i'm like wondering if does that mean It's there it's there at ease from the stress and so can so then are allowed to function Mentally through a psychotherapy session or does that mean they just trust their therapist more Trust that process more. It's kind of interesting Uh, but at mdaa. This is can help reconsolidate or process fear memories in an area of the brain called the amygdala Now this is important because amygdala is is part of the old part of the brain This is part of like in the disclaimer. I was talking about that the animal ape brain part of you that That's not really you because it's used to being in charge of the thing that you think of as you But that that part of the brain Is the one that also sends the signals for fight or flight response So the the classics here is if you're a zebra being chased by a lion It's this amygdala fight-and-flight response That kicks in the adrenaline increases the heart rate stops digestion Off you go running away from the lion narrowly escaping And if you're a zebra And you pretty much just go back about your normal day you're eating the savannah grasses swat and flies with your tail Normal zebra rest of the day. It's a bit of a shortcut because there is Evidence that shows the animals do experience long-term effects from stress But uh, we we don't see the the really do Dehabilitating things like p s ptsd in a zebra. We don't see that form of obvious stress Not releasing again in a zebra to where it can't function Humans we've got this amazing prefrontal cortex all these other areas of the brain as well as that have developed Beyond of the animal brain when the amygdala was at the core of those sorts of responses We can do all sorts of logical assessments and reasoning. We can you go. Oh lion. Oh wait, wait. Nope. No lion here Just relax everything's fine. And if we saw a lion once we we sometimes though Still see lions even when they aren't or we don't see them But we the part of the brain is reacting as if they were still there Which makes it harder to choose how we react. So we got this new logical brain Uh, that still gets to uh, that gets told to be in fighter flight mode by the amygdala And it doesn't have a direct communication back to the amygdala That everything's fine. Everything's under control. So it's sort of like getting spam calls The scam likely calls spam emails. There's there's almost no way to turn off the phone from rain Uh from the amygdala And it's so it can be a really bad actor In continually sending stress response alarms When a logical brain doesn't need that On worse thoughts and memories uh part of the modern brain Uh, so we're thinking about a thing a picture anything Uh and ptsd remembering A battlefield scenario or something of this nature or whatever the trauma is And and the amygdala can react to it as if it's still happening so All this is a big tangled mess of misinterpreted primate brain to advance brain happening And and so we're constantly some folks with ptsd are constantly running from the lion Mm-hmm. There are selective serotonin Reuptake inhibitors. That's the first line of therapeutics for the disorder They're effective in about half the patients according to mitchell Many people with ptsd either fail to respond to that or just quit going to their psychotherapy sessions So the team enrolled 90 people with severe ptsd for the first phase three randomized double blind placebo controlled study Of this mdma assisted therapy Participants attended an eight-hour therapy session after the dose This process was repeated twice Uh a month apart each time In addition to weekly therapy two months after the final session About two-thirds of the people who received this mda assisted therapy No longer met the diagnostic criteria for ptsd Which is an incredible Incredible uh Number for for a two-month period. This is kind of these Even the drug with psychotherapy of the drugs that are on the market. We're talking about Years down the road To be able to have an effective rate of about a third of the patients Feeling a relief from the symptoms This is this is two months of treatment And 60 something percent Yeah, yeah, it's it's incredible If this kind of stuff, I mean you were talking about all the stuff happening in the brain and the the blocked emotional cycle where the emotions from the original event Get stuck and that you're not able to move past the fear or the anger Whatever it is and so you get that's the trigger all the time there But yeah, the mdma it goes in and thank goodness we have these plastic Neurons and the synapses to make remake connections. And so you go in and you re-experience you dig up these old traumas in a safe place In a mental state where you now have you feel safe. You've got the oxytocin you've got the Mdma in your system. It's releasing serotonin. You've got dopamine release. You've got a lot of stuff going on to allow for real And this isn't just it's not a surface change. You're changing neural pathways You're you're changing the memory in the brain and turning it from a triggering memory to something that you can handle Yeah And it's and it's and it's also it's very difficult because apparently from what I understand you know better than uh Than I wish I always feel confident talking about the brain on the show When I get it wrong, I know I've got I got a brain. No, you got it. It's like That that the amygdala That that an emotional response that can Trigger all this hormone releases and trigger the body to react in different ways It's allowed to communicate to that modern Evolution prefrontal cortex brain that has all that logic It's unable to send it all sorts of emotional signaling And tell it like what's going on But that the that logical part of our brain Has to use some weird roundabout back channels And we don't have like the direct communication back To try to regulate because the amygdala is supposed to be a regulator It's not supposed to listen to the rest of the brain It's designed to like take that that that ape and make it run from a lion or the save your life It's supposed to save your life Justin I have to I have to push back on your your zebra analogy a little bit because And I tried to put a little Little disclaimer like yeah, it's not exactly the story, but yeah No, I just the idea to characterize PTSD and stuff like that as as a kind of frontal lobe more human issue I think I understand the need for specific drugs for humans with PTSD But I also think that there could be applications in animals because A zebra can be traumatized and experience PTSD not from a lion, but from something they're not accustomed to dealing with and so anybody who's ever dealt with abused animals that are afraid or Overgroom or exhibit stress behaviors Know that animals can have obsessive behaviors and stress behaviors related to trauma. So That's definitely something that is not unique to humans And if it is something that is specifically affecting their brain our brain This is something that could actually be applied to animals as well That's a neat concept. Yeah, I love that Blair. Thanks. And there is there is also the the Less less specific to the line, but there was there's other evidence of When when you have hares Was one example I had seen when there's certain animals when when a population is exposed to frequent predation that they tend to produce less offspring they tend to Eat less they tend to venture out less. So there is there are Larger stress issues to having predators, you know, if you're a prey species That's part of your gig is going to be a little bit Stress stress. Yeah, right. Um, but but you keep but you can see a zebra Chase by line Get away from it. Go back to the herd and they just go back to grazing like it's like a like no human would just be like Yeah, but I can see the same to you about hearing a car alarm You hear a car and you go, huh? Oh, it's nothing Yep, it's so We're Our own stressors like a like a shout like a cry for help, right? Whatever usual our own stressors that to other organisms would be Stressful and scary and a reason for alarm, but to us is not right and I'm glad we don't have to deal with lions And and very often PTSD is from stressors that are not the usual. It's not the stuff that people should be used to so Yeah, what's your next story? Justin Uh, this is a fun one. Uh prior to european Contact the territory is no now known as california Actually hosting one of the most populous and diverse native american communities on the continent At contact more than 15,000 native americans from five distinct language groups We're residing in the bay area Uh studies of the bay areas dense archaeological history We'll be a little intensive sedentary or semi sedentary Habitation extends back more than more than 5,000 years And the region's archaeological record actually gets back to around 11,000 years So there's been a long long time of of habitation there There was an introduction of five Spanish missions that happened somewhere between the 17 and 1800s Mexico claimed the territory in 1822 1850 california became a state of the united states and One year later the governor promised governor california promised a war of extermination Will continue to be waged between the races until the indian race Should become extinct Which is uh, just a preface how san francisco came to be a genomic study of native peoples of san francisco bay area finds that eight present day members of the mu wikma ahone tribe share Ancestry with 12 ancient individuals who lived in the region over a span of 2000 years Previous studies of artifacts and language patterns suggested that the aloni Were relative newcomers to the region. So By relative newcomer it still it would be about 500 years ago that they arrived Wasn't what the tribe believed. It wasn't what their stories told And for people who lost the homeland had gone through forced conversion Genocide attempt were forced into reeducation centers and forced family separations that went on as recently as 1978 To then be told that their ancestral claim to the land wasn't what they thought it was in the first place So it probably just seemed like another round of cultural extermination Coming from anthropology Uh, so it is somewhat amazing That the surviving members of the tribes were willing to even work with researchers given the history but they did it was part of a Community engaged research project. So the they did some genomic research found continuity Ancient population and the current one they analyzed a large number of ancestral remains For dna preservation and focused on the ones that had the best preservation for this study according to Rupon Mali a professor anthropology university, Illinois Urbana-Champaign We also worked with the aloni To sample saliva from president present-day community members. So we could compare the dna of both groups team also took dna From individuals who lived around california other parts of north america to look for genomic similarities differences between the groups the ancestral individuals belonged to two villages near san francisco bay that were excavated and had of a large infrastructure construction development thing so They're they're going to do is this uh infrastructure construction for i don't know if it was a the city or the state or private entity Native american remains were found And so at the request of the wekma honi tribal council far western anthropological research group Excavated the sites to get those things out of there ahead of this And the wekma tribal members participated in all aspects of the archaeological field work They were the primary excavators of all the burials uh Quoting brian bird who is an archaeologist the far western anthropological research group in davis california This was a rare collaborative community engaged research project With tribal members and archaeologists working side by side for more than a year of field work Resulting in tremendous repatriation of knowledge to the descendant community Which is a very important thing because that's not how archaeologists used to operate You would almost Ignore Not just almost absolutely ignore. I mean this used to be like indiana jumps. Oh, hey, here's let's go to this place where there's People who have this culture and let's steal artifacts from their ancestors and bring them to a museum somewhere far far away And ignore the the people it came from yes and ignore the in a museum The uh the tribal council also requested and approved a study design for the genomics work And members of the study team regularly met with the council and the world tribal members members to review The work that they were doing So, uh, yeah, I mean that's the that community engaged version of archaeology is the framework that is Now part of the ethics of Archaeology didn't used to be but that is that is very much now the new model That's that's being used as much as it can be so Uh, yes, this is very cool Uh, not if I don't think it was the miwak tribe But but it's the honi so it's so it's also that there are We can out to this Yeah, the the miwaks were when we were kids the miwaks were basically given all of california Because it was easier to teach that way, but it's not the case at all. There's the elonis. There's the Well, there's ametish. There's and the honi the honi in this region also is a is also an umbrella of Again five distinct language five distinct languages of people and there was a uh, uh, so and these people who are Related to the ancestors. They're saying they're related to the group Uh of peoples that were there too. So it's not exactly Tribe specific as far as the excavation site and everything again. A lot of this too has to do with The archaeological record anthropological record having been erased by genocide cultural extermination and all this over, you know, the last hundreds of years because We could have a record of all this we could know what tribe that is we could know things about the language We could know things about the origins of the people you could know all sorts of cultural aspects of these people except that they were basically To a large extent swept off of the earth in order to put the you know, san francisco there Yeah, our missions. It was our mission. It was uh, it was past the missions here I mean 1978 is when they got rid of the family separation Laws the ability to separate That children from their parents to re-educate them. That's 1978. So don't let's not pretend this is ancient history Yeah, let's not pretend this is all the way back to missions even This is very recent history. Yeah A racing history is very recent history. Yeah Well, this is this week in science. I have a couple more stories and then we are out um totepotent cells totepotent totepotent I heard of the pluripotent. Yeah pluripotent. But what's the totem? Let me tell you about the toto the totepotent So pluripotent cells are cells that have the ability to turn into just about every cell type in the body But they have limitations and because of these limitations There are little genetic factors that have been involved that have held them back from really being the wealth of like the the fountain Of help that we have needed for regenerative medicine So we've been looking at embryonic stem cells embryonic stem cells It's like we found these cells in the early embryo and those can go to be those things and those can go to the other things But we don't want to use embryonic stem cells for everything for various reasons and so being able to induce Pluripotency is Just this wonderful thing that we're able to do now. We can take a skin cell and turn it backwards And then use it to create a brain cell like stuff like that is is amazing Oh, we're gonna change your form But the problem is like I said, there are these little molecular factors genetic factors that occur very early in development of organisms and to really get cells That can be anything in the body you need cells that are from the eight cell blastocyst stage of the early early embryo Eight cells. This is like early those eight cells after the first couple of divisions They can go on to be anything They're free They are totepotent They're totally potent They they can do all the things But you know, we can't go around Taking the embryos and just stopping them at that blastocyst stage It is much better for a variety of reasons to be able to take that skin cell of yours And turn black turned back the clock To that very beginning state And so researchers from bgi research chinese academy of sciences have published in nature Their discovery of a transgene free rapid and controllable method taking Pluripotent stem cells So like the skin cell Wound backwards through time to the pluripotent stem cell stage And then wound backwards even further into totepotent blastocyst like embryo embryo like cells So I looked it up because I wanted a reference point Yeah, so in humans At three days after conception You're already at 16 cells. Yep at two days. You're between two and four cells So sometime between day two and day three is when you get your eight cells. So that's Oh, that's quick. It's very quick. It's right after fertilization. It's this It takes that it takes the longest time to get into that first division First you have the fusing and then you have the division But then it's that second division and then after that things start happening faster and faster and faster and faster But yes, these cells can Differentiate into placental tissue So could we do placental transplants? these cells can potentially differentiate into more mature organs Maybe these cells would not have the tumor causing potential that some of the pluripotent cells have had that we've come across Because if you try and take A skin stem cell and then put it into the brain as a brain stem cell. Maybe it won't Quite work exactly as that brain cell should But this totepotent cell Do what it's supposed to. Yeah, it would do what it's supposed to exactly Yeah, so Hopefully this new process that they have developed. They've used single cell sequencing technology To with what they say through large-scale single cell multi omics profiling. There's a lot of jargony words But really they're able to look at single cells determine their state and And their tissue type and be able to identify these cells that they that they can then use Anyway, innovative technology again technology moving us forward but also potentially allowing us to move forward in regeneration creating organs to solve the organ crisis With great efficacy too. I love the idea. It's like, well, uh, you know Instead of having that conversation with the doctor was like, well, we've got this treatment We can do that's going to help grow your your liver there, mr. Jackson Oh, that's great. Let's do it. There's a chance that you might grow an ear instead Like you don't want to hear that. I don't want an ear. I just want that liver Whatever thing that I need to have a blade. I want that and not some chance at completely different Yeah, and then the additional bonus to this is that for Researchers who do want to work on embryonic tissues This potentially gives us a way to take That skin cell Turn black turn back the clock to this totapotent Early early division state and be able to do research without having to rely on Actually procuring embryos So There is there are lots of research and eventual good therapeutic outcomes from this Um, and then finally because this was what world world water day week wheels. I don't know I don't know this I think that was yesterday or the day before yesterday. Yes. It was this week World water week. I don't know a lot of things have had me thinking about Climate change and the water on the planet and all the things going on Researchers have just published in science advances their study looking at old Expulsions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and what happened So they compared a period Called the paleocene eocene thermal maxim the petum It's about 56 million years ago in which volcanic activity Spurred a whole bunch of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere caused extreme global warming massive climate change It was really really bad for a lot of life on the planet took tens of thousands of years For the planet to end life on the planet kind of Come back for things to come back from all of that warming They discovered that just prior to the petum was a little event that had about the same amount of carbon emissions as What we've omitted so far from fossil fuel burning and other activities that we do They compared what happened and how long it took For the planet to recuperate for life on the planet to recuperate and says one of the co-authors James Zacos from uc santa cruz There was a short-lived burp of carbon equivalent to what we've already released from anthropogenic emissions If we turned off emissions today that carbon would eventually get mixed into the deep sea and its signal would disappear Because the deep sea reservoir is so huge and and would be gone for like 50 years Yeah, it would be gone for a while. We get mixed it would take hundreds of years It would take a very long time for that deep mixing to occur And you know for that extra burp of carbon dioxide to actually get evened out. So at a human time scale It's still a long time and we don't really want to be dealing with it, but we have to but Globally earth geologic time scale hundreds of years Is very manageable For a lot of life on the planet The climate system can recover things can come back The new findings they based on an analysis of marine sediments in shallow waters on the Atlantic coast part of the Atlantic coastal plain At the time of the petim sea levels were a lot higher And so they got these sediment cores and the marine sediments that they used They were able to get carbon isotope compositions to let them know what kind of Carbon dioxide was being absorbed by the ocean. So like at the time that these sediments were being laid down They were deep ocean. So it was giving them an idea of what kind of absorption was happening deeper Beneath the sea similar to what would be happening in the deep sea here during our time now For Manifera little tiny sea creatures that have these carbonaceous shells uh were in the sea sediments and Were the records that they were able to look at and the researcher babla Tali babla also at uc hundred cruise says previously thousands of form Manifera shells were needed for boron isotope measurement Now we're able to analyze a single shell. That's only the size of a grain of sand Yeah that's great. I think um The thing that you've said so far that's sticking out to me though Is if we stopped today Because I think you know you think about the all of the carbon that we've released Since the industrial revolution It seems like we match that Every five or ten years because we're we're still we're we we exponentially grew to the point where we Were met the amount since the industrial revolution that entire mass We're just constantly doubling it, right? So so the problem is that We need to stop we still need to stop like this is good news It means that we we are not past the point of no return as so many people like to tell us all the time But it's don't listen to the naysayers. We still have to cut off the carbon yeah, so that That number is is absolutely correct. It's a by decade, right? So and in the 1990s We used as much carbon in that decade as all the way as all the way back To the industrial revolution so that decade doubled in the 20 to the 2000s We did that including 1990 all the way back again. So there has been this Decade by decade doubling effect. So we're not We're accelerating towards the uh, you know But still we're in the the range of so in this particular study the short lived Pre-cursor pulse Which was managed by the buffering capacity of the oceans and that's something that blairs talked about We've talked about on the show a lot ocean acidification Happens because the ocean is able to take in carbon dioxide And there is a change in the hydrogen ion concentration as a result of that this is simple chemistry But the buffering capacity of our ocean is only so big And so what happened in this historical case that this picked this the study is telling the picture of is that that short burp Was managed the ocean buffered it. It took a long time. It didn't happen all at once There was still a lot of carbon dioxide and warming in the atmosphere for a long time But eventually the ocean Evened everything out and the cycles reemerged but When the volcanoes got involved and there was massive amount of carbon dioxide that Outstripped the ability of the buffering system to manage it. That's where new New processes became involved to bring everything back to normal. And then they started seeing processes like the weathering of silicate rocks carbon dioxide and the silicates working together and buffering using more physical chemistry And that took thousands tens of thousands of years life still Still survived there was still life. So it's not the end of everything but Our human our humanity and what we're doing Yeah, I'd much rather deal with a couple a hundred years a few hundred years than The tens of thousands that we might not make it through Yeah, yeah, it's it's back to that uh thing we keep saying that the earth is going to be fine The earth is going to be fine life will be fine. It's just which species will be fine. Yeah, that's really good question Dude, what do we really care about if we're taking a cosmological view here? Whatever Humans don't matter Complex life will come back again sometime. No biggie. What I want to know This is very important. This is this can tell us a lot Okay, uh of the species that survived that thermo maximum How many of them relied on agriculture for their sustenance, right? Not a single one Not a single one That's unfortunate I don't think there was any agriculture 56 years ago and we don't have a comparative for our There's nothing to compare to now For sure really but yeah, so I mean it's it's good news though. It means that there's there's capacity for For healing we just have to actually stop the bleeding first. We have to We have to stop doing the damage. Yes, exactly to stop the bleeding. We have to also Stop the pull out the knife. Yeah You don't leave the knife in there and just shove paper towels around you do until you get to the er But now the scientists are the doctors in this scenario and they're telling us what to do We have technology to use we have other ways to make energy Let's move over. Let's ditch the carbon and It'll be tough for a couple hundred years, but we'll get through it. We'll survive That's what it comes down to. Do we want to survive? We gotta cut the carbon I'd like to survive and I'm selfish, you know, I have offspring who I would like to survive as well. So you know Longevity perpetuity of the genetic lineage. Yeah, come on. Let's let's do something people come on Let's make these genes last All right, I think we've made it to the end of this show definitely not to the end of humanity yet. So Yeah, thank y'all for being here with us. This was This was fun. Thank you for listening Shout out Out out out Wait, why am I howling? I don't know. Anyway, shout outs to fada. Thank you for help with social media show notes and Yeah, social media and show notes very very helpful show descriptions and thanks gourd Arn lore everyone over there In twitch and other places. Thank you for helping to keep the chat rooms. Happy nice places to be Rachel, thank you for your assistance and editing and I don't know you for thank you for recording the show I would also like to thank our patreon sponsors Thank you too Richard badge Kenton Northcoat Pierre Velazad Ralphie Figueroa John Ratnas swami carl cornfield karin tozzy woody ms Chris Wozniak Dave bun vegaard chef's dad house night or donathan styles a k a don stylo john lee alikoff and maddie parent gaurav sharma reagan Don mundus steven alberon died and daryl my shack stu polyc andrew swanson fredas 104 sky luke polronevich kevin bierden noodles jack brian kerington matt base shonan lino lamb john mckay greg briley marqueson floging tally steve leesman aka azima ken haze Howard tan christopher rappin tana pierce and richard brennan brennan menish johnny gridley rummy day flying out christopher dryer arty i'm greg briggs john atwood bob coburn rudy arsia dav wilkinson rodney lewis paul philps shane curt larson craig landon mountain sloth jim depose who 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there's a topic you would like us to cover or address a suggestion for an interview hike who that comes due in the night please let us know we'll be back here next week a couple of us and we hope you'll join us again for more great science news and if you learned anything from the show remember it's all in your head my hand because it's this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science i got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be new yeah done those calculations and i've got a plan we're in the after show don't you a very short after show today yeah short after show today everyone Blair is not feeling well and i am conferencing once a year i've run a conference called science talk which is for science communicators and it is this week we have yes today was setting up the in-person location in uh in other times i might have found myself in porland this week but not now not now and i'm still so all right so we've been doing virtual lots of virtual workshops and events for the last couple of weeks because we know people aren't ready to come to do traveling and in person things we also know some people you don't have the money to do it but we want to give that option to people but there are a lot of people who do want to get back together and do things in person and so we're doing that and today it was very nice because we have this big giant room and there were maybe five people in it and we were working in yeah we're like across the room from each other yelling at each other but you know there's air get the window open there's a lot of air in the room and we're setting up wires and cables for the internet and we've got gig download speeds i'm i seriously i'm just gonna do you guys want movies i'm gonna download some movies no i'm kidding um if i need to download things is there a link with more details yes uh if you go to i will get the work i can put it in there you can go to science talk.org for sure and uh right up in the top there is a link thanks Blair um for the sci talk 22 the conference you can see past conferences that we've done but it's really you know sci people who communicate science trying to figure out how to talk about science better learn from each other about things that we've done how we've done it all that kind of stuff community it's commodity oh i'm not talking um yeah but it's really wonderful after many months of work to finally see something like this happening it's a lot of work because it's hybrid but it's really fun because we keep having um we keep having ghostbusters jokes because the av team i'm working with they've got the outgoing stream we also have virtual attendees so we have the incoming stream sorry jess and i didn't see you there and so there's the outgoing stream and the incoming stream and you can't cross them don't cross them that's that's the mantra don't cross the streams so we can't have a moderator in person on stage being streamed out and then in the same session having somebody being streamed in so we've had to split them up into these separate sessions because we can't cross the streams so every time i'm confused every time but it's great every time i get confused i go how is this working oh don't cross the streams and then i can figure it out but if there's ever like a giant marshmallow creature then that's the thing you would want to do so it's kind of iffy advice that's situational right also the solution yeah it is situational oh i don't think my picture uploaded from today i took a i took a picture of i bought a mascot at the store today because our mascot this year is the science octopus yeah fata's going to be at the conference yes yeah there was a meet up earlier tonight i did not go to it because i was working on the streams setting up the streams we have vimeo we have zoom we have huva we got all these streams who's in charge of the streams i am uh where'd my picture go so i took a picture and i have my my science talk to push i put him on the stage i have to get this oh i know what i have to do to get it so i can show you but i'll have more pictures later after the conference i'm not going to update google photos how about there you go okay it's uploading i can share my my little octopus squishy guy we're going to sit him in the front row to make to make all of our guests comfortable he's our emotional our emotional support octopus so presenters won't be scared emotional support yeah yeah it's funny i don't really talk about it a lot on twist because it is this is the podcast i just want to talk about science with y'all this is after show welcome to the after show everybody we can talk about anything we can talk about anything in the after show thank you for liking my socks garum remember be imagine in the chat room imagine every molecule in your body simultaneously accelerating from every other molecule embodying at the speed of light ow no i don't like but i'm glad i have my glue on's steven rain is studying howler monkey calls good they're very good for for something called a howler monkey you'd expect it to sound different okay i think this means that i must play one for you it sounds like this okay now we will compare okay we're gonna blare and it's it's like a mixture of that and this is from the houston zoo houston zoo television here a howler monkey howl come on get to it come on this is very slow these are black and gold howler monkeys the black ones are male this is mumbley he's 19 years old these are his daughters vita and garse these guys peanuts today these guys um they like they prefer new leaves species of howlers okay the cage why rarely do that is our we'll eat eggs in the wild we're kind of comforted by that because these guys love egg day every morning they do this and this is because um leaves don't give you a lot of energy so they don't like to expend a lot of energy so they don't want to have to fight over their trees so first thing in the morning they do this call it's usually done around four a.m. or just before dawn and uh the call allows all the other howlers in the area sound actually more like a Gregorian chant it's these guys because they um i want her to stop talking i like all the information but not right now i just want to hear the howler monkey just want to hear it wow oh i've never heard that that was great hey where did you go more howler monkeys so howler monkey may or may not sound like your neighbor gross armor okay that sounds like a horror movie monster yeah they should call it the horror monkeys it kind of sounds like a delayed or like an extended burp also i think a belcher monkey this sounds like it's already a thing is that already a thing who's to say so there's so many creatures on the planet strange names mouse pad so what's some of the stuff that's uh coming up at this uh science talk at this science where are the subjects uh they're gonna be tackled where do we have tomorrow let me tell you about our agenda yes yeah what's going on what is my agenda well we've got some workshops people will get a workshop on disaster recovery communications the workshop is called we're the government and we're here to help so it's government uh public government communicates communicators talking about uh recovery after disaster after the fires and earthquakes and stuff recently um another person is doing learning engineering so designing psychom using the science of learning basically how we the science of using the science of how we learn to develop better ways to communicate science and then there's a workshop which is going to be awesome which they have a this group they have a podcast and you can listen to it and it's role playing games which we've talked about this bit dugongs and sea dragons is what they're called and they do ocean science but as like role playing so they all have characters okay and tomorrow they're going to be doing their podcast and their characters and getting you know getting the audience to help with like their roles and their the things that they decide to do and all that kind of stuff which i think that that one's going to be a lot of fun um we have a let's see senator lou Frederick is going to give some statements he's an Oregon senator who i didn't realize actually is a science communicator which is very exciting yeah um Cheryl Kirschenbaum she wrote the science of kissing is a book that she wrote but she's also written a book on um science politics she's written books with chris mooney she does currently she works on like food and agricultural agriculture stuff and does videos for uh pbs studios um but she started science debate is one of the things that she's done so she's been involved in all sorts of interesting aspects of science communication um we've got a talk on science in a pandemic from the Peruvian perspective religion and inclusive science engagement the art of narrative storytelling and its role in science communication yeah there's a whole bunch of different things and then people are we're going to have posters and there's a movie screening and all sorts of fun stuff cool yeah yeah a lot of neat things i hope that people learn things and gain community you know find other communicators to do things with and hang out with no i sometimes sometimes science communicators we're all over the place doing different things we're like where's my community at yeah i'm hoping that in 2023 perhaps we can uh twist can make a comeback at science talk that would be fun yeah that would be great we'll see we'll see where justin is in the world at that time oh yeah i'm going to i'm going to something uh i'm going to going to something sometime well no this weekend i have a plan to go to a neanderthal talk really awesome i think the university of Copenhagen um it's which is a really exciting thing i'm very uh super excited about it but it's also gonna be like the first time i've gone to a place with humans uh human yeah so yeah that's that's this for me is this event and i'm just kind of like yeah and i i honestly think it's going to be too soon but i feel like i'm always gonna think it's too soon like it's something i think i wrote off social interaction at some point yeah it's it's very interesting for people that um that had to stay out in the world versus people who are able to to cloister a little bit how how different it feels right so like you know for people who've been going to work throughout the pandemic there's no fence post everything's just always been normal throughout the pandemic just like oh i'm allowed to go to the store now great i'm gonna go so it's it's it's a it's definitely i get it like when i was fully shut down and teleworking going to a store gave me anxiety but then once i was going to work full time it was it was like everything went back to normal in my brain so fast took like less than a week yeah i mean i we are we are meant to be social creatures even those introverts among us we are you know going out to the store going and doing things having a lifetime of training in those things is not going to disappear in the couple of years of the pandemic you know yeah there's there's a hump getting getting it back but sure once it's back it's back for sure it was a interesting phenomenon for me yeah i hope to be able to reflect on it later yeah i feel like right now i'm like oh tomorrow is gonna be crazy yeah it'll be fine that's all good you're in a room full of scientists so they're all vaccinated i'm sure so they're all yeah everyone has to be vaccinated yeah to sign a waiver saying they're vaccinated and they don't have any symptoms and yeah yeah yeah so fingers crossed that the smart people do the smart things and don't let their emotions which are going i want to see the people and i don't want to have phomo you know that they don't let their emotions get the better of them but they use logic to dictate their actions in the next couple of days that's what i'm hoping and my logic tells me i have to go to bed okay yes and i must as well like we said not a long post show tonight this morning at this moment in time say good night justin good night justin oh say good night blare good night kiki there's a delay good night kiki it worked for a second i was i was just cognitively unaware sometimes i wonder if it is a delay i don't know good night everyone thank you for joining us for another episode of this week in science we are so glad to have spent this time with you have a wonderful week blare and justin will be back next week i'm going to be in rochester new york so if you are in rochester new york check out st john fischer's college so i'll be giving a lecture next week whoo whoo it's all about the hopeful nature of science i'm gonna talk about hope baby i'm gonna talk about hope for you and me okay everyone stay safe stay sane stay curious we'll see you next week