 Hello everyone and welcome to this week's podcast broadcast of this week in science. We are ready to have an incredibly good time I hope you are as well Trace, are you ready for a good show? I'm ready for a good show. Okay me too. I'm ready. I hope the chats are ready Into the stream everyone. Yes snoggo. Yes, everyone. Hope the volumes are all good I don't know why everybody always says I'm quieter than everyone else So it's just me whispering all the time But this is the part of the show where I tell you that this is live as we're doing this So if we make mistakes if there are oopses and ous and technical difficulties Then hopefully the editor will edit them out for the podcast But in the meantime what you're seeing on the YouTube's the Facebook Facebook is and the twitch is the real Live thing that we're doing unedited and so that's just the way it is everybody Make sure you hit the hearts the likes the thumbs up the shares the notifications the bells the ringings and it's the holiday season so Time to start to start the show That gets cut out entirely All right Beginning this show in three two This is Twist this week in science episode number 954 recorded on Wednesday December 13th 2023 How to use emojis for science? Hey everybody. I'm dr. Kiki Welcome to the show tonight. We will fill your heads with mouse VR carnivorous cats and brain-aware But first disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer Low as I sit at the silicon computer thinking thoughts in an organic stupor What do my visual senses should appear? But more stories about our world for all to hold dear Those some tales may cause fear we'll make it clear that all that we might learn is Rarely cause for concern except for maybe some of those really scary things like infectious viruses and malicious AI and you know stuff like that whatever as Science is a great tool and you aren't a fool because you are listening to this week in science Coming up next I want to learn it happen every day of the week. There's only one place to go to find the knowledge Good Science everyone. Welcome to another episode of this week in science We are so glad that you are here joining us once again. We have a great show ahead and we are joined by an amazing guest host Trace Dominguez who really actually does just about everything related to creating science programs for the world Explaining science making people like science like going shaking them and saying man, you're like science now Trace thanks for joining us. Well, thanks for having me. This is awesome. I haven't been on Twisted so long I'm really excited to be back. It's been a while. So it's wonderful to get you back on the show And we have so many fun things to get into What did I bring? I have science news about brain computers Rock walls snake eyes my son VR and Always more brains lots of brains Trace Did you bring some stories to it? I Brought a bit about the Geminids which are currently in the sky Peking this week. So that's exciting. I brought a story about cats that kill everything Okay, yeah, and then I brought a bit about the United States's plan for particle physics over the next 20 years Which is pretty cool. I am excited to learn more about that because what have we been? Yeah, exactly. I mean like I'm just excited. We have a plan Like I think that's important It's always important to have a plan Oh my gosh, otherwise, what are you doing man? Yeah, come on. I mean you gotta have a plan That's like the old I get the more I'm like if you are thinking ahead at all We can be friends Just like a little bit I'm glad we could be friends. I have a whole rundown of things. So we have a plan so we could do the show I'm not be like what's going on here It's not particle physics, but you know, it's it's a plan for tonight Works now, you know, that's great It's all good right now, and I hope it'll be good for everyone into the future as we jump into the show We would love you to know I want you to know that you can subscribe to this podcast All places that podcasts are found pretty much look for this week in science the twist podcast We broadcast weekly 8 p.m. Pacific time on YouTube Facebook and Twitch and so there's videos there You can scratch subscribe to our channels there If there's a lot of stuff that I'm telling you about right now And you just are like blah blah blah words then go to our website twist org That's where you'll find all the things that you really need Okay We ready to jump into this episode. I'm ready. Okay. It's time for the science Mouse brains love them. What do we know about them really delicious? That's not what I was expecting All right, big story this week I've talked about mouse brains quite a lot on this program through the years and Within the last week researchers published in nature nine articles That's a lot That are delivering the results of a six-year-long effort the Seattle's Allen Institute had a lead role also, there are The Broad Institute Harvard Salk Institute for Biological Studies University of California, San Diego You see Berkeley all sorts of universities involved in trying to look more deeply into the mouse brain and figure out What cells are there and which cells are where and they have in this compendium of studies put together The first complete multimodal cell atlas for the mouse brain That's cool. I'm looking at it right now. It's so yeah, so it's it's very cool Not only yeah, it's like oh, there's like neurons in there and stuff But this is looking at exactly what kinds of neurons are in different places. We also know that there are Gleel cells Astrocytes other cells that are support cells what functions do they hold in different places? And so really this is a reference list for For the brain for the mouse brain itself and in addition to this they've done gene Sequencing which is pretty exciting because now it's not just what cells are where but oh, we've got a cell That is like a dopamine producing cell But it's in different parts of the brain and different genes are being expressed in these different parts of the brain So it gives starts to give a reasoning as to why different things happen in the mouse brain in different places One of the things that was really exciting about this particular Effort is that they discovered a really strong correlation between this gene expression and patterns for cell types and where they're found in the brain and So they say that the older regions the lower or ventral regions of the brain what we you would consider as maybe more evolutionarily Distant to where we are now There's more and more diverse distinct cell types They're also closely related to each other. So there's like a lot of evolution that's happened in that kind of Ancient ventral part of the brain that takes care of a lot of our instinctual reactions to things That's cool Yeah, and so then the more recently evolved part of the brain we have a lot of those Cell types a lot of the gene expression and stuff that's happened, but it's it's It's not quite as diverse not as distinct as what is earlier. And so 80% of the regulatory elements that are unique to humans are Transposable elements so that these are things that are changing positions within the genome And this is not what they do what they really found within the mouse brain. And so they're thinking that We can start looking at what we're finding in the mouse brain now with this atlas and What they're learning about the human brain and start to figure out maybe Why certain diseases? Occur why why is there? Why is there? Neuro degeneration in certain in certain brains. What are the gaps that we have between different mammalian species? What happened? Why did these transposable elements allow us to have the cognitive? Functions that we have that other I mean there are lots of cognitive functions that we underestimate and other animals gonna say that but Being able to really figure out those genetic factors at play And where different cells are? Yeah That's neat Wait, when did this start? Yeah, so this is something that started about six years ago and this Has been been on going they Yeah, just They they there are previous studies that they call it from the brain initiative cells census network Which is I've had it up on the screen the bicken the bicken the bicken. I feel like they could have come up with a better I mean brain initiative is already B. R. A. I. N. So Brian brain Brain The brain CC net brain CC net But yeah That's super neat. Wow. This reminds me. Do you think this is is Impactful outside of this field or is this something where within the the mouse brain studying field? They're gonna everybody's gonna read this and be like wow, this is amazing and it's applicable So what I think is that they This is exciting for the mouse brain field But beyond that it is exciting for just understanding Evolutionary aspects of our relatedness to other species how the brain functions how neurons have evolved over time to Create different or allow different functions to take place And so it's the kind of situation where Yeah, the the mouse brain people are gonna be very excited about this, but I really think that the human brain scientists who study Neuronal architecture and the especially the genetics. Yeah, they're gonna be the most excited about it Yeah, I mean looking at the article here about it. It's fascinating because they said Hear that, you know, it's gonna be helpful like you say to treat diseases and disorders that are Common across different mammalian brains, which that I don't know that kind of blows my mind a little bit And that's the hope right that we could actually get to a point where we could treat different disorders multiple sclerosis maybe Alzheimer's maybe Parkinson's disease, maybe there are so many different disorders that are based on like Parkinson's specifically It's based on dopamine dopaminergic neurons and You know those are throughout the brain, but maybe they have different Different targets for therapeutics in different areas of the brain that would be important. Yeah, that could be cool Yeah, amazing and it says here, you know, we've obviously we're different than mice clearly But yeah multiple sclerosis and are we not mice? Even this one kind of stuck out to me is that they said it might be able to work with people who have addiction behaviors And problems with addiction, you know, they specifically call out tobacco addiction But you know that that it would be pretty incredible to get a little bit of our mammalian insight to be able to help People break those addiction cycles and you know that my my backgrounds in behavioral psychology So okay that I find that very interesting because that's something that Behaviorists work on all the time. It'd be cool if we could just get into the brain and be like Figure that out. Got it. Not that you know, put people out of jobs. That's okay No, I don't think this will put people out of jobs I think this is going to you know lead to more questions, which I think is you know, the biggest ask, you know The biggest thing it's like, okay, it's like you grew up with maybe I mean I grew up with encyclopedia Britannica You know those shelf full, you know, a to z Looking through it and it had information in it But it didn't have all the information and I always read those little sections going I feel like there's more And I'm missing something here. I had a world book same. I was just like dad the B Book isn't very big. There's a lot of stuff this B. There's more stuff here. What's going on? Yeah, same so I think that's the best part about science like this where it's like this compendium of basic science that comes together is It opens up a lot more questions Makes a new baseline, you know, where you can like, okay. Well, if we refer to this Map now we can start to build new studies based on what they've discovered, which is just the best And we've been discovering so much recently You know stories we've talked about on the show related to just our increasing understanding that the brain isn't just like Oh boop boop neuronal network. That's all it is. There's there are all these other cells involved that do Short distance and even help with long distance transmission of signals and Modify signals and so it's this much more complicated system. So Now that we start to see this Maybe we can see more about I don't know. We did it for mice. Woo-hoo mouse atlas brains. Yay. We love them Doggies, I don't know But to do all this, you know, I'm sure it is powered by coffee Oh, yes, definitely. So much. Are you a are you a coffee drinker? I love coffee Um, I like it not for the reason that some some people drink coffee for caffeine. I have ADHD. So I don't I drink it for The ritual the like I'm gonna take a minute And I'm gonna make some coffee, you know, it's just like that is nice It's and it's a scene setting for you and it's a way to like start To separate moments So I make a coffee I make a smoothie I sit down and start my day and I've done that since for now for like more than 10 years You know, I just didn't really drink coffee before I had a 9 to 5 that started at 7 a.m And I would be like, okay Well, I'm gonna go and have a warm beverage in the morning and so it's really the morning morning that morning warm beverage Well, what about you? Do you drink coffee? I do? I really enjoy my morning cup of coffee and I I am especially I am a lucky lucky person My husband brings me my cup of coffee In bed in the morning. Wow That's love It is except for the part where he has all of the lights in the house attached to his app And so he turns the lights in my room on I'm like, okay, it seems like a thing we can update Okay, fine, but the coffee it's wonderful and I love the coffee in the morning the smell the taste and I know there are a lot of people Who really enjoy the coffee for the ritual and also the caffeine, but there is a question about uh, where these caffeinated beverages may come from in the future as climate change is Potentially endangering the ecosystems in which the coffee plants are grown. That's right So What else do researchers do would say Let's make it in a petri dish Lab grown coffee lab grown coffee. So this week in uh, the association of Chemical science acs. I always forget their acronym. Yes. Is it the american chemical society? That would be the one. Thank you very much Oh good I've worked with them before been to their meetings acronyms. Give I don't know acronyms. Whatever Anyway in their publication this last week researchers reported on their work Creating coffee out of coffee cells They took leaves from coffee plants and They uh Cultured them got them into a cellular level Cultured the cells that were in those little bits of coffee plant Created freeze dried coffee cells. So now it's like um, I don't know the european freeze dried coffee at this point I guess they they roasted those cells that had been freeze dried and then brewed them as coffee and then they compared them against regular coffees and unroasted coffee cells To see how the flavor profiles the chemistry profiles how everything Uh changed And that's cool. I like that in the study they they mentioned sample preparation and serving for sensory analysis Does it actually taste and smell like real coffee? Uh, it it's close. It's not quite they said overall it would they did a pretty good job. Um There were some aspects of the flavor Missing according to the researchers. So there's uh some of the the I guess the the phyto proteins the The aspects of a full plant that's been grown Within a particular as we'll use the the wine term terroir So that the plant is influenced by the soil is influenced by the waters all the things that are going on there, but um, they determined that They were able to Create Basically a cellular coffee that's kind of like freeze dried coffee It's not exactly Perfect, uh, but they they gave them something to start with and they think they did a pretty good job Yeah, it says low bitterness intensity that they Weirdly gave them unroasted which I guess maybe that's like a Control so it'd be like unroasted coffee beans as opposed to the roasted coffee beans And we know that there is a difference in the flavor profile of roasted versus unroasted coffee beans You don't want to drink coffee that hasn't been roasted Um, no, no, no, they saw that their coffee cell culture is less toxic Oh Just a bit, you know, they're like looking at it and they said hey, let's use shrimp Daphnia magna, let's put them in this water and let them try and live with coffee and they compared how well different Samples of shrimp lived on different coffee samples. Well, I wouldn't have that I'm allergic to shrimp So I go that would that would make it not feeling to me It said the taste attributes the roasted cell coffees had comparable intensities of bitterness rated 5.5 to 6.5 interesting and sourness to conventional coffee, which I think is Interesting and that's where you want to get I mean there's a The flavor of coffee and what people want to drink as coffee You don't want it too bitter, but sometimes different people like more bitter coffee. I like I like a good Dark roast, but if it's too bitter, I don't really like it that much but Anyway, that's cool. That's really cool. I love it. I would try it. I would definitely try it I feel like it can't be worse than some of the coffee out there, you know There's some terrible coffee out there and it can't be worse than that. I'm not gonna name names of places that have terrible coffee, but Yeah I'll think that It's out there But the the question is yeah, is this the kind of thing that people will uh Adapt to is you know as we loot. Yeah, I hate to think of climate change making real coffee beans less accessible coffee more expensive, but at the same time can we Create something That could work for people on spaceships in outer space Yeah, I mean, yes, there's definitely I I think this is one of those things that we've been talking about in the science Science communication community for years, right? Is that climate change isn't an existential crisis for people who are experiencing it already Places where sea level is already rising micronesia other places where you have to worry about, you know Islands in the pacific, you know These nations are losing land now and like there are things like chocolate wine Coffee places that where they're grown in specific climates that they can't be grown other places That's why we grow it in like Brazil and you know northern south america and in hawaii because it needs to rain a lot It needs to have enough water for to grow these plants But it also needs to be warm enough and it's just like There's not that many places on earth where you can grow good coffee So either we all have to get used to terrible coffee. No Grow in a hydroponics bay somewhere on star trek voyager, right or You know It might become yeah coffee coming from a lab near you That's cool Yeah, um, also really cool it from science advances this last week researchers. Uh, we're studying the great wall of china And uh, uh, the great wall of china. It's one of those wonders of the planet humans built this massive Massive strong structure like they were planning ahead. That's what they were doing. They were planning years ago right and they built it over uh of An extreme distance like the just the you know, it's visible from space, right? It's 8,851.8 kilometers across varying ecosystems mostly dry land But one of the questions is okay In the different places where it was built they use different substances a lot of it was rammed earth like taking the earth from nearby Chubbing it together and making Yes, yeah big bricks Um others it was stone that had been dug from uh nearby quarries uh, so these researchers uh looked at What's eroding the Great Wall of China? And yeah, what I think is super exciting about the erosion of the Great Wall of China, I don't think that came out well, was this particular story that biocrasts living organisms on the surface of the stone or the rammed earth, the surface of the wall itself, help prevent erosion. Neat, yeah. Oh, that's cool. They like hold it together? Yeah, so they were looking at bacterial biocrasts, they were looking at lichen, they were looking at mosses, they were looking at all sorts of things and comparing the preserved sections from the deteriorated sections and they found that certain sections were doing a lot better than others and the ones that were doing better had these biocrasts on them and the mosses were actually like the best preservers of the wall. That's interesting. Yeah, so the bacteria, they did okay, but so they were looking at like how porous they were, how much water capacity they had for holding the strength of this crusty structure, how stable they were, how much they eroded salinity, all that kind of stuff and really determined that yeah, if they didn't have a lot of little roots and filaments, rhizoids, other things going into the wall, which could then deteriorate the wall and were just really just on the surface, they were better at reducing erosion. That's cool. I mean, it's especially cool because things like lichen as like a mold product, I guess, is more associated with decay. We usually associate that thing with, oh, this is helping break down this felled tree or whatever, so the fact that it's also, in this case, sort of the opposite, helping keep it up, that's pretty awesome. That's really cool. And so the interesting thing here is that it was more beneficial to the rammed earth sections than to the stone sections. Oh. The stone sections, the lichen was more deteriorating as opposed to the other things that they looked at, but yeah. Wow. So. Oh, this is neat, it says they were stronger. Next time you build a wall, put a pie crust on it, made of mosses, lichen, cyanobacteria. Okay, what were you gonna say? I said it says here in this fizzorg piece, they found the bio crusts were stronger than the rammed earth material upon which they were growing. Yes. In some cases, three times stronger. Yeah. Wow. Right, and you would, it's really cool. So it makes you start thinking about, okay, what are we building now? And then, of course, as every person does, I mean, mostly men apparently, according to the internet, you immediately go to Roman concrete. Of course. Of course. What's going on in Romans? What was that concrete, the self-healing aspect of that concrete, what was going on there? And what can we do moving forward with our more sustainable concretes that we're going to come up with, hopefully? How can we make them stronger, but also potentially allow them to be made stronger by these biological processes? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. This is just neat to me. I don't know anything about lichens. I like them, don't know anything about them. I like seeing them out in the woods when I'm out in the woods. I ain't like a lichen. I've never been to the Great Wall of China. You've been to the Great Wall of China? I've never been, I haven't. I know people who have been. So, you know, I'm like, you know, one degree away from people who've been there and put their photos on social media, but yeah. That's neat. Yeah. Is this something where you think, I feel like if I were going to build a really big wall that I knew was going to keep out the, well. The hordes. But that's okay, the hordes. I would just, you know, you just put some lichen on it now. Just when you first build it, you put the lichen on it, slap some lichen on there. Be like, do your thing, pal. And then come back 3,000 years later and be like, hey, did it work? You worked the wall still here. That's great. Oh, people climbed you. That's good. Apparently you didn't build a wall like they did. Oh no, Game of Thrones, they didn't have a big enough ice wall either. So anyway, nevermind. It doesn't matter how big that wall is. No. They got dragons. Fire-breathing dragons. But then we also have sea snakes. Hmm. Sea snakes. The dragons of the sea, as they're called. By you. Reported in the Royal Society Open Science, McCary University researchers with the Australian Institute of Marine Science have been looking at what are called the Episerine sea snakes. They're venomous. They're in the Indo-Pacific region. They used to live on land, but then went to the sea. They tend to live in coral reef areas. They hunt fish and crustaceans. They're not, they don't have gills, they're not like fish. They are, they have to, like dolphins rise to the surface, take a big breath of air and then hold it and go down and do their hunting. So these, yeah, kind of neat. They're holding their breath and then... Yeah. They go after their prey with their venom. So researchers are like, what are you doing down there? How'd you evolve to get, how do you do this? What's going on? And the researchers are really interested in this. They found that there is species dimorphism between males and females. Females are larger. Males are a little bit smaller. And the males have really big eyes. Oh, better to see you with my dear. Exactly. And that is the hypothesis that these researchers have actually put forward based on their study of the physiology of 419 preserved samples of six species. They think that the larger eyes allowed them to see underwater better, allowed them to hunt better, but also because females didn't have the larger eyes, the females just are bigger than the males, that it allows them to see the females better. And so those big eyes allow them to find potential mates under the water. But the marine environment may have had an influence on this. Huh. How about don't snakes have the Jacobson's organ to smell things as well? How would that work underwater? I feel like maybe that eyes help. I have zero idea how that would work, yeah. That's so neat, because they're very senty. Right, yeah, on land they are, but if they're holding their breath underwater, then they're probably not doing senting. And so the big eyeballs must be like, oh, I think there's somebody over there. Let's go get them. Let's go. See if they're into the same things I'm into. You know, coffee and stuff. Yeah. Coffee and lichen. You like this lichen? I like this lichen. Let's go. I caught a fish. You like that fish? It's a good fish. Good fish and... You heard about the lichens on the Great Wall of China? And she's like, uh-uh, not interested. I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna close my eyes, turn around, pretend I never saw you. Swim away, swim away. Just keep swimming, hun, just keep swimming until I have to surface and breathe. That's funny. Wow. Yeah, so also the size difference between the males and the females is most likely because there is not a lot of competition between the males for the females. So the males are like, eh, whatever, whatever, whatever. They're just out there hunting for females when it's time to mate. They don't fight between each other. So it literally is like, if you can't find one, you're out of luck. So that would make sense that they would need since they can't use their scent. They have to use bigger eyeballs to go and find other snakes because they don't find them. Then they just live a lonely life and they're gonna start texting their best friend, sad face emojis. Oh, the emojis. And this is where we talk about emojis. Oh, wait, no, I have one more thing to add on here before the emojis though. Reported in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, researchers surveyed people about how they thought about guys and luxury cars with their feelings on luxury cars were. And basically men who drive expensive cars attract women looking for a partner who can provide them with a certain level of lifestyle, but it hadn't been tested really. These two surveys, they had the first 171 responses, 93 from women and then they did another survey, 409 responses, 206 from women. They found that both men and women view driving luxury vehicles as higher mating value. So if you are not a sea snake with big eyes, maybe you need to buy a luxury car. Yeah, go out and buy a really nice car. Don't, I mean, I have a Kia, that's pretty nice. But I don't think I'm attracting the mates that would give me a fancy lifestyle with the Kia. You don't need to anymore. That's true, I'm married. You're a family man, so. I'm a baby. Yeah, you got a great partner and a baby and everything's good. But this is one of these things that's like social psychology stuff like where I'm like, why are people like this? You have a nice car and survey says, that means you're more intelligent. People think you're more intelligent because you have a nice car and they would benefit from personal intimate relationships with that person who has a nice car. And I just want to, I just, I feel like the reality is very different. Yeah, I find this interesting. Most of these surveys are self-reported, right? They're self-reporting this. I would feel, I'm responding to a survey about this and it's like luxury car survey, you know? Tell me how you would feel. There's probably some a little bit of like skewing that, but that's okay. I do think for some people, it would be the opposite, right? You drive a luxury car in your, I don't know, 40s or whatever and you're like, we always, everyone makes fun of those people. They're just like, your genitalia is not larger for having driven such a car. If that is a thing you do. How's that midlife crisis going there? Right, yeah, it's just like, why, why? Look, I get it, you want to drive a nice comfortable car? Do that. But, come on, come on, come on, come on. Yeah, I mean, still, this is, you know, it's, they had 409 responses, they did a couple surveys, surveys are biased, they did the best they could, but at the same time, people, people, people. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. I love that kind of social science. Yeah, I just, I'm like, who are the people who responded to the survey and what is happening there? Yeah, I'm skimming through the study, but I don't have access to the PDF. Unfortunately, I haven't had enough time to look into it, but oh man, it's so interesting. You can dig deeper later. But now we can talk about the emojis. And is there an emoji for digging? I don't know. Trace, do you use emojis a lot in your communications? Are you an emoji communicator? I like emojis, but I usually use them for emphasis. So I'll text somebody like a sentence or a paragraph and I'll put like an emoji at the end to be like, this is the emotion that I'm tagging this message with, but I don't like replace words with emojis. I'm not like, oh, hello, you know, friend, here's this, I need a chicken. You know, like I'm not gonna, I would just say I need a chicken. I wouldn't put the chicken emoji. I get when people do that, but it feels a little like mad libs to me, like you're trying to, it's harder to parse. Anagrams, where like, where you, like it's the pictures and you have to figure out what the words are that are like trying to remember those puzzles, like, I feel like there's used to be puzzles and people are using them like real conversation all the time now. And I'm like, oh, yeah, when it's like B for, and they use the B instead of the word B, they're saving one character. So that's the thing that bugs me. Also, the emoji keyboard doesn't show as many emojis as you would need to make all of the, so you're actually working harder to type only with emojis than if you were just typing B. Typing, because you have to search for each emoji, but okay, people use emojis. Maybe we're just old, maybe we're just old now. I feel like I might be, but regardless, people use emojis a lot and there's been a lot of research into the accuracy of emojis in providing context and providing emotion over text-based communications where emotion may not otherwise be as easily understood. But within this, researchers are like, hey, how can we use this to, you brought up a B, an invertebrate, right? How many biological organisms are represented within the emoji dictionary? Oh, I think about this all the time. Really, I'm not joking, I do. Really? Yes, the emoji, oh, the emoji system is fascinating to me and how we get emojis is fascinating to me. And in case you don't know, there's a Unicode consortium that gets to pick which the emojis are and all you have to do is submit one and then they have to pick it. Trace, you're giving me things, I didn't know, okay. People submit emojis all the time and you can submit them and then they review them and so new emojis come from this panel of people where you submit and say, we need an emoji for a person who does yoga and then they're like, okay, but then it turns out when they submitted it, they only did a person and they're like, well now we have all these different genders so we need to make sure that we have a full picture of the person doing yoga. We have like three people doing yoga and one is clearly a man, one is clearly a woman and one is clearly like, could be unigender or agender and it's just so fascinating because it's a process and it's like, we end up with really weird stuff and then it's the design because the Unicode consortium doesn't actually design the emojis, they just give you a code for pizza and then everybody gets to pick what their pizza looks like and what's on it. It's just, I mean, oh, so interesting. And it's also, I feel different between the Android and the Apple phones so you don't have the same library, you're not getting the same thing. And you don't always get the same emotional connection between the different emotions that you're trying to send. If I'm sending this, not only is there an age difference, you know, people like Gen Z and Gen Alpha would laugh at you for using the little sideways crying laughing emoji, ha ha ha, they'd be like, you still use that. What, putting a period at the end of your sentence? Right. Oh, I think about this a lot, Kiki, because there aren't very many animals, like a variety, there are, anyway, please continue your story. I'm sorry to jump in there. Woo, I've all heated and spicy for a thing. I'm excited about your spice, it's so good because these researchers publishing in iScience and Open Access Journal have been studying biodiversity communication, so communication related to science and the animals that are out there in the world through the digital era and also what they are calling the emoji tree of life, which makes me so excited because I never, ever, ever thought about this, really. I mean, I just was like, why do I have to just pick that little chick if I want a bird? Why can't I have another bird? You know, what are the options and whatever. So here we are in this day and age with researchers who have found that there has been improvement since the, you know, 2015. There have been, has been an increase in the number of emojis that represent different phyla, represent biodiversity and allow biodiversity communication to happen more easily. It's pretty exciting, yeah. So one of the questions, like, so in 2021, they brought this up in the paper, which I think is very exciting. There was an effort to help highlight the urgency of protecting endangered species and there was a Clio Health Silver winning entry extinct emojis and a World Wildlife Day, the World Wildlife Foundation partnered with companies to make emojis depicting endangered animals that are going extinct. And when you tried to use an emoji for one of those animals, it took you to a page that was like, dude, this animal's dying and tried to educate people about these different things. So it was raising awareness and trying to also promote actions to help conserve different species of endangered animals. So the question is, you know, now, where are we with these various species? What's, with the emojis, what's going on? How can we get more out there? And like you said, the Unicode consortium, like, people can draw things, can submit them and maybe we will get more. And over several years, there have been more and more and more species and emojis added. The problem is also that species are going extinct as we're adding them. But this particular study, which I love this tree of life because... Yeah, I love this graphic. This is so cool. It's so cool. And the graphic really shows the species that were represented back in 2015, where things went like in 2021, where things are now and different species that have been added and who hasn't been added and where we could possibly improve from here. But then the question is, at the end of the paper, they even admit it. It's like, okay, we'll add more animal emojis, but how is this gonna help and who's gonna be helped and what's really gonna happen? Like how do we, is this really going to impact science communication? Is this just adding a bunch of emojis? What's gonna happen here? Right, yeah. I mean, that's a great point. Most of the emojis people use are the ones that represent their emotions, sort of like you started saying. And so duck, I mean, I can think of what duck is gonna end up being meaning. That's duck and crazy, you know? But at the same time, you need... I'm not saying that there are emojis that are pointless because there are emojis that like, I'm sure no one ever uses. Some of them are, for example, characters that aren't in English and maybe people don't know what those mean. So in the US, they're not gonna use those. However, the animal ones, most of these animals that you see in this study that they're recommending, things like the Oranitan or the sloth or the hedgehog or the otter, like some of these are animals that exist in various places around the world. So they're still gonna be more universal than something that's like, I don't know, a water fountain emoji or whatever. Yeah, I mean, get this. I mean, surprise, surprise. Platy helmenthys, flatworms are really not represented in emojis. Surprise, I am shocked. We need a roundworm emoji. It's the most studied. Roundworms, flatworms, all the worms, we need, yeah. We need, there's a beaver emoji here, we need that, definitely. More invertebrates. Actually, yeah, that's the thing. If you look at this, a lot of it is there's definitely a bias in the emojis that people are submitting, especially early on we saw that with like the emojis that existed and not just the artwork, but just which ones exist. We bias toward mammals, we bias toward things that are cuddly or things that we like or things that we keep as pets or things that we like to look at or eat, but we're not bias, but we need to like come out of that and try and think of animals that could be represented. I don't think there's such a thing as a waste of emojis. You can search for them. We should have emojis for everything. I mean, I'm on team all emojis all the time. Get all of them. Get it. I mean, in your life that you need a polar bear emoji, you're going to find uses for it or whatever. There's going to be all sorts of uses for penguin emojis and all sorts of stuff. I know when I'm like, you know, in Antarctica protecting my egg, totally going to use that penguin emoji. Text your friend and you're like, oh, what is the dress code for this wedding? And they text you back a penguin. Done. Message complete. You now know the dress code for this wedding. I could be a penguin. It'll be great. All right, everybody. If you are just tuning in, I am speaking tonight with our wonderful guest host, Trace Dominguez. He's an award winning. I mean, I'm hoping that some of his winning is going to rub off on me a little bit. Science communicator, host of animal IQ, PBS Stargazers, hosted and co-founded Seeker, worked on a lot of other projects. You're a busy guy. I mean, over the years, I've been very impressed with all the stuff that you've done, honestly. Yeah, and I remember first meeting you in San Francisco and going into the weird little open area and having like a sandwich salad lunch, talking about stuff. Well, you were hosting DNews from Discovery. It was after Discovery had bought revision three. But yeah, like back in the day, San Francisco, sitting talking about things and okay, I've listed things, but what are you doing? What are you excited about right now? What's happening in your life? Wow, I mean, what's happening in my life personally is I have a kid and so I spend all day thinking about what I'm gonna do with that. I like to think of having a kid as the greatest science experiment I'll ever do. It is, it really is. It's like a psych experiment. It's a biology experiment. There's definitely mold that didn't exist before that now exists, there's poop everywhere. You know, it's just, that's a mess, but it is what it is. Professionally, I'm doing PBS Stargazers a lot. That is a weekly show. It's an interstitial, so it's about one minute long and every week we release an episode nationwide on PBS that talks about what's going on in the sky. And so it's essentially a backyard astronomy or a naked eye astronomy show, which is really fun. It's been on since the 1970s. Did you know that? No. It started in the 1970s with this kind of portly guy named Jack Horkheimer and he was a planetarium astronomer in Miami and if you watched PBS at night in like the 70s or 80s, this like portly dude would sit on the rings of Saturn and he'd be like, greetings, Stargazers. That guy, if you remember that show from when you're a kid, if you're having like that flashback, I know I did when I first got contacted by them. That was the guy who started the show. And so it's had some astronomers since then. Yeah, hey, that's it. And they were having some astronomers who took over the show and then eventually they were like, okay, we wanna kind of bring in a new fresh feel to the show. Somebody who is a little more digital native, someone who is a little more energetic, I think. So that's when they called me because I am definitely those things. So that's a big part of what I'm doing now. I'm also hosting a show for them called Research Detectives, which is a medical research show. We shot an episode last week. It'll come out next year in February, I think. That's about superbugs, which is super cool. I got to go to a fridge, which doesn't sound super fun normally, so when a drug company wants to make a new drug, they usually say things like, oh, well, we can get a lot of our drug inspiration from nature. And I didn't know what that meant. I mean, I had in my head like, oh, you go to the rainforest and you look for some compound, but I didn't know how they did that. And it turns out what they would do is they'd go around the world and they'd gather soil samples, bring them back, culture what's in the sample, separate out all the different species of microbe that were in that sample, and then they put them in this fridge. And so I was in the fridge with all of these samples, 120,000 of them from all over the world, from Pfizer's collection, which is no longer Pfizer's, because they don't make money making antibiotics, and that was really a big part of this, so. Oh, that's one of the things like, there's no money in antibiotics, but we need them. Yes. And so this research institution is making them. This is gonna be a really neat episode. That's only a small part of the episode. We talk a lot about what superbugs are because it's for an audience that's not super sciency already, so it was fascinating. I have a podcast as well called That's Absurd, Please Elaborate, where we answer silly questions with serious research, or as best as we can, depending on the question. What's the pointiest thing, or how long would it take to build a Lego replica of the sun, or why do we use toilet paper and not where'd that come from? So we have a lot of different, I have a lot of different irons in the fire, as they say all the time. Yes, you do. And that's Absurd, that's with Julian Huguet. Correct, also of DNews slash Seeker fame. Yes, I remember meeting him there. Yeah, he's great. So we just released an episode last week with Vanessa Hill from BrainCraft on YouTube. Yes, messy. So, we're trying to keep busy. Why would you do that? I know, all the time, I'm so tired. So that is, as a science communicator, as a self-employed, you're working for other, contract work, you're making things yourself, it's on your website, which is fantastic. And by the way, I really, really wanna know how to look so smiley in a photo because your photo, you look just so happy. Oh yeah, my friend Matt took that photo. My friend Matt took that, and I think he probably made a joke or made me smile. It's nice, I think the way to get a good picture is know the guy who's taking the pictures, that helps a lot. Huge, yeah, absolutely huge. But with all the things that you do, it's not just, you're good at marketing, you're good at communication, you're good at talking about just about anything. Why do you keep up the science communication churn? Why? Yeah. I mean, okay, so when I was, I don't know. I don't know how old I was. When I was maybe nine, I used to go to Physics Saturdays at the University of Michigan. My parents would put me on the short bus, and I'd ride the short bus to Ann Arbor, and I would get to hang out with college students doing physics stuff, and it was like fun, silly things. And I loved it. I have such happy memories of doing stuff like that. I just always liked learning stuff, and then I would go home and tell my parents about it, or try and tell my friends about it, and they'd be like, well, you're talking about it, I'm so stupid. But then in school, I really like science. The thing is I'm not very good at math. I like it when I understand it, but at some point, I started to get into higher math and calculus, and it started to feel more like, it just, you hit a button on your calculator, and it does that, and that was tough for me to wrap my brain around, so I ended up shifting gears. But I always liked science, and so it's just, for me, it's not so much that I'm keeping up with the churn of science communication, though it is a grind. It's a constant thing. But I don't know, I'm learning something new every day, and that's fun. Anytime I can learn something new, I'm happy. And I know you are too, because we were just talking about the emojis, and the Unicode Consortium comes up, and you're like, oh my God, new information! It's like- You see me, I get excited, yeah. There's like an emotion connected to that feeling of learning something new, and I am addicted to that emotion. So I'm always trying to find out. The psychologist, like the psychology major, who, yes. Yeah, yeah, definitely. There's always something new. We don't need to get rid of all addictions, because some of them are really good. Yeah. So I think that's why. The how, man, that's a whole other thing. When you're self-employed, it's always, you never know what's gonna happen. People are like, what's your five-year plan? I'm like, what's my six-month plan? I don't know. Hopefully it's still gonna work. I have no idea. Yeah, and things change all the time, and you have to keep up with it. And I mean, the learning, I mean, I don't know, for me also, it's also been learning technologies and being able to keep up with the new ways of communicating and- Mm-hmm, you use TikTok. I do not use TikTok. That is one that I decided I was just not diving into. I was like, you go, all you young people. Yeah, it was just one more thing for me to learn. And I'm like, I just spent the last 10 years learning this thing. Now you want me to learn the new thing. I'm not opposed to learning the new thing. It was just like, I don't think I was done with the old thing yet. And that's when I was like, oh, I'm old now. Not really. I'm not actually old. But you know what I'm saying? Like that's when you first get that, the conveyor belts moving faster than you are. And you're just kind of like, okay, well, that's fine. I'm okay with that. That's cool. Like as long as other people are doing the science communication and they're continuing it, nice. I'm happy with that. And I want it to happen in all the different places, right? We want it to happen in different ways. We want it to be accessible. We want it to be culturally specific so that different people find a way in. Let me give you an example of how I'm trying to do that. So in Stargazers, Awesome. Stargazers, as we know, science not always been the most diverse or the most inclusive. Really? Really? Say in some circles, stale, male and pale. We prefer not those things as much as possible. And so when I do Stargazers, a lot of Stargazers has been very similar throughout the years. Not that it's the same. It's work. You have to rewrite and relook at the sky. But the sky doesn't change all that much. So that when things that you can see with your naked eye, there's a lot of repetition and doing the same stories every couple of years. And so what I try and do is where they're often, the Greeks and the Romans have made up much of our sky mythology. I try and sprinkle in the Native Americans call this constellation this. The indigenous people in West Africa called this constellation that. It's just new information, but also reminding you that not all the constellations come from Western Europe or the Mediterranean. Some of them, and reminding people that stars have Arabic names. It's not just a name that starts with AL and just happened to. And so many of them do. It's because of Arabic scholars. And it's just reminding people that there's just a little bit where I can that. And this is important because the show is commonly not watched by the youth who are more steeped in this with a variety in a variety of different ways. So I try and sprinkle it in there for the audience of the cotton tops and the people who are over in the double digits and then some. It's like trying to do my best. Not because I'm trying to be like, I don't know, convert people. It's more just there's a reminder. Hey, there's more to it than the narrative that we've always seen. And learning is lifelong. So maybe you can look at things from a different way. Maybe, maybe you find it. All right, so I'm gonna tell you to stop talking about yourself right now and tell me about these skies that don't change, but there is something happening right now that we should be excited about because things did change. Yeah, the sky is constantly changing and also constantly not changing all the time. So right now is the Gemini's meteor shower. A meteor showers happen regularly, like all the time. Most people don't think about it, but anytime you see a shooting star, essentially I like to think of it as debris on Earth's windshield. We're flying through space and it's the bug that hits our windshield. That is a meteor that we are seeing. It's burning up in our atmosphere. And right now we're passing through the debris field of what's called a 3200 faton, which is an asteroid also known as a rock comet. So it's an asteroid with tail. It's a bluish rock comet, which is pretty cool. And it's rare to get a meteor shower from these, but the neat thing about it is most comets or most debris fields are dust or bits of ice. Because it's an asteroid, there's bits of rock, so it burns really brightly. So the Geminids are a really good meteor shower to see. Also in the Northern Hemisphere, it's winter, which means the atmosphere is usually less humid and that's good. It's colder, there's just less humidity in the air. So you end up seeing some really cool stuff. Oh, nice, good picture. Yeah, so the Geminids meteor shower is one of the best in the year. If you go outside anywhere in the U.S. after about, you should look to double check, but I base Stargazers in Manhattan, Kansas, the geographical or close to the geographical center of the lower 48 to try and be as broad as I can. But if you go outside after 10 p.m., you can look for Caster and Paul, which are the twins of Gemini. And I don't know if you know this, Kiki, maybe you do, but how to find it is actually not as hard as you think. Because most people, this was the tough part when I took over Stargazers, is I'm not a huge astronomy nerd. Like I wasn't, I am now. But like, I didn't know how to do. Now you're like, I'm such a, I'm really gonna do it. Yeah, I look at the sky all the time and I'm like, I think I know what that is and I pull out my app and I like try and pinpoint where things are all the time. So to find Gemini, look about halfway between the Big Dipper, the bowl of the Big Dipper and the hourglass of Orion. Both are very easy to find. The Big Dipper is in the North. It looks like a spoon or a pot or a drinking gourd if you're in West Africa. It was also been considered, you know, a cart with different people pulling the cart. And then you're gonna look kind of halfway between that and the hourglass of Orion, which is that three star belt. And it does look like a very clear hourglass. It's only out in the winter. And so about halfway between, you'd get that constellation of Gemini, which is two kind of sideways looking people. It's pretty cool. And if you lay down on the ground and look at that part of the sky for a while, you're gonna see meteors. I don't know the exact number of meteors per hour because there are numbers, but you never know because every year it's different. Some years are really good, some years are not so great. But yeah, the Geminids are gonna be out until about the 17th, they're peaking, but we're still flying through the debris field even after that. So go outside, take a look, see if you can find them. They're pretty cool. So one of the things I had read about the Geminids is that tonight actually is one of the peak nights. So after the show, if people are up wherever they are, it might be a great time if your skies are clear to go take a look. Yeah, if we're on the West Coast. So if you're in mountain time, any time now is a good time because Gemini will be above the horizon. If you're on the East Coast, go outside. If you will go outside for a half an hour and look in that general direction, you will see a shooting star. I can't guarantee it, but I'm pretty confident because the Geminids are pretty big. And if you see a shooting star, it's probably from the Geminids. Correct, yes, that's probably true. I mean, I think it's pretty safe to say. So it's a good shower. Like I said, this is a good one. There are showers like every month, every few weeks in some cases in the year. You can't always see all of them and some of them only do a few meteors, but this one's a good one. I live in Portland, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest is not great for clear skies, but right now we'll see, we'll see. And maybe I don't know. Keep my child up. Pull him outside in the middle of the night. Be like, hey, you're late to school because we had to look at the meteors, that's great. I mean, once there was a lunar eclipse and my mother-in-law was visiting and she doesn't know really astronomy and she was woke up because I woke up at like three or four in the morning to go see it. And she came outside and we just sat outside and chatted and looked at the moon and she was like, wow, that is so neat. And now she's super into astronomy. Like not, it's not a hobby, but she pays attention to it and like texts me about it. And it's like, that's so nice. And that's the impact. Yeah, it's something, it's a great hobby. Hobbies are great, like taking care of cats. I was gonna say, yeah, the thing you don't wanna do at night, put your cat outside. Don't put your cat outside. Go watch the stars by yourself. But yeah, okay, we talked about- The 1950s style put the cat out. Yeah. Just stay in the 1950s. I grew up in the country and all the cats were farm cats where they were there to take care of the vermin. Right, barn cats. That's why we had barn cats. Yeah, we have barn cats. Not we person, my grandpa. That's how I grew up. Like, you know, and now I'm like, what is this cat as a member of the family? This is weird. But anyway, people are like, yeah, a member of the family, go right on outside. And, oh gosh, what's the research this week? Yeah, it's bad. They just came out with a study this week. I mean, there's been a lot of studies over the years talking about cat murder, not the murder of cats, but the cats that murder other things, you know? There's a guy in New Zealand who actually wants to like eliminate all cats from the islands of New Zealand as they were brought by the sailors who were colonizing New Zealand and Australia. And they are invasive species that kill lots and lots, including have now made some birds in the islands endangered or I don't even know if they've gone extinct yet, but they've endangered many of these species that only are found there, which is fascinating. Especially the flightless ground-dwelling birds. Because they're just like, they're snackers. They're instinctual hunters and they're obligate carnivores. So anytime they're hungry, they're gonna go find something to eat. And that's not always the best for wildlife. Nope. It turns out, according to this new study that was released, I saw actually picked up by The New York Times and The Guardian and a few other places as well. They eat more than 2,000 species globally. Cats, just a regular old house cat. Nothing, no kind of special cat. And in the U.S. alone, they kill over 1 billion birds, individual birds every year. Every year. That's a lot of birds. That's more people than live in the, like that is... That's a lot. That's like 100, yeah. According to their study. There's like 350 million people who live, 330 million people who live in the United States. And that's like... Yeah, it's a bird, it's one bird killed for every person in the United States. And they do that annually. And more. And the thing is, this study is not about letting your cat out at night. Don't do that, just don't. I don't care if your cat wants to go out. You're the human, it's the cat, leave it inside. The thing is, it's about free range cats that have already been outside. It's about farm cats and barn cats and, you know, feral cats that have escaped or have our street cats now. And they're eating, according to this study, 981 species of bird, 463 species of reptile, 431 mammals. They also eat amphibians, 57 different amphibians, and 119 species of insect. All from just the cats that are out in the world. That's a lot. And they put in this, the Guardian wrote, quote, amongst the most problematic invasive species in the world, which makes sense. Like I said, they're trying to eliminate them entirely from places like New Zealand. Wild, wild. New Zealand makes sense to me because New Zealand was pretty predator free and then people brought the predators. In other places, we adopted these animals and we allowed them to amass and we didn't take care of their population sizes. And we have, like, right now in Oregon, there is a new, or in the Pacific Northwest, there's a new governmental, I guess, environmental regulation that they're doing to cull a certain species of owl because there's a barred owl that is taken over and has displaced the regionally local owl. And over the next like 10 years, they're like gonna kill like 500,000 owls and they're giving people permission to do it. And it's just like, but we control that. Our government takes regulation and goes, we're gonna call deer. We're gonna let hunters cull owls. We're gonna let, you know, the wolves have been like this huge issue, but cats, we love cats, they're not cats, they're just cats. Do whatever, what do we do with them? Cats and dogs are difficult for humans to treat the same way as some of these other animals. Similar to our emoji story from earlier, we prefer animals that are fuzzy and cuddly and pets and stuff. And we have trouble treating them like invasive species. There is a controversial plan to add cats to like be able to hunt them so that they can reduce their populations. The common solutions suggested are trapping and neutering so that their populations don't continue. Decline, yeah. You know, obviously keeping your cats inside is baseline as well. That's another thing that they're really encouraging. Fix your cats. Fix them. Don't let them go outside. Nope. I mean, you can keep them outside like on a leash or like... Or in one of those back and space backpacks. Space backpacks, yeah. Oh my God, so cute. At the farmer's market? Oh, I love it. It's awesome. But like not outside by itself. Don't let them just be free range. And then in terms of the ones that are free range, we gotta think about this. Yeah, figure out what to do with them. Because it's impacting other species in a very negative way. Maybe Cruella de Vil was right. Oh, don't you even go there. Ha ha ha. My cat has the most wonderful chinchilla fur. Right, there's some really soft things up there. Cruella, get away from my cat. Oh my God, you are gonna, okay. You wanted to tell me about particle physics. I did. I wanna talk about this sad, what are we gonna do with cats stories? Cats kill everything. Okay, don't let them outside. Let's take care of that, but. Let's talk about something that, you know. Has a plan? Yeah, there's a plan, a 20 year plan. I, you know, I don't, yeah. Here's a secret about me, Kiki, that I don't say much, but I'm gonna say it now. Cause I don't know, I just started talking. So here it comes. I'm not a huge fan of biology, cause it's oozes and it's gooey and it's gross. I like particle physics, it's clean. You can't get ooze on you from a hydrogen. It's just a hydrogen. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I get it, I get it. I mean, I'm a biologist, I'm just saying. It's just, I don't, I don't dislike it. It's just, there's always like that. There's always a cilia or like something's trying to goop on or like eat or, you know, whatever. You know, it's just like, there's, it's so messy. Oh. And I like particle physics. Just poke yourself, man. Yeah, I'm squishy. I used to make people uncomfortable when I worked at a museum and I would, and they'd ask, cause it was a museum where we had like rifles and cannons. It was a fort and we had a bayonet and they would be like, parents would be okay, but I would always feel like they're a little uncomfortable cause the kids would be like, what's a bayonet for? And I'm like, well, they're like, it doesn't look very sharp. Stabbing and shooting. Right. And they're like, it doesn't look very sharp. Yeah. And I was like, yeah. And they said, did you dull this? Like the parents were like, oh, they probably just dulled it for that. And I'm like, no, it doesn't have to be very sharp. And I would look at their kid or I, or, you know, their teen or whatever. And I'd poke them and I'd be like, humans are pretty squishy. It doesn't have to be that sharp. And it's like, that would make them so uncomfortable. And that's, sometimes that's my goal. Nose to future museum. Helpers, volunteers, don't poke the children. Don't poke the children. Don't poke the children. All right. But let's poke physics. Let's talk about particle physics. Yes. Something clean. Something clean. It's not clean. It's so messy. It is. It's messy, but in a different way. So every decade, a group of people meet called the P5, and they decide what particle physics in the U.S. is gonna focus on, you know, like the big projects of particle physics. And they just met and they decided U.S. Parfiz is gonna, that's not what they call it, but I'm gonna call it the U.S. Parfiz. They're gonna cut back. They're gonna do three, they decided three things really, three main things. They decided what's gonna happen next with DUNE, which is a neutrino detector in North Dakota. They decided what they're gonna do next for the CMBS4, which is a study of the cosmic microwave background, and they decided a plan for the muon collider that they wanna put in probably at Fermilab, which is pretty awesome. So let's break this down. DUNE, which I feel like now I should Google what DUNE stands for, because I didn't write that down in my notes. The deep underground neutrino experiment. It's being built. It's the one, it was, it's like a mile underground. It was an old mine. Correct. And now they've like transitioned it into this big experiment for physics. Yeah, they're on the way of transitioning. It's way over budget and way behind, which is, you know. Normal. Yup. Yeah. The cavern, the main cavern, according to the department of energy is 90% complete. So they're almost ready to like put equipment in it. And they were gonna have a bunch of detectors and a bunch of different things going on. And they decided they would cut a billion dollars out of the budget, put fewer stuff to try and get it online sooner. And in case you're not familiar of DUNE's purpose or goal is it's going to get a stream of neutrinos beamed from Fermilab to where it is in North Dakota. And it's a 1300 kilometer long stretch of Earth. Yeah, exactly. Boom, there you go. Look at that, perfect. So the idea is they'll be able to see if those neutrinos get messed up by going through Earth and they can learn about what those neutrinos do. Because they go through us all the time. So it's neat to be able to study them. And neutrinos are also created by our nuclear facilities. Neutrinos are detected. They come from cosmic events in outer space. Neutrinos are these weird things. We don't know much about them. They don't interact with a lot of stuff. Yeah, they're really fast. They're moving through everything. They're very slippery. Described as slippery. Anyway, so the Japanese have a hypercomioconde, which is going to come online in 2027. And that is a problem for the American Parfiz people because they want Dune to be the one that did discover stuff. And if comioconde, hypercomioconde comes on in 2027, Dune's current plan is to not receive neutrinos till 2031. And they're like, oh no. No, we can't. It gives them four years to try and neutrino ahead of us. We can't get behind. Yeah. Never mind that we've already got Ice Cube. Right, that giant, cool looking thing that I would love to visit. I want to too, so much. I've been to CERN twice. It's like Science Disneyland there. So cool. I'm not jealous. But anyway, that's Dune. They're gonna cut back on Dune, trying to get it starting up sooner. Number two item, CMBS4, which is 12 different telescopes around the world stretching from the Otacama Desert to, I can't remember where. And they're gonna study the CMB, the cosmic microwave background for seven to 10 years to try and get like high res pictures basically, like a high res scan of the CMB from different parts of the world, which is gonna be really neat. CMB is cool. If you don't know what it is, it's basically the oldest light in the universe. Once upon a time, we listened to radios and had television stations that didn't actually transmit broadcasts and you could hear it, static. Shh. So satisfying, really. Now I almost miss it. Anyway. I do. I'm like trying to find pictures of it, but I guess it's. Pictures of static? No. Or the cosmic microwave background. What? No. Of the CMB S4, I was trying to find something that would be. Oh yeah. There's a CMB-S4.org. Yeah, there it is. There's the website and you can find information. So yeah, this is a, that picture is that you see, if you Google this CMB, you're gonna get like a little oval with some red and blue and it kind of looks like a map of the earth almost. Weird heat map. Yeah, like a heat map. It's super tiny temperature fluctuations in the CMB. Most of it is, it's about the same very, very cold temperature. Even the graph here shows you, it's like negative 300 micro kelvin to 300 micro kelvin. So it's like real close in temperature to everybody except for scientists. So it's gonna just have a really high res pictures of the CMB and hopefully we can learn some stuff about the early universe, which is awesome. And then finally a muon collider in the US, which anybody who's still reeling from the shutdown of the superconducting supercollider in Texas, which I know we all are still upset about it, that they're gonna build a muon collider, they think. They think maybe. They would like to. What's the timing on that? I don't know. They didn't say in the things that I read. I'm sure it says it somewhere, but they weren't emphasizing that it was being built now. They were just like, no, this is the plan. We should build one. Nobody else seems to want to build one, except for like CERN wants to build one, but they wanna build it basically the same thing that they've already got the LHC. They wanna like dig a bigger ring and do this. And they're like, oh, but what if we built one that's just for muons? Right. So muon is a lepton. So it's in the same family as the electron. The electron is 200 times lighter than a muon. Leptons are not affected by the strong nuclear force, which is cool. So basically, if they can find and study muons, that'd be cool, because they have a 2.2 microsecond lifetime. So they're very short-lived unlike protons and electrons, but you'd need a 10-terra electron volt collider to find it, which is, that's a lot. That's a big magnet, big magnets like stuff working. They could build, they think one at Fermilab, it would be a 16 kilometer circle, which would fit within Fermilab. So they could build it without having to like buy new land and find a new place for it and deal with all of that regulation. They can just do it right on the Fermilabs property, which would be awesome. That is a real plus. Yeah, it's a huge plus. And if we can learn more about muons, all of these things are to answer their question for their 20-year plan, which is how does the universe work? Seems pretty broad to me, but hey, look, everybody needs a plan. It's important to have a plan. How does the universe work? Good a plan is any. Good job, American physicists. Go, physics, yes. Well, I mean, this is, I feel like American physics, we have the National Ignition Facility that it really got its money because of nuclear warhead science. They say, oh, we're gonna do fusion. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be awesome, whatever. But a lot of the physics that we have funded has been related to defense. It's been related to other political reasons. It hasn't been just for basic science. It hasn't been to understand. And we have watched other countries. We've been a part of CERN's efforts, the LHC. We've been a part of other efforts around the world, but at the same time, after the super colliding, super collider was basically defunded. Yeah. American particle physics, like Fermilab has kept going, but pretty much the advancement of American particle physics just halted. Yeah, yeah. And so to see that they're potentially putting together a multi-decade plan. I know, agreed. It's exciting because if you have a friend who does particle physics and you like to see your friend. Happy. Just in general, you like to physically see them in person. It's gonna be tough because they're gonna have to leave the country to go do particle physics, right? It's just we don't really have facilities here for that. We're not interested in funding basic science. And at the end of the day, discovering what's going on with the CMB, discovering how neutrinos work, discovering like what a muon does when it's alone in its apartment. Like that, you gotta really want to know that stuff. You can't be like, oh, we're gonna use this to build a bigger, whatever, you know, bomb. So this group, this particle physics project prioritization, panel, so they come together, these dudes, they come together and they come up with plans. Yeah. And now the next step is they've got a plan and they have to sell it to Congress, right? Is that the next, the next step is gonna be funding? Or is it all? You know, that's a great question. Let me see here. It looks like their 2014 report was a constant funding. And then let me see. It says their process, no math, the other in the same place, no nemer. The outcomes, you struggle to reunite around future plans in 2021. Oh, great. But I don't know. I would assume yes, because the Department of Energy is part of this and they are quoted like over and over in these studies or in these reports that I read. But I don't know where this goes now other than I think it's like, it's not a regulatory body, it's more just like, hey, these are a bunch of physicists. This is the stuff we should focus on. And they're now working to get those grants and likely yes, from Department of Energy, from DARPA, from whomever they can go get money from to try and fund what they're doing. So they have this like organized system. Right. And also not a brain drain. Yeah. The brain drain is real, man. Like- It's real. It would be awesome if we could have, like imagine if in, I mean it's in Texas is where the superconducting supercollider was. But imagine if in Texas, the superconducting supercollider was bringing scientists from all over the world for the last 30 years to Texas. Would Texas be a different place? Maybe. Yeah. I could say yes. I don't think it would be- You're like, I'm just gonna say yes. It may not, you know, I'm not saying politically or even culturally, but I'm saying generally speaking, Texas would be a different place because you would look worldwide and they would say, cool, where are we gonna go to learn about the next stage of the universe? And they'd be like- And people would be going there. Right now, you think Geneva, which that's not a bad thing. Geneva is cool. It's got a big old fountain. The food is fine. But like, you know- It's near the Alps. We eat in barbecue to celebrate the Higgs Boson. But we're not. And line dancing. Yeah. And that was a decision that we made, unfortunately, we could do better. We can do better. It's really, I think it's exciting. I mean, this is the place where science vision, science experiments, like the experiments that people wanna do and science communication with the public actually comes really into play because this is the whole, this is where it all lines up. I love that. You're gonna make it. Yeah. We're gonna make it happen. Someone's gotta tell. Let's build a thing. Let's build a thing. We gotta tell the story of how exciting it's gonna be. And then the people will go, yeah, let's do it. And the politicians will go, oh, I'll give you the money. And then everybody's building and then it's happy. And you don't end up with like weird tunnels under your state. Oh man, but I have to say, I love like, when I'm not doing science communication stuff, I like to look at like abandoned buildings kind of pictures and videos and stuff. Where did the world used to be? Oh, I love that. Kind of like, oh, this urban decay, abandoned building Instagram is my favorite. And like the pictures of the superconducting supercollider from people who've like snuck in and taken pictures of it pretty was pretty cool. I mean, sad, but it's so cool. It's so cool. I don't know if you know this, but I have a map where I grew up in California. It was one of the possible locations for the superconducting supercollider. And it was going to go like almost exactly underneath the property that my family's owned for like 150 years. Cool. And I've got, I have this map. It's huge. It's like eight feet, six feet by eight feet. But it's this massive map of where they proposed putting it in California. And then my mom, my mom was very active against it. California's got the nimbies. We got them. I mean, we couldn't have lived in our house anymore. So I mean... You couldn't have? They wouldn't have just dug a tunnel and been like, you're fine. You're fine. It's great. It's no problem. In Geneva, they just have like cows and stuff. You literally like come out of the LHC. You've come up an elevator into a big building. Then you get in a van. You have to drive by all these cows and farm fields and like to get to the next building. Takes forever. Don't eat cows. Geneva. Oh no. No wonder the food's not great. Oh no. I'm telling stories, everybody. What do I know? Okay. This is This Week in Science. We're closing up the show here really soon. If you really, really love what we're doing here, please become a twist supporter. It's with your support that we continue on. So head over to twist.org. Click on the Patreon link. The Patreon link will take you to Patreon where you can choose your level of support, $10 and more a month. And I will thank you by name at the end of the show. And I really, really, really want to like be out of breath and have a problem finishing the list of names, honestly. So that would be super helpful. We also have other packages where you get T-shirts and stickers and other things as well. Right now, we also have the Twist 2024 Blair's Animal Corner calendar that is available on our Zazzle store. So if you go to twist.org, click on the Zazzle link. You'll be able to go through the store, find the calendar, and get yourself an awesome calendar for 2024, order it for friends. We also have a lot of other really neat things that are made by Blair that are Blair's original art of animals and it's just really cool stuff that make great, great science-y cool gifts and it's holiday season. So every little bit helps. And also, we really just appreciate you being here and we hope that you share the show with people you love this holiday season. Can't do it without you. Thank you for your support. I'm a patron. You're a patron. I'm not a patron. You're a great, yay. Yay. Thank you, Trace. You're welcome. I have two more stories. Are you okay with that? Let's do it. Or do you want to eat Taco Bell? I'll just order the Taco Bell really quick. Give me a second, I'll order the Taco Bell. Okay. And then it'll show up. And then you'll be like, yeah. And then I'll have the tacos. I'm done with the show. I got the tacos. Everything is good. Everybody's happy. It's the way that it works. Here we go, delivery tacos. Oh my goodness, on air. That's all I gotta do. That's all you do. I'm doing it right now. Okay. First things first, we didn't just map the mouse brain. We're also giving them VR. Can you imagine how cute their little headsets would be? Oh, no. That's not cute. Oh wait, no, it's not cute? No, I don't have to imagine it because they've posted pictures. That's not cute at all, it's horrifying. That's not cute at all, it's horrifying. Oh no. They've illustrated what their immersive VR setup is. What their paper this past week in Neuron is is full field of you virtual reality goggles for mice. Historically, oh wait, what am I showing right now? Oh, that's an ad. Close that up. Hey, O'Dare, I don't wanna sell outies. I just wanna tell you about this immersive miniature rodent stereo illumination VR that is small-ish, provides stereo vision and an about 180 degree field of view per eye. These goggles that they have created that are like big skylights or portholes for each side of the mouse head are a little bit better than previous iterations of VR because historically, it's just been putting the mouse in a situation where there were big screens in front, like an IMAX theater. Oh, okay, that makes sense. So it's the difference between an IMAX theater and VR goggles is what they're trying to look at right now and they're hoping that they can simulate common occurrences in nature like, hey, mouse, here's an owl attacking you. They're trying to make or create realistic situations that could allow us to understand how the mouse brain works responding to natural situations, but at the same time giving that control that researchers love to have part of the way that this system works is that the mouse is connected to the setup. So similar to like old school brain research, you have to isolate the movements of the head so the head doesn't move. So there are implants in the head and in the neck of the animal so that they can be attached to the apparatus so they can't turn their head anywhere. They're just, their head is immobilized while they're in this goggle situation, but then they are on a rolling treadmill to get an idea of how the animals would react, whether they would wanna run away, whether they would fight, flight, flee or freeze. Right? So in the situation they basically were testing for this immersive technology, whether or not it's better than previous VR type technologies slash IMAX and they determined that what they were working on it is more exact that the mice are seeing things that are more realistic, that are more intimate, that the brain reacts in a more specific real-world manner than with the kind of IMAX version that has been used historically. So is this an advance for the study of mouse biology? Maybe? I don't know. I was a bird ethologist for a long time trying to come up with situations in a lab to make birds react normally within a lab situation. So I understand what's happening here and especially if you're trying to map neuronal responses at the same time that you're looking at behavioral responses, you need to have some kind of isolation, but it's an advance, mice get VR. Interesting. Yeah, why though? Why? Just to learn about their brains, to learn how they react to stuff, have more control during experimentation. Yeah, because I mean, how often are you around when a mouse is being attacked by an owl? Right, and then you can learn about how their brain works during that and what? Yeah, what systems are activated, what genes are expressed, how everything works together. And so if we're talking about using animals to not just understand how they're responding, but also for the future of understanding anxiety and fear responses. How do we... In ourselves, yeah. Yes, absolutely. So... Well, I hope they enjoy the VR even if it's somewhat terrifying. Yeah, and thank goodness when we are doing VR, it's just elastic headbands that put that thing on our head and we don't have to have our heads visibly. It can be terrifying though. I don't like it. Sometimes. I'm not a VR person, I don't like it that much. I'm not either, but I gotta do it because I'm making stuff with VR. Well, you gotta if you're doing, so I get it. Last story, brain computers. So, yes, you mentioned Star Trek Voyager earlier and Star Trek Voyager was a special vessel because it was biologically created. So it was an integration of biological and non-organic components, right? Right. So is this our future? I don't know. Researchers just published their study in Neuro... Wait, wait, wait, where did they publish it? In Nature Electronics. There we go. It's not software, it's BrainaWare. BrainaWare. BrainaWare. That's literally what it's called. The BrainaWare Project. Yes, that's... Why do they let scientists name things? Really shouldn't. Why, why? The mouse VR? What's it called? You wanna know? It was immersive. I, little I, big M-R-S-I-V, pronounced immersive. Why do they let scientists name things? Because they don't talk to us enough. Please, shut up. So in this study, these researchers created a hybrid system of brain organoids and also a computer chip. So they used brain stem cells to create an organoid. Organoids are a mass of multiple cell types that can be analogous to brain tissue, not flat in a petri dish, but like more of an organ, right? Connected them to a computer chip and then allowed them to, or with the chip, gave it an AI learning system. So this was not just a neural network, but a bio-neural network exploring the potential of bio-computing. Neat. Yeah. So they looked at it specifically in regards to speech recognition. They were looking at Japanese speech patterns and looking at the decoding of audio clips of Japanese vowels. This research was from Indiana University, Bloomington, and they were able to set up this system in such a way that it's not as good as AI, like chat GPT and these other things, but with training and learning, they had speech recognition to about 78% accuracy. Hmm, that's pretty good. I mean, not as good as I guess it's like some of the neural computing, whatever networks that we have now, machine learning networks, but it's pretty good for a little teeny brain. Little tiny brain cells and a little ball attached to a chip and sending, receiving data and actually adapting and learning based on, yeah, so it's an AI tool that they used. There was learning that occurred through the chip and the organoid as well. These organoids can't perceive speech, but they respond to the impulses from the audio clips so they can perceive differences in the impulses of the audio clips is what's happening in this. Yeah, I can also perceive differences in audio clips. So we're basically the same. You're so brain aware, yeah. Brain aware. Brain aware, brain aware. I find it fascinating because like you said, you're like, biology, it's messy. It's gross. It's gross, but at the same time, the human brain is one of the best information processors, pattern recognition processors that we know of. Yeah, better than all of the computing power we have, the brain is better in many ways. And we don't know why. You're right. And so we're trying to figure all that out. We're trying to create these systems that could mimic brain function, which is cool, but also scary, but at the same time, will we live in a future where we have messy computers where they are bio silicon where there's some kind of organic aspect to the processing because of the way that neurons and their supporting cells work together to process information that a computer doesn't. Yeah. More lateral thinking, I guess, or like the ability to at least exceed, to use like matrix C type language, like exceed it's programming kind of a situation. I don't know. That's neat. Yeah. And then your computer's like, am I like a blue pill or what am I taking? I said earlier that I wouldn't do biology and I aren't friends, but if I were gonna go get a PhD, it would be in neuroscience because that's fricking really fascinating. I would get over my Uzi biology stuff to study this little bowl of fat in my head. Like that'd be pretty cool. And we would welcome you to sleep. It would be so fun. Join us. It would be so fun. It would be so fun. I think it's really interesting. You say you'd like to do neuroscience. I studied neuroscience. I would like to do more psychology and like more of that side of things. Yeah. I think the brain and behavior. That's great when you have a kid. Let me tell you. Best experiment ever. Just don't be upset about any results. You just gotta let it be. Oh, not. Yep. My dad's like, no bias. You can't control him right. I'm like, I do. I do know that, but I can control how I react. Oh, you've already become, yes, you've got it down. Parenting. You fail a lot as parents too. Oh, gosh, all the time. So much fun. You have to be cool with that. I'm already cool with it. I make videos for the internet. It's all about learn. Yeah, you've got it. Yes. I'm used to this. It's fine. Being bad at stuff. I can handle YouTube comments so I can be a parent. That's great. Totally great. There's nothing he could say. Trace, I've kept you up too late, though. Oh, I know. I gotta go to bed because he gets up at 7.30. I know. You need to have baby bedtime and taco eating. And so I just wanna say thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me on the show tonight. It's been really fun and thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. This was great. I wanna come back. No, yay. I only know when you need me. I'll come back and we'll do it again because this was fun and it was a nice... I don't always get to get... So when we did DNews, as you know, we were like all up on what was happening in the science news space all the time and I've been out of doing... I try and keep up with it just for my own interests. I have a little running spreadsheet but it was so fun to have to like dive into my old RSS feeds and find all this cool, fun stuff. Learn all that. You're like, I can learn things. It was so fun. I'm sad it's over already. Can't believe it's been... Oh my gosh, it's been almost two hours. I can't believe it. I know. And I was like, hey, yeah. Totally, it'll be an hour. Yeah, no problem. No way. I should've known. No. No. Hashtag sorry, not sorry. Okay, where can people find you on the internets? If you search for Trace Dominguez, you will find me. I'm the only one in the world as far as I know. I haven't met another one. And you can find me on threads at Trace Dominguez. You can find me on YouTube at Trace Dominguez. You can find me on Instagram at Trace Dominguez. I tried to get all of them. If you don't know how to spell Dominguez, Google it. Google will tell you. It's really easy. But generally, yeah, that's my deal. You can also find me on my website or on my podcast, TraceDominguez.com. So the website, the podcast, if that's absurd, please elaborate. You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts. If that is not true, please tell me so I can put it there. But I'm pretty sure I got it everywhere. Our biggest audiences are Spotify and Apple, of course. So they're everywhere. Yeah. We try so hard. There's so many places now. It's like, wow, this is different than the directories of the old days. Yeah. Oh, also, if you don't get Star Gazers in your local PBS station, PBS would want me to tell you. PBS South Florida makes it interesting story about PBS real quick. There are 200 PBS stations and they don't really know each other except for professionally they do. But it's not like, so Nova is made out of WGBH Boston and they dump it into the PBS basically pool of content and all the other PBS stations can use it. PBS South Florida does the same with our show. So it might not air in your region, but if you want to see it, write an email to your local PBS station and have them pick it up so you can learn about astronomy at night in your area. That's wonderful. That makes it easy. Go ask for it, everyone. Yeah. Yeah. My mom emails our PBS station all the time and they're like, I don't know. They don't know about that guy. Really? Stars? Trace? I don't know. But yes, thank you for having me on. This was so fun and I would love to do it again. And it was nice to see you in the chat, all of your chat people. Thanks for all your comments. Some of whom you recognized. So I love that. That's right, I know some of these people. Ben and Gord, back in the day. Yeah, back in the day. So good. All right, everyone. Thank you for listening. I hope you all enjoyed the show. Fada, thank you so much for your help with social media and show notes. Gord, R and Laura, others, thank you for making sure that our chat rooms are happy and nice to each other because that's what we like. Identity four, thank you for recording the show. Rachel, thank you for editing the show. And as always, I must thank my Patreon sponsors. Oh, this is gonna be fun. Thank you to Erin, Anathema, Arthur Kepler, Craig Potts, Mary Gertz, Trisa Smith, Richard Badge, Bob Coles, Kent Northcote, Rick Gloveman, George Corris, Pierre Velazaur, John Rathmaswamy, Carl Kordfeld, Chris Bosniak, Vegard Shevstad, Donathan Styles, AKA Don Styler, Ali Kothman, Regan Shubru, Sarah Forfar, Don Mundus, oops, PIG, Steven Albaron, Darryl Meishak, Stu Paul, like Andrew Swanson, Fred S. 104, Sky Luke, Paul Ronevich, Kevin Reardon, Noodles Jack, Brian Carrington, David E. Youngbud, Sean Clarence, Lam John McKee, Greg Riley, Mark Hasenflow, Steve Leece, Mika Azima, Ken Hayes, Kara Wattan, Christopher Wrappen, Richard Brenn, Adminish, Johnny Gridley, Rummy Day, G. Burton, Lattimore, Flying Out, Christopher Dreyer, Artie M. Gregg Greggs, John Outwood, Rudy Garcia, Dave Wilkinson, Ruddy Lewis, Paul Rick, Remus Fall, Philip Shane, Kurt Larsen, Craig Landon, Suester Doster, Jason Olde, Dave Neighbor, Eric Knapp, E.O. Adam Mishkon, Kevin Parachan, Aaron Luthan, Steve DeBell, Bob Calder, Marjorie, Paul D. Disney, David Simmerly, Patrick Beccararro, and Tony Steele. Yay! I made it through just a few little stumbles on this week's reading, but thank you all of you for your support on Patreon. And if there's anyone out there who's not supporting us on Patreon yet and you want your name on that list, make sure you head over to twist.org and click on the Patreon link. Can't do it without you. On next week's show, I don't know what's going on. I haven't figured out yet. I'm just gonna be honest. It's the 20th. It's right before the holidays. I gotta talk to Justin and Blair and find out when we're gonna do our year-end countdown of stories and how we're gonna make that work. But we are always back. Wednesdays, 8 p.m., Pacific Time, broadcasting live from our YouTube or Facebook or Twitch, and you can find other information at twist.org slash live. If you wanna listen to us as a podcast, search for this week in Science wherever podcasts are found. And if you like it, share it with your friends because then get them to subscribe because that's how we do this thing with the podcasting and the streaming and everything that you're sharing helps anything you've heard here is also gonna be available on our show notes at our website twist.org. And you can also sign up for our newsletter, which I do send out every once in a while. If you have an idea for an interview, a topic, or anything else you want us to address, email me, Kirsten at thisweekinScience.com, Justin at twistminionatgmail.com, Blair at BlairBazz at twist.org. It was just their birthdays, so maybe send them some birthday emails. That might be fun. I don't know. Make sure you put twist somewhere in the subject line so your email does not get spam filtered into a defunded super colliding, super collider, and end up in some politician's spam box. You can also find us on the social medias at twist.science as usually where twist is found. I'm Dr. Kiki at Jackson Fly is Justin and at Blair's Menagerie is where you find Blair. Trace, do you have social media handles? Yes, at TraceDominguez. All my things. There you go. I'm on the X app, but I don't use it. I mostly use threads and blue sky, and I do have a mastodon, but I don't use it, so I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll do a try. I know, mastodon. I'm sorry, people, I try it. And YouTube and everywhere. We're trying so hard. Yes, we love your feedback, so do try and keep in touch. We will be back here again next week because I'm pretty sure it's on the calendar and I just told you that I will be. So please join us again for some more great science news and if you learned anything from the show, remember... It's all in your head. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science is the end of the world. So I'm setting up shop, got my banner unfurled. It says the scientist is in, I'm gonna sell my advice. Show them how to stop the robot with a simple device. I'll reverse global warming with a wave of my hand. Come in your way, so everybody listen. This Week in Science. Science, science, science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. Science, science, science. I've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news. That's what I... I like the dance party. I know, the dance party is always so much fun. It's my favorite part. Well, no, all of it's my favorite part. Thank you, I'm sorry I kept you up late, but not sorry. Your tacos are approaching. Your tacos are... Yes. Don't worry about it. Once again. That was fun. Okay, good. Okay, yes, it was more than an hour. It was two hours and it seemed like you enjoyed talking so I didn't want to cut you off all the time. I could have cut myself off. Yeah, I could have, but... But I didn't. I appreciate it. And also, it wasn't a hard out. It was just like an hour, probably good. Two hours, fine, I'll live. I was gonna do two of my own podcasts today, but I only did one, because I didn't get all my writing done. No. Now I gotta do another one on a Friday, so it's a busy week. It is a busy week, but you didn't have to write a lot for today. You just had to talk a bit. Yeah, I had to learn some stuff. Yeah. Talk about it. That was great. Talk about it. Ah, I'm gonna go eat goggles. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. All right, we are still live, but I'm gonna end the stream so that you can go get your tacos and talk to your tacos and have a nice sleep and get up early for your bambinos. Yeah, definitely. Yes. Oh my gosh, constant. Okay, well thanks for having me, everybody, and thanks for the chat. Nice to see you, Ben. Nice to see you, Gord. You didn't chat much, but nice to see you. And thanks for everybody else. It was so cool. It's been a while and I appreciated it. We all appreciated it, too. I appreciated it a lot. I really, really enjoyed getting to talk with you, so thank you. I love getting to spend time with you. You're one of the, like, I mean, I said, how do you smile like that in your photos? But like, honestly, you're one of the good, smiley, nice people, and I like nice, smart people who can talk about interesting things and are curious about the world, and you got all that, so. Thanks. I appreciate it a lot. Thanks for bringing it. Thank you. Thank you. Have a wonderful night. Everyone, thank you for joining us. I will be back again next week in the meantime. Remember, stay safe, stay healthy, stay curious, and stay lucky.