 Can't go that low at the whistle. Ah! All right, you guys, we are starting in three, two, this is Twist. This Week in Science, episode number 626, recorded on Wednesday, July 5th, 2017. Wait for it. Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Kiki, and tonight on This Week in Science, we are going to fill your heads with pretty boys, little runaways, and magic. No, science, lots of science at first. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. The future is gone for now. It'll be back later. After you choose your nows, and choose your nows carefully, they're going to add up. Now, these nows that flow freely will be either end as a resource or as a debt. You can live a dream. We all do it, but is it your dream? Are you even in it? Throw yourself into it. Be resilient in your actions. They make the fabric of your tapestry. These actions of yours become you, as intentions thread together reality. You become you. And while you set out on a path, while you set the pace, while you set your mind to have a mindset, we will attempt to dial you into a world beyond intention. A world despite you, but not in spite of. You have already arrived at a destination, one within your head, but not limited to the skull walls that surround. You have entered this week in science. Coming up next. I've got the kind of mind that can't get enough. I wanna learn everything. I wanna fill it all up with new discoveries that happen every day of the week. There's only one place to go to find the knowledge I seek. I wanna know what's happening. What's happening. What's happening this week in science. What's happening. What's happening. What's happening this week in science. Yeah. Science to you Kiki and Blair. And good science to you too, Justin Blair and everyone out there. Welcome to yet another episode of this week in science every week. A new episode, but always more amazing science. Every week, more discoveries. It's pretty amazing. Hey, happy 4th, 5th of July. Happy 5th of July everybody. Happy 5th of July too. Happy 5th of July everyone. Happy every day of July. Happy. Yeah, I hope everyone in America had a wonderful or not America, America, America's two continents actually, but the United States. In the United States. In the United States. I hope people had a wonderful 4th of July. I hope other people did as well. It's a great day to have a barbecue no matter where you're from. That's true. Great, great day. All right, let's just keep moving. All right, on this week's show, lots of science news. I have new stories about old concrete and runaway stars and a reason to avoid eating placenta. I, I'm not sure we needed more, but I can't wait to hear it. I got a new one. All right, Justin, what did you bring? I've got some new Neanderthal news, some potato origins and menstruation brain. You have menstruation brain? This is going to be such an interesting show. I'm confused. OK, Blair in the animal corner. What's coming up? Oh, I have a whole bunch of nightmare juice today. I have birds that eat insects, insects that eat birds and a robot milker. Wow. OK. All right, I didn't want to sleep tonight anyway. So let's just get right into it. All this science and more coming up in the next hour or so or so being the operable parameter there. And we're going to dive right in with our first segment of the show this week and what has science done for me. Lately. This is the new segment of the show where I would like to read what science has done for you. Really, you out there are listeners, our viewers. What does science do for you every day? What has it done for you lately? You need to email me and let me know so I can read it on the show. This message came from Minion Conrad Rahil. He says, what science has done for me is to help me live my life to the fullest. I have a hard time controlling my mood and focus and have for my whole life. Working with several doctors to get cognitive behavioral therapy and the right anti-depressant and stimulant medications for my condition have helped me get through my day and be helped me get through my day a lot more smoothly without science and the scientific community. I might not be here today. Thank you for making the show and good science to you all. Good science to you too, Conrad. Thank you so much for writing in with your story. So many things that science does for each one of us. Many unique, wonderful stories. And remember, we need you to write me so that I can let everyone in our audience know what science has done for you. And we can all go, oh, me too. Yeah, we can compare our stories and understand the impact of science in our world. You can leave us a message on our Facebook page, which is facebook.com slash this week in science. Or you can email me until I get my this week in science email fixers. I don't know what's going on. I thought it would be fixed and it's still not. But anyway, you can email me at kikifinch at gmail.com. And I do want to fill this segment of the show out with something from our Minion community every week. So help us and write with your stories, please. Please let's keep it going. All right, diving right in. How about a good case for not eating placenta? Again, not sure it's necessary, but give me what you got. I mean, no, this is this. There is there is there is. I don't know if it's anecdotal. I don't know how scientific it is or how how wivesy tale it is. But it's it's said that it has benefits by some. Right. It is said that it has benefits by some. And so people ingest it, they save it after birth, they save the after birth, ingest it so that it can maybe confer those benefits onto them. So. How it really there's not much scientific evidence backing these benefits at this point in time. But the CDC has posted on one specific way that people ingest the placenta and a particular case study that they have published in the agency's morbidity and mortality weekly report. Some individuals dry the placenta and then grind it up and put it into pills. So it's not really cooked at a high temperature, but it's dried like an apricot and then ground up into placenta powder, put in little gel caps and then those gel caps can be ingested over whatever time period it takes you to ingest them all. So about two months. OK, about two months. So this particular case study that was reported healthy baby born to a healthy mother, the mother had hired a company to make placenta pills for her and but that's just not really the story yet. Shortly after the birth, the baby started having signs of respiratory distress, went to the neonatal intensive care unit and had a life threatening blood infection called group late onset group B streptococcus Agilactia bacteremia, otherwise known as GBS. And usually there's antibiotics that can cure it. And so after 11 days of antibiotics in the hospital, then the baby got to go home healthy and safe. Five days later, babies back in the hospital. Sick again, again, the GBS infection. And so the doctors then were like, OK, what do you have going on at home? What is happening? And this is when they find out that she is taking these placenta pills. The researchers said, OK, hand them over, give us the pills and they tested the the powder in the pills. And they were not only filled with placenta, but also GBS, the bacteria that was causing the infection. And so the mother was eating the pills and then the bacteria was ending up in her milk, which the baby was ingesting. And then that made the baby sick. So GBS is very common and it's usually not an issue. But it's at least for adults, but in newborns who are still depending on the mother for their immune system, because they don't newborns until about six months don't really, or at least for the first couple of months, don't have much of an immune system to talk about. So it just had passed right along and the baby didn't really have factors to fight it off. And and so these levels of GBS may be also increased within the mother's bloodstream and into the milk. And then we're able to transfer to the baby. So you really should if you're going to eat placenta pills, make sure that it's cooked and that it comes from a company that's not packing them with bacteria as well. So forgive me if I'm wrong here, but the placenta is basically waste storage during pregnancy, right? Not waste storage. I mean, this is where the blood of the mother and the baby intermix and intermingle that that is the placenta is the organ for passing things back and forth. Right. So it provides oxygen. OK, I was looking it up. So provides oxygen and nutrients, but it also removes. It helps remove carbon dioxide and it removes waste. Yes, it removes it. So it doesn't store it. It doesn't store it. No, it it takes it away and then the mother's body filters it. OK. But so in that process, some some bad stuff can end up hanging out in there. That's that could happen as well. Yeah, there could be some waste products that are in there as well. Also, I'm just thinking because if it's if it's part of the filtration system in a growing fetus in, you know, you're just saying they don't have developed immune systems. Yeah, then that kind of makes sense that that would be the thing that some of these bacteria would be hanging out in. No, the question here, though, is not that it came from the bacteria came from the placenta, that it was the processing, actually, of this of this company that may. I mean, we don't know whether the the GBS actually. Uh, we don't know whether it was. Concentrated in the placenta before it was packaged into the in the pills, or whether it was part of the processing that there's some kind of contamination that took place. The the placenta was it was dehydrated, so it was never cooked. And so there was never any processing that would kill bacteria. And just improper food handling is what it seems like. It's kind of improper food handling. So maybe the story here is don't just not eat placenta, but if you do, make sure it's really well cooked first. Right. Because just like we were talking about a few weeks ago, one would categorize it as cannibalism, which means it is considered a meat product. And we all know you cook your meat well. Or if you dehydrate it like in jerky, then it's very well salted. Right. There you go. Placenta jerky. Well, that made it worse. Sorry about that, you guys. Sorry, not sorry. Moving away from placenta's. Let's talk about extinctions. Boo. We know there have been a couple of otherwise we probably wouldn't be here. Just yeah, there's good ends and bad ends. For sure. Right. There's recent story that suggests that the majority of the frogs that are on the planet right now would not be around if there if it weren't for the massive, uh, massive meteor that came through and killed off the dinosaurs, a few frogs stuck around. And maybe that led to maybe that led to the expansion and proliferation of the frog species on the planet today. But what about all those crazy big marine animals? What happened to the megalodon? What happened to giant, giant sea turtles? What happened to these crazy giant marine mammals? They all moved to a lock in Scotland. Yeah, no, they didn't, unfortunately. According to a new study that's described in nature, ecology and evolution. There is a new extinction that nobody really knew about until now. It's now described in this article. Shark, megalodon and other giant big marine species went extinct around 2.6 million years ago. We lost about a third of all large marine species at that point in time. So there were many more large things in the oceans and something happened. 2.6 million years ago that, uh, that caused a massive distinction. And so what they figured out? They did a meta analysis, looking at a bunch of other studies, looking at the fossil record of sharks, marine mammals, birds, turtles, other things, marine related. And so they were able to actually characterize the extinction. And they have, uh, a lot of the works that are in the paleobiology database that is public and anybody can search. But they found as many as 43% of sea turtle species, 35% of sea birds, 9% of sharks died out at this time. But there were at that point in time, really massive sea level fluctuations. And so coastal habitats were under huge fluctuations also. Habitats were, uh, were devastated and reduced as a result. So if you've got the ocean kind of going up and down along the coast and it's happening too quickly for the populations of the ecosystem, to be able to keep up with and the, the whole, that's going to cause a trophic cascade where all the species that rely on the smaller species, the producer species that are along the, the coastal, um, habitats along, end up moving, uh, end up dying out. And so what they think is that this trophic cascade led to these marine mammals like sea cows that Megalodon feasted on, declining. And so then there were also new competitors and everything was just kind of changing. And it was just too much of a fluctuation for species like Megalodon to be able to continue to exist. Yeah. But I heard Megalodon still here. Uh, I don't, well, maybe shark weeks coming up. So maybe we'll talk, maybe we'll find out. Stop bashing shark week. Okay. It's getting us there. Shark week is awesome. Shark week should be more. And informative parks. And the knowledge that we have of them and celebrating ecosystem conservation that will help protect sharks and their natural habitat. Megalodons are extinct. We're all going on the record right here. Yeah. No, Meg. Megalodons are. Are they tuned in the shark wig to find out? Let's, let's just be concerned about the species that we do know are here and alive and maybe hopefully keeping them alive in this time of serious climatic fluctuation. There we go. That's what we want to do. Yeah. So, um, at this particular time, two to three million years ago, uh, some, some animals won out. And so it's thought based on their analysis that groups like that, uh, the polar bears, Ursus was a big winner. It was able to survive at that point of time. The storm petrol, Oceano drama, and the penguin, Megadipides, these of these adapted and evolved after this extinction period. So habitats opened up that allowed them niches open up, allowed them to survive even while they were saying Megalodon wasn't going to eat them anymore. Yeah. So it's an interesting, um, question about, you know, functional diversity in ecosystems, characteristics and behaviors of organisms. And then how that can affect how that plays into the whole ecosystem and how it all works together. Yeah. So not just those large dinosaurs were subject to extinction millions of years ago, also other big marine things. And then my final story, which has nothing to do with extinction, but just looking up at the sky, researchers look up at the sky and they've over the years seen about 20 of a particular kind of star that's called a hypervelocity star. And it's a big blue star that's moving really fast through the Milky Way Galaxy, really fast. And they're like, what is that star doing? And the researchers hypothesized originally that they had interacted maybe with the super galactic center of our galaxy, the black hole there, Sagittarius A, and maybe they got shot out away from the center of our galaxy. But then this group, they're like, hmm, let's take a look at here. And Douglas Bubert, a PhD student at Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy and lead author on this paper, says earlier explanations for the origin of hypervelocity stars did not satisfy me. The hypervelocity stars are mostly found in the Leo and Sextan's constellations, and we wondered why that is the case. How could they have gotten there? So these researchers from the University of Cambridge looked at data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and computer simulations. And they were able to actually demonstrate that these stars pretty much they originated in binary, in binary orbital concentrations. So two stars, they used to orbit with another star in the large Magellanic cloud, which is moving very quickly in orbit around the Milky Way. And these stars, their partner, supernova, and shot them off, but not only just shot them off in their own galaxy, shot them out of the galaxy. And so it's kind of like they were running on a train and then jumped out at the velocity of the train. So they had like, or maybe they were on a train and somebody maybe somebody pushed them off the train. That's what it is. Somebody pushed them off the train. So I know velocity of the push and then the velocity of the train. It all combines with where the large Magellanic cloud is in the sky. And this clustering of these 20 or so hypervelocity stars around these constellations. And so all of their calculations and computations suggest that this is something that might be, that there might be a lot more of them and not just hypervelocity stars, but maybe lots of other galactic, that lots of other celestial bodies that have been ejected from their place of origin. And that we might look at them in this way to find more of them. They predict that there are about 10,000 runaways spread across the sky, even though they've only seen about 20 of them right now. Yeah, that was pretty cool. Pretty cool. Runaway hypervelocity stars. And so we just have to look, look for them and we'll probably find them. Buber says the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite will report data on billions of stars next year and there should be a trail of hypervelocity stars across the sky between Leo and sex stands constellations in the north and the large Magellanic cloud in the south. So now they're just going to look for the trail of stars that were pushed off the speeding Magellanic cloud train. It's pretty awesome. Pretty fun stuff. Yeah, quickly moving stars. There is an explanation for everything. If we look closely enough, we'll soon find out if they're right about this. More data. This is this week in science. Yeah, speaking of more data, if you've listened to the show for any length of time, you've likely gotten a better idea than most of about our Neanderthal cousins, how like us they were. And how whilst we once thought it was very unlikely that we had interbred with them, you now know that it's occurred multiple times, perhaps much more often than we still now even believe. Now a new study is illustrating happened a lot earlier. Oh, much earlier, incredibly earlier than we may have. Predicted like how much? What do you mean by incredibly? Well, so the current view is what is it? Like 50-ish thousand years ago, maybe a little bit further back, sort of that during that period of the out of Africa migration. Settlements around the Middle East. Got it. We have that one outlayer though, right from the Neanderthal and Siberia that showed pretty much modern human ancestry. But that was like 200,000 years old or something. It was much, much older. We have that one outlayer. Now, they did a mitochondria study, DNA study on a femur from a Neanderthal in Europe that is showing, interestingly, showing some human markers, even though it's, well, it's pretty old. So the study published a Nature Communications based on this signature is placing the day to the event of humans entering the Neanderthals mitochondrial DNA stream between 220,000 years ago, all the way back to maybe 470,000 years. It's really big window, really big window. But the low end is 220,000 years. Right. That is well before the big out of Africa migration. You know, we consider that to be at around the 100,000 year ish mark. So what's interesting though is this Neanderthal has nuclear DNA that's almost entirely in common with Denisovan, right? The other hominin roaming around Siberia and parts of Europe. So but their mitochondria much more similar than to now to a modern human, which suggests this Neanderthal had mothers that were human. Really long time before there's supposed to be any mothers in Europe. Because mitochondria, that's the one that goes mother to mother or mother to child. It's it's yeah, it's passed down through mothers. So that ends at a son, right? Sons can't pass it on. Only mothers pass us on. And the mitochondrial DNA is a little bit different DNA. It's a lot different. It's different DNA than your nuclear DNA than the rest of your DNA. It's identifiable. We're different. So that's that's pretty fascinating. Neanderthal and Denisovan pretty similar with the nuclear DNA. Then all of a sudden between 470, 220,000 years ago, mitochondria DNA of Neanderthals is no longer similar to the mitochondria DNA of Denisovan, even though nuclear DNA is the same. So prior research analyzing nuclear DNA from Neanderthals, the split from Neanderthal's modern humans. This start our regular genetics split was estimated at approximately 765 to 550,000 years ago when we sort of split from them. However, studies looking at just the mitochondrial DNA showed that split to be about 400,000 years ago. So there's this problem. How can we have split off with them more than 500,000 years ago if the mitochondrial DNA is only 400,000 years split? Like that was like a problem that they were trying to fix. OK. And so this this may be the answer may be some humans much earlier than predicted left Africa and started intermingling with Neanderthals who had already left hundreds of thousands of years before or maybe 100,000 years some period before. So that's pretty wild. Whenever we start to think that we've got it. This sort of it sort of mixes up again. So there's been a debate about the cause of that. It's been proposed. One proposal is that there was that earlier. Hominid migration. There's a there's another. This human group more closely related to modern humans and Neanderthals could have introduced their mitochondrial DNA to the Neanderthal population in Europe through genetic admixture as well as contributing a small amount of nuclear DNA to Neanderthals, but not to the Nisevins as we at least have not found that. But they need to be a little bit more on that. So yeah, this is that's pretty interesting. We are that the whole out of Africa history thing is going is going through more and more. We're finding more and more clues out there that humans are just wandering. We just we got bipedal and we started walking in directions and we got really good at that and we just kept doing it like this is fun. We always love to go jogging. When you see those joggers out there in the morning, don't make fun of them as I often do. Don't make fun of them for getting up really early to go for a run. People have been doing that for all of time for as long as I think we can say that we were people. Yeah, the want the wanderlust has is maybe a part of our a part of our DNA, possibly that whole I mean, I imagine that, you know, there's and there's something there's something about who we are. We've followed the animals. We follow the food. We've probably we started in one place and then had to move from there to be able to survive. So it's interesting. I guess this is they're also saying that the Neanderthals other Neanderthals that they've discovered don't necessarily have this might modern human ish mitochondrial DNA and that the Neanderthal that they tested here would probably have had to separate from other Neanderthals that they've tested by as much as 220,000 years, right, because they don't, right? Because if it's back in its lineage, 220,000 years and there's other Neanderthals that don't have it, they haven't been the same population for 200. So it's all right. Also, also just wondering humans were wandering. Yeah, and it's suggesting they say here that Neanderthal population size was much bigger than estimated for the final stages of their existence going back. There may have been much larger Neanderthal populations than we sort of imagine currently. Yeah, I just have an image of these small groups of individuals, whether Neanderthal or human, that there were small, very small tribal groups that you couldn't have them be too big. But they traveled together and then, you know, oh, they run into some other group of people or Neanderthals and. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It was a weaving in and out and in and out and in and out. It wasn't one time that these two groups, hey, got together. And then in multiple in multiple meetings, multiple times. Yeah. And I think the terminology for this that's being used now for for not just the Neanderthal human experience, but for all of modern Hama or for all of Haman in history is a braided stream. Yeah, where it keeps sort of flowing back into different aspects and deviations of itself. This is where we are this great experiment, these humans. Here we are enough about humans. And that's what I know what time it is. Do you know what time it is? It's time for Blair's Animal Corner. Yes. What you got, Blair? I have some really exciting news about some interesting animals. To start, I wanted to talk about fairy wrens. Kiki, are you familiar with fairy wrens? Yes, the fabulous fairy wrens. They're wonderful. They are fabulous because normally they're kind of brown and cream colored, but in the mating season, the males turn bright blue and yes. And so they live in Australia and Tasmania and researchers have been interested for some time in many factors relating to fairy wren dimorphism for a few reasons, the first one being that not all male fairy wrens turn blue. And that the same fairy wren does not always turn blue every year. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. No, that's fabulous. So knowing that it makes all of their population dynamics and their adaptations related to this color change more complicated and more interesting. In particular, researchers from Monash University and Australian National University wanted to look at whether the brightly colored fairy wrens attracted predators more and if they knew it. And so what they did is they were able to study these guys and play warning calls to them and see how they behaved. And they found that the males acted more cautious when they were blue during their blue period compared to the behavior when they remained brown. So they were able to test brown individuals versus blue individuals. And they were able to test the same individuals in a blue period versus not. And so they were so so during their while they're impersonating Picasso. They're exactly. Yes, when they're painting lots of sad clouds. Yes. So this was a perfect opportunity to test a beyond individual behavior to not just say this is a this is an easily spooked fairy wren versus this is a confident fairy wren. No, they were actually testing behavior dependent on their color. Which is a pretty unique opportunity. And they found, yes, that they were more cautious when they were blue. They also tended to be more sensitive to low risk calls and responded faster to high risk calls. So across the board, they were more sensitive to warning calls when they were blue. They were more likely to abandon activities they were engaged in when they heard a warning call. They also found this is very interesting that other fairy wrens in the vicinity, the non blue ones were less careful when around a blue fairy wren. So that's either because they felt that the predator would go for the blue bird or they were counting on the blue bird to act as sentries and respond quickly. So this this is quite complicated. Let me unpack this real quick. So first of all, these birds know when they're blue unequivocably from this we can tell because they change their behavior. Unless it is the side effect of some hormone that's controlling the color change. That's how I would guess. That's possible. But most likely they recognize that they are susceptible. So they know when they're blue or their their behavior is different when they're blue, but beyond that, they know when to hold them. They know when to show them. They know when to walk away. They know when to run. So so it's interesting. But something that I find interesting is that color color changes and coat changes that happen when a when an organism is in development when it's before it's born. Coloring pack coloration patterns can be tied to the mother's hormone level of either being at ease or being stressed. That can change the outcome of a coat of like well in a classic instance of foxes. Right. But with that and but with that affected seasonally because what she said is the same individual. Right. This is what's fascinating. This is what I'm really curious about now because I then really applied that to something that just does that seasonal coat change or color change. If there's if there's hormones that are that are in there and being active based on based on their current level of stress or comfort or if it creates a level of stress or comfort in them. Right. But yeah. Also that within a population of these birds some of them will choose to turn and some of them won't. So what is causing that is it because they made plenty of offspring last year they're taking the season off because it is more stressful to turn blue. Right. So that's kind of the secondary question here is if they recognize that turning color makes them more susceptible to predators and makes them exert more energy in getting away and abandoning efforts and all these sorts of things. Is that why they don't always turn blue? Is that why they essentially opt out of the color change even though that is the desired trait when a female is picking a male? I feel like it's it's more like going through puberty like again and again but then sometimes not. Right. But what is signaling what is signaling those hormones or what is signaling that that color change? I don't know but you can tell it's going to happen starting with the pimples. Well there's also there's also the question of in some in many species in springtime it is food availability and so you have species like crossbills who they eat certain berries that have that have pigments in them that then are conferred into their feather into their feathers and so they get orange and reddish coloration as a result of the food that they eat. So maybe some birds are finding food and others aren't. Is it a nutritional thing? Yeah we don't know. We don't know what is up with the fairy runs but what we do know so far is that they know when they're blue. They do know so it's like they have an awareness. They know as Tobias would say they know when they blew themselves. They would. They do. Yes and moving on to the animals that then would eat said birds. Let's talk about like bird cats. Cats that eat birds. Yeah lizards. Even bird eating tarantulas. No frogs. No. No. Praying mantises. What? It has to be a very large praying mantis. Praying mantises. So a study by zoologists from Switzerland and the US show that praying mantises all over the world include birds in their diet. So we already know praying mantises are carnivorous but what we're used to seeing them eat are arthropods, insects, spiders, other praying mantises. Occasionally they've been witnessed eating small vertebrates like frogs or lizards or salamanders or snakes. Not something that flies through the air with the greatest of bees. So a new study from Martin Niffler from University of Basel, Mike Maxwell from National University, La Jolla, California and James Van Remsen from Louisiana State University have shown together praying mantises eat, kill and eat small birds on every continent except for Antarctica. Well because they're not on Antarctica. Right. So they found, they found praying mantises from 12 species and nine genera. They showed them eating small birds. They were documented in 13 different countries on all continents except for Antarctica and they ate birds from 24 different species and 14 families. So this is a widespread, this is a normal thing for praying mantises. They found 147 documented cases of the feeding behavior from their short study. More than 70% of those though reported in the United States and the most common birds, hummingbirds. Okay. Small. Yes. And so the plants pollinated by hummingbirds, the praying mantises would hang out in those plants and then grab them. But so the reason this is so interesting and so important is that remember I said on every continent, right? And that most of them were in the United States. Well, it turns out a few decades ago. We released a couple species of mantises onto North America as biological pest control. Hey, good job everybody. You'll know how I feel about this. Yeah, oops. Introducing species intentionally generally doesn't work out great. So they found that both of these large mantids, hey guess what? Eatin' birds. So these imported species are now a huge threat to hummingbirds and other small birds in the United States. You know what? You know what? I bet it's a much bigger threat. What? That has been introduced into the ecology across the United States. Cats. Well, there's that. It's cats. Cats are much worse. If you want to be opposed to an animal that shouldn't be where it is, it's the cats. Okay, that's totally not what we're talking about though. We talk about cats all the time on the show. I think our listeners are well aware that cats are a threat, but this is a new threat that we have not examined. That we didn't know was a threat. That we unwittingly released all over the place. So my point being, yes, cats, they're pets. They end up places where they shouldn't be. They kill native birds. Yes, we know all about it. People put jingly necklaces on them. Sometimes that helps. So we should get rid of the cats. Yes. Moving on. Okay, go ahead. These mantises were brought for an ecological purpose. And now we're finding out that they eat birds. So even an animal that we think we understand fully, we understand the impact it's going to have on a new environment when we introduce it. Turns out, guess what? Praying mantises, pull birds out of the sky and eat them. This is an unintended consequence we have discovered decades later. That is actually, though, that's pretty impressive. That's pretty awesome. For all the times that I've released, how many have you ever gotten one of those little mantis egg pods and put it in the garden to watch the praying mantises? No, but I've had gardens full of those things. I raised a group of praying mantises in kindergarten, though. Yeah. So I mean, we've all released, not we've all, but many of us have released praying mantises into the environment. And they're not exactly the same as ladybugs now, are they? No. But you're also fierce carnivores, by the way. Right. Aphids, I kill you. Yeah. This is interesting. I mean, ladybugs aren't going around after birds. Right. Dangered frogs. I'm still going to just, I have to say, though, the level at which I think they're probably taking down birds. Come on. Come on. Like, it's, it's can't be that, that big a number. Oh. It can't be that large a predation. So just can't be. That is such a crappy attitude. Like, really? No. Compared to a cat? It's just a drop in the bucket. No one cares. That's such a bad attitude. The bucket needs to crash. Yeah. I mean, I don't even think the birds know what's happening. That's like throwing a can on the floor and going, it's just one can. It's not like I'm dumping my trash can on the floor. I'm just saying. What, what, what bad things come of it? I've seen birds visibly nervous when they see a cat. I haven't seen a bird like, oh, there's, oh, bring mantis. You know why? Run the other way. Because they never see the mantis coming. The mantis just goes, huh. And it's dead. And this is why, no, Ed, from Connecticut, we are not going to GMO the mantises to attack cats in gardens. Yes. That's not going to happen because you know what's going to happen, then it's going to be that crazy Japanese praying mantis sci-fi movie. Right. Where the mantis is then giant and eating people. That's just, it doesn't stop with cats. Anyway, bottom line, cats are bad. No. The bottom line. You're not hijacking my bottom line. Are you kidding me? We said with the bottom line is the bottom line is that this is, we're using biological control to control other animals. Why are you taking, it was Blair's bottom line. Now you've completely stolen it. No, I'm repeating her bottom line. You don't have to woman explain it for her. She can do it perfectly well. I'm so happy your shins are out of kicking range right now. Yes. So as Kiki was trying to say and I was trying to say everyone, but Justin was trying to say, intentionally introducing biological pest control is always problematic. Even when it works out, there are problems that arise that were not expected. Sometimes they don't eat the thing you want them to eat. Sometimes it turns out they eat endangered birds. We don't know if we, if we don't know every little thing about a species before we really, really sit into a new space is not a great call to do that. And mantises are the perfect example around the world. They've been eating birds and we haven't know. Now we do. Because they don't leave them on your doorstep. So maybe you'll think twice about that awesome mantis. That awesome mantis egg sack in my garden. But is it, is it, is it the point like, like if the alternative is like what is their, their, their other diet consisting of what benefits are we actually getting in the long run? Like maybe it is even with this more beneficial. But remember Justin hummingbird analysis is always a good idea. Hummingbirds are pollinating. I get the bottom line. You understand why pollinators are important. Right. I'm getting the bottom line of yours. You shouldn't generically introduce a thing that you don't know everything about into an environment because bad things can happen. But I don't think we should say that the praying mantis isn't a net positive yet because that's not what the study is saying. This study is not saying that. This is true. This study is not saying that there is a negative. There is a negative. What else do praying mantises eat? Pregnantists eat spiders. Do we want to reduce the number of spiders in our world? We do not because they eat pest animals as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. And on that note, I'm going to take this show to the break because it's really just time for a break. This is this. We can find chocolate factories because I understand a lot of chocolate factories kill isn't that a thing? How many spider legs are in chocolate? We need to get rid of people who sleep with their mouths open then. Yeah, those are the ones killing all the spiders. This is Speaking Science. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back after this with more science, maybe less of this kind of debate. All right, you guys, I hope you stay tuned and join us. Kiss, stay tuned. Hey, everyone, thank you so much for listening to or if you're watching right now for watching twists. We do appreciate you being a part of the show and for enjoying us week after week. We do try to bring you the best show we can every week. And with your help, we're able to do that. So if you would be so kind to head over to twist.org, I'm going to tell you about a few ways that you can help out twists. You can be a producer, right on the back end, helping us financially, an executive producer, I guess, helping us financially keep this show going over at twist.org. 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So maybe if you like you like discounts, you like you buy, we would like it too because it the proceeds do go to help this week in science pay the bills and make things happen here. If however, you are the type of person who's like meh, give me something else to do. I would love it if you would tell your friends about twists. So if you headed out and told your friends, check out twist.org. Go to twist.org or oh, I found this awesome channel on YouTube this week in science. Tell them about that or oh, have you seen the this week in science Facebook page? That's just facebook.com slash this week in science. Super easy. They've always got neat stories all through the week. They've got posts that link back to their show and the stories they present every evening in the show. So much fun science. If I didn't listen or what listen to or watch twists, I would have no half the things that I do or twist blows my mind at least once a week. Tell your friends this. Tell your coworkers this. Tell the people in your social media groups, all these things. Tell them maybe to subscribe on iTunes. There are all sorts of ways that you can help us grow and help us continue to bring you this week in science week after week after week. We thank you for your support. We really couldn't do this without you. And we're back with more this week in science. Yeah, Justin, it's your turn. What you got is I don't really know. So this is a this is a researchers of National History Museum of Utah Red Butte Garden at the University of Utah have discovered potato starch in crevices of 10,900 year old stone tools in Escalante, Utah. This is this is possibly their earliest sign of potato being used as food like anywhere. Like there's there's some evidence in South America that may be about that old ish, but I think this one updates it by almost 1000 years. This is the first archaeological study to identify a spud bearing species native to the southwestern United States. This is Solinum gemesi is the name of this type of potato. And it looks like it was an important part of the diet of Native Americans at 11,000 years ago. They they have a hard time with potato history. Potatoes don't preserve too well. Like we're pretty good at figuring out when corn was first used because the corn husks preserve pretty decently. We can tell what kind of animals people were eating because they leave the bones around. Right. So we know chickens and turkey history of eating them. We know corn history of being used as food, but they don't kind of just doesn't leave a very good record. It just kind of disintegrates and is gone. But they did a pretty interesting and a pretty interesting they found the starches in these in these stone tool and martyr Werner things where they would pound them out and mash them down in a place where I guess researchers had looked at stuff before, but they weren't looking for starches. So then applied the right right process to discovering it. They piece together evidence from stone tools, ethnographic literature and modern gardeners that show you tons have used this species intermittently over the last 10,000 years. And it was this is well, this is one clue. Escalante area of Utah had previously been known as Potato Valley to the early settlers. Okay, there's a sign right there. You should be looking for potato history and the region. It says here several Native American tribes, including Apache, Hopi, Kaweak, Navajo, Southern Paiute, Tiwa, Zia and Zuni consumed the Jamessi potato groups used various cooking and processing techniques, including boiling potatoes, grinding them into flour yeast and mixing the potatoes with clay to reduce bitterness. Some groups still tend potatoes of this population in cultivated gardens today. So the bitterness is a big thing though, because isn't the bitterness I mean of the potatoes, a lot of them were toxic. And so that they found one particular type that was maybe a common potato that was used. It probably got shared between between those groups of people because you didn't want to eat a potato that was going to kill you. Yeah, yeah, that's it took a little trial and error. But hopefully that took place really quickly. I kind of sort of imagine like the early days around the campfire of humanity, finding something new. It was sort of like a science experiment without like, you know, pre-human trial. You gather around the fire and somebody, all right, I'm going to try it. It's found this new thing. And then they'd eat it and everybody just sort of sit around and watch them. If they made it, you know, somebody else tries it. And then somebody else on it is eventually when nobody dying eating this thing, you know, that would at least that's how I did if I was an early paleo person. So one of the fantastic things is this sort of unlocks a big piece of the diet that was missing. This is a high energy food that if we didn't know that people were eating 10,000 years ago, it sort of flushes out their diet from what we knew that that was there so far adds a whole lot of calories to it. So and this is not your this is not the potato that we are eating now. We eat a completely different variety. Everything, every potato you could think of the red ones, the gold ones, the Russians, the thousands of potato types that are commonly found in grocery stores all derive from Solinum tuberosum, which was domesticated in South American Andes 7,000 years ago. It's the one that in the 1500s was sent back to Europe and became the European potato as well. So this is the lost potato history. Really, really kind of fascinating. So another another thing that I think Native Americans did had that we just didn't know about. Potatoes, they're getting a lot of news lately. There's actually like a potato research center that's working on I think we talked about a while back about finding species of potatoes that could could possibly grow on Mars. And they're they're working on ways to be able to test this by sending potatoes to space to grow. Yeah, you know, so we have a long history with the potato. If you've ever been to this, and this is maybe a good candidate, too. I mean, if you've ever looked if you've ever been to the southern Utah area that Four Corners, New Mexico, I think Arizona and Colorado get involved. There's like very much like Mars. No, I'm kidding. It's very dry. Now may not have always been, you know, 2000 years of of weather study may have been a bit wetter. The Anastasi people that disappeared probably had a decent water supply up until a point. But this might be a this might be a potato that could do better on a place like Mars. Probably not as good when French fried though. We don't know. Maybe we don't know this. And actually, they're looking at they're looking at the Department of the United States Department of Agriculture is going through the DNA of this potato looking for genes resistant to drought and disease so that they can help strengthen the current potato and grow it on Mars and make it a little bit more hearty and grow it on Mars. No, but have we have we actually sometimes you can't improve on things? Sometimes you have to go back in time to just find out how things were done originally. Got to go back to the original like the original concrete. Did you know that the Romans created concrete that has withstood thousands of years of erosion by the sea by the wind? It's still standing and we have these concrete things that it's like just takes a while and they just start eroding and concrete strong. But it doesn't it's really not going to last thousands of years. Can I make a guess here? They used they used iron nanofibers and then they magnetically aligned them and just wait, no, that's what we're trying to do now. Yeah, no, no, no, 3d printed it. No, but they were the they were the dudes that came up with the idea for arches, right? So they definitely they had some ideas, but they made concrete by originally by mixing volcanic ash, they took volcanic ash with lime and seawater to make a mortar and then they put volcanic rock in that and that was the aggregate that the mortar held together. And so it was kind of like this ash water and quick lime that had a reaction that's called the pozzolanic reaction. It's named for the city of Pozzoli in the Bay of Naples. And what they think is that the Romans originally got the idea for their cement by looking at these volcanic these naturally cemented volcanic ash deposits called tough. They're common in the area and Pliny the Elder even described them in his writing. I've heard of him. You've just had the beer Blair. Pliny was a good observationalist and very wise, but a researcher from the University of Utah geologist Marie Jackson has been studying the minerals and the micro scale of the concrete structures of Roman time. And she's been looking at it as she would any other rock or volcanic rock, whatever. But she has published and with her colleagues in American mineralogists an article that explains what has made Roman concrete so what allows it to last? How it is lasted through the eons and through basically what they found is that in contrast to modern cement, specifically modern Portland cement that's used, which is the strongest cement we have uses rock aggregate, but the sand and gravel particles are inert. They're not supposed to interact with anything. And so the idea is that the cement is formed and you don't want it to expand at all and you because expansion could crack the concrete, which would make it less strong in the ways that you want it to be. But this Roman concrete, however, they found that there was an actual mineral that integrals between the aggregate and the mortar as a result of chemical reactions with the seawater. And this mineral is formed in these forms in the lime particles through this pozzolanic reaction. And usually it forms, it can form in elevated temperatures, but in the presence of seawater, it didn't have to be elevated temperatures. The seawater actually got this pozzolanic reaction to happen at a lower temperature. And so an aluminum Tobormorite mineral is what is found. And she says that this is a very difficult mineral to make and synthesizing it in the laboratory requires high temperatures and you only get really small quantities. But this very specific reaction over long periods of time and extended interaction with the seawater allowed this mineral to just grow over time. And so over time, the concrete has actually grown to be stronger. So it's a dynamic concrete as opposed to an inert concrete like the concrete that we create. And so the recipe that the Russians, the recipe the Romans used, it probably wouldn't be good for building high rise apartments or bridges or other structures that maybe have steel interspersed with them for structural integrity. But maybe they could be great for doing, for creating seawalls. Maybe this recipe could be really useful in very particular situations. And so Roman concrete, she says, we're looking at a system that's contracted contrary to everything one would not want in cement based concrete. We're looking at a system that thrives in open chemical exchange with seawater. And this this recipe over time was actually it just completely lost to history. And this study, her study, she's done work with the University of California Berkeley to do very high resolution imaging of the minerals to be able to identify them. And she's studied ancient texts. She's studied the concrete very closely. And just through time, working with a geological and working with a geological engineer, they're trying to develop a replacement recipe and hoping that it might be something that could go into use at some point in the future. Yeah. So the recipe, we'll have to figure it out ourselves. I think it's, you know, maybe the Romans looked at the tufts and came across it by observations and happenstance. But we're having to use many modern technologies to be able to figure it out. And we still we're not quite sure yet. So it's taking us a long time to find this, this lost recipe. Yeah. Yeah, Jackson, I love this, this quote, the Romans were, she intends to continue the work of Pliny and other Roman scholars who worked assiduously to discover the secrets of their concrete. The Romans were concerned with this, Jackson says, if we're going to build in the sea, we should be concerned with it too. Yeah. Del Pocca, that's, I had no idea. I'm going to have to read out more on Pliny. Died sailing a little boat to save a friend during the Vesuvius Pompeii thing. Yes. Pliny the Elder. Pretty sure he got saved by Dr. Who in that episode. Maybe one episode. Yeah. Later on, went on to play Dr. Who. I could be wrong. No. Tell me, I think you might be wrong. Maybe you've got a menstruation brain or something. Yeah. Are you kidding? Yeah. Okay. So this is what my teaser was. What am I talking about when I refer to that time of the month? Mences, Mother Nature's Gift, The Curse, The Period, The Rhino, Menoria. Rhino. Yeah. Rhino? I've never heard that before. Okay. Well, that might be a little famous thing, but it's what's around here. It's the Rhino. All right. New study published in Frontiers of Behavioral Neuroscience, setting out to change the way that we think about the menstrual cycle. It's often been assumed that anyone who's menstruating, which I would assume any woman who's menstruating, isn't working at top-notch mental pitch. Professor Bridget Lieners and her team of researchers have found, maybe not surprisingly, there is no evidence to suggest that there is a deficit in mental cognitive abilities during that Mother Nature curse time of the month. I don't know if I need to go into more than that, but they did actually, there have been other studies that said, well, yeah, women behave a little bit like this, or they're a little bit like that. But they point out that those were really, really small sample size studies. Hers is considered the largest, which even though it's only 68 people, it's still the largest sample size that they've done on this. And they did not one cycle, but they also did a second cycle of those same individuals. And so they have a better overall look at if there's a constant difference, or if this was just when you happened to be talking to them, they were at a little bit of a deficit or didn't apply themselves well, or what their differences were over time, that sort of thing. I wonder if I definitely think there's a missed allocation between being emotional and not being as cognitively aware. And those two things are not really related at all, just because a person might have mood swings that does not make them more or less smart in that moment, or more or less aware of their own mood swings, which is a whole nother element of that. And yeah, I would say this sounds correct, and this sounds correct in that people might make that kind of ill-advised conclusion that because there are other things going on with that individual that their mental proclivities are reduced, but pain, hormones, emotion, those things don't necessarily reduce mental. Maybe I've read this wrong. So it says here the results from the test suggested that cognitive bias and attention were affected in the first cycle. But these results then weren't replicated in the second cycle. Yeah, so they only followed individuals two cycles. Yeah. Sample size could be larger. Sample size is small. The largest of its type. It seems like all they needed to do was find a way. There could be issues related to sleep. There could be issues related to so many other things. They just didn't find a correlation between hormone levels and these particular measures over two measures, two measures. Over the two measures. It says here while some hormones were associated with changes across one cycle and some of the women taking part, these effects didn't repeat in the following cycle. Overall, none of the hormones the team studied had any replicable, I can't say replicable, consistent effect on study participants cognition. Working memory was fine. Cognitive bias ability to pay attention was fine. Everything was fine. There you go. So get off my back. I think what it suggests is that they saw something and then they didn't and that they need more either more individuals or they need to follow those individuals over longer time periods. Because it doesn't, I mean, it seems like a very small overall. Again, largest of its type. And so this is the best evidence then. Well, it means I guess I would say it means the best study that we have of its kind did not. At this point in time, did not show. Right. Good enough. So boy, I will say nothing more because I just don't want Blair to shout it me anymore. So I'm just going to be quiet. Hey, though, shouting is regardless of other variables. Yeah, so it's interesting. So they're looking at very specific tests. I'd loved I haven't looked into this study. So I'd love to know more about specific tests that they that they did. I mean, they assessed visual spatial working memory. So can you remember, can you rotate objects in space? Can you remember where things are located? Can you walk through a house blindfolded attention? Are you able to pay attention to things during these periods of time? Or does your attention wander fine cognitive bias? I want to know what that means exactly, what the tests are. I can walk through my own house blindfolded. It also seems like I think it's definitely the men's sees are definitely like the big item with a target on its back for looking at hormone swings and looking at effects on people. But the opposite end of the month is a similarly, hormonally tumultuous time. And there's a drop in during ovulation, there is a significant drop in estrogen as well. Multiple peaks and valleys over the course of the month. But I mean, you know, they they followed those peaks and valleys. And this is the pro of it. They didn't do like individual times of measurement, I guess. I'm guessing I have to look I have to look at what they did. When when did they take these hormone? Okay, a series of eight measurements of hormonal parameters, scaled ruled at predefined days of the cycle, days 479 or 10, 12, 13, 17, 21, and 28. So a pretty good spread over the over the cycle for each woman for two cycles. I think I think they need more data. I also I have an overarching question and I don't want to get into the realm of non science because we are a science show. But I think it is important when you're looking at research to think about the implications, the funders, the people doing the research, and the motivations behind the research, right. And for me, when I hear this research, I and I could be totally wrong, which is why I should read all of this stuff. And I should find out what the motivation for the research is. So here it is right here. But at first, let me finish what I'm going to say. It's just that at first glance, and please prove me wrong, it sounds like trying to find justification for saying that women's mental proclivities fluctuate. Yeah. So it was Professor Bridget Leaners. She's a specialist in reproductive medicine and a psychotherapist who says, I deal with many women who have the impression that the menstrual cycle influences their well being in cognitive performance. So wondering, wondering if this is anecdotal evidence, could be said this anecdotal evidence could be scientifically proven and questioning the methodology of many existing studies on the subject. Her team set out to shed light on the topic. Okay, so it sounds like it was actually the opposite side. And they're hoping to empower individuals to feel like they have abilities. No, I think she looked into whether or not there was, I don't think she went in to say it was to go. Otherwise, you're dismissing her as being biased going in. I don't think so. I think she heard it a lot. I wonder if there's an actual thing you can point to and say this is why. And now you will stop tearing apart the study because you prefer the direction it was headed in. Thank you for your bias. We'll go on to the next one. Okay. I think it's hard to say that any study is gone into without any expectation whatsoever of what will happen. They even say they need to do more research at the end of this. They didn't use a properly counterbalanced design. And they need to, they have, they have some issues acknowledging their limitations. There you go. Firstly, though our sample was considerably larger than those commonly assessed in this field, a sample size of over a hundred would be preferable due to the substantial variance in hormone levels at given time points. Secondly, though, to the best of our knowledge, you were the first to use data from a second cycle as external validation criterion. That sample consisted of a subset of women for the first cycle. Therefore, this data from the second cycle was not independent from data from the first cycle. In future research, it would be worthwhile to assess an independent validation sample. Thirdly, we assessed only three cognitive functions that as visual spatial working memory divided attention and cognitive bias, which are certainly not exhaustive, and hence do not cover the whole range of cognitive function functioning. So additional tests would be preferable. Fourthly, 30 women presented with endocrinological disorders and therefore their hormone levels may deviate from healthy controls. There we go. And let's see. And then finally, fifthly, we did not incorporate a counterbalanced design. So more tests, more tests, more tests. And it's great to see this. I think this is a good this they're investigating. And this is what we need to do. I mean, seriously, I'd love to know. I mean, I know how I feel. I know maybe how other women I've spoken with feel at different times of the month. But it would be great to know if we can turn this from anecdote into science. Because hopefully, hopefully, science will one day find a cure. Moving on for menstruation. Let's talk about some killer pregnancies. I mean, pregnancy in killer whales. That is a multi year survey from 2007 to 2014, looking at the endangered population of southern resident killer whales suggests that up to two thirds of the pregnancies failed in that population during that time period. And the survey, the study published in plus one pretty much pins this population pregnancy trouble on what they think is a low abundance of salmon. They say that's the primary factor for low reproductive set success among southern resident killer whales. During years of low salmon abundance, we see hormonal signals that nutritional stress is setting in and more pregnancies fail. And this trend has become increasingly common in recent years. These resident killer whales typically feed from May to October in the Salish Sea, which is just north of Seattle off the coast. And they go out to the open Pacific Ocean in the wintertime. They're not really considered a transient population. They don't feed on marine mammals. Most of their diet is salmon with Chinook salmon making up three quarters of their diet. And they can actually follow what's going on and the can gather Orca scat. They can get Orca poop to be able to determine what is in the Orca's diet, which is what they did. They used also Orca DNA extracted from the scat to determine sex of the individual, their family pod, and the individual that was responsible because they have other DNA samples from these individuals because they've been monitoring this population for so long. It's really interesting to actually get the Orca scat. They had to train dogs to sniff out this floating, the floating feces from the bow of research boats. So they had dogs on the prowls of boats, research boats that were going out and trailing the pods of Orcas. And these dogs were so great at sniffing out scat, they could detect it a nautical mile away. They were able to get 348 scat samples from 79 Orcas over the time period of this study. And basically overall hormone levels and all sorts of other things that they measured, there were all sorts of signals that just these whales were under nutritional duress. And so there were higher likelihoods of failed pregnancies. Poor nutrition. Because they need that omega three fatty acid from the fish oil, right? That and a lot more. But they really think that this is the major force that is reducing or limiting population growth in the southern resident killer whales, which is already an endangered population. Just so the listener knows, I am currently looking up what Orca poop looks like and it looks exactly like what you would expect. Now we all have to Google it to try to find out what that means. That's what everyone gets. And while you are all googling Orca scat, I have another fun, this is a fun whale story to move out of the kind of sad scary story of our overfishing and the changing climate and the changing abundance of salmon in the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Northwest coastal region. Humpback whales. They are another great species of whale that's out there. They are large whales and they blow bubbles. And according to a new study looking at bubbles being blown by humpback whales, we're finding that they use them for a variety of reasons. So they think that humpback whales don't just breathe out these bubbles. It's been established that the bubbles are used to corral krill and fish when they're hunting. They think it's an important form of communication. They also think that it could be used to convey a motion in that communication kind of like an exclamation point or a superlative or maybe a gesture. It could be a sign of distress. It could also be used as a toy for play or even sexual pleasure according to this researcher named Reidenberg. This researcher and a colleague also say that they have seen bubbles used for non-feeding purposes not only out of the whale's blow holes. So there's a possible tactile or sensual experience to the bubbles as well. So humpback whales possibly using bubbles for more than you thought. Which is kind of cool. But something I didn't know, there's a study by this group from 2007 that they found that when humpbacks blow bubbles through their blow hole, they actually have a risk of drowning. So this is... If I'm not the error, I guess that's... Yeah. Yeah. So bubbles important and fun for humpback whales. Yeah. Any more stories there? I have a fun story about a milking robot. So we already have... What are basically robots that give us our cow milk, right? Right. It's all automated now. But what about scorpion milking? Why would you want to milk a scorpion? Great question. Scorpions, would you have to milk before you'd have enough for cereal? Can we turn that into a tongue twister? Delicious. Now milking a scorpion is not for any lactose-based product. It is for the scorpion venom and it's used in medical applications like immunosuppressants, antimalarial drugs, and cancer research. But the way that they historically get all built and dangerous. So the options are electrical stimulation by hand. So that's attaching some sort of stimulator to the scorpion with your bare hands or mechanical stimulation, which means basically encouraging the scorpion to strike something and then kind of squeezing the venom out or puncturing the venom gland or doing an abdominal removal, which essentially kills the scorpion. A new robot that is out of Ben Massik Hasan II University in Morocco actually recovers venom fast, safe, and remotely controlled. The VES-4 device is lightweight. It's portable and they can use it in the lab or in the field. In fact, it can store via its memory for different species. So you can kind of pre-program that and it has an LED screen that allows users to display the name of the species they're currently milking. And this robot, you kind of remote control it. It clamps onto the tail and electrically stimulates the animal just like the first version that I was talking about, except no hands are involved. It expresses the droplets of venom. It's captured safely. It's stored and nobody has to touch it. So this VES-4 can be used by one person via remote control. Safely recovers scorpion venom remotely that word is used again. So this is really, this is great. This is something that we could potentially use to get snake venom in the future. This is definitely moving in the right direction. So we don't have to wrangle dangerous animals to harvest things from them. Automated venom. The animal is eating. Yeah, absolutely. Scorpion milker robot. Peta is going to love that one. Peta, Peta, Peta, Peta, they're going to love. Automated venom harvesting. Scorpion, it's perfect. Unless you like. It's plus, you know, cancer research and it doesn't hurt the scorpion. They can just collect one in the field, use this thing remotely, let it go again. It's off on its merry way. All right, I like it. Without its necessary venom. No, it'll just make more. That's fine. Don't worry. They only need a couple drops of it for their research. So it's not bad. Hey Justin, one of your favorite studies is the marshmallow study, right? Oh, yeah, the reward delay study. Yeah. So historically, this was like in the 1960s originally, a psychologist ran an experiment trying to look into self-control in children. And they took young children ages three to five and they were given a treat. And then they have this instruction. You can eat the treat now. But if you can wait until I get back, because I have to go do something right now. If you can wait until I get back and not eat it, you'll get two treats. So can you hold off eating that amazing treat, sugar sticky, right there in front of you, treat hedonistic pleasure? Or can you delay your gratification for later? Oh, I didn't realize that was going to be a thing. I already ate the marshmallow. That's right. You already did it anyway. The reality is most kids cannot delay gratification. They're going to gobble it up super fast. My three kids actually have done this to them many times. They do very well in this test. All right. So until it doubles and I do a double again, and I do a double again, and then they're bouncing off the walls and I have to stop. Well, they're probably going to have great SAT scores according to this research. This research shows that kids who can delay gratification do better in life later on. They have higher score, higher on test. So now this is the new twist on this study. Researchers have now tested children outside Western culture. They've taken four-year-olds from an ethnic group called the Snowden So in Cameroon in Africa to test how they perform on the marshmallow test. And they compared their performance against a group of German children. What they found is that the Cameroonian kids, according to the lead researcher Bettina Lam, Cameroonian kids really behave very differently. They were able to wait much better. And when you ask how much is much better, nearly 70% of the Cameroonian kids compared to about 30% of the German kids could wait a full 10 minutes to get a second marshmallow. 10 minutes long. And in their article in Child Development, they even report that about 10% of the children while they were waiting, they even fell asleep while they were waiting. The kids, kids from Cameroon, it was as if they were meditating. They just were calm. They sat there and they waited and there was no distress among the children compared to the German kids. They're trying anything to distract themselves. They're like playing with their toes, doing anything, sitting on their hands, trying to find ways to stop themselves. So they're trying to figure out, now what is the difference between, is it the child rearing techniques, the parenting techniques of the Cameroonian parents in this group of Nissoes or versus more westernized parenting techniques? And they say that the mothers actually do things very differently within this group of individuals. The moms breastfeed their babies before they start to cry, so they don't ever need to express any negative emotions. This emotion is already regulated before it's expressed. And they teach the kids, they, she says the kids are expected to learn to control their needs and not ask for their desires or wishes. So there's much different learning, much different learning, but the kids... Okay, so this has also been shown that typically they was used back in the 50s to show that white children had more patience than children of minority sex. And there have been updates to this study where they realized that part of your survival strategy, if you are poor, is to take that reward, that reward now, because you've learned through your own experience that things can change quickly, that it might not be there. And if you don't take advantage of that impulse to get that reward now, you often fail to get it, right? Especially if you go to a dinner table with seven other hungry Irish children and there's food enough for five. If you don't hurry up and get your, you know, potatoes on the plate, if you don't start eating right away, the reward won't be there. Yeah, so that's what the researcher, the researcher also goes into this and she says, what also matters is the kids' expectations about whether waiting will be worth it or not. And she says, we have evidence that kids take under consideration the statistical nature of what has happened in the past. So for example, if a child is living in an environment where there's lots of uncertainty and instability, then they may think that waiting isn't likely to pay off, even though they have the ability to delay gratification. And so what she suggests is maybe the Cameroonian parenting technique boosts the trust that the kids have in the adults so that they trust the situation and they trust that that person is going to bring the second treat when they say they will. And that the situation these children came from was, it gave them the security to be able to sit and wait. But is that a good thing? I don't know. Too much patience. So moving on from that, a couple of really quick final stories. The bloop. You guys, we've talked about the bloop sound in the oceans. There's this sound that people have. It's like a conspiracy theory on the internet about the bloop. Is this strange sound? It's heard on hydrophones across the Pacific. It was heard in 1997. And it's this loud ultra low frequency sound that it was discovered at listening stations underwater thousands of kilometers apart. And so researchers have been trying to figure out what caused it. And one idea is that it might be an animal of some kind that has some interesting vocal sound production technique. But National Oceanic Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been doing some tests. And they have reported that it's not an animal. It's actually the sound of the cracking of an ice shelf as it breaks up from Antarctica. One of the researchers from NOAA and who's an Oregon State University seismologist, Robert Dziak, he says that one of the issues that people have had in talking about this is that when it's played back, the way people play it back is usually at about 16 times the normal speed. And so then it does sound like an animal vocalization. And so when you actually play it at the actual speed the sound occurs, it fits quite nicely with other recordings of cracking ice that NOAA has picked up under the water. So not a strange animal. It's cracking ice. It's cracking up, man. And then finally, NASA's Juno spacecraft. It just celebrated a year in orbit yesterday around Jupiter. And next week, on the 10th, or this week in between now and next week, it will do another close flyby of Jupiter. And it's going to focus specifically on Jupiter's great red spot. All of its instruments will be turned at that massive storm that we can see on the surface of Jupiter. And so hopefully within a couple of months after next week we'll get some really interesting data back. And maybe even within a couple of weeks we'll have some neat reports from NASA about what's going on there. I can't wait. Juno's giving us some really cool data because Jupiter's awesome, big and awesome. And does that do it for our big and awesome show? Yeah. That's it. That's it for this week in Science, you guys. Thanks for a good show. That was fun. And thanks, everybody, for watching. Thank you for listening. Thanks for being a part of the show again and again and again. And I would like to take a special moment to thank our Patreon sponsors. Thunder Beaver, Paul Disney, G. Burton, John Ratnaswamy, Richard Onimus, Byron Lee, E. O. 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And also just go to twist.org. Wait, is that the right link? Yes. Oh, because it's different than the one in the notes. Twist.org. So the same youtube.com slash this week in science and twist.org slash YouTube go to the exact same place. Oh, I had no idea. Thank you for informing me. And thank you for enjoying the show. Twist is also available as a podcast. Just Google this week in science in your iTunes directory. Or if you have a mobile type device, you can simply look for this TWS number four droid app in the Android marketplace or simply this week in science and anything Apple Marketplace-y. For more information on anything you've heard here today, show notes will be available on our website. Let's see if I can get this right. www.twist.org. That's TWS.org where you can also make comments and start conversations with the hosts and other blisters. Or you can just contact us directly. Email Kirsten at kirsten at thisweekinscience.com, Justin at twistminion at gmail.com or Blair at BlairBaz at twist.org. Just be sure to put twist TWS somewhere in the subject line or your email will be spam filtered into oblivion. You can also hit us up on the Twitter where we are at twist science at DrKiki at JacksonFly and Apple Air's Menagerie. We love your feedback. If there's a topic you like us to cover or address, a suggestion for an interview, a haiku that comes to you in the night. Please let us know. We'll be back here next week and we hope you'll join us again for more great science news. And if you've learned anything from the show, remember... It's all in your head. This week science is coming your way. So everybody listen to what I say. I use the scientific method for all that it's worth and I'll broadcast my opinion all over. But it's this week in science. This week in science. 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 what I say may not represent your views, but I've done the calculations and I've got a plan. If you listen to the science you may just better understand. That we're not trying to threaten your philosophy. We're just trying to save the world from Japanese. And this week in science is coming your way. So everybody listen to everything we say and if you use our methods better roll in and die we may rid the world of toxoplasma gandiai. Because it's this week in science. This week in science. This week in science. Science. Science. This week in science. This week in science. Science. Science. Science. I've got a laundry list of items I want to address from stopping global hunger to dredging Loch Ness. I'm trying to promote more rational thought and I'll try to answer any question you've got. The help can I ever see the changes I seek when I can only set up shop one hour a week. This week in science is coming your way. You better just listen to what we say and if you learn anything from the words that we've said then please just remember this week in science. The end of this week in science. We are now into the after show. I don't know how long the afters show will go. But we're here for a moment or two. I hope everyone's had a fun evening. We had fun. We had fun. Try so hard. Really try. Sometimes it's very hard to make everybody be quiet. Hey, let's stop jabbering and move on to the next story. This is the way that this is my life. What's doing, Blair? Just here. I'm here. Just smiling. No comment. I was looking at my internet and it's really fast. I don't understand why I was having so much trouble today. Yeah, you froze for a moment in there. I was freezing a lot. I was like missing entire chunks of your stories. My ping is four milliseconds. My download is 72 and my upload is 177. Sounds good. It's very fast. It was like, I don't understand why. I think my old computer's sad. Because you need a cat. I do need a cat. Nice little Stella, cutie. The only problem, though, if I got a cat is that I could no longer take care of other people's cats. Oh, right. And then I wouldn't be anti-Blair anymore to all of the cats and dogs. The green eyes on that one. Gorgeous. She's a pretty girl. Is she indoor only or is she indoor at door? Nope, indoor only. Nice. She wants to be outdoor. Today I was working downstairs in the kitchen and she comes up and she looks at me and then she looks at the door and she reached up and she tapped the door handle to the backyard. Well, it doesn't go immediately to the backyard. There's like a mud room to the backyard and then there's the back door itself and then there's a screen door. But she reached up and she tapped the door handle. So I opened that for her and she walked into the room and she looked at the back door. So I opened the back door for her and left the screen door shut and locked. And she then for the next couple of hours proceeded to sit in the sun and look at the birds and the squirrels in the backyard and lie in the sun. And then when she got too hot, she'd come inside and just collapse on the cold tile. And then she'd go back out and sit in the sun in front of the screen and she'd go collapse on the tile and get cooled down again. It was pretty cute. Cute. A friend of mine has an old bird cage that she puts her cats in in her backyard. And she also has, they have these cat tubes or just like long mesh tubes with like a clip on one of the ends. So you can put your cat in the tube out in the backyard. What's that? It's my cat tube. Cat tube. I guess cats are like me. I would sort to show it to you but my internet can't handle it. Oh my goodness. I did not check for any mantis but Ed, I didn't let the cat all the way out. There's no actual outside. It's just sitting and looking through the cat, through the screen door. Yeah, there are, Dale Poco, there are those cat subway systems. I've seen their- I was reading this week about the dogs that ride the subway in Moscow. Just Moscow stray dogs that ride the subway. Yeah, they know where to get on and off and stuff. It's crazy. I love it. There are birds, pigeons who use the subway in England. Yeah, actually that happens here too. And it happened to me recently where I got on a mutiny and gin and then the car stopped and it didn't get out, went another couple of stops and then it flew out, went right up, acted like it knew exactly where it was going. They do know. They do know. Before and they'll do it again. Matthew went in the YouTube chat is saying, was I able to go to the Waterfront Blues Festival this last week? No, I missed it. I went camping, went out to a camp out this weekend. So I did miss it, which was unfortunate. But a friend of mine got to play with one of, he's a trumpet player, great musician. And he got to play with a band called Galactic this weekend. Yeah, I can't, I gotta check out his recording of that. But I'm sure a lot of people had a lot of fun. A lot of people. Barry in the chat is saying, I was feeding birds in my garden today then spent all afternoon saving them from my cat. Didn't think it through. No. Yeah. Maybe some more thicken that through next time. Yeah, I don't know. I think my cat's just fine staring out the screen door. She likes to scratch at the screen door and look at me and say, Merle, Merle, like, why do you keep me inside? Because your cat with very sharp claws and teeth. And she's very agile. So I think she could catch up. She would definitely catch a bird. And I don't wanna deal with that. Which cat was that that we just saw? That's Stella. Stella. And what's the other one's name? Cappy. Cappy. Is that short for something? Cappy Star. What does that mean? I've told you this story before, haven't I? I forgot. Yeah, so remember we've talked about Tabby Star? Uh-huh. The star that first people were like, oh, it's a Dyson sphere. And then, oh, maybe it's surrounded by a bunch of comets. We don't know what the star is. And so then we got these cats, so we're trying to name them. And I was like, Tabby, Cappy is a Tabby coloration cat. And I thought we could name her Tabby Star. Like the star. Yeah. And Kai didn't hear me correctly. And he thought I said Cappy. And so it's Cappy Star. Oh, no, I haven't heard that story before. No? That's so cute. Yeah, he misheard me. And now he thinks that she's a Cappy. And the other one's Stella. Stella, like a star. I was like, so we're gonna have two star named. Yeah. Cats. Yes. Nice. Yeah. Cappy. Cappy, not Tabby, Cappy. Cappy Star. She's a good one too. She's our, we have two very, their sisters and their very different personalities. Super fun. There's a report here in Portland recently. I don't know if it's made. It's just here in Portland. But in this Southeast neighborhood where I live in the Southeast, there was a decapitated cat found. And then there was another cat that had been, its bowels had been disgorged. And there was no blood on the scene. So like whatever happened to the cats didn't happen where the cats were found. So there's like a whole investigation. Like the Metropolitan police are trying to figure out what's happening to the cats. Now there have been sightings of a coyote also. So maybe there's coyotes that are getting the cats, but. Yeah. I don't know. It's the mystery, the mystery of the fourth of July weekend. Oh no. Mm-hmm. How are your cats with the fireworks, Kiki? They hid in the basement. Yeah. Yeah. They hid in the basement until the fireworks stopped last night. Oh my goodness. It was pretty neat though, going through our neighborhood. There's the big Portland displays, but then there were, the sun goes down. So late up here, it was just too late for Kai's bedtime. It was just really late. And so we were driving through the Southeast and it's like every block, there was a family or group of families that had set up on the street and everybody had fountains and all sorts of things going. And it's very different. It was pretty neat actually. It was very festive all over the place. It was very fun. I know people and animals do have issues with the loud noises, but the celebration of the day was definitely, it was definitely happening. It was good. Hey, fluff, Justin's back. There we go. He's not gone forever. Me? No, I don't. No. What do you want, Stella? Brrr, brrr. Bring her up here. You want her back again? Yeah. She's rolling on the floor right now, looking really cute. I love my kitty. Lair loves the kitty cat. Yeah, I do. Now she's gonna shoulder perch. Oh, she's so cute. She has claws. Yeah, that's good. It's good for her. Yeah. She's a good kitty cat. How's your dog, Lair? She's okay. Her name's Sunny. She's 15. She's a yellow lab. And every day is an adventure at this point. So I don't know. She's made another miraculous recovery, but she's been doing that since she was 11. So I don't know how many more of those she has left in her. We'll see. Hopefully more. Yes, but also I recognize she has lived a full, long, good life. She's a 15-year-old lab, which is insane. I mean, when she was 10, she was under geriatric care. So I recognize she and I both have had a very long, full, good life together. And so I am remaining positive about that. Did you see that dog movie that, I don't know who made it, but there's like some dog movie where the dog's supposed to be incarnated a whole bunch of times. I just think that's like just a dog's purpose. I know. I think it's just out to make people cry. Yeah. I think somebody was like, what kind of story we can be right? It's just gonna make people cry. Yeah. It has to make a dog story. That'll be good. Yeah. It'll be a dog. No, thank you. People will love their dog and then the dog will die. The dog will come back, but as a different dog, it's a real... Another family and they'll love the dog and the dog will die. We could do Old Yeller just over and over again, about every 15 minutes. Yeah, just take Old Yeller to the corn crib four times in one movie. Round Hog's Day in Old Yeller in one. Can't do it. I can't do it. Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna go see that one. No. No, thank you. Old Yeller caught off. She needs some attention. What's going on? You haven't gotten attention enough? It's cause yesterday was scary. Now she's like, hold me. That's just waiting to find something to kill. She's just wanting me to remove all of the hair that's coming off of her right now. Yeah. Groom me, human. You know, so much hair. Oh my gosh. I can't wait for shedding season to be over. It's never over. Well, it was kind. I mean, the winter, it's better. Right now it's just like, I think she's gonna be bald. In San Francisco, there is no shedding season. Cause the temperature is constantly changing. Yeah, someone was... We need to invest in large rolls of masking tape. Yes, yes. Just put tape along all the walls. You guys just see the cloud of hair that's coming off my cat right now. Yeah, I believe it. Oh, you just want to snuggle. Oh my goodness. She just wants to stay out of breath. You know, she usually wants to, she gets up and then she jumps down. She's usually not this snuggling. Just testing to see if you're still alive. Is it time to eat the human yet? No, it's still moving. No, no. They're looking for it. I think I'm gonna cat hair in my eyes. Very shetty. Good thing you don't have allergies. Not to cats, thank goodness. Guys, seriously, I wish my camera were better so you could see all this hair. I'm gonna put you down because I'm not gonna be able to breathe soon. Because my face is just gonna be a mat of cat hair. That's what an allergy looks like there. You can't breathe from the interaction with your cat dander. Oh my God, an identity four, you're hilarious. What kind of story can we write to solve California's drought problem? Cute pets dying. Oh my God, good night, Fada. Thank you for moderating in the YouTubes. Cat hair, oh my goodness. Yeah. Is there anything, any emails you guys have gotten that I might have missed because my this week in science email's not working? I don't get it. No, that you should think of. No. Thanks for the hair, Stella. I haven't. Okay. Yeah, I thought things were gonna be getting fixed but I'm just more confused than I was before at this point in time. Boo. All right, all right, all right, all right. Boo on that. Yeah. Are you just gonna start a new email address at this point? Just scrap it. Well, I mean, I think I can start. Oh, good identity. You could use the twist.org. I mean, that's what I'm using right now as a twist.org. No, I mean, I have this week in science and I think we've moved it over. It just has to do with DNS server stuff. Like it has to, the internet has to know where to go and where to send things. And so I think there's just a step that we're missing somewhere. I think what's going to happen is that I have to create a new Kirsten at thisweekinscience.com email box and that I'm just going to lose all of the emails that were held. Oh no. But I've been forwarding it to my, I've been forwarding it to my Gmail for several years. So I still, I'm not losing everything. Yeah, there's still a backup for at least the last couple of years, so. Yeah, at a certain point, just friggin' cut bait. And I mean, I'm not going back. I mean, am I going to go back through my email to the very first email that I ever had? I could have before now, but now I won't. Right. And it's okay. These things happen. These things happen. It's all right. And I have this very old computer with an old version of Outlook that has my this week in science, old this week in science emails and so I've got multiple things in computer. I think I might just cut my losses and just make a new Kirsten at thisweekinscience.com email. Yeah. There you go. Ben Rothig, yeah. See, if I had a higher resolution, maybe I could give you allergies through the internet. Cat hair for all of you. Yeah. The cat cafes are things I don't quite understand. Like in theory, I get it, but the fact that everyone's just drinking beverages that are just, they all have cat hair in them. Let me, I know. I mean, even when there are, so when service dogs are doing what they're supposed to do and they're curled up under a table, it's fine, right? But when there are service dogs that are not good at remaining under a table and it's in a restaurant, I'm always kind of like, how hygienic is this? And how likely is it that that's actually a service dog? Right. Cause usually if they're properly trained, they do that. They go like curl up under the table. You don't even really know they're there. But yeah, it's the ones that are allowed into restaurants that are constantly kind of like moving around and like scratching and there's airborne stuff getting in my food. I'm like, it's less than ideal. So cat cafe. Is this a cafe where the owner has a cat and it allows it to run around the cafe or? I don't think it's really a cafe. Isn't that just a place where you go and pet cats? Well, some of them do serve food and drink. But usually they're adoptable cats, which is what makes it kind of cool. So quite often it will be hosted by a shelter. And so most of the cats there are adoptable. So you go, you order lunch. They bring, with your lunch, they bring a adoptable cat to your table. No, the cat is just wandering around. Oh gosh. Oh no. So the whole place reeks of cat litter or worse? I don't know. I've never been to one. Yeah. Great identity for Toxoplasma cat fur for lunch. Tox, yeah. Toxoplasma cat fur. Tell me. Eric Knapp, I did get your, what has science done for me lately story. And you actually just made me think I'm going to schedule. And what I'm trying to do is get, he's lined up in advance. And so I will be reading yours in, oops, nope, that's not what I wanted to do, in two weeks. We'll be reading yours. But I did get it, so I'm sorry I didn't email you back immediately. Thank you very much for your story. So these are, they're piling up now, they're stacking. I'm trying to get that to happen. Yes, I think I've got, it's not a huge stack. I've got a little stack of like three or four. So as long as I keep getting people to write in, we will always have a constant flow of these stories, which I think is, I think it's great. Yeah, very nice. Oh, so interesting. I'm looking into this cat cafe situation. And I guess in other countries, they do serve food and drink where the cats are. But in the United States, governmental food service regulations require that the area where the cats are playing or being considered for adoption must be separate from the area where food and drink are served. Yeah, that's what I thought, yeah. And so the ones in the United States are unusual in their focus on adoptions. The ones in other countries are often just place where there's cats. I went to one in Amsterdam that was on a boat in a canal. And that was pretty awesome. And they were cats that were potentially up for adoption. So it was a bunch of cats on a little boat in a canal. We could go pet them and then take one home if you wanted to. I mean, I was traveling, so obviously I didn't, but anyway, it was pretty awesome. That was years ago. In December, 2015, Seattle, Washington opened its first cat cafe called Seattle Miao Tripolitan. Uh-huh, no. Oh my gosh. In September, 2016, Eat Per Love Cat Cafe opened in Columbus, Ohio. I found a recipe for how to cook cat. Gross. Ew. I found that once in a cookbook. It was like a British cookbook. This is funny. The Wikipedia article for cat cafe, see also, petting zoo. Petting zoo. That's not petting zoo. Oh, Charleston, South Carolina opened a pounce cat cafe and wine bar. I like that. I like cats, and I mean, we've got Justin around all the time when we have cat talk, so I mean, that's like our wine bar. Oh, I get it. Hominem. Crumbs and whiskers in Washington, DC. Lining about the cats again. And the talks of plasma. So there are, according to this recipe, there are more than, there is apparently more than one way to prepare cat, even more than one way to skin it in the beginning. Dear. But once you've skinned it, you are ready to cook. Says here, one recommends placing a cat in a very high powered. Nope. Nope. Can we stop? No. Kit tea was the first cat cafe to announce its plans to open in the United States. The news was first leaked to be in an article posted via the Laughing Squid and SF-ist in 2014, although Kit tea was unable to open as the first cat cafe due to raised rents and construction delays. They are proudly known as the very first and only cat cafe in San Francisco, California. On 24th June, 2015, Kit tea finally opened its doors to the anticipating public and continues to support cats from Wonder Cat Rescue and the ACC in San Francisco. Why do cats, why do cats chew on cardboard? Because it's absorbent? I don't know. Both of my cats, they love cardboard boxes. Just grab them and rip chunks out of the cardboard. Claw the cardboard and rip. It's like, they're like, these are the cat's trees in the house, which is fine. I can clean up the cardboard. It's not my furniture. I find it very strange, though. The bag of nails in Bristol is a cat pub. Bag of nails. And has as many as 24 cats. Lady Dinah's cat emporium. Oh, my God. Found in Newcastle. Cat cafes. Oh, my goodness. I just like the name. Okinawans used to eat a cat soup. Oh, boy. Mayano Ushuri. Barry in the YouTube chat room says, Cat Pacino, two sugars hold the fur. Oh, no. Le café de chef. Yeah. Oui, oui, oui. Is it in Paris? Mio, mio, mio. Mio, mio. Le mio. Le mio. Le mio. All right, you guys. I am going to go head toward bed. Yeah, it's time for our bed. It's that time of day. I'm going to dream of kitties. No soup seems to be a very, very popular way to eat a cat. Identity four says it's a very, very strange anime film. The world's first cat cafe cat garden opened in guesses. What year? What year in what location? World's first cat cafe. I would say Taiwan. They seem to list the highest. Yeah. How about 1820? OK, Justin. Wait, oh, gosh, I have no idea. I think it has to be sometime in the... When did things get really weird? I would say the 80s. That was an odd question. The 80s. The world's first cat cafe cat garden opened its doors in Taipei, Taiwan. Oh, they were eating cat. 1798. No, they weren't eating cat. They were eating cat. I was right. I picked Taiwan, though. I got the country right. They eat more cats than anybody. Go get a study. Oh, my goodness. This website, not study. Hawaii, I guess, has a little history of cat eating, too. Pamoramic is wondering, she doesn't know what the fuss is about cats. It's because if you don't own the cat, the cat is not tied to you. But if you're like cats, when they know somebody, and it takes longer to get to know a cat than it does to get to know a dog, once you do, there's a relationship there. It's a relationship that you have to work harder for, definitely. You don't have to train it. It's lower maintenance. You don't have to take it for a walk. You can leave for a couple of days. The cat is fine. I think that's the pleasure of the cat. But what is the impact of the cat on the environment to which you've introduced it? Well, if it's an indoors cat, nothing. We're not talking about indoors cats. Very few cats are literally indoor cats. That's not true. They're indoor-outdoor cats, almost all the time. I have indoor cats. You keep them captive indoors this wild animal. You keep it indoors all the time. Justin, you keep your children captive indoors? No, I don't. I sometimes have to force them to go outside. You force your children into the elements? We went to the Raptor Center again today. You mix your children with predators? I love it when the cats purr and they get to purr. I always wonder what happens when a cat stumbles upon the Raptor Center. She might get eaten by the Raptors? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. The cat's like, ooh, there's a big lunch. I want to reach in and get at this. I don't think a cat would think like that. Cats know what a predator is. I don't know. For sure. The large talons, they're aware. We'll see what Justin says when his kids drag home that first red bird as a gift. Maybe you need to put those jangly bright colors on your children. I'm going to have a great question to ask somebody at the Raptor Center next time. Cats have ever gotten in here before? I doubt it. All right, you guys. I'm tired. Yeah, let's go to bed. I'm going to go to bed. I hope everyone comes back to join us next week. Good night, Blair. Good night, Justin. Good night, Justin. Good night. I hope you guys have a wonderful week. Thanks for a great show. Yeah. Have a good one all. And there's many holidays coming up, special holidays. Check your twist calendar to be sure of what days are coming up. We got some good ones on the list this month. We'll see you later.