 You appear to be on air. Okay. I think we can start. I think I've vamped long enough Guys, I don't usually do this I've been here before Blair Cut point three two one not just go Well, I would go you stop talking. Okay You can't breathe This is twist this week in science episode number 652 recorded on Wednesday January 3rd 2018 when the doctors away the co-hosts will play Hi, everyone, I'm Blair Basterich and today on this week in science will fill your head with sexy mods ancient Americans and the cure to global warming but first Yeah disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer It's a new year Calendorically speaking anyhow in reality. It's just the same number of days stretched out before us that have always been there That place we're going that thing racing towards us that once it meets us head on makes a whooshing sound as it goes past Every day a new challenge presents itself every day a new opportunity to learn Every day a new chance to expand our horizons by adding new knowledge to our Understanding of the world and while we've seen many strange things on this journey of ours already Every week we will be right here with you and Together we'll see many more here on this week in science Coming up next There's only one place to go to find the knowledge. I seek I want to know Good Science to you Blair good science to you Justin Welcome everyone else out there. I am very sorry to say we are without Dr. Kiki tonight But the two of us are going to do our best to bring the science anyhow Today was supposed to be our prediction show, but instead we'll be doing that next week on the 10th January 10th. I can do that and Tonight we still have lots of great science news for you since we didn't do any science news last week We certainly have quite a bit to get through on this week's show we have so much I brought Moth sex I brought political instability. Oh, no wait. That was already here I brought something an update on bats and some sneaky bacteria What did you bring Justin? I've got some ancient Americans the end of cure to global warming and Prediction. Oh wait. We're doing that next week and then I'll probably find and read something You're gonna find something mid-show. I'm gonna find something during the show. Is that or is that a first? I don't know we'll see I Do you have one more thing you want to tell us before the show starts? I probably do. Let me check these show notes Well, well, just looking let me tell you we still have calendars available So there are still some calendars. I know it's already January But they're you're only a couple days in shipping is only a couple days for you're inside the United States So go ahead and order those calendars Calendars before January's up. You still have a squirrel to color So go ahead and order those and if you're in the San Francisco Bay area Bring your calendar to SF sketch fest at the California Academy of Sciences on January 18th on Thursday January 18th We will be doing a live twist show at the California Academy of Sciences as part of sketch fest nightlife You can get tickets at Cal Academy's website or at SF sketch fest calm and you can come even if you don't have a calendar That's okay, but if you have one, I'll definitely sign it That is gonna be a blast and as you listening are listening now to the show I want to remind you that there are other ways you could be listening You could be subscribing to twist as a podcast and the iTunes and the Google play Podcast portal stitcher spraker doing in you can also find us on the YouTube Facebook even by searching for this week in science or just visit twist org But now it's time for So I see Do you have science news for us today? I do so new Native American heritage History discovery was made in Alaska a previously unknown population being called ancient barren jeans Some sort of play up the bearing straight I suppose up till now It had been believed that the earliest settlers of the Americas crossed from what is now Russia into Alaska via an ancient land bridge spanning the bearing straight It was during an ice age. So this would have been walkable It and now now it appears There's even more evidence to continue believing that One of the outstanding questions though still has been Where their waves of migration are we talking about one people's when we talk about the Native Americans in their origin Are we talking about waves of migration or a back-and-forth migration? And over how much time did that take place in the new study an international team of researchers led by the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen sequenced the full genome of an infant a girl named Satyati Anna Tidei gay or sunrise child girl by the local native community whose remains were found at the Upward Sun River archaeological site back in 2013 to their surprise They found that although this child lived about 11,500 years ago Long after people first arrived in the region several thousand years Actually after settlements were already in place as far south as Chile Her genetic information did not match either the two recognized branches of early Native Americans Which are the northern branch and the southern branch Instead she appeared to have belonged to no not aliens, but an entirely distinct Native American population They're calling the ancient barrogans Further analysis then revealed that the ancient Barren gins were an offshoot of the same ancestor population as the northern and southern Native American groups But that they were separated from that population early in their history timeline here allowed Researchers to construct a picture of how and when The continent might have been settled by a common founding population of ancestral Native Americans who would have been also ancestral to the ancient Barroganians So the study was led by a professor Esca will will slip who holds position about st. John's College University Cambridge UK and the University of Copenhagen in Danmark the ancient Barroganians Diversified from other Native Americans before any ancient or living Native American population sequence to date This is a quoting voice It's basically a relic population of an ancestral group, which was common to all Native Americans So the sequenced genetic data gave us enormous enormous potential in terms of answering questions relating to the early people of America's we were able to show that people probably entered Alaska Before 20,000 years ago It's the first time that we've had direct genomic evidence that all Native Americans can be traced back to one source population via a single founding migration event study compared data from the upward Sun River remains with both Ancient genomes and those of numerous present-day populations That allowed the researchers to establish that the ancient group was more closely related to early Native Americans then their Asian and Eurasian ancestors and Then to determine the precise nature of that relationship Now over time they split into the distinct populations The upward Sun River genome shows that the ancient Barroganians were isolated from the common ancestral Native population Both before the northern and southern divide and after the ancestral source population was itself isolated from other groups in Asia Researchers say this means that they were already in the Americas when these subdivisionings started to take place So according to the researchers timeline Ancestral population first emerged as a separate group Around 36,000 years ago probably somewhere in Northeast Asia constant contact with Asian populations continued They figured until about 25,000 years ago when the gene flow between the two groups ceased this ceasing of genetic flow Likely indicates the time when they were either isolated by weather or Left the cotton Right. So so it kind of kind of puts it at about 25,000 years ago as the plausible migration time Wow, I really like that in the article One of the researchers says it would be difficult to overstate the importance of this newly revealed people to our Understanding of how ancient populations came to inhabit the Americas. I I get that. I definitely agree I think that I talk all the time about how our Our science books at relation to space will be so different just basic, you know elementary middle high school Textbooks will be so different. They probably are now than when we were kids and it will be again. This is a situation where Something the closest to home you can possibly get in terms of those of us that are in the United States, right? Is rewritten and will continue to be rewritten as we find these things But I also just like when a scientist is really excited about their own finding I feel like a lot of scientists would say that it would be difficult to overstate the importance of their new finding So so these ancient Baragunians themselves sort of disappeared, although it looks like they were absorbed The northern group that had headed south went back north kind of had a Revisiting of those territories after the glaciers had melted So they they kind of they believe they sort of merged back in so that the current Alaskan and far northern Native Americans Are still of that same same group, but not but they were the one they're more closely read to the northern branches It's also interesting here is This is this is we talk about we talk about the the Text you were talking about textbooks being rewritten You know as early as the early or as recent as the early 2000s as these Clovis point in in the lower United States and areas where starting to get dated to like 13,000 years 13,500 years old there was enormous controversy about them and And and it was because because and I'm always remember I might be slightly misremembering my textbooks I believe said that crossing took place 9,000 years ago There's a site in Pennsylvania that they claim might be 19,000 years old or somewhere in that range But you know way way that is true, but my favorite is this is a Jacques Sink Mars French Canadian archaeologist He dated bones that had human butchering marks on them To being 24,000 years old and this is up in the Yukon He did this back in the late 70s early 80s He published many papers between 1979 and 2001 on the bluefish caves where he'd found this Jacques Sink Mars was literally laughed at When he was presenting at archaeological conferences and that sort of thing nobody took this guy seriously He became I think a little bit jaded by that by the experience in fact But always stuck to it like nope. These are these are humans in the Yukon in these caves 24,000 years ago Deal with it. Here's the evidence. I found it but Yeah, wasn't taking seriously because his results didn't fit the timeline the textbook Even though he had the evidence, right? And now now here's a population. Here's a here's evidence that shows His timeline is right there in it It's the right area. It's the right region and it's the right time frame everything now fits that this this discovery of his Absolutely is Credible for the earliest evidence of peoples in the Americas So, yeah Textbooks do get rewritten Sometimes long after they should have been Often I should say often long after they they should have been in some of these cases. It seems like There's there's evidence that's out there and you know what what kind of what kind of helped like the Ended the debate over the Clovis Point sites There was scientific evidence showing the dating but they're continuing to be controversy about it And then they started finding older sites in South America and After a while, it's kind of hard to argue. Yeah, that one site is too old when there's even older sites being Discovered further away from where you thought they should be. Well, you know what they say Justin time makes fools of us all Yes, I Guess I feel I feel like I Feel like it sort of does it, you know, whenever you look back You have to you have to say look you you look at the data points you have and you make your judgments on those But when these outliers show up They they need to be taken seriously Seriously, they need to be studied seriously so that we can we can come to these conclusions a little quicker guys Sigmar's even admitted that he didn't go back and do as much further research on the caves in the surrounding area because He was so discouraged and he and he admitted to some point the sort of regretting being That discouraged even though he's stuck to his guns all the way through. This is my finding I stand by it We may have had there may have you know, there may be other It's sort of like it's sort of like when we're talking about the the origins of human history and within it all being in East Africa right Well, that's where we found some early finds. That's where all the looking is there could have been over this last four several decades a Lot more looking in those Alaskan areas to make more finds like the one that we just now have If if we had taken seriously the evidence that was presented before it well, I mean when it comes to human evolution when it comes to Exploring the laws of our universe and dark matter and things like that when it comes to outer space when it comes to deep sea all These things that we're exploring and trying to figure out We're looking through Kind of a telescope, right? So we're only seeing a Certain radius of information. We're getting information. It doesn't make those pieces of information any less valid but as we can get closer our field of vision gets wider and Eventually as the field of vision gets wider and wider and wider we can see The whole picture it's kind of It's it's actually almost like a zoom out, right? But it's just or it's like getting blinders removed It's just you're you're getting these these outliers and when they show up as outliers. They don't make any sense But as you start to see the whole picture it becomes a beautiful tapestry of data points That tells a new story So Excellent. Okay. Are you ready to jump into an extended animal corner? Hmm always, okay. I am always jumping to What you got Blair, I Have so much for you today So first I have a headline that is somewhat misleading, but I do really appreciate the headline the headline says Political instability and weak governance leads to loss of species You may think this article is about the good old United States of America, but alas It is not as it's actually about The globe is about all governances around the world. This is a study from University of Cambridge and again Thinking about kind of part of the picture versus the whole picture when we think about saving species a lot of the time We look at one or two factors. We look at pollution and water quality. We look at habitat loss. We look at hunting. We look at protections we look at invasive species we look at Being taken out of the wild for the pet trade we look at noise pollution or light pollution, right? We look at single items But the University of Cambridge wanted to look at an overarching theme in an area that could very clearly point towards a period of trouble for biodiversity hotspots and species on the decline and so this new study found that low levels of effective national governance are actually the strongest predictor of declining species more than economic growth more than climate change more than surges in human population This was published in nature a couple weeks ago And and they showed that protected conservation areas do maintain wild diversity So protected space is really important But that only works when they're in countries that are stable politically And they have sturdy legal and social structures, which makes sense if you think about it because if I tell you You can't go in there and you can't mess with those birds, but there's nobody around to stop you Effective of a protection that might be so They looked at so my main issue with this study is that it's pretty Short-term overall. It's actually starting in 1990 if this study was starting in Even the early 1900s. I might think that it had a little bit more of a longitudinal Strength to it, but this is a good start. It's definitely a good start I haven't read any articles or studies that actually focused on this before so I'll take it But it started since 1990 and it was looking at water birds And that's because water birds live in wetlands wetlands are very diverse But they are also extremely susceptible to changes because of all of those things that I mentioned at the beginning Those all affect wetlands and first and foremost water quality is a huge problem with wetlands not to mention a lot of people go in and around and near wetlands, so they looked at these wetland bird species and They analyzed 2.4 million count records of 461 water bird species Across 26,000 different survey sites. So this the time Span is not long, but the breadth in that time span of data is pretty vast They compared this water bird species distribution To the worldwide governance indicators WGI which measure violence rates rule of law to political corruption gross domestic product conservation performance all these different indicators And they found that water bird decline was greater in regions of the world where governance is less effective And they found that to be western and central asia south america and sub-saharan africa had the least effective Governance according to the worldwide governance indicators And they found that was where the water bird decline was the greatest They say that ineffective governance could undermine benefits of Biodiversity conservation efforts that are pretty popular in those areas if you think about it southeast asia Western asia central asia south america africa those are all areas where there are a lot of Let's say high-profile conservation species And so there is definitely a lot of money a lot of men and woman power a lot of effort going into Protecting those areas and protecting animals in those areas, but it sounds like They're they're kind of going to waste in a lot of those areas because the governance is somewhat unstable They say that compared to all the anthropogenic impacts tested by researchers that would be all this stuff I was beginning pollution hunting something that National governance was the most significant it was more significant than any of the other anthropogenic impacts and Ineffective governance is often also associated with the lack of environmental enforcement and investment Which also leads to habitat loss and in terms of when you pull out individual indicators Habitat loss is the greatest impact on endangered or extinct species so Habitat loss obviously if a animal doesn't have a place to live Nothing else really matters so When you see habitat loss increasing where there's ineffective governance then you kind of see this feedback loop and the snowballing effect They also looked at a relationship between the speed of GDP growth and biodiversity And they found that the faster the GDP per capita was growing the greater the decline in water bird species So when when there's quick economic growth That can also cause a lot of problems so This story I kind of opened it because I thought it was a snarky retort on a lot of the governmental decisions relating to habitats and species going on on this side of the world where we are right now and It turned out that it was actually a very interesting look at how If we're going to try to save species or as I prefer to think about it saving habitats Sorry, I've talked about this a lot on the show that saving a species doesn't matter if it doesn't have a place to live So really we should be looking at saving habitats, but that doesn't really Do much If the government with people living around that habitat Is not stable enough to let it be So so but here's Here's that's really sad thing that this is what I'm hearing And and maybe I'm misspearing this um because there's not a stable governance and there's lack of funds and lack of governmental activities involved in this in conservation um the conservation efforts are falling flat but if you had a highly effective governance that had The wealth to do things you'd probably see rapid growth of the economy and then the development of the areas of the alternative is Good point instead of exploiting it. You're just paving it and develop There's a difference between Increasing the strength of a governance And throwing money at a government governance So those are two very different things. So basically how I see this is if you want to save species and habitats you have to help people first and The way you help people is by making sure that they Are well represented in their government that they're getting what they need from their government. That isn't necessarily Making sure that their GDP is increasing very quickly But my my point would be not that you would be making sure That the gdp did anything, but that a well organized government Will likely Increase its own gdp will be more stable for its people. It's more remember. So gdp GDP Can be high and there still can be very poor people Oh, yeah in an area. So that's that's the point is that GDP is not a measure of representative government of a government that's stable government that's stable government that's representative or Or strong Or well trusted those aren't really the same. So I think that you can still strengthen a government or a governance and You don't necessarily create a quick A quick spike in their gdp that that's not necessarily how that's going to work Right, but also that would be a different kind of spike than what they've historically been measuring So that might not have the same impact as well as it has in the past But what I see this as is if you want to save species if you want to save environments You have to save the people there as well Which I think is a really important story. It's yeah I'm just my counterpoint is it's going to be people are the problem But that also means They can be the solution And that's my point is that it's just It's it's a systems thinking problem If instead of thinking about the species you're thinking about the habitat instead of thinking about the habitat You're thinking about the geographical region and there might be a wild habitat and there might be a town next to it But unless you consider both you can't save an animal that's living in that wild habitat That's that's how I see this story You have to think about the system and the humans are part of the system ultimately Anyway, um, so That was my that was my controversial Yelly story. Okay. So next I wanted to talk about something a little more fun I want to talk about some invertebrate sex. Um, so I brought a story about female moths And something that they do that actually is usually in the animal kingdom reserved for males They use pheromones to attract males to them And they do it With varying success and that comes down to genes usually so they are either deemed Unattractive or attractive based on the pheromones that they release And in a new piece of research from north carolina state university They found that unattractive moths have found a way to get around This issue where they are not wanted They found that moths with unattractive pheromones Actually would hang out really close to attractive females And that this would help them Reproduce when otherwise they might not find a mate. They also found this is what was really interesting That moths that were attractive or had I guess delicious pheromones Also benefited when they were close to the unattractive females So males that were more discerning Could see them as even more beautiful Next to the unattractive female So As I mentioned, this is something we haven't really seen with and these are moths females very often. Yeah, these are moths It's usually a male thing the males puff up their chests. They do displays. They release pheromones They do all this kind of stuff. They do a dance, you know, and so they They will sometimes benefit from proximity to other individuals. This is something we haven't really seen with females before Especially with a pheromone signal So it's not even that They're kind of just blending in amongst the pretty females. It's they're they're emitting a smell And that's not it's not a good one But the males just kind of I don't know miss They they just they they get confused and they get too close. Who knows but They are they are having more success They actually have little to no chance of mating when they are on their own, but these unattractive females Can attract a male about 17 percent of the time when they're near Unattractive female, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a whole heck of a lot more than zero So they think that the males are making mistakes when they get closer But yes, I would come down couldn't part of it be yeah the range of this pheromone detection It just brings more males generally to the area and then eventually one's like, yeah, all right Oh a female, okay And then the the other side of this coin though is the attractive females benefiting From being close to unattractive females as well. This is really a win-win for them They mated sooner than attractive females that were alone or with other attractive females. So I guess the males the more discerning males Kind of see what else is happening nearby Yep So this is an this is a mutually beneficial way that an otherwise Undesirable trait would continue in the in the genetic line So you could see how if unattractive pheromones have little to no chance of mating Those moths would essentially go away There wouldn't be a lot of them, but this allows them to continue it really reminded me of Salmon and how their sneaker males this is also this is with others these two But I always think about the salmon that the that these these sneaker males are small and undesirable to the females But then when the males big males not looking and the females aren't looking they run over and they fertilize all the eggs So they benefit and they still continue on As these less desirable uh phenotype So they found a way, you know life has a way they found a way to survive Yeah, and and it also you know, it could be could be a strategy. I mean, uh There may be some benefit and being at a tighter knit community and What are the ways one of the ways you get that nature found this or it produced itself? Is that those who were more social? Because I think of it think of it from the unattractive pheromone moth perspective, right Or the case of the unattractive moth If that moth is antisocial It goes off on its own. It's not going to mate But if it's social if it likes being around other moths if it wants to mate Wants when a moth, you know You know the more social moths will be more likely to reproduce regardless of of their That's that's very interesting. I like that. That's that's a very neat way to look at it We're weeding out the antisocial Yeah, that's great only extroverted moths of making All right, well, I'm gonna save my last bit of the corner for after the break because I think it is time for a break Um, we will be back in a little bit. Stay tuned for more This week in science All right, I wanted to remind everyone that we do have calendars available I did some coloring pages that you can color in every month Heck by two or three then you can color your own versions every month to have your friend color one Your ant color. I don't know but there's a few calendars left Catch them where while they're still available. They're available on our website www.twist.org just click on the calendar in the upper right hand corner And you will have a calendar in no time Also, please remember to visit us at sf sketch fest On thursday january 18th if you are in the san francisco bay area For the price of a nightlife ticket Very reasonable. You can listen to all sorts of fun science and comedy Events happening throughout the california academy of sciences and of course your absolute favorite us There will be a live taping of this week in science at the cal academy On thursday january 18th. 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I should say and that's This week in what has science done for me lately? So this week comes from milady carol What has science done for me lately? Science underlies everything Beyond the amazing new discoveries. They're the basics of life I'm grateful that science has brought such amazing life to this beautiful rock I'm grateful for my existence. I'm grateful for the hemispheres of my brain that bring me creativity and logic I'm grateful for my family of humans and dogs I'm grateful for the food that nature provides right in my backyard, and I'm grateful for its delicious nutrition I'm grateful for the amazing herbs and spices and teas and coffee beans that make each morning smell and taste amazing And for the energy that provides for my body What has science done for me lately? Well art is how I recognize it science is the very reason for me and all I hold dear Thank you for all you do. I've been listening since 2006 Thanks milady carol It's a great one That's the very beginning But a twinkle in kiki's eye at that point Yeah So remember everyone we need more stories. We want one of these every single week So we would love you to write in to let us know what science has done for you lately What does it do for you every day? Leave us a message on our facebook page Go to facebook.com slash this week in science or you can email dr. Kiki at kiki finch at gmail.com We want to fill this every week with inspiring or funny or silly or just Factual stories about what science has done for you lately. I'd still I'd still like a son All right, so Justin without further adieu Do you have more science news? Yes, a new feat of engineering may be the technology the world was looking for to end global warming The devil you say Yeah that That new technology lies in fossil fuels No, no, no The university are developing technologies that have the potential to economically convert And biomass into useful products including electricity Wait for it wait for it Without emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere How Blair said skeptically So in the first of two papers published in the journal energy environmental science Engineers report that they've devised a process that transforms Shale gas into products such as methanol and gasoline all while consuming carbon dioxide The process can also be applied to coal and biomass to produce other useful products and things under certain conditions the technology consumes all of the carbon dioxide it produces Plus additional carbon dioxide from an outside source That's the first paper second paper report They found a way to greatly extend the lifetime of the particles that enable the chemical reaction to transform coal or other fuels into electricity and useful products over a length of time that has now commercial operation implications Finally same team discovered and patented away with the potential to lower the capital cost in producing a fuel gas called Synthegas or syngas by about 50 percent Over the traditional technology technology known as chemical looping Uses metal oxide particles and high pressure reactors to burn fossil fuels and biomass Without the presence of oxygen in the air metal oxide provides the oxygen for the reaction chemical looping is capable of acting as a stopgap technology In the opinion of the authors of the study that can provide clean electricity until Renewable energies such as solar and wind become more widely available and affordable Uh renewables are the future says liang city See fan professor in chemical and biomecular engineering who's leading these efforts We need a bridge that allows us to create clean energy until we get there something affordable that we can use for the next 30 years or more Well wind and solar become the prevailing technologies. So this is somebody working On a fossil fuel burning technique not clean burning technology That is saying the future lies beyond this and not too distant Five years ago fan and his research team demonstrated a technology called coal direct chemical looping cdcl combustion in which they were able to release energy from coal While capturing more than 99 of the resulting carbon dioxide preventing it from going into the environment therefore not contributing to global warming the key advance of cdcl came in the form of Oxide particles that supply the oxygen for chemical combustion and a moving bed reactor After combustion The particles take back the oxygen from air and the cycle begins again the challenge Was how to keep these particles from wearing out says andrew tong research assistant professor of chemical and biomec biomec biome Molecular engineering at ohio state while five years ago These particles for cdcl lasted through a hundred cycles Which was more than eight days of continuous operation The engineers have since developed a new formulation that lasts for more than three thousand cycles eight months of continuous use in laboratory tests And it's now the similar formulation has also been tested at sub pilot and pilot plants This is tong in cody voice The particle itself is a vessel and it's carrying the oxygen back and forth in this process and it eventually falls apart Like a truck transporting goods on a highway eventually. It's going to undergo somewhere and tear And we're saying we devised a particle They can make the trip three thousand times in the lab and still maintain its integrity Uh, this is the longest lifetime I've reported for the oxygen carrier he adds The next step is to test the carrier And an integrated coal fired chemical looping process How did they make the iron oxide particles? I don't know probably by Burning fossil fuels. Yeah Uh, another advancement To make more iron oxide particles another advancement involves the engineers development of chemical looping production of Sin gas which in turn provides building blocks for a host of other useful products including Ammonia plastics or even carbon fibers. This is where this technology gets very sort of interesting provides a potential industrial use for carbon dioxide as a raw material for producing useful products So right now carbon dioxide is scrubbed from power plant exhaust And then it gets buried in the hole somewhere so that it's not in the atmosphere In this scenario scrub carbon Wouldn't need to be buried. It could actually be converted into plastics or ammonia or Yeah, other we don't need more plastics get out of here with your plastics Well, you know, if you're but if you're making them from what is essentially a recycled material You don't need to be using Oil from where you can recycle plastic. We probably have enough taken together Fans said these advancements bring Ohio State's chemical looping technology many steps closer to commercialization He calls the most recent advances significant and exciting. It is his own research And it has been a long time in coming. Uh, this is fans Uh results here are from 40 years of research at Ohio State Throughout some of that time his work has been supported by the u.s department of energy And i'll have development services agency This is my life's work fans said And and fan of course is also the one who at the beginning of the story was Basically saying this this 40 years of work this this lifetime effort of his Um is is just to get that bridge to the next 30 years from now when he believes Uh The alternative energies will be taking over Very cool. One could say that fan is a real fan of this research Yeah, no, this is interesting. It's it's something I haven't heard a whole lot about which is this Meanwhile scenario And we're just kind of waiting like, okay, come on solar. Where are you? Let's go. Let's go Which I do feel like we could do It's it's fairly ready But it would take enormous government subsidies which are not coming. So The stop gap really is the limiting factor right now because for every day we're still using Coal oil and natural gas We're pumping more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We don't need to be so This I think this as the end solution would concern me but as a stop gap Has me really excited Yeah, well and then the 50 reduction and sing gas production, you know, um This is this is this is the sort of thing that As we advance With technology We get closer and closer To solving the problems that we wish we had solved a long time ago All right, and and yeah, we may be heading to a future without fossil fuels uh But in the meantime if there is an economically feasible way to reduce the carbon output that we're doing now We create an incentive for them to do it now Um because we're we're in for a lot more warming regardless The sooner we can start reducing not just using a little lacer being more efficient But actually reducing the carbon footprint Uh the better. Um, yeah, I'm just I am a little concerned that someone is going to see this and go great Problem solved We found it. We're good It not look at it as like this stop gap so the The scientists see it that way because they're they're looking at this big picture, but I could see the powers that be Saying put it all in there. Let's just do this now. That's it. Forget about solar. Here's our deal and yeah, and and in a way in a way In a way, I don't know. I don't think it's going to be that late because I think the competition is already Taking off in the direction of at least solar. I mean wind is there too uh, but but You know that part of the part of the problem in all of this is it has been that coal and oil Companies aren't in the energy business As odd as that might sound They're not about finding solutions to provide energy for people They're mining distribution refining companies That's what they they're good at. They're good at pulling stuff out of the ground Refining into a product and then sending it out So so they are really tied to or interested in the energy providing Side of it as much right um, and there's very little very little in common between a mining operation, which is like an oil company and A a energy production solar powered plant. There's there's they have nothing in common in the technology or any of the rest of it so So what you're going to find is people who realize that they can be in the energy business um Through solar and there's a lot. I mean, I don't I can't even it used to be there was like a just a handful of solar companies That you could you could go and talk to if you wanted solar panels on your roof or rinses in that sort of pop around the corner or something Yeah, yeah, and now it's kind of everywhere like there's a new company showing up every day And I don't know if any of them are actually making their own products or these are just sales fronts for a smaller group of solar producers But that that technology is here and it is showing up more and more all over the place so and and there are more and more areas where you can pick solar energy on your electric bill which is Really the key because I feel like there's there's so many people renting out there There's so many people who can't afford to install but who would pay an extra Couple cents per kilowatt hour to use solar solar power and eventually it'll end up being the cheaper option so and actually tesla's uh tesla's power wall isn't a way in the energy market because they uh They they've got this so you take the giant tesla battery Uh set it up in your garage and it Even if you don't have a single solar panel Right electricity is cheaper in the hours when people aren't using it overnight like two o'clock in the morning So from like, you know, maybe 1 a.m. To 4 a.m. it just charges up this battery And then in the peak hours when the electricity is the most expensive it provides it to the house, right? so so there's all sorts of People who are jumping into the energy business in in different aspects in different ways who are attacking this problem Right. Well, there's lots of ways to help with the individual consumer, but ultimately You're not going to do much unless you can change the way industry gets their energy Which I think is what this story is all about. So That's that's pretty exciting. Um, I have some other exciting news to share on the show Are you ready? Yeah, so it's about bats Our poor friends the bats they have been through so much hardship They have just been pummeled By a lot of problems, but mainly white nose syndrome for the past Several years probably close to a decade at this point, but these guys We just keep thinking we have a solution and then It fizzles out and then we think oh, we found some Some bats that are resistant. How can we tap into this and it kind of fizzles out? So we're This is really fascinating. This is a new study from The university of new Hampshire in conjunction with the us forest service and us department of agriculture And they found that the fungus that causes white nose syndrome Which remember we only found out a couple years ago that white nose was caused by a fungus at all But we found out now that this fungus is highly sensitive to guesses No guesses. Justin. Do you have a guess? What is it sensitive to? Um Sneezes. No, I don't have a good guess peppermint. No, it's actually UV light Oh UV light Yeah, so pseudo gym no, ask us destruct hands P destruct hands the fungus that causes white nose syndrome Can only infect bats during hibernation because it has a very strict temperature growth range And so There's all it since it's kind of in this very specific niche of being in the hibernation times They thought they would try all this kind of other stuff to see if there was a sensitivity And they found that UV light Does have an impact On the fungus. They're unable to repair DNA damage caused by UV light And so this could actually be A way to treat bats For white nose syndrome. Just go in there with your UV flashlight So as we know bats play a really important role in habitats and so a loss of Entire populations of bats can be really damaging to those habitats. They're pollinators. They control pests there's There's huge impacts from the loss of bats and so being able to do something about this white nose syndrome Could really be a huge boon To not just their population but the population of lots of plant and animal species So they found that a low dose exposure of UVC light Resulted in about 15 survival of the fungus. It's pretty low But a moderate dose of UVC light resulted in less than 1 survival of the fungus This is only a few seconds of exposure from a handheld UVC light source like a flashlight So the next step now Is follow-up research to see if UV light can be used as a treatment In the wild they're going to measure the survival survival of little brown bats during hibernation After being treated with UV light compared to control groups The important part of this study, which i'm really happy to hear is that They are also going to measure quote-unquote non target effects Including fungal and bacterial communities on the bats that are beneficial So they want to see the microbiome in the bats make sure that they're not getting murdered by the UV light as well because that would be No good So this is a huge Ray of light you could say in the story of white nose syndrome and bats So yeah, UV is uh, it's a pretty typical lab disinfectant. Yeah, well think about like the The toothbrush disinfector. That's just a UV light There you go, so Who knew UV lights might save bats fingers crossed Do you have any more stories Justin? I just pulled one. I'm gonna just found it This is actually I've been asked this question Uh more times than I I can remember Where there are there Is there a cure for tonight? Mmm. Nope. Your hair your hair is once they're dead. They're dead, right? Oh, no, tonight. This is the drum No, tonight. This is that ringing. It's the ringing That was that was an eardrum issue or is that the hair issue? Inner ear care I don't know one of the one of the things that I always thought was interesting about what you just brought up though about the ear hair thing And and yeah, there's there's plenty of drummers. I've met who can't hear at all Right. They just didn't wear the the protective ear Coverings or earplugs or whatever Uh drums are loud drums will ruin your uh, but there's been There's a bit there was there there's been you know these these rock stars who go up and perform You know stadiums with the big speakers and the real loud concerts over and over throughout their life Still have really good hearing can are still right there Um and haven't ruined their hearing despite having gone to more concerts than anybody else Uh, this is uh, but this is it has nothing to do with that millions americans hear ringing their ears So it's a study condition called tonight is uh, this new study shows an experimental device could help quiet the phantoms sounds By targeting unruly nerve activity In the brain So this isn't fixing I just looked it up to you tonight This can be caused by both it can be caused by degeneration of inner ear hairs Or it can be caused by a ruptured or damaged ear drum either way you can get tonight This which is just the word for the ringing in the ear So it sounds like they're not going to fix those structures, but they could Fix the ringing Right, so so now I've never put this together. Uh, the help quiet phantom sounds Uh, it could be like a phantom limb Where the brain is looking from For input from a broken structure and getting a a bad signal back, which the brain is interpreting as sound Uh, in a new paper in science transitional medicine the team university of michigan reports the results Of the first animal testing clinical trial of the approach including data from 20 human tonight's patients not a huge sample There's millions of people with tonight's they should have been able to find more people But based on years of scientific research into the root causes the condition the device uses precisely timed sounds In weak electrical pulses that activate touch sensitive nerves Both aimed at steering Damaged nerve cells back to normal activity Human participants reported that after four weeks of daily use of the device The loudness of phantom sounds decreased the tinnitus related quality of life improved a sham treatment placebo if you will using just sounds Did not produce such effects Results from tests and guinea pigs The double blind human study funded by the coulter foundation validate years of pre clinical research Funded by the national suits of health Including previous tests and guinea pigs. How do you know if a guinea pig has tinnitus? You ask it Right, why is that hard? Uh They say uh the brain and specifically the region of the brain stem called the dorsal Co-clear nucleus is the root of tinnitus So susan shore phd The um medical school professor who leads the research team when the main neurons in this region Called the fusiform cells become hyperactive and synchronized with one another The phantom cell is transmitted into other centers where perception Occurs if we can stop these signals we can stop tinnitus to continues That is what our approach attempts do and we're encouraged by these initial parallel results in animal and humans Very cool Yeah, the uh the uh device approach called targeted biomodal auditory somo So sensory stimulation involves two senses the device plays a sound into the airs alternating it with precisely timed mild electrical pulses Delivered to the cheek or neck This sets off a process called stimulus timing dependent plasticity or stdp Which is first explored in animals and led to long term changes in the rate at which nerves fire Approach aims to reset the activity Of fusiform cells which normally help our brains receive and process both sounds and sensations such as touch or vibrations uh So this is they are they are attacking it at the at the nerve sites But really they're making the adjustments in the brain. It's it sounds like they're retraining the brain to interpret its input Yeah, I mean any way we can restore Normal hearing I'm I'm on board with I can't imagine what I mean, I'll probably learn I'll probably learn what tinnitus is all about because I do listen to a lot of very loud music so But that might not do it so but it's it's 15 percent of americans have some level of it But the worst symptoms occur in about 10 percent of sufferers So that's 10 percent of the 15 percent. So really it's only one and a half percent But maybe maybe this will all be a thing of the past Because once you get tinnitus, you can just go to the doctor I get this device There you go Trick your brain into thinking there's no ringing. You're all set There we go. There's like a real-life baby driver story Okay, did you see that Justin baby driver? No, no, uh, this is this I'm just reading onto the story for the first time So I'm getting very interested in it. Um, hang on So they they recruited for this study though a particular kind of tinnitus suffer Uh, there are those who suffer From this who can temporarily temporarily alter their symptoms if they clench their jaws Stick out their tongues or turn or flex their necks These maneuvers or says appear to be self-discovered ways of changing the activity of fusiform cells providing an external Summits a sensory signal to modulate the tinnitus So in a way people were already sort of self medicating with a form of this therapy basically like huh neat And and uh, yeah after patients had the device calibrated to their own symptoms They learned to apply it earphones electrodes for 30 minute sessions these days. They're not running around with this This isn't a device. You have to wear constantly To to uh counter the effects. This is 30 minute sessions a day. Wow Hmm Yeah, the the hit movie baby driver he has tinnitus and so he plays loud music to drown it out It's part of the big premise but Never mind. This is this week in science not this week in movies I have one more science story to share before we close out the show also related to new kinds of medicine and this is about submarine bacteria Oh, I saw the story Does that be cool? Yeah researchers from caltech Are making strides figuring out how to turn Bacteria into little submarines with sonar detectors that can tell us what's going on in the body They have for the first time created bacterial cells with the ability to reflect sound waves from inside your body Reminiscent of how submarines reflect sonar to reveal locations They are hoping someday to be able to inject therapeutic bacteria into a patient's body And then use ultrasound Machines to hit the engineered bacteria with sound waves to generate images that reveal locations of the microbes Then they would use those pictures to let doctors know if treatments made it to the right place And if they were working properly This is great. Um schlinger Schaller a heritage medical research institute investigator says We want to be able to ask the bacteria. Where are you? How are you doing? The first step is to learn to visualize and locate the cells and the next step is to communicate with them Shapiro says that he had a eureka moment about six years ago when he learned about gas filled protein structures in water-drilling bacteria That helped regulate organisms buoyancy. So he thought that he could take these structures called gas vesicles And use them to bounce back sound waves in ways that would make them distinguishable from other cells So then he demonstrated that gas vesicles can be imaged with ultrasound and guts and other tissues of mice Then they transferred the genes for making gas vesicles from the water-drilling bacteria into E. Coli Which is commonly used in microbial therapeutics like probiotics So we wanted to teach the E. Coli bacteria to make the gas vesicles themselves Said Shapiro I've been wanting to do this ever since we realized the potential of gas vesicles But we hit some roadblocks along the way when we finally got the system to work. We were ecstatic Everybody's happy about their research today. I know nobody's saying, you know, this research didn't really turn out who I wanted Well, that some people did say we didn't apparently we didn't do their stories Yeah, so these little bacteria submarines could go into your body and go Until doctors what's going on inside There you go. All right, I think We may have done it. Would you agree? Uh, yes now now this was now for those of you who are are listening Uh, we we are missing our our dr. Kiki for this show We had planned for our prediction Predictions show where we go over last year's predictions for 2017 How we did I looked over mine. I think I'd been drinking before I wrote Mine were pretty farfetched overall. Yeah I went fantastical the year before that. I was very practical in 2016 in 2017. I threw caution to the wind I was pretty fantastical. I think Kiki's actually all came true. Uh, just probably she's pretty smart She kind of she kind of actually took the task seriously Yeah, she's she's got a pretty impressive head on her shoulders Yes, so so I my my prediction is next week We will be doing a prediction show And I will try to bring predictions That Will happen I predict You'll get about 50 50 and 20. Oh, that's pretty good. That's not bad. All right. So before we close out the show I'm going to remind you once again That twist calendars are available on our website That's at www.twist.org click on the calendar in the upper right hand corner of the page And go ahead and order some calendars for 2018 Huller your way through the year Also, please join us in san francisco if you're around or if you just fancy a trip to san francisco Where you're not under five feet of snow Like in new england and other places on the east coast and you can join us out here for sf sketchfest night life That's on thursday january 18th at the california academy of sciences Now is the time in the show where I want to Thank our patreon sponsors. I guarantee this is something I will not be able to do With quite the proclivity That kiki has but here we go. I'm cheating and I'm using The video from last week because I don't have this video. See what I'm doing. Yeah Life hacks. All right. Here we go All right. Thank you a honey moss erin luthan adam mishkan alex duty alex wins wilson Arlene moss artyom ben rothig bill cursey bob calder braxton howard brendan minnish brian hendrick brian kondren brian Bruce cordell. Oh my goodness. I'm so glad at this. Hey, go back. Give us one. Oh my gosh I'm not wearing a different shirt Okay, here we go. Here we go Bruce cordell byron lee shard and henry. I'm starting over. I'm starting over. Here we go Thank you to your patreon sponsors. Go ahead. Justin A honey moss and luthan adam mishkan alex dodie alex wilson andy grow arlene moss Artyom ben rothig bill cursey bob calder braxton howard brendan minnish brian hendrick brian kondren brian howan bruce cordell byron lee shard and henry christopher redire Oh, thank you for pausing it christopher rapping glumbo. Ahmed craig porter dale brian to dana pierce and daniel garcia Darwin hannon darrell dave neighbor dave wilkinson david david fridel david simmerly david wiley Donald trump the dubious doug dougel cambell See it's not so easy is it? emmer grainii eric nap eric wolf philips alvarez flying out gary s jerald serral's g burton latimore jerald on yago greg geutham greg riley heron sarang hexator howard tan iluma llama jacklyn boister jake jones james james dobbson james randall jason dosier jason olds jason roberts jason schneiderman gene tellier jim drapeau joe wheeler john atwood john crocker john gridley john rato swami keith corcelle ken haze kevin parochan kevin railsback kasenia vulcova curt larson larry garcia layla louis smith mark mesaros marjorie mark marshall clark matt sutter mathew litwin mitch neves more cowbell mountain sloth nathan greco orly radio patrick cone paul stanton paul disney phil neva nado philip shane randy mezuka richard hendrix richard onimus richard porter rick ramos robert astin rodney rudie garcia sulgood sam shuwata serfrankadelic stefan insom steve debel steve lesmond steve mishinsky the harden family todd northcott tony steele tyla harrison tyrone fong trainer 84 and this is atkins we did it i can't believe we got through that list of wonderful people yikes that is not easy how does he do it she just rattles them off i can't wow i i wonder if she practices that well thank you to everyone who support us on patreon if you're interested in supporting us you can find us at patreon.com slash this week in science remember that you can also help us out simply by telling your friends about twists on next week's show we will be broadcasting live online with eight at eight pm on twist.org slash live we will be back with kiki our captain oh captain my captain we'll be back thank goodness we will be doing our prediction show it will be fantastic but don't worry if you can't make it because you'll still be able to watch us later you can find past episodes at youtube.com slash this week in science or twist.org thank you everyone for enjoying the show twist is of course available as a podcast just google this week in science in your iTunes directory or if you have the mobile type devices we're on your phones too look up twist number four droid app on the android marketplace or simply this week in science in anything apple market placey 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 and other listeners or you can contact us directly email kirsten at kirsten at this week in science.com justin at twistmini and at gmail.com or blair blair baz at twist.org just be sure to put twist TWS somewhere in the subject line or 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 ki ki at jackson fly and at blairs 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 you tonight 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 here we can 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 robot with a simple device i'll reverse all the warming with a wave of my hand and all it'll cost you is a couple of grand this week science is coming your way so everybody listen to what i say i use the scientific method for all that it's worth and i'll broadcast my opinion all over the earth because it's this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science science science i've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news that's what i say may not represent your views but i've done the calculations and i've got a plan if you listen to the science you may just get understanding that we're not trying to threaten your philosophy we're just trying to save the world from jeopardy and this week in science is coming away so everybody listen to everything we say and if you use our methods that are rolling a die we may rid the world of toxoplasma got the eye because it's this week in science this week in 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 thoughts And I'll try to answer any question you've got But how can I ever see the changes I seek When I can only set up chalk one hour a week? This weekend science is coming your way You better just listen to what we say And if you learn anything from the words that we've said Then please just remember it's all in your head This weekend science, this weekend science This weekend science, this weekend science This weekend science, this weekend science This weekend science, this weekend science This weekend science, this weekend science This weekend science, this weekend science This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. We did it! Justin's not back yet. But we made it. My goodness. I apologize for the bad music audio. I did not have time to set up my soundboard before the show today. Actually I have some notice and I like to clear off all section of my desk, install the soundboard, change a bunch of my settings on my computer. It takes like over an hour. So that's the only way I can play sound from my computer to the video. So I had to use my phone today. But oh well. It'll get patched in later, right? Fix it in post. Thanks, Ms. Mike. I'm no replacement for Kiki, but I tried. My goodness. I tried. But we did it. We brought the science. Hopefully Kiki's feeling a little better. My last understanding was that she was not. Feeling better yet. Like I don't even. Like actually it sounds like the worst of it's over, but it sounded like it was an exhausting day of being sick earlier. Yeah. The stomach flu makes you wish for death. I can attest to that. And you can't do any. You can barely stand. You can't stand really. Last time I had the stomach flu. I had to have someone come pick me up for my house because I was home alone. Pick me up. Help me to the car in my pajamas. Drive me to their house so that they could make sure that I didn't die. Because I couldn't even, I couldn't even like crawl to the kitchen for water. Like that wasn't even an option. Yeah. I kind of, I got something like that a couple of years ago. And I remember I told everybody to stay away. Yeah. But I was, I was like, I was like, maybe this is it. This is how I die. Alone, curled up, just feet from the porcelain bus that I've been driving all morning to no avail. Haven't gone anywhere. But that's fun too. That's, you know, it's a good day. It's a day without other responsibilities. It's fun. What the, who are you? It's like a vacation. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not all bad. I mean, it becomes your job at that moment just to survive, just to be sick. You know, just to try to dry heave a couple more times. Just pretend you're sick and don't go to work. No, that's not, that's, then you've still got to do things because you still have an active mind, body thing going on. When you're sick, there's, you have no choice. It's like a forced vacation. You're taking this day out of reality. I guess. Can we talk about one thing since this is the after show? I didn't want to bring it to the real show because it's, it's not science. So I don't even want to give it the air time for the actual show, but I want to talk about raw water. Have you, have you heard about this, Justin? No. Yes. This is a new thing. It's called raw water. It is going for around $37 for two liters. It is spring water that is completely untreated that they're saying has all these sorts of beneficial health effects. I love it without data. Yeah. And it's on their website. It says everywhere like this product has not been evaluated by the FDA. Check with your healthcare provider before changing your water source and all this kind of stuff. But then they also say like, Oh, there was a woman who was having trouble producing milk and couldn't breastfeed her child. And then she drank raw water and now she can breastfeed her child. And also saying that chloramine and fluoride in the water, mind control, one of these things. That's true. Fluoride, mind control. That's true. Okay. I'm not really going to respond to that. No, it's all true. That's why I don't drink water. Right. Yeah. But so yeah, of course, healthcare providers around the world are saying like, don't drink raw water. You can get Giardia. You can get dysentery. You can get all this kind of stuff. And also these people who are proponents of raw water are also telling you to go out like essentially trespass and go find a natural spring in the dead of night and harvest your own raw water. So yeah. Yeah, cholera, snow go, exactly. Mm, cholera. So I was hiking up to a glacier in Greenland. And it was really stupid because everybody else had turned back, but I was like, ah, it's just over the next rich. I'm going to go over and touch this glacier and then come back. It was way further away than I thought it was. It was much bigger glacier, but I got there. And it had, at one point it was a little freaky because I could hear running water, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. It was coming from beneath my feet somewhere. Like a little wait, like I realized like I'm on, like I'm standing on a creek. I just can't see it. And so then I like followed the sound for a while and I found this area where this water was coming out. And I was, I've been hiking for like a half a day. So I was like drinking this water like, ah, fresh glacier water and immediately I'm like, oh, that was probably really stupid. Yeah. Like just because it's a glacier, just because I'm in Greenland, just because it just seems like this is like idealized source of what doesn't mean anything. Who knows what kind of extremophile or whatever. I'm, I didn't even make me extremophile. Like who knows what I just ingested. And it's fine. I didn't have any ill effects from it, but, but the, but I kind of get the idea, although I was also had been hiking for a half a day and was very thirsty and would have drunken from a muckish puddle at that point. Yeah. So anyway, it's, that's the thing going around right now. Hmm. Hey, maybe filter your water. Just a thought. Okay. Moving on. Oh yeah. Yeah. Strengths. And then immediately I started producing milk. It was amazing. Yeah, there you go. There you go. You did it. You did it. Yeah. What's the problem? It's the promo from that. Our water will make you lactate. Um, right. Got no use for that. So anyway, that was all over the interwebs. I wanted to mention it, but, uh, yeah, raw water. There's a story I didn't bring, but I thought it was kind of interesting, but now I can't find it. No, it's not. It's, it's an after show story. What the heck happened to it? It was a paraphrase that won't do it justice. I have lots of weird things on my desk right now. Oh, they did a study where they compared four-year-old humans to other four-year-old humans. Say it again. Well, you're always making fun of how they like compare animal intelligence to, yeah, you know, toddlers. Uh-huh. This is when they compared four-year-old children to other four-year-old children. Nice. Um, but, uh, one of the groups was Native American children and they had, I guess, a much better sense of ecology than the non-Native American rural raised children. Hmm. Where was the story that I saw? No, it's totally lost. Um, too bad it was, oh, here it is. No, that's not it. Ah, oh well. Better find the nearest spring. I'll be right back. Um, I had to ration my water tonight because I knew I couldn't use the restroom during the break. I usually drink like a whole one of these during the show, but I only give it that much. Yeah. So I did, um, all of my research on last year's predictions, but by the time I heard from Kiki that we were likely to be doing something else, I hadn't done my predictions for this year yet. Oh, yeah. I was like still doing a disclaimer. Yeah. And, uh, I had, I did not, I guess that email went out earlier in the day. I didn't get it. Sure did. You were on it. Just note the, just note the future anybody trying to ever get a hold of me with any form of urgency text me. What was with your Christmas email? My email doesn't go, you have an email. It doesn't do that because it would be just redunculous to be doing that. Why? Cause my, the email is like, it's like actually, I haven't checked my email or my actual mailbox in a month. Like there's never, like I don't need it for anything. You need it for twist. What are you talking about? Just text me. That's how you get a hold of Justin. Well, but Kiki emailed you. Hence my point. Yeah. But like when's the last time that there was like an, an urgent like pre-show email that was like, here's what's going on. Big change in the show. Where, like, anyway, I can't believe I'm, I lost that story. That was so interesting. Basically it was a story about, oh yeah. Oh. Good one, Fada. Good night, Fada. He said, let us all be simply thrilled and fascinated by our own research. Good idea. Not undersell it. You cannot overstate the implications of my study, sir. The importance of this finding cannot be overstated. I think you just did. How's your new year, Justin? Oh, it was over. Do you celebrate East Coast New Years? We didn't even make it. So. You didn't make it to East Coast New Years? No, because, because a very good friend of ours is a classmate of my youngest and was born on the 31st. So we had a birthday party which included lots and lots of running around and my energy playing. So kids are wiped out. We had it. We had to push East Coast New Years to like eight o'clock Pacific time, which is an hour early. So we did it really early. I did not make it as, I probably went to bed the earliest in many years that I've gone to bed, but it was still pretty late. I went to bed around a little before two. I left the place I was at at 115. It was pretty quick. It was kind of like, okay, New Years happened. Okay, let me help you clean up. I'm out. It was fun. Where did I find this story? I found this story about this drug that we've spent billions of dollars on and by all accounts, it does nothing. Next time in the after show. Yeah, next after show. He will. Okay, I think maybe I'm tuckered. I was really juggling. Yep, you did good. I'm sorry I started late everyone. I really wanted to start on time, but it just didn't happen. So Google, you know, I love you, but not only does Google hangouts change their interface constantly, but always between the last time I started the hangout and the next time I have to host the show, they change a whole bunch of the interface between how Google talks to YouTube and how YouTube, like the the menus and the buttons and the, it all changes. It changes so often. Why do they need to change it so many gosh darn times? You can improve functionality. You don't have to change visually how it works. Just saying. So it took me 25 minutes to figure out how to broadcast, and by then I hadn't done most of the pre-show stuff I normally have to do, so then I had to do all of that. Well, the chat room was sticking with us. They were here on time. Yeah. They waited patiently for the show to begin. Yes, they were great. And people watching us later on YouTube won't know we started late until right now. Oops. And people listening to the podcast will have no idea. None whatsoever. So. You're right, Ed. I should have had Karen do the Patreon reading. Where is she? Slacking. Karen. Go drink more raw water, Karen. Ed. Oh, interesting. Ed found a story that Americans are using a lot less water. Cut daily used by six gallons. A lot of the efficiency coming from California, Texas, which are experiencing droughts. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of curious about this, though, because I'm wondering if that's individuals, because in California it's such an ag state. January 2014, Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency because the record drought asking Californians to reduce their water use by 20%. 2015, he increased it to 25%. There were stricter water use regulations in state and local government. Toilet flush standard is 1.6 gallons per flush nationwide. In California, it can't be more than 1.28. I'm totally buying a toilet out of state next time anymore. Part of the thing that this is like local state type politics and stuff, but one of the things that continues to annoy me about this debate about freshwater usage is agriculture is owned by more and more by fewer and fewer companies and they've increased acreage of high water impact things like almonds. I love almonds. Almonds are not the solution. They're a scapegoat. No, it's part of the problem. There's been a 25% increase in the amount of acreage used by almond farms in the last 10 years when we're trying to conserve water because of droughts. It's something like 10%, 11% of freshwater usage by humans in California is by individuals, citizens and such. Showering, washing your car, watering the lawn, what have you. The vast majority of it is used by industry. Now asking individuals to conserve 20% is going to affect that overall number by like 2% of the amount of water usage. I don't know if that's it sounds like you're doing something and everybody's in it together and contributing and solutioning something, but it's a bigger problem. You've got to look at where the bulk of that use is and how that can be addressed and it really wasn't during the drought. Meets the problem. No, you're not the problem Blair. Meets is the problem. Meat and dairy. Have you ever seen a water use chart? I feel like you definitely have. Yeah, I mean it's, but I need hamburgers. If you look at per calorie of food created, it's like 10 times as much water as almonds to make meat. Yeah, but that's if you're counting everything. And I mean that, I didn't mean that as offhandedly as it sounded. There's a lot of cattle that's raised in California at least is done so in wide open pasture type environments that they're not relying on. They're not watering Think about the process from the birth of the cow to when you're eating it. But they're not huge amount of water that is not just them eating grass. There's a huge amount of water that goes into eating meat. This is the thing. This is the water use chart is always meat is up here compared to all the other stuff. Meat uses the most water of all foods. But I feel like they're attributing that partly to the feed of the cows. Only partially they're looking at the whole agricultural industry. They're looking in California at all of the different sources of meat. They're not painting with a broad brush here. I always feel like they are. I feel like that when I see the, I mean I'm sure if you're growing crop that you then are turning around and feeding to cattle and that is how those cattle are eating. I'm sure that's a huge impact because cattle are big a lot. But a lot of cattle ground is not being human manufacturer fed. So that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. It's still no. It still takes into the equation about what's going on for usage chart. Oh, this is this Australian individual. I want the individual. I want the big picture. No, it's per the thing I care about is per calorie or kilo calorie of food created. That's what should matter is how much water it takes to make a kilo calorie of meat versus how much water it takes to make a kilo calorie of almonds versus how much water it takes to make a kilo calorie of strawberries. That's the that's the thing that accurately is a measure of what food item takes the most water. Okay. So I've found a different chart that has nothing to do with the big picture. It's the household picture. Yeah. Well, that's what do you think the two biggest usage usages of typical household water are? Well, it depends on the house. Just give it the top two, just based on a chart. Toilets. That is number one. Yeah. Number two. Showers. Showers came in a distant third. Close washer came in second. Toilet was 26.7 according to this chart that's unsourced from 1999. It's also before the high efficiency washers. I think if you got a front loader that close washer number probably goes way down. Look at this right here. Here we go. This is exactly the juice I've been talking about. Okay. There we go. So this doesn't even get into almonds. But beef, a kilo calorie of meat of beef is two and a half gallons of water. Right. But this is my question on that. Yeah. Excuse me. Is that water that we had to assign to beef? No, it's the process of getting beef from a baby to your plate. So water is used in processing the meat. Water is used in cooling the meat. Also, water is used to let the beef drink even if they're grazing. They still have places that they can go where there are water troughs where they drink. They still irrigate the lawn because otherwise the lawn would die. There's still huge amounts of water going to grass fed beef. I just... You don't want to believe it because you like your hamburgers. I get it. No, no, no, no. I mean like I'm looking at one thing that says 816,000 gallons used during the life of the animal for cattle. You're eating grass that was grown because it rained at... No, no, no, no, no. You think the grass that cows eat is watered by rain. You honestly think that. And a lot of the big cattle... Not in California. No, we don't get enough rain. We don't get enough rain in California to grow grass. That is not a... The big cattle ranches out near in Sonoma. They have irrigation in natural spring water. It's not irrigation. No, they irrigate for sure. They are using water to grow their grass. Grass doesn't grow in a normal year-round pattern without help in California. Maybe they're right. Maybe. But look at this. The numbers are all over the place. Water footprint, this is per liter though. This is why it's higher. So per liter per kilo gallery. Beef, 10.5. Pork, 5. Almonds, 2.8. Milk, 2.1. Brussels spouts, 0.6. Red, 0.6. Soybeans, 0.48. Potatoes, 0.37. There you go. So wait, wait. So we should be eating pasta? Yep. But wait, then you gotta boil water with the pasta. Is that counted in? Like how do they do this? Oats? Are we supposed to eat them raw? Okay, hold on. This is liters per kilo calorie. How many kilo calories, how many calories, as we call them, do you get out of a bowl of pasta? Do you think? I have no idea. About 400. And then you're probably making two or three servings of that. Let's say we'll just round it to 1,000 calories. We're getting out of this batch of pasta that we used a quart of water. So not even, so a quart is what, it's roughly, it's a quart of a gallons, it's like half a liter. So that is half a liter for 1,000 kilo calories. So if you want to add that in, that would be another 0.005. It wouldn't even register on this graph. You dig? Per, wait, I used per. So if you get 1,000, technically they're kilo calories, that's what we're measuring on this. When you say that something is 1,000 calories, you actually mean it's 1,000 kilo calories. So we're getting 1,000 kilo calories from this pasta. We're using, let's say, half a liter to boil it in. That means per kilo calorie it's 0.005. Is that right? 0.5 divided by 1,000. 0.0005. So nowhere near even registering on this graph. You're adding in per calorie to boil it in. So the point of this is, if you're eating a steak, how many calories is a steak? I wouldn't even know. How many calories do you think it is? 600? I've never counted a calorie in my life. I have no idea. Okay, so if a steak is 600 calories, then your water cost of that steak is 6,000 liters of water. That's why meat is an environmental disaster. Why do you say it makes me think it's true? It's because a, I'm convincing, and b, true, but you are convincing me. It's definitely true. That'd be quite the weird conspiracy theory. Oh wait, is this the, this is a different one. There's so many different numbers associated to these things though. Chart after chart and they, none of them like beef. Everything else is falling into different, I mean that's all different. Well, it might be different um, y axes or x axes that they're measuring on. Like gallons per kilo calorie. Okay, there you go. Yeah, that's what I was showing before. So this is per liter, so it's a little bit different. Chicken and dried peas are the same. They're all at 0.45, 0.48, 0.45 for pork, 0.26 for, for egg. You can't count eggs and chicken at the same time. Well, you're not supposed to count your chickens before they hatch. You know that. Carbon footprint beef went up there. Cheese and salmon. Why is salmon carbon footprint so high? Because of the fossil fuels used to make the pharmaceuticals that they feed the salmon in farms. That's why you're not supposed to have farmed salmon. It's because they pump them full of drugs and so it's not good for you to eat, but also it runs off into the environment and it takes a bunch of fossil fuels to make the prescriptions that they feed the salmon. You know what's showing up as pretty low impact every, every on all of these though? Bread. That's why people have been eating bread for, you know, like hundreds of thousands of years. We need to go to a all-bread diet. I would do that, but I would soon have to buy all new clothes. I tell you, the bread goes straight to my hips, it does. But it's so delicious. Okay. On that note, I'm going to rest my weary bones, I think. Is that cool with you, bro? Yep. Good night. Good night, minions. We'll see you next week. Next week will be the prediction show where we predict the future. All right. I love you all. Say good night, Blair. Good night, Blair. Say good night, Justin. Good night, Justin. And let's say it to her from afar. Good night, Kiki. Good night, everybody. See you next time.