 Hmm Try youtube.com slash webcam, which isn't going to work for us Well We may be making the transition away from YouTube who knows we shall see I'm just seeing the note here I'll give the webcam thing a try But as far as I know it doesn't let the hangout any things happen unless they have changed it so Well Yep, gonna have to change things around but we're here. No Justin tonight No, Justin tonight. I hope everyone is ready for a show. We have science Blair and I I Gonna talk about science with you gonna be a night of science goodness There we go I'm gonna retweet Blair's tweet because that's what we do Blair Are you almost ready to do a show? I'm so close. Give me one second So We are missing Justin kind of last minute and as a result we've had to scramble A little bit more than we were expecting to tonight. So There are a few little things. Oh like I forgot to put some things in there Maybe I can write things down. What are we having a show tonight? I can figure that out. Okay. I'm ready To All right, are we ready to go we're ready to go we're gonna do a show now Starting I I love seeing all of you in the chat room. Who's over there on youtube? Oh, we got a people on youtube. Hey delmaray. Hey paul disney Welcome. Welcome. Welcome Everyone who's here. We are beginning in three two This is Twists this week in science episode number 726 recorded on wednesday june 19th 2019 missing persons I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show We will fill your head with the with zebra stripes earth twins and sneezing plants But first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer The tides go in and the tides go out The world goes round and round And we try to predict what will happen each new day But sometimes there are unexpected events That take us by surprise What we do with those surprises defines who we are and what we will be tomorrow Tonight's surprise is that justin is somewhere in america where there is still no wi-fi So with that surprise we will bring what science we can and what spirited discussion we may Pull up a chair relax and listen to this very special episode of This week in science coming up next I've got the kind of mind that can't get enough. I want to learn everything I want to fill it all up with new discoveries that happen every day of the week There's only one place to go to find the knowledge I seek. I want to know What's happening this week in science? What's happening? What's happening? What's happening this week in science? Good Science to you kiki Good science to you too blare and everyone out there. Welcome to another episode of this week in science We are back again. It feels like I was just doing a show this weekend. I know I just saw you Like team before yesterday. Yeah, that was pretty fun That episode that podcast episode from the interplanetary festival will be coming out very soon So stay tuned for that in your rss feeds if you catch this as a podcast if you're subscribed to the show On tonight's show. We have some wonderful science ahead. I have news about hidden dna revealing Dark corners of our chromosomes Also some new earth twins little earth twins and the aforementioned sneezing plants Yeah, I bet you didn't know plants could sneeze we'll find out more about that in a bit Not yeah blare. Tell me what is in the animal? Oh my goodness. I have zebra stripes. I have codependent fish And I have smelly dinosaurs Smelly dinosaurs, how would we know? If how smelly they were You'll find out we'll find out we will indeed On the show that is coming right up as we jump into it I would like to remind you all that you can subscribe to twist if you are not yet subscribed on iTunes youtube or on the google pod podcast portal. We're also on facebook you can find Links to these things at twist.org as well as a link to our patreon account If you're interested in supporting what we do consider checking that out Now into The stories of the day. So let's talk for a minute about Chromosomes blare. What do you know about the uh the centrum ears? They're the little buttons on the chromosomes. They're little dots That's pretty much all I remember for my school biology They're little circles they're little circles. Well, that's not exactly true, but they are sections sections of dna That are very important for Lining up the uh segments of our chromosomes during cell division. Yes. That's the button. That's what I meant It's where they connect It's where they connect but they Aside from just where they connect. It's also a place where crossover events do not occur and so during cell division Our chromosomes line up the centrum ears kind of have these filaments that bring everything together It's filaments pull everything in and the chromosomes line up and then There are crossovers at various points across the chromosomes that result in increased diversity because you're taking the chromosomes say from You know one parent or another parent and changing information from swapping information from one to the other And so during this process the centrum ears kind of hold everything together While everything else is swapping around doing their crossovers But to this date because of the way the chrome the centrum ear is structured It's been very hard for researchers to accurately sequence the information within that area of the genome And so researchers kind of consider it this Heart of darkness. So according to a u.c. Davis evolution and ecology professor charles langley He says it's the heart of darkness in the genome. We warn students not to go there Hmm So he's a senior author on this on this paper that was published in an upcoming issue of the journal e life along with Sasha Sasha Langley garen carpran at the lorenz berkeley laboratory and karen miga at uc santa cruise together these researchers Determined that there could be groups of genes that get inherited together that stretch over and across The centrum ear and now these groups of genes that get Inherited together are known as haplotypes. And so if any of you have done say 23 and me Yeah, the the the genetic analysis of your single nucleotide polymorphisms will Give you a particular haplotype that is used to help identify How long Your your lineage has been evolving and when you potentially First appeared on the scene when your ancestors first appeared on the scene it can take you back that far Because the centrum ear doesn't have that crossover stuff that happens during cell division they then Hypothesized that they could look if they could look in the centrum ear a little bit more accurately Then maybe The genetic information in there is very well preserved Because it hasn't been shuffled Like everything else. So these haplotypes that kind of If there's a haplotype that stretches across the centrum the centrum ear Then that haplotype will have segments of itself that don't change For a very long period of time And so they looked for single nucleotide polymorphisms these little single letter base pair changes in the dna that Would allow them to get this measurement of what was going on within the centrum ear and these haplotypes So number one They did identify What they call sen haps or centromiric haplotypes In drosophila fruit flies and so that Insinuated to them that hey, this is a thing. We've got this DNA that doesn't change and we can We can log it across the centrum ear now. We we we tried it in fruit flies We can see that we can do this Now let's look at it in people. So they went to human dna They went to the 1000 genomes project, which is a public catalog of variation In dna dna and they looked at haplotypes that they found going across the centrum ear in every single human chromosome Some of these sequences Are old they go back Hundreds of thousands of years Not tens of thousands hundreds of thousands to a million years So these sequences of dna have been preserved They're like dna fossils within our own genomes In chromosome x so the the sex chromosome for females They found these sen haps that went back Half a million years 500 000 years and this and it and it was they were able to identify this diversity among african genomes that are That identify with the recent spread of people out of africa out of the african continent Um, and they went back far enough. They found that one of the oldest sen haps Was not carried by those african Dispersers Yeah, so one of the oldest haplotypes wasn't from there on chromosome 11 They found haplotypes of neanderthal dna They diverged between 700 000 to a million years ago And this is just about when neanderthals and humans said went their separate ways neanderthals speciated They went off on their own Before they came back together before they came back together again, exactly. Yeah, and then uh chromosome 12 contains an older More than a million years old archaic haplotype that has yet to be identified as to who it comes from so Is it possible That At least the first one you were saying is from the neanderthals. Is it possible that we got that one from An inbreeding interbreeding effect later on or is the idea that they're pretty sure That this has been conserved Since before neanderthals broke off from modern humans For these uh for those particular sen haps on that chromosome, uh, they think that it they've been conserved going back at least that far That there have not been Many swaps that there haven't been those that shuffling of dna Huh that would occur there and so these are very well conserved Areas of the genome and because they're haplotypes So it's it's dna that spreads not it's not just in the centromere, but all around it. So in areas that Maybe would undergo shuffling, but because they're a haplotype. This is a bunch of dna that all goes together it all moves together They are complete genes and they are genes. There are genes in there that aren't in the centromere itself But maybe around it. There are genes there that influence our behavior and so this Further suggests that there is ancient dna from neanderthals and archaic ancestors that is still potentially influencing How we respond to things Wow, one of the things that they they bring up is that the neanderthal dna on chromosome 11 could be influencing our odor receptors and could these that neanderthals They're what how they responded the genes they had could be the genes that Allow us to respond to To smell today And so which is interesting because it really goes to I mean we we talk about it all the time this you know this idea that there are so many things in us that Are not modern that they are carryovers from a long time ago and maybe are not adapted to modern society and so are there aspects of the odorant genes From neanderthals that are you are they influencing How we respond to stuff in a positive or a negative way? We don't know But because those genes are there that this variation Has impacting us in some way Wow Uh Yeah I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense in the whole idea of I mean in biology in evolution The kind of the saying if if it ain't broke don't fix it is kind of true Right like unless something better comes along that is selected for Then things are conserved so There there has to there's enough dna in our body in our system That there has to be huge segments that for millions of years like wasn't broken Didn't come up with a better one not broken doesn't need to be changed Um, so it makes sense, but it's still It's still cool to know That there's stuff in my dna that's been there For a million years Yeah For a million years and another interesting Thought that comes from this is because these are just groups of genes that tend to Move together get shuffled together because they're around the centromere just by chance probably They're not being shuffled And they are standing up to you know the test of time in terms of genetic diversification And that's also a reminder of why I based on their location. Yeah, and that's why why negative Uh elements in our dna continue to persist if they're linked to something that is still positive that or neutral then Then that negative thing that is linked to Another thing could continue to go on these these uh These sections of dna are complex and they could be coding for many different things Yep Yeah, that's because if fixing the if the better version of something that would cure a disease Also is linked to something that is completely um A reason for termination of growth right then that then oops that better version of that one gene Is connected to another gene that made the whole thing infertile. So Oopsie Doesn't match up. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, those are going to be very interesting considerations moving moving forward with medicine and genetic genetic medicine for sure Yeah, absolutely Well moving on from inside us. Let's go to outer space My next story is a discovery Love discoveries and this one again a discovery in the dark Not far from us only 12.5 light years. Oh just a hop skip and a jump So close around a star A red dwarf star very dim It's an m-class not very dim very hard to find we didn't really find it until 2003 This star is called tea garden star Well, and I really the the name I'm sure it's somebody's name, but it's a very poetic name tea garden tea garden star I hope that there are sonnets written about this uh this this discovery and the star Looking at the star with a new device From the calar alto observatory in spain called carmenes Which stands for Calar alto high resolution search for m dwarfs with exo earths with near infrared and optical echel spectrographs Yep Or as phil plate over on the sci-fi Wire on his blog says it means an extremely sensitive detector mounted on a telescope at the calar alto Observatory in spain that looks for alien worlds like earth orbiting very cool red dwarfs Yeah, like tea garden star. What's that acronym? I wasn't tracking Yeah, we did a new acronym for the more accurate. Yeah for them for the lay description This star was discovered 2003 they aimed the carmenes Observatory this this This telescope this detector on the telescope at the star And they started looking for a wobble in the star These planets we talk about exoplanets that are and around this star they discovered two exoplanets That's the discovery In finding these exoplanets they do not transit the star Usually when we talk about exoplanets we look we talk about uh the detectors Finding a dimming of light because something is passed in between the star and us Usually the plant usually a planet and we're able to determine size so mass Maybe a chemical composition because of the light spectra that we observe And so all these things we're able to determine determine because of this The dimming of the light and the change in the light spectra Now with these they didn't transit and instead because of their mass they actually Have a gravitational pull on the star itself and now in all solar systems the objects that Orbit the central star we think of the central star as being this stuck-in space object and then everything orbiting around it in reality that Star is also has a little orbit It's rotating on an axis and it also is orbiting just a small orbit and that orbit is very often Determined by the movement of the massive objects around it and it's a wobble. It's a little bit of a Off-center movement when we look at the light from the star Is this a commonly known thing? I To astrophysicists It's if they look for it's called the center of gravity Yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense, but I Honestly, I had no idea That's fascinating Yeah, it is fascinating. So it's not that star in the middle. It's not just Static in space it is influenced and it's moving in space just like every it's a big old wobbly system And so carmenis Was able to look at this This wobble and what fill plate calls it is reflex velocity This tugging this wobble the reflex velocity and this creates a Doppler shift In the light spectra that we see so if it's wobbling away from us, it's going to Was it blue shift and then if it comes toward us, it's going to redshift or the other way around Probably getting it back the other way. It's the other way around. Yes Moving away redshift moving toward us blue shift, but there's a change in that spectra and It can be seen when something is When the device doing the looking is fine tuned enough and that's exactly what the carmenis Detector did It looked at the star It was able to find this wobble and it appeared that the wobble could be described By two planets not just one They have called the inner planet t garden b. It has an orbit that lasts about five days And it is only 3.8 million kilometers from the star Mercury the closest according to fill plate is 60 million kilometers from our sun So it gives you an idea of how close this first planet is to t garden the second planet t garden c has a much longer orbit of 11 and a half days So this one is only at a distance of 6.6 million kilometers and both of these planets are Just about based on these this reflex velocity and what they were able to see in the Doppler shift of the light of the star Just about the size of earth Maybe slightly bigger, but pretty much earth-sized And because this m m star m-class star this red dwarf is dim it is Incredibly dim it puts out just a fraction of the light that our sun does 0.089 times The sun's mass It is only one tenth the diameter of the sun and it shines Seven Ten thousandths of the sun's luminosity So point zero zero zero seven three Times the sun's luminosity So it's super dim. There's just no energy coming out of it. It's really cool It's half the temperature of our sun the heat the the temperature of our sun is about 5,500 degrees. It's about half that And this whole System can be as small as it sounds with this with these planets so close to the star And they are still in the habitable zone 12.5 12.5 light years away a little tiny solar system There may be other planets, but we haven't noticed them yet With two that are very close and this ties in with a lot of evidence that seems to be Accumulating lately that these red dwarfs Are very common In the universe and Rocky planets seem to make up their inner planets So it's very possible that these little earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of teagarden Are rocky And if they are they also may have water, but we don't know that So these are the extrapolation of what they're made of and what's on them their composition. That is that is just complete you know, it's It's questioning. It's an it's an idea, but we do not know at this point. We just know that they're there And they they could something could be on them So our sun is a is a yellow dwarf. Is that right? Yes, okay. Yeah, so it could be that we're the weirdos That there's all these red dwarfs where there's sun up and the sun is like enormous It's the whole skyline because it's so close And the year is super short And all this good stuff and there's life there And then there's life at all these other exoplanets on red dwarfs And then we're the weirdos with our long year and our tiny sun from far away Yeah, it would be interesting if if that was the norm and we were the unusual ones with life at a yellow dwarf Yeah, so our sun is a g-type main sequence star Okay, that's what it is. That is what technically it is known as But yeah, this is I mean we when we talk about The evolution of a solar system That dim red dwarf Might have been much brighter at one point those planets could have been further away at some point and things could have migrated in Um Or you know, I mean it could be like mercury and maybe this is I don't know the age of this system But this red dwarf star could also be Very it could have been brighter at one point and maybe Whatever habitability they had was all burned off because they are so close So we don't we don't know at what stage in its evolution The solar system that solar system is at this point Interesting Yeah, so there are many many questions as to the dynamics of solar systems when we find them You know, and if we do could there be life or was there before possibly or Will there be at some point in the future? Yeah, yeah, we'll have to go there and find out We do and not accidentally bring our own bacteria That's going to be a problem because there are things that are on this planet that don't mind the harsh realities of space You're like, yeah, we'll just live on the outside of your spacecraft. That sounds great. Watch your bacteria and tardigrades for you Exactly Hey everyone, if you just tuned in this is this week in science with myself Dr Kiki and the Blair buzz large and if you want to support what we do You can click the patreon link on twist.org Blair, I do believe it is time for a part of the show But we do love What's it called? What's it called? Blair's animal corner. Yes Oh My goodness, I'm so glad you said it. I don't know if I could speak without it I'm listening for the what you got Blair. There it is. Okay Great. So I have a story about zebra stripes, which first, let me just give you a quick That whoever may be listening or watching a quick kind of recap in what we've talked about on this show Over the past seven years that I've done this show Um, we have talked about a bunch of different theories about why zebras might have stripes The prevailing theory to this day is that it actually has to do with repelling biting flies And this was first done in I think when I was still an intern There was a study where they painted paint trays with stripes and less flies landed on that one than the paint pans that were painted just black or just white And then more recently, I think just a few weeks ago, there was a study where they actually used live animals. They had Zebras they had horses and then they had horses wearing zebra coats And they were landed on less and bitten less when they had the zebra stripes So they think that there's something visually going on there that repels the flies but this study is a new one In being thrown into kind of the the ring of why zebras may have stripes This is something published in the journal of natural history this week And it indicates that zebra stripes may have something to do with controlling body temperature Which was the initial hypothesis before the biting fly hypothesis surfaced The authors of this study argue that there is a special way zebras sweat to cool down And that the black and white stripes create small scale convection currents which aid in evaporation and This also might in turn repel biting insects, but most likely that this is a convection result from the black and white stripes Convection. Yes. So this is through the british natural history museum This is from amateur naturalist and former biology technician. Allison cob and her zoologist husband, dr. Steven cob They spent years in sub-saharan africa where they've done many different research in environmental and development based projects But this is a new study where they looked at real zebras In the wild to look at the role of stripes in temperature control specifically They collected data from live zebras. Do you want to guess how many kiki? What was the sample size Blair? two A stallion but with many stripes mayor. There were many stripes Then and I mean it was I guess technically is a sample size of three because they also put a zebra hide draped over a drying rack like what they call a clothes horse Um, and that was their control so that they could see what just the the skin and Hair would do So taking a horse out to where the zebras were and put a zebra skin on the horse out there. Yeah, that that would have been good All right, because I like the temperature of the animal and all that but anyway, yeah, so Um the middle seven hours of the day are the hottest there and The black stripes were 12 to 15 degrees Celsius hotter than the white stripes during that time The stripes on a lifeless zebra hide on the clothes dryer continued to heat By another 16 degrees Celsius So you have your white stripes and your black stripes on the living zebra the black stripes are hotter by up to 15 degrees Celsius but on the Just zebra hide on the clothes rack 16 degrees Celsius hotter across the board. So there is something happening. There's some mechanism suppressing heat In living zebras, which I would argue is sweat because that's what mammals do Swamp but also circulation. Yeah so They are saying that there's some way because there's a difference in temperature between the black and the white stripes That that the stripes are providing a cooling system I would also argue that might just have something to do with wavelengths of light and how When you wear a white t-shirt, you're cooler than when you wear a black t-shirt um So moving on Yep Recent research had revealed a separate study had revealed that sweat and horses from the skin to the tips of their hairs Is facilitated by a protein um in the sweat called called Latherin which also is present in zebras which makes sweat frothy Which increases the surface area and lowers surface surface tension so it evaporates easier So the researchers propose that the differential temperatures and air activity on the zebras On the two different stripe types Create a convective air movement within and just above the stripes Which destabilize the air and water vapor at the tips of the hairs and this is what cools them so effectively Okay, so you've got the sweat being produced all over the zebra But because some areas of the zebra are black They heat more and so you have increased convective cooling. Is this the idea? Exactly and because it's uh because there's the the stripes then you you have a circulation Because you probably end up getting these convective currents That that's probably cycle. So zebras have their own wind No, right. So here's the the other kind of issue with that um They're the same duo Attempted 40 years ago to test this hypothesis By looking at water and oil drums with differently colored felt coats But it was not enough it didn't really prove That there was a difference So there's something going on specifically with what Is happening inside and outside of the zebra more than just the stripes Something is happening differently with the way the stripes behave so the other element of this that they are proposing Is that zebras have apparently an unexpected ability to raise the hair On the black stripes like velvet While keeping the white hair flat That's fascinating. Yes. So their proposal Is that by raising the black hairs during the heat of the day When the stripes are at different temperatures that assist with transfer of heat from skin to hair service and when It's in the early morning and there is no air movement They can actually have their hairs flat which helps trap heat To to keep them warm when it's still cold out on the savannah So they think it's this three elements together the convective air movement from the two different colors The lather and aided sweating the frothy sweating and the hair raising Work together to allow the zebras to wick sweat away from their skin And create these convection currents to evaporate more effectively and rapidly and help them cool down They also say yes It is likely that the stripes may also play a secondary role in deterring biting flies from landing on them Because of the convection currents that that's what's winging them out It's possible So This is the the proposal put forward in this study um And I will say that uh The main researcher mrs. Cobb Uh, she said quote my early attempts 40 years ago at testing this hypothesis. Um, oh, sorry, uh With the oil drums I lost my spot was not a good enough experiment and I wanted to see how the stripes behaved on live zebras She continued to say The solution to the zebras heat balance challenge is clever more complex and beautiful than we'd imagined Of course, there is much more work to be done to gather evidence and fully understand how the stripes help zebras control temperature But I am 85 now so that's for others to do Again old No more running around looking at zebras in africa, I guess but um Yeah, looking at the paper itself they All they they're talking about all this convective air movement, but they never measured that They have no measurements of these things. They only have the measure the the temperature differences They have and yes, so they took the temperatures They say with a handheld digital infrared thermometer with a laser guide So pointing anyone who has a kitchen kitchen infrared thermometer It's basically one of those to go boop boop And the laser points at exactly where you want it to measure get a black stripe get the temperature get a white stripe Get that temperature. Um, and then additionally they looked at the The coat quality so they The black and white striped temperatures of the zebra hide exactly the same way Uh qualitative observations of zebra coats throughout the day and of zebra behavior and physical responses So the it's the qualitative observations of the zebra coats that I am concerned about and And how they can accurately Say that there is this this change in The black versus the white stripes with the the pilo erection of the hair, which My question there is If the white stripes are always cooler Why wouldn't the whole thing be white? Well being white is really terrible for being a prey species. We know their albino albino animals are killed Right, but so that's kind of my point is the stripes can't just be for temperature control Yeah, I mean could they be for more? Yeah, that's kind of what i'm saying is that this study And the previous ones we've done kind of they've downplayed this whole Camouflage side of things. They're like, oh, it's for temperature control. Oh, it's for biting flies It's just like with a lot of things we talk about on the show. It's usually multiple things so The idea that This is why they're stressed. It's no They have white on them Because it's cooler to be like it's less hot But ultimately if that's the reason that they're striped There's no reason that they shouldn't be splotchy Or um have thicker stripes or thinner stripes There's something there They have to connect the dots between okay, this is a disruptive camouflage formation Why this one? Right And I think that's the part that that is a disconnect for me because I understand okay the black hair They can raise up the hair there It's good to have heat and cool near each other and all this good stuff But there's all sorts of different patterns that can achieve those things Yeah, it's still it's still a mystery because there still is the biting fly Aspect which has data behind it and more than More data than the three individuals. Yes, you know the the clothes hanger. Yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, Kevin unique in the chat room says giraffes have spots. Absolutely so if There are horses that are that have spots that have dark spots and lighter colored Yeah, and I think yeah, something really missing from the study is looking at a splotchy horse Look at a look at a uh, it's is it palaminos? Which are the painted ones? I don't remember the but the ones that have the splotches on them that are dark dark brown and white That would be a perfect animal to test this on Are you raising the hairs in the dark spots and not the light spots? Is there a temperature difference between the dark spots and the light spots and in all cases Can we measure a convection current please? That's what I want Anyway, just thought I threw it out there because it existed in the science news for this week saying we solved it But it's still not solved. But it's it's a nice. It's a nice addition to all of the information and it's an interesting It could be all of them. Yes. Yeah Absolutely, it could be all of them. The real question is Did it was it a random mutation? Did they get black and white first and then they became stripes later where they stripes first and then black and white later That's really the stuff that I think would help you identify what What's going on? Why is zebra has stripes? But what was the study? Um, if you shaved a zebra, there's is their skin Oh, yeah, right there was Um I don't recall So apparently their zebra stripes are hair not on their skin not on their skin And they have dark skin underneath so it I think they're I think it's they're dark skinned and they have The dark hair and then white stripes with the white stripes. Yeah, I think that's what I remember from the Striping and the skin and you can't take the skin out of it. I mean the hair is a major aspect, but Yeah Yeah, I don't know. So I'm no works together I'm not convinced but I think it's very it's an interesting idea the convection currents I would like to see someone measure them But anyway, moving on Kiki when you're without your monogamous life partner, do you ever feel sad You're supposed to say yes Just the the answer is yes I figured if I didn't say anything I wouldn't get in trouble I'm sure you do if you were without that individual for an extended period of time Yeah, you might get a little bummed out. You might not find the same lust Lust for life that you would normally without them perhaps Just a thought well, you you you miss your you miss your other Yes. Yes. So it that's also true for cichlid fish the University of burgundy looked at pair bonded individuals which in this case The wild convict cichlid fish mate monogamously After mating when the female produces eggs the males hang out and protect her and the eggs So they form a very solid bond after the eggs hatched the young are protected by both parents. They continue To hang out together And so to learn more about the bots that they forged the researchers Wanted to look at a two-part experiment to see how much they were attached to one another In the first part of the experiment the researchers separated a large tank into three sections They put a female in the middle and a male on either side The team watched to see which one she demonstrated a preference for by quote-unquote cozying up to one or the other So she showed a clear preference for one male or the other The researchers then put one of the males in with the female and allowed them to mate So it might have been the one she preferred it might not have been The report showed that females who are allowed to mate with their preferred choice spawned faster Had more offspring and took better care of them compared to those paired with a rejected mate So that you could argue generally happier and therefore healthier Maybe less stressed which could lead to all these physiological items We don't know but regardless Greater reproductive success as a result of getting with the male she preferred Now the the part about this study I really found interesting was the second part of the experiment in the second part Researchers trained the females to recognize the difference between a box containing food and one that was empty Then they introduced a new box which required investigation to see if there was food inside So they didn't know could be box half full box half empty, right? the level of interest They showed in investigating the new box Was considered a marker of mood which you can take or leave that but basically Is she feeling optimistic or pessimistic? She feeling like there's probably food in there or there's probably not food in there Or I want to go see what's in there or I don't want to go see what's in there So in these binary terms looking that as happy or sad optimistic or pessimistic They found that when her chosen mate was present in the tank with her She expressed more interest in checking out the new box than if the rejected male was with her The researchers claim this is an example of pessimistic bias Which shows that the females do become gloomier when separated from their desired mate So to kind of try to draw A human analogy to this which is always problematic when you're talking about animal studies But just thinking about what this kind of reminded me of is if I want to a party Where I knew no one And if I had my significant other with me I would be so much more likely To talk to people. Maybe I'll find a friend here today If I was alone or if I was people I didn't with people I didn't care for too much I might be a little more Um hesitant to to go out there and and try stuff. I probably wouldn't feel as supported, right? Um, but also if you think about um Also made me think about if uh, if you've ever been to a natural history museum where there are weird experiments You can try out that are like mounted on the wall if you're walking through that museum by yourself I mean, I'm not but I feel like the average person might be less likely to try everything Unless they were with people and everyone like oh, hey check this out So I kind of if anything it just felt to me it sounded to me like Having a support having a familiar being in the space with you uh is beneficial to exploration Trying things out. I don't know. I don't that's not the intention of the study, but that's kind of what made me That what that's what I thought about when I was reading this Yeah Kiki are you talking we can't hear you Sorry, I was wondering why you weren't responding to me I had I had muted myself so I could drink water, but there you go now Now my first thought is was that this How could these researchers equate this with positivity or gloomy gloominess. I mean this is putting an emotional spin on a On a survival situation Yes, number one you have mate choice The female is choosing a mate for reasons that we cannot begin to fathom at this point in time Potentially there is a certain matching of Of traits that would mean that the female fish would feel that that that Preferred mate would be more protective of young a better provider I don't you know depending on the ecology of these cichlids You know, there are factors about that preferred male that are Better better in the not preferred male the rejected male. She's already rejected him. He can just go away And his presence has already been deemed Unhelpful by her You put them in a situation where as you said it could be that with the preferred male The female feels less stress Because there is a sharing of responsibilities when it comes to predator avoidance and protection and as I said Providing of resources So the final question when you get into these different boxes is she's on her own She's on her own. She has to watch her own back She is not going to be exploring like a happy go is not happy go lucky It's just she is in a survival situation when she's with the preferred male. That means once again She's in a situation where she feels Not even just feels but she knows that there is another individual there that will share responsibilities with her Absolutely low lowering stress levels Lowering stress levels increases Explorative behaviors Stressed animals across the board are not the ones going and exploring their environment So this to me has nothing to do with depression happiness gluminess this is Stress Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I I that's I think that's why I was thinking about The party where you know no one right is because your partner is your Stress reducer they are your safety net if you can't find anyone else to talk to you always have them They will help you start conversations. They will share The stress and burden of this stressful scenario. And so when you do that by yourself It's a lot harder and I I feel like that's exactly what this is Okay, I'm gonna try to go in this box But if I don't find anything and that's a wasted effort, I have somebody else to help me find more food Yes Yeah, absolutely. So I think I can I can watch for a predator while my partner goes and scans the buffet table Absolutely Absolutely. So yeah, I I totally agree with you. I think that this is a very interesting study that shows that monogamous pairing is intentional Right, which we already know but definitely that then after the fact There's benefits to being with the intended target there and that There's a reassurance. I would argue that's kind of the emotional attachment that you could put on this is there's there's Benefit to reassurance in this case Right So yeah, I think them saying it's pessimistic because she's sad It's a little too far I think, you know, this is potentially An animal behavior jargon not represent mate potentially. This is not representing What we think of when we think of pessimistic bias um They say it also this indicates a negative effective state Which I I would agree with that statement Because it's not the affect of the animal Is in the more negative direction than the more positive direction. And so that I think is more accurate of a statement, but Putting pessimistic bias on it Yeah Those those be human words Absolutely. There's not you can't say that the fish is a pessimist Geez And hot rod in the chat room asked a really good question. Why is this from the female side of the couple? We should see what happens on the other side Do the male fish care when separated from their chosen female? Very good question. Or do they not care? And so it doesn't really matter, which I think is actually probably the Possibility but after they've been paired if you separate them is there an issue Yeah, it's a good question Yeah, very interesting. I have a feeling it's because mate choice is Uh on the female side of things and not so it's like the the male goes. Oh you picked me awesome But there could still be negative effects if you separate them after that because they are monogamous So, uh, yeah, I think it would be interesting to see but yeah Very fascinating. Oh fish and their moods I hope you're not getting moody because We're gonna take a quick break. It's time for us to Say a few things we'll be back in just a few more moments with more this week in science and hope that you will stay tuned for Sneezing fish, I mean sneezing not fish sneezing plants We're just adding all sorts of things. We've got hyenas and dogs also Coming up in the second second half. 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Laura mama wrote to us on our facebook page sent us a message there said thank you for your wonderful show When I discovered it by accident on a radio station. I began to tune your tune your show on my school bus You must listen somewhere around the davis california area Your show has helped me spread the joy of science to children while transporting children around my school district Many of the children I transport are not in programs geared toward teaching STEM My current summer school bus radio does not pick up the radio station you're broadcasting on weekly But I will be overcoming this problem and plan to replay your podcasts on my bus's archaic equipment for my kids I just wanted you guys to know your show has led to children often discouraged openly from developing an interest in science or math To discussing and even researching on their own science subjects that sparked their curiosity Thank you so much for your show. Laura mama Laura thank you for share for listening to twist in the first place. I love that you tuned your school bus radio to the station And then you were able to hear us and then from there on you've been Listening and now you're going to do what you can to bring the podcast to your school bus Even though it has that archaic equipment I mean so many levels of this are fantastic the the level of the radio technology that allowed This weekend science to come to your bus and also the fact that your children are listening that they're able to listen and that it Is possibly sparking curiosity and some of them to investigate things on their own and thank you for letting us know About this experience that you're having. It's it's wonderful. Thank you Everyone out there if you would like to send us a letter about what science has done for you lately Send me an email kirsten at thisweekandscience.com or leave us a message on our facebook page. We would love to hear from you All right blaire. Yes. Tell me a story Oh my goodness. What do you love about dogs? I could go on and on and on, but what do you love about dogs? I know you have cats, but what do you love about dogs? I love that they're so expressive I had a friend of mine has a dog who Every time I come over she stomps her little feet and then she raises her Her lips and shows me her teeth and her eyebrows go up and her ears go up and she's just There's so much excitement. She's smiling at she smiles at me. Oh my goodness. It's amazing So they we already know dogs have evolved a bunch of interesting traits to be able to connect with us Sometimes more so than with each other They're much they're very good at creating eye contact They're actually their entire skeletal system is set up so that their their head is raised up instead of flat back Straight to their head like wolves and a lot of this has to do with the fact that they are tuned into humans They have evolved for 30,000 years Some studies suggest maybe 50 or 60 or 70,000 years depending someday Maybe we'll figure it out that they have been living with us Along this this period of evolutionary time Depending how you want to look at it either we have selected four dogs that are tuned into us or They have adapted to better tune into humans since we were an excellent Source of food and shelter and companionship so either way either we formed them or They adapted to us on their own You know kind of potato potato, but still um an interesting question of the initial Motivation for this change But a us uk team of researchers recently wanted to look at the face musculature Of wolves and dogs. This is right down to what you were talking about kiki The fact that they can make these facial expressions that we can read we can tell when a dog is in pain We can tell when they're happy to see us. We can tell when they're sad that they messed up and we're telling them off So that right there is something and right now kiki's showing A picture of a dog who has these adorable puppy dog eyes Even though it is an adult and then they look up at you and one eyebrow is kind of going up And they're making this intense eye contact. You can even see whites of the eyes on the sides Which isn't true for wolves a lot of the time And in that moment even looking at those photos my heart is melting actively And that right there is what these researchers were looking at They were looking at muscles that control movements of the face near the eyes And researchers suspect that the muscles presence helps dogs make what they are calling here a sad eyed face I don't know if that's what I would call it necessarily Technically this is called a pedomorphic facial expression pedomorphic as in of a baby So this is adults retaining features that are commonly associated with young animals And this is usually partially what we consider kind of like the cuteness measurement So When animals, I think this is one of the reasons people love pandas for example Is that they have faces that look Somehow like a teddy bear and teddy bears are designed to look like baby bears And so there's this compulsion to think that animal is really cute and want to snuggle it And maybe related to a conversation we had a few weeks ago take a bite out of it Go ahead listen back if you want to hear about why you sometimes want to take a bite out of a baby's toe Very interesting study But that is what this is about is an animal that has A young characteristics that are viewed as cute This is actually something that we have unknowingly potentially selected for Because we think it's so cute. We like it so much So this expression in particular they were looking at these muscles around their eyes Were allowed them to raise the skin above the eyes closer to the bridge of the nose So it's that like eyebrow up muscle. I can't do it, but it's this one right here This expression is considered sad-eyed or puppy dog eyes A Earlier study showed that dogs that exhibited this expression more often in a shelter were more likely to be adopted So right there in modern day, that's selection if there is a shelter that is unfortunately euthanizing individuals that are not being released and those animals are not fixed then there's pressure there, but otherwise Back in the day before we were spaying or neutering animals If those are the animals that we took home and took care of then they were the ones that would get to reproduce, right? so to test this hypothesis researchers took the and the the heads of dead dogs and dead wolves and they dissected them To identify muscles. I know it sounds very sad But this is how science is done. That's how the sausage is made. Sorry guys Um, they did not have a lot of samples. It was a very small sample size four wolves six dogs The results are preliminary and they recognized that because it was a small sample set For the most part there were very little differences in the facial muscles But the two sets of muscles they found differences in One was called the retractor anguli oculi lateralis Pulls the side of the eyes towards the ears Um, this was present in wolves some wolves and all dogs, but was more developed in dogs So, um, this has to do with the perking up of the ears with the You're home The the main finding though was this angular oculi medialis muscle laom Which is nearly absent in wolves And this is the one that pulls the inner side of the eye that inner corner up Which is that, huh? That's my technical term. That's the huh muscle. So what? Right, um So there's the research keeps saying this is a sad expression. Um, and I was, uh, listening to a comedy podcast today that mentioned that this was like the wolves manipulating humans I think that's too much. I think really all it is is creating a connection to the human I looking somebody right in the eye and changing expressions along with input from a human I really think that's what it's about Is just recognizing a connection and that they're listening to you They acknowledge you and they're going to change their behavior based on your behavior I think also the the making eye contact is very important and in In being able to open the eyes more widely Then wolves because of that upper eye muscle the lateral the lao Muscle, um, that would allow more open eyed Appearance right which is a trait of dogs versus wolves. Yes, absolutely. Yeah Yeah of dogs versus wolves and it's also a trait that you know, like we said, it's this pedo pedomorphia um, where the uh, the animal has Bigger eyes a baby has bigger eyes. It's uh, it has that childlike Essence Yeah, you see more of the eye and it makes more eye contact and it's kind of a super normal stimulus Yeah, absolutely, which leads to the one kind of last asterisk on the study which the researchers acknowledge That it There there most likely is some genetic selection happening here for the ability to Make eye contact and make expressions that humans can pick up on. However Muscles can change in size based on frequency of use so If you if a dog is spending its entire life Moving those muscles in response to humans They could end up bigger for that reason as well Mm-hmm. So the way to test that would be to take a wolf and puppies and raise yeah A wolf puppy raise it around humans But then of course their brain is also just not as set up to acknowledge humans. So there might not be a perfect Test to figure that out. Not that we really need to know Mostly I think you could look at the size of the muscles in in the pups. Oh, yes, that's true Yeah, yeah, that would be a great place to start. Um, so Considering they're pretty much Mostly absent in the adult wolf skulls Is that from lack of use? Or did they start with nothing? Yeah, it's a great question. So I think you're right. I think that's the next step. Um, and Ultimately, this is just an example of how Dogs are extremely well equipped to respond to human stimuli whether we chose that for them or whether they Evolved into that niche of human companion I think that's the part that's really interesting and potentially impossible to know Yeah, yeah, but it is fascinating. Yeah, I From anecdotal personal experience. I do know that the only reason I can cock my right eyebrow is because I held my eyebrow down As a child and looked into the mirror And raised my and I only did it on one side. I didn't do it equally on the other side. So I am not as able. I'm unable to Do that with my left eyebrow the way that I came with my right. I trained myself asymmetrically, but I trained myself Oh, I can learn. All right. I know what I'm gonna do this week. You too can Just hold your It was like eyebrow push-ups Oh, that's nope. I can't do it Uh kiki you got some more science for me. I do I have another story here about let's move from dogs to hyenas Oh Yeah, so historically You are wandering around america You don't really run into hyenas except at possibly a zoo But really hyenas are not prevalent in the americas blare as a zoologist Where do we find hyenas africa? Yes in africa Historically ancient hyena species the extinct genus Chasma porcetes, which is also known at or could be chasma porcetes if the ch is a chasma porcetes It's known as the running hyena This was a really long-legged hyena Very long legs. So they think that this hyena would have sprinted and run very quickly Um these hyenas Teeth from them have been discovered In america And they've also been discovered in asia So we know that long long ago there were hyenas in the americas Down in mexico in the southern united states there were we have we have hyena fossils In the southern us in mexico Hyenas it's like okay. They're not here now, but they used to be how did they get here? of course the hypothesis that pops up is ancient ice land bridge uh the the ice age which would have reduced Sea levels and led to the Bering Strait the land bridge that connected asia to the united to the the americas But there's never been any evidence for it researchers however Finding teeth that have been kicking around in a drawer for Years as so often happens These teeth were at the canadian museum of nature in ottawa They had been found and there were references to them in an unpublished manuscript by an archaeologist named brenda bb There was a paleontologist who decided that uh that he needed to named sang who decided that he needed to find these teeth and check them out because they were Dug up in a place called old crow basin in the yukon Now if there were the if these fossils were indeed hyena fossils it would give a pin in the map for that bridge between mongolia and mexico How do we know their hyena teeth? They match the teeth so there's a very specific tooth look of the hyena teeth and so these these teeth They are they are a match for the teeth of This extinct hyena species Where the tooth found in 1977 One of only two hyena fossils found in the Arctic circle so the Uh, the Pleistocene Ice age resulted in hyenas traveling To the americas and the teeth because of where they were located in this basin Can be dated exactly to that that pleistocene ice age between 850,000 and 1.4 million years ago hyenas in the arctic It's far out It's far out man Isn't that neat? Yeah, and not just hyenas, but rapidly running hyenas that would have been terrifying Yeah I can say Thanks. I wasn't there That's good Yeah, yikes. I've got some more stories. We're gonna I'm gonna kind of roll right through them right now. You want to talk about some information Yeah, what kind of information you got blackmail uh stock tips Animal good good information to you. I mean I might not want to give it to you though Because you know if I don't want to give it to you maybe you might want it more Yeah, that checks out for sure if somebody's like I have a secret Oh, no, I want to know that secret. How much would you be willing to pay for this information? Depends on the category of information It does but some researchers some researchers at berkeley at the Haas School of business took people stuck them in an fmri machine functional magnetic imaging machine and had them play gambling games By looking at the brain and the areas of the brain that were activated while these games were being played what they were able To ask was first could they reconcile the economic and psychological views of curiosity or why do people seek information? And second, what does curiosity look like inside the brain? The end result is pretty much that the the subjects make rational choices based on economic value of information And they were able to parse this because of the gambling game where The stakes would get higher, but the decisions they should make should only be related to The the cards in their hand or what the the gambling that the the specific situation That they're gambling for but what they determined was that people tended to overvalue information Especially in higher valued lotteries Higher stakes increased people's curiosity Even when like I said that information shouldn't have had any effect on their decisions on whether or not to play And so they could see what was happening in the brain and what they call the curiosity that was happening They found regions of the brain that are known to be involved in valuations striatum ventromedial prefrontal cortex And these are also activated By food money and drugs These are dopamine producing reward areas So information As we scroll through our social media feeds That's exactly what I was thinking about As we look at the internet internet and scan for news as we spend our time online And we talk about digital addictions They really are they are information is actively Stimulating the areas of the brain that are known to be involved in Reward and addiction the researcher The researchers say we can look into the brain and tell how much someone wants a piece of information and then translate That brain activity into monetary amounts The way our brains respond to the anticipation of a pleasurable reward is an important reason why people are susceptible to clickbait Just like junk food This might be a situation where previously adaptive mechanisms get exploited Now that we have unprecedented access to novel curiosities That's exactly what I was thinking about was scrolling through social media, but also how I'm sure this has happened to most of the people listening to this show because we are all interested in science news So hungry for information and learning of some sort But you'll google a thing And that'll mention a thing that then you have to click on or google That will then mention a thing that then you have to click on or google and you fall down this rabbit hole before you know it Where you know, I might click on the 10 cutest dog memes of the day and then it'll say since you like this you might want to see The the latest research about dog eyeballs and I'll click on that and then so the the internet a lot of Analytics have figured out how to recognize like information Which I think is exactly what this is about What is just related enough that it will continue the clicking and just like we've talked about with social media They have figured out the exact ratio of Good feelings to boring or bad for you to keep going and that's exactly how gambling works Yes, how how long will you keep pulling the lever on the machine? Yes How long will you continue doing one thing that I additionally thought was very interesting here Is they say that the brain turns information? Whether it's Turns information into a common code that is the same whether it is money or food or drugs Or information it's that the brain has a methodology of Valuation and there is a common code within the brain underlying all of that So that I think also is very a very interesting insight into How the brain responds to things in the environment Coded coded information money drugs. Thanks. Yeah Yeah Um, I'm hungry for information about sneezing plants Go excuse me bless you. Oh, I'm sorry. How rude of me. I didn't say bless you No, no not at all so seriously Plants can sneeze. Did you have any idea? No, and I still don't believe it. Please tell me more Not really a sneeze in the traditional sense of a sneeze. I knew it Plants don't have lungs. They're not having their nasal Passages tickled by particulate matter. There's or whatever sneezes are different in the plant world But there is a study in the journal of the royal society interface looking at a phenomenon Which has been uh described For years, which is called Surface tension catapult Plants have Hydro hydrophobic surfaces So they don't attract water to stick to them if you look at the leaves of plants the water balls up and beads up into drops droplets In very Extremely water repellent Super hydrophobic surfaces like wheat certain plants these drops when they uh When they hit a certain They hit each other or they touch the plant that the drops can actually get catapulted Off the surface of the plant because they're being repelled the surface of the plant wants to repel them It's not being attracted. So it's like boom trampoline get out of here these drops can jump several millimeters which is potentially high enough to escape the boundary layer surrounding the plant which Is just a layer of still air and if it escapes that boundary layer it can be Lofted on the breeze to nearby plants Now that brings into account this more recent study in which the idea is if Plants have pathogens Fungal spores perhaps that are in existence on the surface of those leaves those spores could get Encapsulated in these drops droplets of water The catapults effect could move the pathogen laden drops of water onto neighboring plants Spreading disease just like a sneeze that is like a sneeze. Yep Isn't that cool? Oh boy Plants man. They're just like us They're just like us but different They talk to each other they they run away from adverse situations They sneeze they sneeze plant sneeze. Yeah, so this is a new a new aspect of plant biology that need that needs to be looked at for Pathogenal control. How can we take this into account this water movement? In trying to keep down certain pathogens that can dramatically Influence the health of our crop plants, especially. Oh, I know install a sneeze guard like on Um a salad bar, right? There you go fix it Totally will work. Yeah, totally good. Just do that in labs at least when you're propagating plants. Yeah Um and quickly very quickly mind control Uh-oh Is coming researchers at Carnegie Mellon these engineers have improved the accuracy of non-invasive brain computer interfaces Allowing people to learn how to control a robotic arm more quickly than usual using these non-invasive brain control interfaces And also to control the arm more accurately so that the arm tracks the movement of the thought In a in a smoother fashion. So accuracy efficiency and training are improved significantly in this new Methodology that the researchers are using and it's important because we don't always want to be putting electrodes in people's heads So what was it? Was it like a little earpiece or something? In this particular case, it's probably more of eeg style um Electo electrodes on the outside of the brain picking up that a big science fictiony hat Yeah, more of a science fictiony hat in this case Exactly, but you know if they got really good at it, you could put it maybe like behind your ear on the skin right there And then you could have a prosthetic and Okay, neat. Yeah, I mean that's very cool. There are some very sleek brain computer heads interface headsets that are available for gaming and meditation and a kind of neural feedback Loop training and they're sleek and they they don't look too they're not too Big and bulky. They're they're they're they're nice and the the idea though is that when You're getting the information from the outside of the brain. It's very noisy And how do you get rid of all the background noise? The researchers really the the the step forward is in getting rid of the background noise in this case, so you could potentially use this I think to Get the technology really really really good Get the conversation between the headpiece and the prosthetic get prosthetics to be really good And then you could get to the point where you go, okay Now we want to install this in somebody's brain, but I like having this non-permanent option when the technology isn't perfect yet My final story is Speaking of technology that's not perfect Alexa I'm having a heart attack Oh, no, well Those home devices like Alexa and the google device These things these these things that are listening to our lives taking our pizza orders and those Yeah, she she hears I'll order you a coffee black That's right No, that's not what I said That's not what I said Well, these devices are listening and on our lives All the time Because they're waiting to hear the words that they need to follow our directions So researchers taking this into account Determined that they could Train a system create an app that could be installed either in a phone or in Alexa or something similar That could listen for a particular type of breathing that occurs When someone is having a heart attack in about 50 percent of cases And it identifies the these this breathing about 97 of the time and in uh their test cases They do need to test it on a larger set of the of 911 calls in which people had this breathing They that's how they tested it for the first place In certain situations there was a zero percent of false positives So in and what that means is and it was a very low Rate otherwise for their false false positives, which means that they weren't making this Device their app isn't making mistakes on thinking that the breathing Is a heart attack when it's not And calling the emergency services on accident But this could be something that if somebody is Potentially at risk for a heart attack, you know at a certain age or you're you have metabolic disease or cardiovascular disease that you could set up Once this is once this is all put together you could set up have your Alexa or your phone listening while you sleep or other times and Call 911 for you when you're not able to You know what else you could ask it to do is to listen for sleep apnea And report back to you the next day See something like that would be cool, too You wouldn't want you wouldn't want it to call 911 for the sleep apnea. No, but yeah to know how often You weren't breathing is Alexa. What time is it? It's six o'clock a.m. And you stop breathing four times last night Ah, I don't need to know I mean it might be helpful It might be helpful. Hey, Blair. Give me a story about dinosaurs Yeah, you know what else might be helpful to know if dinosaurs could smell well Um, this is university of uh college of dublin They looked at the study of the olfactory bulb ratio in modern birds and used that to predict possible olfactory strength In dinosaurs the olfactory bulb in most modern animals correlates with the strength of their sense of smell Relatives with the rest of the brain is the olfactory bulb ratio and that's how they decide The size of the olfactory bulb is related to the number of smell receptor genes and the DNA of a given animal So it it stands to reason that that would be a good measure Um, so take it together. It's called the or the olfactory repertoire olfactory repertoire in this new effort Researchers use the or of modern birds and an alligator to estimate the olfactory ability of dinosaurs The brains of dinosaurs do not fossilize naturally soft tissue. So there are no examples of olfactory burbs burbs From dinosaurs to look at But there are endocasts brain imprints on the inside of skulls that they can use So from that they can look at the alligators and the birds And together with all of that information estimate the size of the olfactory bulb in dinosaurs They then gathered the o r data on the birds and the alligator And put that all together to come with estimates for the strength of the sense of smell of dinosaurs They found that for many of the larger dinosaurs They had what is likely to be a very good sense of smell that includes the t rex Who we have gone back and forth on saying whether they were Hunters or scavengers. I personally am all in on the scavenger hypothesis and this helps that Think about your vultures. They have an excellent sense of smell so They say the study does not yet clear up whether the t rex was a scavenger or not But i'm saying i'm all in on scavenger But regardless dinosaurs appear to have had a good sense of smell Awesome Which it totally stands to reason that you know because birds do too even though People didn't know that for a very long time. I know I know I was taught that birds can't smell And they can very well Yes, they can Yeah, but it's just because that pesky olfactory bulb was on the bottom of the brain and kept falling off When researchers would take the brain out of the bird's head and then they were like they don't have an olfactory bulb Where's all the olfactory neurons? Where do they go? I don't know. They must not be able to smell as opposed to realizing that They had separated and they just missed part of the brain That is one of my favorite stories about science ever ever mine too Favorite and also frustrating, but definitely favorite at the same Depends on what birds you're looking at how you're looking at them Yeah, it plum fell off Whoops Yeah, I'm sure they weren't looking at vulture brains in those situations. No because they knew vultures could smell. Yeah Oh, we have done it. We've come to the end. We did it. We did it. Good job Blair. Yeah. Good job, kiki Huh, huh. Huh. What what? Uh, uh, I may not be here next week Oh, no Even though my answer to Blair's question um, you know with my silence of How I feel when I'm away from my partner We have No, no, he never listens. We have a significant anniversary coming up So, uh, I may not be here next wednesday But there will be people here keeping the show going for you I would love to say thank you for listening shout outs to our Wonderful volunteers who help out fada. Thank you for doing double show notes this week That was some good duty that you did helping with the social media And getting more stories out this week because of our extra show from the interplanetary festival That is so much appreciated Identity for also, thank you for recording the audio from the weekend and For always recording the audio for the show for people who were able to watch us this weekend Thanks for watching while we tried to do the live thing in santa fe which turned out pretty incredible And I would love to say thank you to our patreon sponsors Thank you paul disney richard onamus ed dire ed andy gross jupolic philip shane ken haze harrison prather charlene henry joshua furie steve debel alex wilson tony steele craig landon mark masarros jack matthew litwin jason roberts bill k bob calder time jubber three one nine eric nap richard brian kondren Dave neighbor john gridley david williams karin benton adam lajoy sarah chavis rodney tiffani boy john bircham mountain 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regardless the show will go on as it does 8 p.m. Pacific time wednesday night You can join our chat room if you watch live at twist.org slash live or on our youtube channel, but If you can't make it live that's okay because the show is archived And you will be able to watch it again on youtube or find it at twist.org Thank you for enjoying the show twist is also available as a podcast You know for your ear holes just search for this week in science and itunes You can look for twist for droid and android or anything apple marketplace related Just go ahead and search twist or this week in science And for more information on anything you heard tonight on the show Show notes are going to be available on our youtube page with the description in a day or so And also at twist.org you can find the show page and there are all the notes And you can also make comments and start conversations with us and the other listeners at our website on those pages Or you can contact us directly email kirsten 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i've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be new 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 understand But 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 to roll in and die We may rid the world of toxoplasma got the eye Because it's this week in science This week in science Science this week in science This week in science science science I've got a long 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 help can I ever see the changes I seek when I can only set up shop one hour a week This week in science is coming away You better just listen to what we say and if you learn anything from the words that we said Then please just remember it's all in your head This week in science This week in science science science This week in science This week in science science science This week in science This week in science This week in science this week in science this week in science the show is over let's play in Portland because it's in Portland important in Portland in Portland in Portland yeah hey everyone it's the after show right now we have switched over to the more casual part of the show and I've realized I wrote it in the chat room we should make a music video yes we should what did that be fun mm-hmm kind of we could replace that old like science one yeah yeah those are a theme video yes we need to do a new one of those also we should the kind of descriptive video needs to be updated on our YouTube page I mean that is if we are going to continue to use YouTube I gotta figure out this thing yeah yeah I would love to do a whole like press packet update where we could we could do a video we could get more pictures we could we just have that one really good picture the three of us we use a lot but we can probably use another one yeah I mean update it with more wrinkles I mean you know the right lighting yeah but we could yeah I think it'd be good to do some of that and I mean the other thing that like when I applied to sketch fest I haven't ever used one before but they asked for a demo reel what I know I never do one I just give them a link to our latest live show like here watch us do what you're hiring us to do there you go yeah we can do a live show for you yeah but I think a demo reel wouldn't be the worst thing it wouldn't so that's something that we could potentially do I would be more than happy to fly to Portland and spend a weekend on this stuff with you yeah that'd be fun I'd be totally down yeah editing a demo reel though I mean we could that yeah we could I could probably hire somebody to do that download download a bunch of YouTube videos from YouTube and put them together yeah it would be great if you yeah it would be like this is what twist is here's what we have here's some kicks clips of Justin here's some clips of me we kind of have that though with the video that Philip Shane made for us oh yeah cuz that that kind of it has live show stuff in it and it has like an interview with me walking around New York and yeah that's your view we stop not about that yeah not a demo reel per se but it's shorter than a normal live show yeah yeah could be good using I don't know yeah all the things but we should yeah making of things is good I I mean it's a matter of time yes energy and always yeah and you know it's kind of what you get used to I was wondering today whether living in Portland allows me to be more tired more often and to just say it's quiet I'm tired I'm not gonna do that work right now I'm tired or if I lived someplace like San Francisco or New York even if I would be just constantly go go go go go and just if it would be the the energy of the city that would keep me doing more more often and not allowing myself to kind of fall into the rhythm of the you know the calmness that that Portland has it's interesting this is yeah just amusing that I had today but yeah I was thinking I've been thinking a lot about Meow Wolf mm-hmm since Meow Wolf we watched the documentary oh yeah last night it's a great documentary I mean I left Meow Wolf mind blown inspired so excited and you know my Kai was so into it like they're whole we were all so thrilled it was amazing and never seen anything like it never experienced anything like it then we watched the documentary and even more so I'm just like I want to run away and I'm not I'm not I'm not running away from home to join the circus I'm running away from home to join Meow Wolf yes yes what was it on any platforms or did you just YouTube it or I think it's on might be on Amazon okay great yeah can do and I'm not considering moving I do love my life in Portland it just there is constantly this consideration of you know what you know should I be doing more could I be doing more what do I want what more do I want to be doing what is the state of my life that keeps me content you know all of us we can work really hard for a little bit on something but you want to work really hard all the time forever no yeah no turns you out after a while so yeah now these are things to consider sometimes those quiet moments are end up being highlights for many days weeks months years yeah absolutely yeah sometimes just when I used to go visit my friend in Kentucky she since moved but one of my favorite moments with her the first time I visited her in Kentucky we did all this different sightseeing stuff and went on a hike and did all this other thing like went and got food and did all these things my favorite moment of that trip was just sitting on her porch yeah yeah sometimes that's the best part sometimes that is the best part just sitting being quiet you can go experiencing dude yeah there are all sorts of things to experience but sometimes it's good to have that quiet it is re-energizing to be I remember being pretty little and my parents making me listen to a book on tape about how it's beneficial to be bored mm-hmm I'm did you believe it it was a hard sell I feel like maybe five years later as a teen I was like I wish I could be bored right now I want to be bored that's the thing right you as a child on board what do I do and then things in life start adding themselves suddenly you're doing music classes you're doing whatever you know eight hours of homework and I homework or you're you know you're maybe you're in a school play or whatever you're volunteering somewhere you're on a team that makes you play sports on the weekends oh my god yeah all of a sudden all your hours are accounted for when do you have those moments yeah and it starts younger and younger now yep yeah yeah Ed was asking if the 7000 foot altitude caused us any problems I don't know I mean I did feel funky yeah staying up late we were on our feet all day and it was really dry too so yeah there were all sorts of factors probably dehydrated a little bit hydration yeah so there's a lot going on but I do think I got winded easier when we were going upstairs and stuff like that hmm hot rod I did not get sick from the tap water none of us got sick with the top no one got sick from the tap water we were all fine I guess there were some more far out areas in New Mexico they were saying like if you're far away down a dirt road you might not want to drink the tap water but otherwise the big cities they said we're fine yeah we did go oxygen bar we did that that was funny I mean oh I did not experience any benefit that I could perceive yeah from the oxygen bar but I also did not go into it with the most optimistic expectations so I was talking placebo I mean if there's an anti placebo effect that's probably yeah you're just willing it not to work no I was talking about it he said that they've talked at the hospital about how oxygen can help headaches it certainly can and I didn't have a headache Marshall however he was suffering he was pre-migraine and and so he said it got rid of it and he felt better yeah sounded like there's some there's some truth in that so for him it was beneficial it was great and maybe for you too I don't know but yeah I mean I definitely I felt I didn't feel felt feel pohoho pre-migraine but I did I was feeling like the little tinge and sometimes you know that can turn into a pre-migraine that then if I don't take anything it turns into a migraine and yes that does happen to me even though there's lots of warning signs for some reason you could you convince yourself it'll be fine and then you end up in a dark room with a cold compress on your head try not to barf but yeah I did have a little bit of a tinge and I was thinking like okay next place we go get some food I'll take some painkillers and I kind of forgot about it after so yeah I don't know that's good I mean you could have just forgotten about it water could have helped sitting down helped yeah just being quiet in a nice cool place with some cool water yeah but have also been the oxygen but we do know that oxygen helps you know additional oxygen if you have sleep apnea it's great yeah that you know there are situations yeah there are situations where it does help but I think when you are a normal person it's like so much related to health when you don't really have anything bothering you what is it going to fix what's it going to improve what are you what improvement are you going to notice but what I do wonder also is they said prime so you start to feel the effects this is what they said we don't know what's true about this what scientifically is proven here but they said you start to feel the effects are in 15 minutes you become a quote on quote fully saturated whatever that means at about a half an hour so we did 20 minutes but what I started wondering about is what about those canisters where you just go that's not 20 minutes no it's not I think those canisters breathing in and out of them or there are there are oxygen candles also that you can get where you break them in they produce oxygen and those last maybe eight minutes huh they're limited they're more little cans with the with the trigger I thought you just kind of went and that was it no I think they contain more than just one breath it's it's compressed air the usage I didn't think you like sat there sucking on it I thought that you just like breath at a time but yeah but if that's the case I'd feel like that's bunk yeah what is that canister canister for hiking these canisters for hiking yes boost boost because someone tested canned oxygen at 8,000 feet let's see does bottled oxygen help altitude sickness a 15 or 20 minute dose of O2 can help alleviate mild symptoms of acute altitude sickness so potentially an oxygen bar would help if you are but one of those so let's see let's see what this site tested it how long do you get just to huff the oxygen somebody grab their boost la la la they got winded able to catch his breath because of the oxygen large size for long trips and a pocket size for short outings like jogs what okay the pocket version contains two liters of oxygen which gives you up to 30 one second inhalations yeah that's I'm saying that can't possibly yeah maybe it can help with being winded but the medium can holds five liters and over 100 one second inhalations yeah so they're just going so yeah how can that possibly do anything I don't know I don't know I mean it would add to your oxygen your O2 saturation from that single breath but it's not I mean it's not significant you'd have to take more breaths to really increase your oxygen saturation yeah yeah so Eric in Alaska and oh oxygen bar on Denali would definitely be good business huh yeah flying out yeah so the we were talking about it's 95 or 97% O2 or it's 102% O2 in those cans air is normally like you said about 21% and so we're not breathing 100% oxygen which that would be bad for us generally but in the situation of you know where in an oxygen bar where they put the tubes under your nose not all the oxygen is going in and so it is really just supplementing the oxygen so the method of that supplementation may create a longer situation for actually leading to saturation maybe because of the mouthpiece that the boost uses for you to breathe out of you get an actual 100% oxygen boost huh which you I mean you really don't want to be drinking drinking breathing just 100% oxygen for significant periods of time because that's not good for you huh I mean there's lots of anecdotal cases of people saying the can does something but yeah but maybe because it of the way that it's inhaled because of the mouthpiece it's like a more more efficient delivery system maybe weird no no you're still out for me ah Eric the last oxygen bar you were in was a hospital yeah no don't go back don't no repeat visits unless you need to then go back yeah right and if try and avoid going back in yeah try to prevent it but yeah it was it was a fun Santa Fe that was a fun experience that was that was that was great yeah very neat yeah I mean honestly the festival was cool meow wolf my mind now I need to go to Las Vegas and Denver Colorado and I just need to follow meow wolf around wherever they build things yeah so Vegas isn't open yet I don't think yeah opening soon though yeah but Denver Denver is already open yeah I was watching a little video of it it should be fun we'll find and I honestly if if you are near someplace where you get an opportunity to do one of these experiences you go to Santa Fe like it this was I've never I've been to Burning Man people and I've never experienced anything like this it was amazing that's crazy 20 20 area 15 that's when the Las Vegas one is coming oh I thought Denver was already open it's coming in 2021 what am I missing here oh really no one of them is already open right yeah Kaleid escape is supposed to be open yeah there's a meow wolf Seattle coming what let me see I'm just gonna go to meow wolf website rather than read a bunch of bunk oh yeah Denver says coming 2021 what the heck not done with the whole thing yet I thought it was to like why would they have merch in their store I don't know raising money to build it hyping it hyping it a bit you can buy a lifetime pass I wonder if that's to all of them or just the Denver I want one buy a lifetime pass one they're so reasonably priced I love it the Denver one they're saying is gonna be $25 yeah I mean it's priced to the area so that it's accessible to people like you can more people can afford those prices and if more people are coming I mean that I that's something about this group of artists they're really great and they you know they're I they follow the idea of radical inclusivity for themselves and I mean they've gotten more businessy over the years for sure and had to focus on the business aspects but they support artists and they want to be inclusive and pricing of your tickets is part of that I figured it out what is an open ride in Denver in Elich Gardens which is a theme and water park mmm so that is a ride at the park that is currently open and they say Kaleid escape is a condensed power shot taste of what is to come to Denver yeah we'll bring a new permanent exhibition to downtown Denver featuring incredible interactive art cool okay neat I cannot wait to see collect but I just I wonder though you know all the people going through and touching things and handling things how often they have to fix stuff yeah I didn't really see anything that was broken no I mean by the end they had some door issues when we were leaving yeah oh lifetime pass access to all Meow Wolf locations for you and a guest forever my god how much is it ten thousand dollars oh my god really what they're doing is they're trying to get investment in their idea and they're trying to get people to invest in what they're doing unfortunately I do not have ten thousand dollars to do something like that I wish I did I think that I think it's a wonderful love what they're doing I really do yeah they're doing they're doing good in the world with art they really are yeah I don't see area 15 I Vegas baby I'll be honest I don't generally have a desire to go to Vegas this would make me do it yeah if I find myself in Vegas I will have something cool to do that's great yeah maybe I need to save my money to go to Vegas for their opening night party yeah for real that would be or you just wait till the following week and pay 35 dollars yeah yeah a little longer it'll be great but it's not a party with the Meow Wolf people yeah that's true which would be super fun I want to go back I'm going back to Santa Fe going back yeah I know I have to bring Brian he's gonna love it yeah I hope that the interplanetary festival invite invites us back again next year oh yeah it'll always be in Santa Fe huh yeah that's great let's bank on that yeah let's see if we can get them to bring us back again for more podcasting from Santa Fe and then we can go to Meow Wolf again and we can expand the trip a little bit longer I can go to Taos see the rocks the earth isn't that where the earth ships are too uh-huh I can see the earth ships would be so excited about that yeah yeah you have to expand it make it a longer trip and do some real yeah yeah get a van or yeah something like that and um yeah explore and do some videos or some yeah that would be amazing I'm super down I like this plan for 2020 for 2020 yes this is a good plan for 2020 we should let SFI know we already started talking about next year so we already made this plan I feel like our show was successful I'll be interested to see when they send out the post festival surveys yeah I'd love to know what people say if they saw it if they liked it what they thought yep yep yeah yeah um newsletter I will I will open the chimp now so I don't forget I may have to tack it to I'll open my text messages yeah it's annoying that it does that but I understand why it's because it has people's personal information in it yeah yep yep um yeah so you let me log in and then I'll have it for two weeks but uh let's we can do some I'll do I'll try and do some writing tomorrow I can I could do some on Saturday I'll set an alarm okay for the weekend Saturday Saturday look at all Saturday okay that'll be good so let's try and get another and I will figure out if I can get our guest next week to reschedule to another week um but we do have some guests that I'm lining up for July already so we can advertise those um and I have to send you the um stuff the the climate change sea slug paper that's telling you about oh yeah send me that yeah we'll do that tomorrow we'll do it we'll do it um love Richelle she's very cool cool yeah I like that yes yes please I think I met her briefly yes Richelle yes yeah yeah we had I had gone back and forth with her as part of the programming committee for the conference um let's see what was my next question business twist business because this is a business meeting in which we talk about meowulf and oxygen huffing um calendars should we set a date for at least starting calendar sale promotion sure so I think I will have the cover done I think I can definitely set to have it done I haven't painted anything yet but I can jump into the painting um I can probably have it done by the end of the month oh this month yeah okay um but yeah I think maybe August we could start pre-orders is that too early no okay no I think uh if we were to do that starting like mid august I think that's fine yeah great yeah I think people really start thinking about their calendars for the next year like in September-ish but yeah yeah cool okay that's good having more having more time for pre-orders is is good um yeah we'll know how many to order yeah I don't know how many to order ahead of time maybe a little bit better yeah um and okay so that's calendar we got uh I'll figure out the interview we got news letter we got um is there anything else uh no just next week are you are you gonna try to find us another person okay I'll try to I'll try to find you another person okay if I can okay if not we'll figure it out as you do as we do yeah it's so funny I'm like I know you both can interview people but I want to be there of course you do well usually you have the book too if it's about a book so it's helpful to have you there I don't have the source material I do all the thinking I do all the thinking about it ahead of time I'm like I know what I want to ask this person yeah okay doki I think that's it for now then um yeah it is bedtime identity for I'd like I didn't sleep well last night I had wild dreams and then I kept getting woken up and then oh no back to sleep and then wild dream and then wake up I yikes what'd you eat salad uh explanation no I don't know we should get Diana Cowan back again she's fun yeah she'd be fun but try and reach out and get some other people I still have to get back to um Roger I'm making we're doing co-host swaps oh yeah daily tech news show and he sent me an email and I need to get back to him about that so we're gonna make that happen we will schedule it and I'm uh taping for that um oh no I'm so bad the climate talk podcast or something like that um so yeah I think I emailed you about it a little bit ago but it was like months ago it took a long time to schedule um but uh no he suggested me since I do this to talk to them about the program so I'm gonna be talking about that and the zoo and this really fun so great once it's recorded and I have released information all that kind of stuff we can I can mention it on the show but awesome but you don't know when that's gonna happen no I know nothing I don't know I just know what I'm calling him on the phone awesome do it at some point yeah yeah yeah but I love doing other podcasts it's fun it is fun I think we should do more of that yeah I would love to hear that world yes you want me to come on your podcast I'll do it I'll do it that'll be fun yeah yes we will okay doki this was fun it's always weird after a weekend show and then like ah I gotta do another show okay very odd last night like uh oh I have to look for stories again I know I just did this I'm like back to it yes it's a good thing I'm always reading about the science yeah already well it's so much fun with you yeah same here it was great great weekend yeah great weekend capped off with another great twist episode more fun hanging out yeah okay I gotta remember to keep an oxygen tank on my bedstand yes Ed I will do that yes Eric email me for an interview suggestion please do that if you have suggestions for interviews email me because that is more what I see and possibly remember things that go by in the chat kind of it's like yep it's like when a teenager comes up to me and says um next Tuesday I have to leave it to because and I'm like send me an email you need I need to be in my place where I can put it in the schedule and I can make it happen yeah any who's all say good night Blair good night Blair say good night Kiki good night Kiki good night everyone yeah we will see you next week and for those of you who like to catch me on the twitch I am going to change the time of my twitch broadcast because of changes in time of things that are going on in my life so I will update that on the website and tweet about it I haven't put it in my calendar yet but I'm thinking it'll be somewhere around 10 a.m on Fridays might be the new time we'll see um and it may work out great we will see um but that is what I'm going to try to so I can do more twitch broadcasts for you and not miss out on them for various reasons all right everyone we will see you next week we do hope we do hope and I need to remember which buttons I need to push have a wonderful science weekend wonderful science week see you later bye