 Oh, what am I missing? What's going wrong here? Everything's going where it's supposed to be, right? It's all where it's supposed to be, isn't it? Did you put the thing in the place where it goes and the and the yes, it's where it's supposed to be? Sure, where where we're supposed to be right now. We are we are we're ready for a show And according to the chat room we are live Hi everybody Ready for a show Let's do it starting in. Oh, I forgot to fill that thing out Hold on one second Okay starting in three two This is Twists this week in science episode number 658 recorded on Wednesday February 14th 2018 love is in the science. Oh Yes, it is everyone. I'm dr. Kiki and this is this week in science and tonight We are going to fill your heads with love in fidelity and fireflies but first Disclamer disclaimer disclaimer to air is human to learn from your mistakes is Divine actually Learning from mistakes is just what learning is and learning from the past mistakes of others along with how others got it Right is only as good as the information they left behind For the first time two rocks were banged together But a spread that produced a spark the world did not change in any significant way Not until the person who discovered this interesting effect Showed it to others. Did this knowledge begin to spread and at first it may have been little more than a cave Parlor trick something to amuse one's peers with then one dry summer's Eve as the crowd Ood and odd an errant spark kind of whimsical winds and swirled its way into a pile of flammable tinder and Fire was invented If enough of the cave party survived the fire that is if not perhaps the discovery took a little bit longer Thankfully, we have found a collection of primitive parlor tricks gonna Where the party survived to publish their tales on this week in science coming up next What's happening what's happening what's happening this week in science? And the good science to you too Justin Blair and everyone out there Welcome to another episode of this week in science. We are back yet again, and it's time for the twist love a fest because The night Valentine's Day Every few years it falls this way Sometimes we land on a science day like Darwin day, but that was a couple of days ago Happy birthday with Darwin again, and but tonight. It's all about here the love. I know yet. He died Oh, okay, I Know I just you know imagine that he can hear me Because I've got him right here with me But that is not what tonight is all about tonight it's all about Amour and You know science because So so I have stories about the language of love Buying happiness and rising tides Justin. What do you have? I've got chemistry. Of course you do I've got mammoth love Fluffy bunnies and Petuitary pups Right I can't look I can't wait for all that and Blair, please share. What is in the animal corner? I have some invertebrate sex or some invertebrate catfishing more like I have Brain versus brawn and I have bird others What? That doesn't sound very aero dynamic. I Can't wait to tell you all about them Well, I can't speak for Justin, but I'm looking forward to that story show All right, let's jump right into it everyone But first I want to remind you that you can subscribe to the twist podcast Everywhere good podcasts are found and you can find us on YouTube and Facebook Just look for this week in science or twist TW is you can also visit twist org But how do I love the in how many languages? Can I tell the? Let's let the scientists count the ways a Researcher named Tim Lomas from the University of East London He's a lecturer in positive psychology as published as study in the journal for the theory of social analysis where he is Searching the world's languages in his words for words relating to love that don't exist in English Yeah, and so this has been kind of attempted before But going back to the 70s there was a psychologist named John Lee who identified six different styles of love and he looked at Greek and Latin and a number of the languages based around that he identified three primary forms of love Eros which is passion or desire ludus Which is flirtation and playful affection Sturga Which is familiar or companion at care and Then there were three secondary forms that were a basis of combining these three So it was like a multiplicative Combinant talk combinatorial effect. You have ludus plus Sturga. It creates creates pragma Which is rational sensible long-term accommodation? This is pragma is probably what many married couples feel after decades of being together Eros and ludus generates mania, which is possessive or dependent or troubled intimacies and Eros and Sturga Equals a charitable selfless selfless compassion of agape Now this is a start, but really that's like six words, right? We've got Many languages on this planet. So he is looking into lexicography He's trying to collect words that would be considered Untranslatable so that just we don't have the same emotion or the same meaning that we need to Convey it in a word in English as another language may have and they this this researcher has about a thousand words So far that are these untranslatable words and so coming out of this he's got these words related to love and so he has analyzed around 50 languages and grouped the words that he's found Hundreds of them into 14 flavors of love. So, you know next time you go to the ice cream store I'd like one of the 14 flavors of love, please and these Come in many many different meanings and some of them are related Are their compounds of related related terms from various languages? And so there is an interesting one, which is a love that's a connection to place Which I think is very interesting these are related in concepts like Turangawa way way Sinefin and Quarencia. This is from Maori, Welsh and Spanish and these all Have to do with that feeling of having a home or a place to call home Whether home is where the heart is kind of a feeling The love between people there are non-romantic forms of care and affection affection which are Sturga for family, Friends, Filia and Filautia, which is the love for ourselves Romance we have Pragma, Mania and Lutus, but adding to that there's the passionate desire of epithymia and Star-crossed destiny love which is Ananke and They the spirit of Ananke comes also from the Japanese it can be found in the term Koi-no-yokan Which means premonition of love and then the Chinese also have which Yuanfen which can be interpreted as the force of irresistible destiny And when there are selfless Transcendent forms of love where it's not about you It's about other people and this is related to the Agape. There are a Group dynamic or Koi-no-yokan There is a revel reverential devotion that the religious might hold which is Sebomai and There are all these different ways that we can love and these are just some of the flavors of love that the study of Lexicography is bringing to us to help us understand more about the many ways that we love and can describe love So thanks to science the study of language and how we use words. We may understand our own psyches a little bit better Yeah, it also kind of makes me want like as a sort of cultural reference I wonder if there's I mean we I wonder if there's languages that that have I wonder what language has the least words for love. Oh That's an interesting question Is that is that indicator of the society or how is that society interacts with themselves or do they just sort of like I think like Americans probably have a few less words. We just use love I'm serious. Yeah, it's the same thing your partner your partner who you're falling in love with you say I love you But you also you love your parents you love your children you love your significant other you love some of your friends It's all the same work. It's the same word But it my love for coffee is very different from my love for my child or my husband But it might clear out some some difficulties think about you know all of the friends zone individuals who think that a particular person is in love with them, but really they're in love with them as a friend Yeah, there was a word for that and it's interesting there is a word for it awkward Bring that up my there it's interesting to watch the development of children coming into Understanding of these different forms of love my six soon-to-be seven-year-old son a week or so ago for some reason started talking about you know that When when people like each other, but it's awkward And I was like I stopped for a second and I asked him I said, what do you mean awkward and he just looked at me He said, you know mom Oh my gosh, okay. All right getting it He's really He's good up too fast But it you know as these these concepts become apparent, you know, there's the psychological Evolution and development of the brain and behavior. There is this the development of the language we use There's this cultural aspect as well of how it's used within the cultural construct So who we are It's all based on this in and out in this world that we live in And if we can use language to understand that a little bit better could be interesting Researchers at Florida State University are also trying to figure out how to help us have better relationships How to help us stay Fiddle us Stay away from in fidelity Yes So these researchers publishing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology They had a couple of studies looking for different aspects of evidence of infidelity and also responses to responses to to stressors and the environment for To figure out cues and things people could keep an eye out for or train themselves on to be better marriage partners They went into this whole study with the idea that we are looking at a United States population at least with a 50% or less and dropping Or at 50% and higher an increasing divorce rate the number of couples that remain married is decreasing drastically so they followed 233 newly married couples for about three and a half years and Documented aspects about their relationship intimate details like marital satisfaction long-term commitment whether they had strayed or and also if they were still together they They Tested processes that everyone shares just in to one degree or another which are in attest attentional disengagement and evaluative devaluation of potential romantic partners. So attentional disengagement is in in this case they showed pictures of attractive people and unattractive people to these married partners and attentional disengagement was how fast they disengaged and stopped looking at the pretty people So pretty people get more attention at a longer period of attention than less pretty people But if you are in a in a stable relationship You disengage More quickly than somebody who is in a relationship that has infidelities The wandering eye exactly it is literally a wandering eye Yeah, and then there's the evaluative devaluation and so it is looking at these attractive partners and not only disengaging your attention, but also They're not good enough or that you know, they're not as good as my partner kind of a thing devaluing them and their potential so They did find that with these newlyweds People who did disengage their attention very quickly were less likely to be Have infidelities and It's a such a fast thing. You'll the number is amazing individuals who looked away in as little as a few hundred Milliseconds no faster than average. We're nearly 50% less likely to have sex outside marriage And if a partner took longer to look away from the alternatives They were probably more likely to have infidelities and their marriages were more likely to fail and the Tendency to downgrade a devalue potential romantic partners Also lowered the risk of infidelity and that kind of makes sense If you're faithful, you even though you might go, oh, that's an attractive person You're still going to go but my partner is so much better in these ways You're going to look at that other person and go, yeah, they're they're they're not good in that way I don't like that and you'll you'll come up. You will mentally psychologically come up with reasons To to stay with your partner and not start straying And so the the psychologists say that these reactions are automatic McNulty says people are not necessarily aware of what they're doing or why they're doing it And these processes are largely spontaneous and effortless And they may be somewhat shaped by biology and or early childhood experiences. So this wandering eye Could just be a thing and that's just the type of person that that partner is So are you saying that some people are less likely to have successful marriages just based on who they are? Is that what the leap there is? That's what the leap is Well, they're more likely to have infidelities or maybe I mean if you're talking about marriage in the traditional sense Maybe they're gonna be great at having open relationships Right, right, right, right, right But I mean maybe in some ways that is kind of a solace to people who have had Unfaithful partners because it's not you it really is them Really, it's me. It's not you. I know Yeah, I've seen it Literally, it's like their biology Sorry or their psychology like, you know, how they were what they grew up experiencing. Yeah, let let me disclaimer disclaimer This is not an excuse to use that Absolutely, because even though these are automatic They are also learned behaviors I'd like to point out That while maybe what is it 50% of the marriages and a divorce The other half end in death Yeah, that's true There you go There's only two ways out Um, so then the study also wanted to look at the other predictors of infidelity and they were looking at age Marital satisfaction sexual satisfaction attractiveness and also history of short-term relationships. They found these younger people That were This makes sense. If you're less satisfied with your relationship, you're more likely to be Unfaithful. Yes. So marriage satisfaction relationship satisfaction is a big predictor of infidelity well, duh But the crazy thing here is People in the study who were satisfied with the sex in their relationship Were more likely to have infidelity Yeah, and so there is a question that's raised here about positive sex attitudes just Leading to a general seeking of sexual relationships Okay, so I am I am not a psychologist But I sometimes consider myself a quick gleamer of human motivation I think those Unsatisfied with their current sexual thing might be more willing to say, you know what? Because you don't like to do that I had an affair versus somebody that's like That's not though. That's not what they found in this particular study. I mean it could another cutting study Yeah, exactly And sex history was a predictor So men who reported having more short term sexual partners before they got married Were more likely to have affairs, but the opposite is true for women. So It's like women were going. Do I like this? Do I like this? Do you like this? No, no, no, no, no Okay, now I found the one I want But for me for for men, it was much more the short term relationships were a predictor of having affairs And and also attractiveness is a predictor as well a person's own attractive attractiveness Is negatively associated with infidelity among women, but not men So less attractive women are more likely to have affairs according to this study However Men are more likely to be unfaithful When their partners are less attractive Oh, so that's just a house full of cheating. That's a house full of cheating right there Interesting yeah, so the the results while it might be a little depressing what they're hoping is that To be able to find out these factors that lead to Divorce lead to infidelity lead to the failure of a marriage That maybe people can start learning about these tools teaching themselves how to Do things differently. Can you teach yourself how to attentionally disengage? Can you teach yourself how to devalue these things that you know Grad stimulate you, you know attractive people. Oh fancy and can you Can you learn how to psychologically devalue that for yourself? Can you Add things into your relationship that will lead to better marriage satisfaction Can you you know, what what things can you do? And then possibly also Understanding what factors predict infidelity. Maybe it'll help partners pick better partners that'll last longer in a lot of fun so The is the implication here that somebody who who measures as someone who is likely to have To cheat basically Would always be that way or there's an opportunity for them that to be different Well, I mean people are you know people are people so how can it be? Right well because because you were saying before right that that it's somehow just linked into a person's Wiring right so it's not necessarily Due to whoever they're with but it has to have something to do with where they are in their life cycle, right? Like that has to be there's got to be there's got to be other there's got to be that involved. There's there are complexities Absolutely with individuals when you take any group of individuals and dump them into a spreadsheet You know that are that becomes numbers and behavioral outcomes Um a lot of the nuance is lost, but at the same time, of course. Yes. It is a mix people are a mix of their behavior of their biology and their environment, right so maybe Maybe some people are hormonally wired to be very just outwardly focused all the time and not focused on the the safety and the comfort Of a long-term relationship. Maybe it's wiring. Maybe it is uh, and also childhood or young adulthood experiences and also what is like you said what's going on in a person's life right now, but They did find Like like I said short term relationships Before marriage and men did prid were a predictor of infidelity. That doesn't mean it's all men. This is statistics and probability and It's not going to be the way it is for everybody. So let me just tell you it's all men I'm just wondering if Since we have we have measures and we have predictors now, right? If pre marriage counseling becomes a thing That's something that you could potentially see coming at least to be able to say Let's work through some issues. Let's figure out what's going on before you two get married because it seems like maybe you need a minute it's I just It's a thought it could be. I mean people love the romance of marriage But you know marriage is a lot more than just the wedding and it's a big commitment and I think there's a lot lost By not having many of the customs that we once did That people jump into these things Much more nowadays and yeah pre marriage counseling. It's a great idea Sure, but that's I don't know. Let's talk about more love and science. Let's move on But did you want to say something? Justin? I just I just wanted to say Follow up on my every man will cheat. I think every woman will cheat And with some it's when the opportunity comes up, right? For for most though, I would hope it's if an extreme outlier of an opportunity With somebody who you might have been that star-struck lover with had you not Been with this other person for a long time first It's a complicated thing to be a human being It's like all of those words of love that you were breaking down earlier You know people can people can find that in more than one place. Yeah Anagami's tough But uh But yeah, it's it's I think that I think I think if if the person you're about to get married to Has described the fact that they've been in dozens of relationships, none of which lasted more than two months probably Not marriage material Even now Or make sure that uh, you're past that two month time frame Before you have the marriage conversation. Yeah. Yeah, good None of my relationships last more than two months. We've been together two weeks and three days. You want to get married? No, no, I don't All right, tell me some more love stories, Justin Oh, yeah, uh elephants As they are uh all across the world once roamed across north america woolly mammoths were common in canada in alaska And there was something called a columbian mammoth which occupied the regions between Washington state south dakota and all the way down south into mexico Uh, most of these went extinct about 11 000 years ago some Isolated in the arctic were around until about 4 000 years ago Now Or actually a little while ago 117 Uh footprint track That was about 43 thousand years ago Fossilized on public lands in lake county, oregon has been revealed And has clues about an ancient family dynamic of columbian mammoths This is uh red elect professor at the university organ department of earth sciences and studies lead author these prints were especially close together And those on the right were more deeply impressed than those on the left as if an adult mammoth had been limping Study reveals The limping animal was not alone Two different sets of smaller footprints appeared to be approaching and retreating from the limper's trackway This is uh red elect again these juveniles may have been interacting with an injured adult female Returning to her repeatedly throughout the journey Possibly out of concern for her slow progress Such behavior has been observed with wounded adults in modern matriarchal herds of african elephants. So 43 000 years ago Mammoths They loved each other. Hmm. They cared Uh these particular tracks were made in a layer of volcanic soil at fossil lake And interestingly they named it fossil lake Because of the abundance of fossils Oh Yeah They I guess this site was first discovered Uh by university organ science professor thomas condon 1876 and wow the fossil collection is now boasting upwards of 50 thousand fossil specimens Fossil footprints are something that just they boggle my mind the idea that footprints can be Trapped in time and not be washed away not be diminished and be recognizable So many tens of thousands years later. I mean that to me these This kind of a discovery is is awe inspiring. Yeah So the mammoths. Yeah, so the mammoths were traveling as a pack And they and they cared for each other Mm-hmm Also Modern elephants the When they lose their teeth They only get a certain number of of sets of teeth when they lose all of them They Act they need mushy food because they can't chew anymore and younger elephants will actually pre chew Some of them Really? Yeah, that's amazing Wow Yeah, so they they really appreciate the older members of their Of their herd, but then the the elephants eventually will go off to find softer food. So they're not encumbering the group anymore and uh, that's what elephant graveyards are their swamp lands where there's soft food that elephants can eat And then they die there and they get stuck there I thought they were just like up to my time better head over to the graveyard So my so my uh, my my grandchildren can come visit me later. No, no, it's just it's mushy food It's pureed food for the older elephants Oh, wow Yeah You learned it here Elephant aging elephant graveyards pureed food Pre chewed food for elephants You get old I think I'm gonna go hang out in the marsh Hunter around there for a while Better that than having to get dentures. Come on. Well, it's I mean basically you're gonna go live at the jamba juice. Think about it They should start parking jamba juices right close to the retirement communities. Yeah, don't need your dentures in for those No, oh dear. Oh dear Justin. Did you have another story you wanted to talk about right now? Uh, yeah, I can go with uh, this is loving it with the lights on whoo Can we power entire communities with clean energy green power sources solar when wind Yeah, we can but then what happens at night When the sun is no longer in the sky and the winds calm down Do we do the lights just turn off? Is that what's gonna happen? Is that the future? No, we already have that that's called the sun's up during the day and it goes down tonight one possibility Has to use any excess solar and wind based energy to charge solutions of chemicals That can be stored for use at night During the downtimes chemical solutions of opposite charge pumped across solid electrodes good great electronic change That provides power to the electrical grid the key to this technology is called redox flow battery Yeah Finding that it needs to find chemicals that can not only carry sufficient charge But also be stored without degrading for long periods of time Thereby maximizing power generation and minimizing the cost of replenishing the system. Unfortunately. No one has figured this out One day when they figure this out We will have a story. Oh wait. Here's the story Research here in University of Rochester and University of Buffalo believe they have found a promising compound that could do the trick and by trick I mean transform the entire energy storage landscape and make renewable fuels a thing that we can use everywhere Uh in a paper published in chemical science In open access journal of the royal society chemistry Researchers described modifying a metal oxide cluster Which has promising electroactive properties so that it is nearly twice as effective As the unmodified cluster for electromechanical energy storage In a redux flow battery. That's twice The thing that they were hoping to achieve to get to Sometime in the future and they found something that's twice as effective Uh research was led by the lab of ellen mattson phd university rochester assistant professor of chemistry This is uh This has been the sort of thing like we have the tesla battery thing If you want to spend all that money and put a giant battery wall The power wall where it can it can store energy from your solar during the daytime Or if you've got a wind energy thing and or you could just pull it from the grid during the off peak hours And store it there The expense of those is pretty insane though. So with this Uh what they're what they're hoping to do is come up with something a lot less expensive So that it can be used cheaply by everyone everywhere And even if even if you forget the the solar and the wind aspect of this Just utilizing energy in off peak hours means it'll be cheaper for everyone And means we'll be we'll be getting better Usage of the energy we produce we'll actually consume because a lot of the energy once energy goes out into the grid A lot of it's just wasted a lot of it doesn't even get used from the point of production to the Get to you we lose more than half of the energy we produce Just transmitting it and having it uh buzz about the grid waiting for somebody to turn on a light so Uh if this if this prototype battery Uh works out That could be a definite huge boom not just to the economy but the environment Yeah, these kinds of batteries usually they're kind they're larger sized and so they're not really the kind of power wall put it in your home kind of kind of application but They are definitely, you know think of a large apartment complex in a or you know a skyscraper in a city These are the kinds of things you could put one of these flow batteries on a floor Or for a set of floors or for industrial applications these kind, you know, these tanks of fluids and And and and and molecules that are going to be passing by each other and But yeah And when's the last time you actually use your swimming pole to go swim again? Who needs that in Absolutely. Yeah, no, I've been waiting for years for Advance advancements in these areas and I think we're finally starting to hit some of them I mean a lot of them it's prototypes in laboratories still and so, you know We just got to keep our fingers crossed that there can be technology transfer We've got proof of concept. Let's see it grow. Let's see it get transferred out of the lab into some kind of a company application Where we can get it manufactured and put in use That's what we want. That's where we're now. That's where we are now. I think Yeah, and I want to I want to thank real quick everyone who's bought a solar panel to this point Because that's part of why this is happening now is because solar panels are more of a viable option Because it has become more efficient because the prices have gone down because people have actually started investing their own money Into this new technology and as a result of that now people are trying to find ways to bridge that gap when the sun is not out and so I think that it's it's It's frustrating at times that that's the way progress works in our world But when it starts to work out to our favor and to the earth's favor, it gets me really excited We can hope let's keep going in the in the earth's favor and in people's favor I mean there was a study that came out this last week talking about Uh, what is it black lung in coal miners is it's increasing the rate at which coal miners are getting black lung Is increasing and the doctors are finding it more. Yeah, it's like an epidemic They don't know what's going on. It's getting worse But we've we have less coal miners than we've had At any point in the last hundred years You were coal miners doing all the work Yeah, or are they digging deeper? What's happening? It must just be the last jobs left by done by humans are the ones that have always been the dirtiest Like I think like there was probably guys who were coal miners who never got past 10 feet in the entrance Yeah, I'm a coal miner. Well actually once the cart comes to the surface. I push it out Into the daylight then somebody else takes over it goes onto a truck or something I don't care like there may have been like layers and levels of being a coal miner But the only thing that's not automated now is the dirtiest grimeous most in your face coal job that there was so Yeah, we don't need to have let's let's try and clean it up for people's health for our planet's health Let's see what we can do here people Oh, let's positive note it. Is it time? Is it time? It's time I think it's time now for players animal corner with Blair Oh, I have cat fishing fireflies Um, so there's way too many like animals in that But you know what cat fishing is right everybody does everybody know Okay I only only know what this is because I was wondering why there was a fishing show on mtv I was like MTV is showing people catching fish like Channels have gone out of their boundaries to kind of get back to and so I tuned in for like Long enough to regret it but so cat fishing Colloquially speaking is when someone pretends to be someone else to woo an individual Through the internet or what have you and then eventually they show up Bam you've been catfished that you know 22 year old bombshell is actually a 54 year old man So that's a cat fishing here. Yes. Uh, well, it turns out fireflies do it. Let me explain So there's two North American genera of fireflies Fotonous and Foteris and they Have similarities They both flash Patterns to attract potential mates the males do this and then the females will actually Flash in reply to say they're interested There's they look very similar. Their flash patterns are similar, but they are distinct Where it gets interesting is that some of the Foteris females have interest in the Fotonous males And that is because Those males have a special chemical defense in their blood So when birds spiders ants try to take a bite out of these fireflies This chemical defense this toxin is released in tiny droplets and then the The predator will spit them out and they'll survive So where this gets interesting is that those females of the other genera Will pretend to be their genus and then Eat them So i'm gonna fake it and then i'm gonna eat ya That's a catfish filet. Yeah, does the catfish filet indeed it is. Um, yes, so the females will Respond to males with a female signal Of the other genus And then when the males come up close they grab them and eat them they use though those toxins They're They're called i looked up how to pronounce this beforehand even two and now i'm gonna mess it up again It's lucif lucif Lucif lucif There we go lucif pagans A lot of uh, you gotta practice those words in front of the mirror a few times. Oh, yeah, I did it a whole bunch Still not possible lucif pagans. Uh, they are steroids They're actually similar to the poison generator from fox club plants from fox gloves and Then when the female when she lures the male in she eats all of his blood And then she is able to use that to protect herself which she does not produce on her own And it passes on to her offspring So and here she is taking a bite out of that male in the video that you're watching It takes a really disturbing cut to in just a minute. They they jump ahead. Bam. He's upside down in hollow Yeah, she's she's like a like a jade or a vampire or you know, this is this is a A firefly who is faking her identity to be able to get what she needs to survive and how And to get what her offspring need to survive. That's right. Yes. It's like a it's a A succubus. It's a it's a black widow vampire succubus I think it's just being a female maybe uh, what's what's very the last kind of little Turn in this story that I find very interesting and also a little funny is that the weariness From these males becomes a part of their biological history They this this genera the photonous males take over seven nights to find a female And woo it and get up close enough to mate and sometimes they get eaten the the The female of the same species Takes less than six minutes to find a male So the male has to act so Careful because they might die because they might get eaten And this is this is a weird thing. This is like is this a genetic memory or is this just what's left of a population After having gone through this predation for so long That would be my guess is that it's a it's a it's a selected trait the weariness to be wearing Survive well, one of the things that that's sort of interesting too is there's there's other aspects of this uh Hippos will attack humans But they won't attack a whole lot of other species if they're around They only like they only get really aggressive when humans come by And zebras have a tendency to stay out of blow dart range from humans, right? Like there's all these weird like Ways that the animals interact about around humans Whereas, you know a water buffalo passing by might not even like raise an eyebrow, right? so So there's well, that's that's kind of complicated because I would say most prey species are going to run away from humans Because we have binocular vision and that's right away a signal that we're a predator Oh, you think it's just the visual like anything with the ties up front. Yeah, you got to stay away Absolutely. There is also there is also though There are habits that do Do get trained in over generations You know, there are lots of habits of bird species that live in urban environments versus the same species that live in rural environments You know So when you have animals that you can compare Those that exist where humans are versus those that do not exist where there are humans Their behaviors are different and the way they react to things are different and there's You know, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of especially Species that we hunt but who live in areas where humans have never been hunting before are much are much Tamer, they don't run away as as quickly so That's what happened to a lot of lemur species that were very quickly Hunted to extinction and of course the poor dodo as well Hey, what are you doing? What's up? So many megafauna Like like the large creatures that used to roam Australia and north america Uh, I hadn't seen humans before and as soon as we show up You know, we're able to walk right up stick a spear in their eye and you're like, ah, I didn't see that coming Nobody that none of the other creatures ever been a big stick in my eye before Yeah, and well, but it also that easy to kill And and a lot of these island species again, they don't have big predators so If you go to mainland areas where there are big predators that look even a little bit like us or have traits in common They're going to be much more predisposed to run away, which is why also in Australia There's a bunch of species that are endangered because of cats and because of introduced dogs And because of dingos in spaces where they weren't before it's because they're just not used to being hunted period And so they they're they're just they By those creatures Well, they're just not being used They're not just not used to being hunted pretty much in general And which is why a lot of these kind of weirdo animals live on islands It's because of island biogeography and because evolution didn't put the same pressure We're on such a tangent right now. Anyway um, these fireflies Are already showing weariness because they they might get their blood sucked out moving on I yeah, I I understand. Yeah Fireflies to hummingbirds. I want to talk about a type of hummingbird a lot of people don't know about they think about the anas hummingbird or they think about the uh Ruby-throated hummingbird or the allen's hummingbird those are kind of the hummingbirds we're used to seeing in north america at least for those of us Who are from north america? But this story is about the coaster reek in hummingbird Which is about twice the size of those smaller guys They have a long curved bill that's perfect for sipping nectar from bright orange heliconia flowers or helisonia flowers. Um, and They have a very interesting way Of displaying for females. We've talked a little bit about lex before leke a lek on twists in previous conversations lots of birds do it It's basically where all the males hang out in one place like this giant arena They display they sing they march around and the females come and take their pick That's right and these Hummingbirds will actually have an eight month breeding season With this with these lex Period because they are uh close to equatorial that they're so so much they're so far south That's that definitely Helps for sure. Yeah that the nectar is plentiful for a longer season because there's it's warmer Absolutely, and so they they find a perch the males find a perch in the forest understory and they sing that whole time So they find they find their territory. They're saying hey babe want to come over to my nest and they're singing for eight months and The males will Will get better or worse perches. They'll fight for those perches. They actually stab at each other with those curved bill tips Unless dominant males known as floaters. They won't even have a perch They'll come and hang around the lek around the edges, but they won't have a perch that they're defending so Understanding all of that that they're that they're they're competing over a specific space. They're singing the whole time Well over eight months A hummingbird still gotta eat So they actually have to leave their perch to go get nectar and then come back And in the time that they do that they can actually lose the best sites So this is a whole extra Pressure on them a whole extra selective pressure because not only do they have to be big and strong enough to defend their space But they also have to be quick enough to make their trips fast to come back to their space So what this new study from cornell university found was that Spatial memory outweighs body size and fight and flight power in hummingbird success So based on everything I just told you you would think being strong and being big would help you defend the best space would help you have the best songs because you You can display and you have the most energy and all this kind of stuff But actually being able to Find the best nekker nectar in the quickest route possible Right is the most Um is the most selected for trait right because they're being efficient. They're more efficient Male hummingbirds leave their perch go get food faster come back and there's less time for their perch to be taken from them Right Same perch they had to pick a different one that wasn't as good They spent more time perching and singing and less time just flying around in circles Figuring out where the neck right got more face time with the ladies absolutely So they found this out with a laboratory experiment. They had a row of three hummingbird feeders near a leck Two had only water one had sugar water and they watched the birds Make a trip to discover which feeder had the best stuff the only stuff really and then they waited until the birds came back Recorded whether they found the sugar water on their first try following and then they tested 30 30 male Uh individuals and most of the males completed at least 10 trials So this is a lot of of data that they got from these guys There was only one male who got all of the trials right. He never missed the correct feeder There was a male that did no better than you would expect by chance Which is a third of the time and then there was everything in between So they had a really great distribution of data and they could see success And extrapolate information from that and they found that birds with better spatial memories were consistently more likely to be dominant birds with perches So even though they might maybe weren't stronger. They were still better at keeping their perch because they were quick and The floaters the little guys who didn't have a perch at all Were the ones who couldn't remember which feeder was which at all not only were they tiny but they were just not very smart This was independent of age. So it wasn't a learned thing. It wasn't from experience and even more surprising was that the females Were more swayed by the mental acumen than the physique This was a good Indicator for who is going to win out at a leg So they also found oh, this is my favorite thing that males with better spatial memory also saying more consistent songs And they think that maybe it's because the singer Sounds less like an inexperienced youngster and more like a veteran survivor But for whatever reason better food they've been around longer Yeah, but somehow the spatial memory is somehow related To their singing ability. So maybe they're just overall smarter I think that would be more of a generalist kind of a smarter thing because Um, I mean typically you wouldn't necessarily Think that spatial ability would have anything to do with singing I kind of would Uh, I kind of would I mean, I mean it's a different the space spatial memory is uh is a different part of the brain All together You're dealing with the hippocampus and other areas of the brain that are not related to the vocal song production centers Well, not the production center maybe but like but but there is spaces There's and music and in the structure of a thing and there's you know, I can I can sort of see Music as spatial structures as giving pauses here for effect going that direction a little bit and bringing it back over here Some more like I don't know. I could I could sort of see how how those could be related Maybe you have a good graduate uh thesis on your hands there Pick up and run with because I won't do anything Sounds like justice going back to school Yeah, and in the chat room bleak is saying that math and spatial awareness and music are Related in in bleak's opinion, but uh, yeah There is I mean there is a certain aspect of structural awareness to musical in humans at least to musical ability And we do draw a lot of parallels between song production in birds and vocal production in humans and also potentially musical ability um Yeah, I think it's an interesting question and I don't know anything About it and my my gut reflex was to say why that doesn't make sense Because after study a studying spatial memory for so long We never asked a question of how it correlated with song ability With mating success. We never looked at that She's going back to school. She's dusting off the old racer She's trying to find a bird she worked with. She's hoping they're still around so she can work and say Right. Well, uh teaser for after the break my last story involving bird udders all about zebra finches. So I do love the zebra finches, but oh my god imagining them with udders I think I need just make a quick sound make it make a zebra finch sound Me okay now make make that smash with a cow I'm just gonna stand here and laugh you guys it is time for us to take a break This is this week in science. We will be back in just a few moments with more stories I've got rising tides and can't buy me love But you can't buy me happiness According to science. That's right. We'll be back. Stay tuned Hello everybody, thank you so much for joining us once again for another episode of this week in science We are thrilled that you are here with us to talk about science To learn about science to find out about things like elephant graveyards and pre-chewed food Come on everyone. You don't learn about things like that anywhere else Because this is where Blair is. This is where I am. This is where Justin is We're here every Wednesday And this is really all thanks to you because you do support what we do and you do keep us going week after week So I would like to take this moment to remind you of the various ways that you can help twist out and continue To support us in our endeavors of bringing you science on a weekly basis twist.org is the website that you can find all sorts of information about twist and you can find links To things that are of interest in this way if you would like to buy twist gear Click the zazzle store link that will take you to our zazzle store. You want to go directly there at zazzle.com slash this week in science We have t-shirts. We have polo shirts. We have pillows. We have mouse pads All sorts of items with the twist logo and also with original art from blairs past couple of years animal corner calendars It's great stuff. You can show off your love of twists You can share your love of twists with others in the world and the proceeds go to help This week in science so you can help support your favorite science podcast If you do not need any more stuff, but you want to want to help us out and help us pay those bills Well, one way you can do that is to Scroll down the page on the front page. There is a yellow donate button You can just click that donate button It'll allow you to donate one time whatever amount of your choosing It's through a paypal interface if you are interested in supporting us financially Donating on a weekly basis go to any show page And you can scroll down to the bottom There's some pink buttons underneath the show notes where you can choose to either be a one time contributor or to have a recurring Donation of two dollars a month five dollars a month or ten dollars a month any of those these go through paypal and they Minus the paypal processing fees Help us pay the bills indeed. They do now beyond Beyond paypal if you would like to join our patreon community. That's where we're doing a little bit more crowdfunding Over on patreon You can click the become a patron link and become a patron at the level of your choosing whether it's two dollars a month Five dollars a month ten dollars a month You can choose your level of choose of of support and be a member of the community. We post the the youtube Program here. We also post the podcast. We have Special content sometimes that comes out only for our patreon audience This is a special place to be if you would like to join us here and support us in an ongoing fashion Now say you're not really able to help out with the stuff or the financial support You're like, I got my own bills to pay. Well Are you subscribed to us? Do you know people who should be subscribed to us who maybe only listen once every once in a while? We really would love you to subscribe So you can go to twist and click on the big orange subscribe button That will allow you to subscribe either on youtube's on youtube's the youtube's no just one tube youtube Over on itunes in the apple podcast Marketplace or in google play the android marketplace Any of those places it helps us helps us out a lot knowing how many people are downloading the show having you subscribe It and getting new people to subscribe to the show It helps us grow and helps us be more We'll help you know more week after week after week All right, everybody This is where I stop talking for this portion of the show and just say thank you so much for listening Thank you for being a part of what we do. Thank you For supporting us in all we do we really couldn't do this without you Down in the after madness and then step the lives that they lead need adjusting They drive to the bookstore and blindly start trusting the miracles and cures all And we're back with more this week in science Yes, we are and oh it is time for that wonderful part of the show that's uplifting and inspiring I mean the whole show tries to be but Oh This week in what has science done for me? lately Oh, yeah, it's here again and on valentine's day What else to celebrate valentine's day? then sonnets Sonnets steven from australia from peth Is back again with some sonnets two more sonnets for blair Yes Here they are The first My springtime hell Perth winter rains die all the pastures green The spring is close behind Where hell ensues the views are plundered by a new regime as wildflowers bloom in all their wondrous hues East winds now rising from the low plateau Lift pollen grains into the clear blue skies. They're carried down onto the plains below Instilling misery in countless eyes But thanks to science spring. I can endure non drowsy antihistamines the cure Very well done So good. Oh good and number two My podcast heaven I eagerly await each episode my ears are filled with science Day and night a hundred podcasts to my phone download flash memory stores untold gigabytes But listening hours are too few in each day and science shows have grown in recent years But I can change the speed at which they play At 1.3. I've caught up on her rears. So thanks to science. I am entertained as more Of our vast cosmos is explained Very well done I love it. Thank you, Stephen Stephen, thank you so much for your creativity for these These wonderful thoughts about what science does for you. Yeah for springtime antihistamines. Oh my goodness. Yes the allergies many people appreciate the science Behind the cures for allergies the treatments for allergies And now I know that you listen to our show at 1.3 times normal speed I know tom barrett listens to it at something like 1 1.5 times normal speed or something Who else out there listens to us a lot quickly and how often do we sat do I particularly sound like a squirrel I'm interested in if they can tell when I've had my late afternoon coffee And they have to slow it back down That's right. That's because sometimes I feel like I'm on 1.3 speed in real life. Yeah But podcasts science makes podcasts possible I think it really does everybody out there. It doesn't have to be a sonnet blair loves a sonnet I love the a good sonnet sonnets are fabulous. They're so great. What a great expression of Of feeling in words in And but it doesn't have to be a sonnet. It could be a haiku We do love science haiku haikus, but it can just be a letter. It can be a short note I want you to write in come on Write in tell me what science has done for you lately. How has it made your life better? How's it just We've given you a moment of happiness. What has science done for you lately? Leave us a message on our facebook page. It's this week in science over on facebook pretty easy or you can email me k-i-r-s-t-e-n At this week in science dot com I want to keep it going until we've filled up a year. Come on. Let's make it to earth day everybody Let's do it. What has science done for you lately? You got to tell me justin Fluffy bunny time. I do love fluffy bunny time. Okay, so uh When were fluffy bunnies domesticated? um bunnies 5 000 years ago Kiki venture When did humans start taking Bunnies bunnies Bunnies Yeah, I mean cats were what? 5 000 were cats 5 000 cats were I think five to seven dogs were between 10 and 40 They're not sure. Okay, so I'm gonna guess that rabbits were not as long ago I'm gonna go with about cat five to seven thousand years ago. That's what I'm gonna Okay, so turns out uh bunnies were domesticated by monks in 600 ad After edict from pope grecary declared that it was acceptable to eat fetal rabbits known as lorises during wet Problem is that story which is and has been the prevailing story cited as the advent of bunny domestication Is not true No, you know why I didn't go for the 600 ad number Not catholic Ah, that's it. That's what happened I don't know that eating fetal rabbits is something that catholics talk about a whole lot I have never had that conversation with somebody Who is This is what people who've been trying to research rabbit domestication Have found as the source the thing that must be true Uh And this is archaeologists even Irving peace and Gregor Larson of the university of oxford accidentally discovered Uh, that the story was likely completely false when trying to test how well the molecular clock method works for genetically dating domestication and rabbits so Uh They went and looked at At wild rabbits They went and looked at wild rabbits and they found That the wild rabbit and the domesticated rabbit Likely diverged sometime during the last ice age Maybe even before like this would have been it's cold outside, right? Everything's frozen over. I'm gonna take a rabbit into the cave with me and Like our bodies because well you have to take two rabbits into the cave with you And then then you wait a little bit Then you have a food supply More bunnies and we're all warm Yeah Yeah, so but then I realized like, you know, actually these aren't very well related even like this might not be a domestication thing these might just be two disparate species that haven't interacted In a really long time and maybe that's not a domestication event Maybe that's just a separation of two species of very different rabbits So they looked at it a little bit more Uh, so in our and they suggest in the paper domestication is more likely cumulative effect of hunting rabbits During the paleolithic era Keeping them in roman medieval enclosures And then moving them from place to place as people traveled and wanted to bring a food source with them And eventually this breeding led to pets So not a one time. Hey, let's decide to make this rabbit our friend But just a long history of slow evolution into Uh, uh a bred species That like the wilder one the wilder of the breed probably escaped Oh, but also I think Who's gonna get out of cage and who is right I do think there's a difference between domestication and pets because you could just be talking about livestock, right? Think about rabbits. They're not very tame. They're not house trained even still hundreds of thousands of years later Wait a second pause for a second because I've had a domestic rabbit pet And they are easier to train to poop in the right place than a cat Interesting experience sounds like an outlier But you can't the thing you can't train them to do Is love you no is to not gnaw at any electrical wire that they can find it's on the floor They will gnaw through every power cord that you have draping the floor to their access But they will always if you with very little training They will always prefer to poop in a specific cage or or like Rabbit litter box that you provide Well, if you think about it, they're Not only are they probably a very good source of meat, but furs So I I I think my monies on they were domesticated a very very very long time ago because they don't require that much They just need some vegetables It's not a big deal Yeah, and you don't even and it isn't like livestock where you have to have large pastures and fences Well, they don't go places. I mean you can just put some trees in the way Yeah, or you can bring them in and keep them from freezing in the winter Which is the thing that that Justin mentioned about the ice age, right? Is that if you have sheep or cows? They go and die When it freezes outside you can't bring all of your cows into your into your shelter But you could bring your bunnies into your shelter Yeah, but the big point here though is that it's not there's no one particular event That this was just a lot of different events lots of breeding events lots of Probably trading lots of rabbits back and forth and They just happened to use and if they maybe got a different wild rabbit from a different place That maybe they might have found a closer relationship Right This is uh larsen kind of sums up what you're what you're saying Uh, he says for the vast majority of human existence No one said i'm going to grab this wild organism and bring it into captivity and voila I will create a domestic one If you want to divide the continuum into a dichotomy of wild and domestic you can do that But you have to know it's necessarily going to be arbitrary Rather than asking when domestication occurred larsen believes we need to reconsider what domestication even is And whether humans have ever really intended to cause it We have been as the colleague ervin pierce says we have been slightly arrogant We know a hell of a lot less about the origins of the things that matter most to us than we think we do Accurate yeah people stop being so arrogant arrogant people And then following on that, uh, there's a study. This is this is the fox study folks. This is the trep I would just forget what it's I always want to call it the fox trap study, but I think it's trep I can't remember the trep fox study trep fox study uh study so Uh, this has been an amazing thing where they have they took wild foxes in russia And they penned them all up and they started doing selective breeding The ones that were like really like bristly when humans were present Uh, they bred them with other bristly ones They kept them separated and then the ones that were like oh human i don't care Yeah, they bred with other ones that seemed at least a little less bristly in the beginning Uh to humans and over time over generations of foxes They've gotten like pretty domesticated foxes that you could play with and ones that are probably even more Anti-rabidly anti-human than the ones they started with because they crossbred a lot of aggressive ones with other aggressive ones Now they have like You know security for the farm Yeah, the the friendly ones even get kind of floppier ears and and more interesting, uh color combinations splotchy color Yeah, yeah fluffier ears. They they start to get they seem they stay more puppy like Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is like a a domestication Uh process right which they're intentionally doing so this one isn't as arrogant But but it likely does you know in in the real world the domestication of the dog probably was just living near each other And the ones that were less afraid of humans were the ones that would hang around our our garbage Piles right and over time For over generations of the ones that weren't afraid of humans hanging out with other Foxes or wolves or whatever it was that weren't afraid of humans They crossbred more often and you got this more human friendly population And the same is probably also true of humans humans who are afraid of foxes and wolves probably Stayed away. Okay, so Uh this so the what they did was I guess they looked at the uh A characteristic reduction in fearfulness and domesticate animals is closely related to reductions and blood levels of acth hormone released by the interior pituitary gland that among other things Drives the stress response according to University Illinois animal science professor Anna kukakova Previous studies have found that acth levels in the interior pituitary do not differ between tame and aggressive fox strains to kukakova Uh, this means that differential expression of the gene coding ACTH may not cause the differences seen in blood levels of this hormone And some other mechanism is reducing acth bloodstream of tame foxes our analysis revealed That the differences between tame and aggressive foxes may line cells in the interior pituitary gland Which can change their shapes to communicate with one another about when it's time to release stress hormones Their pituitary gland may produce the same amount of stress hormone But be less efficient at getting those hormones Into the bloodstream if confirmed Our finding could help explain why tame foxes are not stressed so easily as foxes that have not been selected for tame this Hmm Couple a couple of molecules All comes down to your hormones As per you use of the brain That's it. That's the difference between the domestication of an animal And something that wants to eat you or run away face it us mammals. We're all just slaves to the hormones Yeah, it's just the brain the brain controls everything you think you're in control It's your brain. Yeah, but it's it's it's a special hormone though. It's the levels of the stress hormone. So it's Whether the foxes are stressed out or not So, I mean and what's actually people who act create people who act, you know, who are unpredictable and aggressive They've probably got a lot of stress hormone going on What's probably what's also interesting about this though is that The fluffer your ears and the blotchy colorations are related to stress of the mother When the the baby fox or dog or whatever it is or or maybe rabbit is in utero and so So those lower stress levels or that maybe it's this in the blood less of this in the blood translates into different hormone expressions change and and and is what they believe leads to that color differentiation that we were talking about in the domestic foxes and The the morphology of the ears and that sort of thing. So this has a lot to us about maybe how how I guess the environment of the mother and the experience of the mother while pregnant and how that affects the the offspring and the traits of the offspring And it could all be to training these cells at the back of the pituitary. That's like, yeah, uh, no, we're not gonna release That'll be fine Yeah, we we we're comfortable with this situation I know you're ready to stress out, but it's just hanging out here Just hang out. You don't need Well one place we are not gonna want to hang out Is um along the coasts necessarily Hmm Well, we know that the sea levels are rising and there are wonderful maps that we can Use to see how sea level rise is predicted to affect various areas Uh coastal regions around the globe Well, you know what those models are wrong They're wrong because according to new data researchers out of the university of Colorado Boulder and others have been Part of a study looking at 25 years of satellite data looking at sea level rise How it has been rising and using that information to estimate how rise will occur in the future How high is the water mama? Well right now by 2100 and it's expected to rise about 30 centimeters We can make it to the road and homemade rate. It's the only thing left that we got Okay, but But but oh no This new data this new data says that the rate is increasing by 0.08 millimeters per year This is an acceleration. This means the level rate of sea level rise uh The rate rise of 10 millimeters per year or even more and then you add it to how the rise is going and how it's been going and It extrapolates out to a potential sea level rise of 26 inches 65 centimeters by 2100 double Over double the current estimate Well, the hypes are gone. I've lost my bees. The chickens are sleeping in the willow cheese trees willow cheese past their knees Oh, how high is the water mama? Yeah, how high is the water mama mama? Well researcher named steve nerham He said that this acceleration is driven mainly by accelerated melting in greenland and Antarctica has the potential to double the total sea level rise by 2100 is compared to projections that assume a constant rate this is Rate of increase people and this is almost certainly a conservative estimate the extrapolation assumes that sea level Continues to change in the future as it has over the last 25 years given the large changes We're seeing in the ice sheets today That's not likely So they're looking at this as a conservative estimate based on everything There's they've seen for the 20 past 25 years from the satellite data And where we are right now and they're kind of going yeah, if it business as usual this acceleration will occur And this is where we're going to be not taking into account The expansion of water due to heating not taking into account other factors that could actually Increase it even more So that waterfront property you have right now if you're in california, maybe you might might want to move it to placerville Yeah As we have reported The water rise won't affect all coasts and shores equally. It's true. It's true Interestingly going to affect the west coast Much less so than it will parts of the east coast in the south of the united states and differently in other parts of the world um But it's still going to have an impact I mean one of the things that you're from the central valley. So, you know, there's kiki um Aside from the fact that there's nothing but cows and chickens roosters out here according to black It is also one at one point in history wasn't in let's see That's why it's such good growing grounds This was all the bottom of a of an inland wetlands sea at one point and man, maybe it will be again Maybe it will you're still connected to the delta out there. You still have a bunch of wetlands. Yeah, it was again This study also, um, they're looking at uh, they've been looking at Data from the grace satellite gravity mission to determine the uh, how the acceleration was being driven And that's how they came to discover that it was being mainly driven by melting ice in greenland and and artica A co-author gary mitchum from the university of south florida college of marine science says The tide gauge measurements are essential for determining the uncertainty in the global mean sea level Estimate they provide the only assessment of the satellite instruments from the ground And the scientists have kind of struggled to pull out other important details from the tide gauge data um, but the study actually In a time when we're looking at budget cuts and potential uh, satellites satellite Plans being cut and future plans for climate measurement Not potentially not going to happen now um, this study highlights how important satellite records are For maintaining our view of the earth and also validating climate model project projections because um, there was a projection The satellite data are now saying our projection was too low and we were wrong and this data is giving us a fuller clearer picture of where we are I mean, we could just get rid of the satellites and blind ourselves, you know, to be like, yeah Ignorance is bliss man, but yeah. Well, but yeah, that'll that'll hurt a lot of people We need to in order to take care of ourselves as a species We need to know what's coming Absolutely, if we know what's coming, we can make plans For the global coastal communities. We can really estimate how we can help populations Move and how we can moderate the effects so that fewer people are negatively affected around the world Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Should I keep going with my stories? Justin, did you have another one for right here? I used all my stories all stories. All right. Well, you know what? Let's talk about love back to love I had to talk about the climate the climate change satellite story That was an important piece of news that had to had to be discussed but now Love sweet Guess what Materialism is bad for marriage That makes sense You're saying this on the most materialistic day of the year I know on the day that is characterized by flowers and candy and gifts and You know that you must buy things and give them to your partner as a sign of love Sweet love Yeah, no, uh jason carol from b y u and his graduate students Have published a study looking at a dissatisfaction That's caused by materialism Carol says we know that materialism can lead to poor money management And that leads to debt and strain but financial factors may not be the only issue at play in these situations Materialism is not an isolated life priority as the pursuit of money and possessions are prioritized It appears that other dimensions of life such as relationships Are de-emphasized They looked at 1300 married individuals and measured materialism perception of marriage importance and satisfaction with their marriages and participants were In this given statement statements like having nice things today is more important to me than saving for the future Having money is very important to me. And then they had to rank how strongly they felt are agreed with this the statements They found that Higher levels of materialism are linked to a decreased sense of importance of marriage and less satisfaction in marriage And something that the researchers think is that maybe it's because materialism crowds out relationship priorities when you think you can replace Thing we replace feelings and connection with stuff You're constantly striving to get or you're working hard to get the stuff To fill the house To do you know to be the person spending your time working because you're spending all your time working and not And not connecting You've come here to discuss well, I'm in the lease now But I I wish I was in a in a more expensive Finder automobile I think she's got a nicer car than I do and I just feel like I need to have also an equally expensive vehicle And I need to wait another eight months until my lease has happened. So this has been very frustrating for me Like this is how I imagine these people But also you wonder if it's just if it's a stress in the wrong thing So that's kind of why I was making a joke about Valentine's Day is if someone Does service and shows love every day of the year but doesn't buy you a big present. Do you then devalue the relationship? yes immediately No, okay, this is like I I have made like my I usually try to make a valentine's day again Whether it's a painting or like write a song or something like that because if it if I go buy something I've always felt that it's like I didn't have time to you know Do anything from the heart. So yeah, big chat some smelly soap and some chocolate. There you go Like this has always been my attitude chocolate. So get those confused Well, I think that's how I've always looked at it. So I might not be in that materialistic category But I I sort of think I sort of think though too That it might be if both people are materialistic It's sort of like if if two people come together for any interest It's going to be something that the relationship is a little bit revolved around like it turns out you and I are Fans of the same sports ball team Wow, I like this sports ball team too. So then what do you do? You go to a lot of sports ball games You watch a lot of sports ball television in your team and you dress the whole family in sports ball uniforms And you're stuck with that forever and you don't never get too far away from it because this is a binding Fiber of the relationship if you have got come together over some ideology that you share Probably you like fancy cars. I love fancy cars. Let's drive fancy cars together And then what do you do your relationship revolves around buying the next fancy thing and it's and and the more expensive It is the more meaningful it is and so I can see how no matter what it is that brought You as a couple together if there is a one thing that you have a common interest in It's going to probably stay there And if it's a materialistic thing it means you're going to likely end up in a lot of debt and have Worked really hard to pay it up. Yeah, so my advice is Is find somebody you have nothing in common with That the relationship doesn't revolve around anything that you have in common And and then I have got a lot more freedom relationship advice from Dr. Justin Not a real doctor Uh, the researcher goes on to say many people are not fully aware of their materialism Or the degree to which the pursuit of money is becoming an unbalanced priority in their life It is helpful for spouses to evaluate and openly discuss the time patterns in their lives and make sure that they are devoting enough time to Prioritize and strengthen their marriage relationship. So a lot of it comes down to communication people If somebody thinks they're doing something for the right reason spending a lot of time at work Trying to make the money or focusing on money that that's not what the partner wants and you're not talking about it Then you're going to be moving apart in your needs, but you know, it's that focus on money You know, you can get to the money But it's only going to Get you happiness at a certain point it can buy you happiness The money can buy you happiness it can according to a study out of Purdue University Researchers have determined they've published in nature human behavior based on data from the Gallup world poll Which is a representative survey of more than 1.7 million individuals from 164 countries um they looked at averages of Estimates based on averages on purchasing power and questions related to life satisfaction and well being And they found That there is a threshold they found that the ideal income Is $95,000 for life evaluation satisfaction Not in california for an individual This was done Right it varies from place, but this is for an this is also for an individual not for a family And for simple Well being it's 60 to 75 thousand dollars for an for an individual if you as an individual Make 60 to 75 thousand dollars on average That's your point for emotional well being But if you really want to be satisfied with your life You as a one a single person need to make 95 thousand dollars. They additionally found That people who go over The 95 thousand dollar mark who kind of end up going past that their happiness decreases Yeah, so there is a maximum happiness Conferred by money So what we need to do is take the extra money for everyone who makes more than 95 thousand dollars And give it to the people who make less than 95 thousand dollars and then everyone will be happy Everybody will be happy What you know what this sounds like to me though is I wonder if it's actually the exact inverse relationship The people who make less than 95 thousand dollars a year have so much financial trouble There is more of a struggle right to to just get to buy and that breeds Unhappiness and happiness and then that actually is what it is. It's not that money makes happiness It's that not having a constant weight of debt or where your next paycheck is coming from or what bills to pay You don't have the stress. That is a huge weight off of you just not a good doctor Thing that I always say about money and happiness Money does not buy happiness It pays misery to go away Like nothing else does though right When you don't when you're not having to like stress over like or get the knock on the door or get the late notice in the mail or get the What what do you call the the overage fee or whatever it is? When you don't have to When you can just be like oh Little billy broke his his leg at school today. Oh, that's terrible Well, I'll just write a check to the doctor and it will be solved. You paid misery to go away That's right. If instead you've got to worry that little billy's never going to walk right because you can't afford the doctor bill and you don't have insurance That's that's the difference and Yeah, and then this 95 thousand dollars is it's an average But the what they come back what they what the researchers say at the end here is There's definitely the like you said there's a point where They didn't say what you said, but it's money paying misery to go away It's you've got your basic needs met. You can buy some conveniences you're paying your loans back You're getting out of debt. There's this optimality point for money But maybe past that point the researchers say that maybe people begin to compare themselves more to other people start seeking more things to be able to try and Put their level of well-being closer to other individuals or how they perceive it and so that might need to less life Satisfaction as you get more money kind of keeping up with the jones is suddenly it's not It's not just getting your needs met and being satisfied it's all of a sudden trying to keep up with other people and Have the status quo be different and so money Is a part the researchers say of what really makes us happy and we're learning more about the limits of money I had this trust fund Just fill in the worst thing you could say about somebody a trust fund fill in that blank person who was who's got into a Wanted to get into an economic conversation with me of some sort because of my bernie sanders stickers Which I still have on the back of my automobile And they were pointing out like hey like almost everybody lists paycheck paycheck It's just as you make more money the things you buy are more expensive Right that was their theory of like Everybody's paycheck to paycheck, right again fill in the blank the worst thing you can think about somebody Some people are paycheck to paycheck by choice some people aren't and there's a Gigantic difference between those two scenarios. Yeah Absolutely a huge difference. You know, there's also a huge difference in the intelligence of various people And a new study. This is my last this is my last story for the night. This is not that more I still have more you from here on out. I don't know if it's not players players about the My bird out of chicks with That's right Anyway, so look if research study looking at brains Who knew I brought a story about brains Trying to use a new concept about brains To predict intelligence and this is something that I think is really interesting. They're using fmri to measure what is called neural entropy and now Yeah, so we think of in in physics or thermodynamics, you know, the idea of entropy is a system Expand going to chaos or disseminating, you know, there's A closed system eventually will Become entropic, right? but in this particular case the entropy measure is a measure of variety of possible system configurations and so when we're talking about the networks of the brain, it's basically talking about all the different possible confirmations and connections that the different networks could have and The idea is that brains with a higher neural entropy Measure Would be more intelligent because they would potentially the brain itself would potentially be Predicting all the possible scenarios or be ready for More possible scenarios that would be occurring at any point in time So they went about actually trying to measure this and they used Functional magnetic resonance imaging to look at the voxels or like these, you know pixels picture pixels in the brain of Of oxygen use within the brain and they the voxels are basically the measures Of resolution that you can get with these fmri's And in the study what they did determine is that as the voxels change you can actually they can see Changes and transitions between the voxels. So look at one particular voxel and is it on is it off? how How dynamic is the state of that particular voxel over time? and if the voxels have higher measures of Change of dynamic range that Suggests greater entropy And so they actually showed a link between taking these pictures over time of people's brains And then doing intelligence tests on them and basically correlated Entropy higher entropy to being a predictor of intelligence Oh So this is a we might not have to take intelligence tenth tests Maybe it'll just be a brain scan and they'll go. Yep your brain's pretty dynamic. You must be a smarty pants Oh, that's great. Then test anxiety doesn't factor in yeah, but I think it's I would test very well in this but I think I think that it's it's it may be an overrated form of intelligence Oh Like the fact that you can sub reference in tangent constantly Doesn't necessarily mean you can stay focused on any task long enough to accomplish anything This means you're really good about thinking about all the other possibilities Involved with the question you just asked, but maybe never get around to giving an answer Yeah, so I I don't know. I love I'm really Interested now in this idea of brain entropy and what it means, you know for basically, you know, how how nimble Is your brain and what does that mean for personality? Not just intelligence, but personalities How you react to information? What is it? What does it influence? What does it mean about who you are? Yeah And a good measure or maybe not again, maybe I've never said this before maybe this is the first time this has ever been said Maybe it's not again at all What if Intelligence the thing about intelligence is always sometimes when somebody the word itself Bothers me when I try to implement it and think about How so how how do you rate somebody's intelligence? or Because those those things that we're good at with our minds Very I think from person to person different people have different ways of approaching information different ways Approaching the world and there's certain tasks where your intelligence is Not the right fit for the task that you're being asked to do and and somebody else's intelligence might be well suited to it Even though they're not as good as verbal quips And sure as somebody might have an amazing photograph and I've met people of photographic memories, and I mean Uncanny like the kind of stuff you could put on a tv show and would wow people But maybe they're not Good with talking with humans Like maybe they have other things so intelligence is a thing that I think everybody has It was just need to find the You know if you if you are doing something and you feel like gosh I'm not really smart at this You're probably doing the wrong thing because there's probably something you could be doing where people go like wow You're genius at that. I think everybody's probably a genius at doing something It's where you have chosen to apply The brain that you have that is how you're getting rated on your intelligence For instance at my my my there's specific intelligence and there's general intelligence and this is kind of Trying to measure more general intelligence But I guarantee you there are people less intelligent without putting myself on any sort of a There are people much less intelligent than me Who understand chemistry And for the life of me no matter how I've slogged trodged trodged trodded Tragola troglodyte through the information I don't get it. I cannot I cannot keep in my head and adam. I cannot Look at a a diorama of a molecule written in its in its Elemental compositional forms and understand what I'm looking at. I cannot read The shorthand of the periodic table though. I have stared at it longer than most people have Stared at their walls. I like for whatever reason my brain is like now No, I don't want to look at that one, but you'll you'll understand it in a different way Not necessarily the periodic table as it is but other aspects of things. Oh, maybe not But so so everybody yes, so everybody has their specialties and my final story I just want to say that some people it's great that they've gotten their specialty in science because when uh people like elon musk and space x Launch a tesla rotor roadster into a mars crossing orbit, you know, and it's the It the cameras run out of batteries. Everything's out of batteries. It's not given off a signal anymore Where's it going to go? Where is it going to be? What kind of an orbit is it going to be getting into and tesla had or space x had Estimated what the orbit might be but what is its actual orbit? Well, Of course scientists are going to figure that out So they did they want to you know, we want to know how what the chance is of this tesla rotor roadster coming back in And smashing into earth or into venus. What's the probability? Right? So they ran a hole these researchers from canada Hano ryan daniel tamayo david vukuleki I didn't say that one right They ran a whole bunch of simulations and they have discovered the first close encounter That we can expect with the tesla again where it will come in close proximity to earth 2091 We have to wait until 2091 for it to come back near earth And the orbit that it is in Will have a probability of collision with the earth and venus over the next one million years To be six percent and two point five percent respectively And the dynamical lifetime of the tesla In space Yeah, just a few tens of millions of years jump change jump change Yeah, so it's in a it's in a stable orbit. It is out there. It's Going to be it's going to be coming into close encounters with venus in with mars but not Actually running into any of these wonderful inner planets. Thank you Yes, the spaceman is And thank you scientists for doing things like this. There's oh, I'm sure it took them five minutes Oh, oh what's how much does a roadster way? Okay, let me just do do do do do there you go They do that all day My favorite thing is so this paper was published in the in the archive which is a pre-print server for the physical sciences and um, this is For something that basically occurred a week ago You know, it's been a week, a week and a half since the Tesla launch, and it's, they've got, they've already done the analysis and written the paper, published it to the pre-print server. That's what I'm saying. It took them a couple minutes to do this math. Just a couple of minutes, like this is a quick turnaround. And Bleak, yes. I said 2,091. We'll have to throw a Tesla Roadster party in 2,911. Yep. Blair will still be here. Oh, you'll, you'll be here too. It'll be fun. It's a little bit. Alright, the background. I'll be in the back, I'll be one of those things on Kiki's shelf. You're going to be a desiccated husk. No, just a brainy jar. He'll trap us in Firefly. Kirsten will finally have that real human skeleton to hang in the background. That's right. Who's that? Oh, that's Justin. Sorry. I just kick him in the shins sometimes. Make that a thing. Can we put that in writing? That would be awesome. I'm donating my body to science by which I mean, specifically, to turn me into a skeleton. Oh my gosh. I actually spent about an hour today mounting a skeleton, a human skeleton. So that's, that's, that's a funny koo-inkie dink. It's a funny koo-inkie dink. Alright, bring us your last story, please. Well, the bird udders I was talking about. We know birds don't lactate. I'm just being silly, but lactation is part of my story today about zebra finches. Let me explain. So lactation is put into action by a hormone prolactin in mammals. And this has been studied in other animals besides mammals. They actually found that prolactin cues birds and fish to produce food for their offspring, things like crop milk, crop milk and milky secretions that they feed their offspring. There's something about milky secretions. Dip your, dip your, your Valentine's cookies into that milky secretion or that crop milk. Hang on a second. How do birds come up with milky secretions? So crop milk is basically when you see birds regurgitate food and it's, it's liquidy. This is something that penguins do, right? That's called crop milk. It's, it looks milky. It's not milk. It's some fish, secret substances that look milky. They're more mucusy really that feed their babies. So prolactin is part of the chemical process that causes that to happen as well. But this is the first study now out of Cornell University to show how prolactin works in birds that do not make food for their babies from an internal source. So zebra finches do not make crop milk, but they do have parental care, which is why they were chosen for this, this experiment. So males and females take turns taking care of their babies. So it's actually a pretty well coordinated effort. And so in this study, they took 25 male female pairs. They suppressed prolactin in peanut. They used a drug that suppresses it in peanut oil. And then they use normal peanut oil with no drugs in it as a control. And they found that after the birds had been fed drugs for several days to reduce their production of prolactin, they, they were measuring the temperature of the nests, which was a proxy for how frequently the parents were paying attention to the babies, how often they were in the nest. And they monitored how much time this parent spent regurgitating food. And they found that lowering prolactin eliminated complete in a lot of cases or at least drastically reduced brooding and feeding in both male and female zebra finches. They were also much less synchronized when they fed compared to the group. They said during those two hours and the hormone was suppressed, they were providing basically no care. So, yeah, so this hormone prolactin, it's perhaps it needs to be renamed because it doesn't have anything to do with lactation. It's starting to look like this is something that evolutionarily starts way further back on that tree of life that helps dictate parental care. Yeah. That would be a really interesting thing to look at. At prolactin homologs, homologs also in various species that have some aspects of parental care and kind of see if like alligators. Right. What levels of prolactin are in these species? When are the levels high during their mating, breeding, reproductive cycle? Are there like I was saying homologs that are present in insects? Yes. Like spiders that carry their young on their back. Absolutely. What species? Yeah. There was actually, this is reminding me, there was another study that I encourage everyone to look up this week about frogs where the males take care of the eggs and actually protects them from predators, including other members of the same species. You wonder if these little frogs have something similar happening that is causing them to take care of their eggs. Yeah. Pro-parenting. We'll call it pro-parenting. Pro-parenting. Parent good doll. You're going to need to continue to workshop that one. Pro-parenting. I think pro-parenting. Pro-parenting is good. Pro-parenting instead of prolactin. There we go. Pro-lovetin. Pro-lovetin. That's right. We're going to work alongside oxytocin for bonding, love, connectedness among all people. I feel so connected to everyone tonight. Thank you for joining us all on the show. Thank you for watching. We have made it to the end of another episode. All of our science. We have discussed it all. Thank you for sticking with us. If you did to the end. And now the pro-patriot. That's right. That's where we're going. Pro-pro-pro. It's time for me to say thank you to all of our Patreon. Patreon. Patreon. I don't know where that came from. Keith Corsale, Tyrone Fong, E.O. Byron Lee, Kevin Parachan, Mark Hesonflow, Matt Sutter, Ken Hayes, Aaron Luthin, Flying Out, Christopher Wrapp and Brendan Minnish, Greg Briggs, Robert Gary S, Marjorie Rudy Garcia, Robert Aston, Kurt Larson, Steve Lessamon, Ben Rothig, Sean Lamb, Greg Riley, Jim Drupal, Lisa Slazowski, Christopher Dreyer, Brian Carrington, Jason Olds, John McKee, Paul, Sean Bryant, Rick Ramis, Brian Condren, Richard Eric Knapp, Kyle Washington Time, Jumper 319, Bob Calder, Bill Curze, Jason Roberts, Matthew Litwin, Mark Mazzaro, John Ratnaswamy, Craig Landon, Jacqueline Boyster, Ed Dyer, Tony Steele, Alex Wissen, Stave DeBell, Andy Groh, Joshua Fury, Charlene Henry, Richard Onimus, Jibarton Latimore, and Paul Disney. Thank you for your support on Patreon. And if any of you out there are interested in learning more about Patreon, you can find information at patreon.com slash this week in science. And you can also help us out if you are so inclined by telling your friends about twists. Sorry, let them know there's a cool science show that they might want to listen to. If you haven't told them about us by now, it must be somebody you really don't like. That's right. And on next week's show, we will be back. Once again, broadcasting live online Wednesday at 8 p.m. Pacific Time on twist.org slash live where you can watch live, join our chat room. Hey chat room, thanks for being there. And if you can't make it, don't worry, that's okay because past episodes are archived at our YouTube channel and we're broadcasting there right now. Hey YouTube channel, how's it going? People over on YouTube, you can find those past episodes at twist.org slash YouTube. You can also find episodes at facebook.com slash this week in science. And no, I didn't forget about those of you who are watching on Facebook. Thanks for watching us there. Thank you for enjoying the show. Twist is also, of course, available at a podcast. Just Google this week in science in your iTunes directory or if you have a mobile type device, you can look up twist number four, droid app in the Android Marketplace or simply this week in science and anything Apple Marketplace-y. For more information on anything you've heard here today show notes will be available on our website. That's at www.twist.org where you can also make comments and start conversations with the hosts or other listeners. Or you can contact us directly. Email kirsten at kirsten at thisweekin-science.com justinatwistmaninatgmail.com or play our play of as at twist.org. Just be sure to put twist, T-W-I-S, somewhere in your subject line. Otherwise your email will be spam-filtered into oblivion. You can also hit us up on the Twitter where we are at twist science, at Dr. Kiki, at Dr. AxonFly, and at players. Menagerie! We love your feedback. If there's a topic you would like us to cover or address, a suggestion for an interview, a haiku that comes to the night, please let us know. We'll be back here next week and we hope you'll join us again for more great science news. And if you've learned anything from the show, remember... It's all in your head. This Week in Science This Week in Science This Week in Science This Week in Science It's the end of the world So I'm setting up shop Got my banner unfurled It says the scientist is in I'm gonna sell my advice Show them how to stop the robots with a simple device I'll reverse global warming with a wave of my hands And all it'll cost you is a couple of crashes This week science is coming your way So everybody listen to what I say I use the scientific method And I'll broadcast my opinion all over the earth This Week in Science This Week in Science This Week in Science Science This Week in Science This Week in Science Science I've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news That what I say may not represent your views but I've done the calculations If you listen to the science you may just that understand But we're not trying to threaten your philosophy We're just trying to save the world from jeopardy This Week in Science is coming your way So everybody listen Do everything we say And if you use our methods that'll roll and I die We may rid the world of toxoplasma Got the eyes This Week in Science This Week in Science Science This Week in Science This Week in Science This Week in Science Science Got a laundry list of items I want to address from stopping global hunger to dredging Loch Ness I'm trying to promote more rational thought and I'll try to answer any question you've got The changes I seek When I can only set up shop This Week in Science Science This Week in Science Science This Week in Science This Week in Science This Week in Science This Week in Science The end of the show Thank you everyone for joining us Wrong button I have Darwin Yes English naturalist Charles Darwin You just love to study barnacle anatomy Develop the concept now called Darwinism to explain evolution Through natural selection when an organism develops advantageous genetic traits it survives to pass these on to offspring organisms that cannot adapt do not survive and their traits die with them These views sparked a controversy in Darwin's time that rages to this day among humans although other animals do not seem to be much bothered by his ideas Is that written on him somewhere? Yeah That's cool Yes February 12, 1809 was his birthday Happy birthday, Darwin 200 and 11 He's a lot older than I thought he was Alright For the sake of Blair's sanity tomorrow afternoon I think we should Oh that's right We had a nice long show but Blair has to get up really early in the morning It's actually probably better off not sleeping than just having a cup of coffee No I think five hours is better than no hours Say good night Blair Say good night Justin Good night Justin Good night Kiki Good night everyone This is a quick after show Sorry We gotta go We love you so I was gonna do some other rhyming but We need to go but that's the show I kinda said that I was gonna bohoho It doesn't work anyway No Alright everybody Thank you so much for joining us for another episode We'll be back next week I forgot to say we have an interview next week we're gonna be talking with Ryan about his experience at the Mars simulation site where he was for two weeks and testing space suit designs and other fun things looking very very exciting for that so stay tuned Isn't that where they did the like poop potato thing? What? Might be no We reported on the show right? at the Mars simulation they tried to figure out if they could but I think it's a different place There are multiple different Mars simulation places Just joking, banking my questions I will not ask them about poop potatoes I'll think about more things Poop potatoes are in Hawaii and this is like in Utah or something like that Anyway Everyone out there thank you for joining us Again if you need more information twist.org you can find us on the social media also and we'll be back in a week on Wednesday We hope you have a great time until then Happy Science to you all Happy Valentine's Day Thank you for sharing it with us We send you this science Valentine