 Hello science enjoying people. We are here without a Blair Hopefully she will be able to join us her internet is suffering a local outage in local area, so Unfortunately, we are still minus a Blair even though she was going to be here tonight. I know you're out there Blair I know I know you're there Hopefully we and I will the telegraph ahead of time Didn't get a full night's sleep ahead of the show Because it's it's five o'clock in the morning here where I'm at and didn't really get much sleep last night that my building was on fire And I'll talk about that maybe in the after show Then mark needs to Learn about fire safety. I get it. You have a big affinity for candles And it's normally wet everywhere So even if you do put up not a big commercial grade fireworks in your backyard Nothing catches on fire because everything's wet or made out of concrete But seriously basic fire safety Basic no don't burn down the house everyone Let's just have a science program. How does that sound? 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I stayed there was a church across the street that decided to ring its bells very loudly every hour Yeah Watches they got it on the phone Church bells Snoggo says every time you click the bell a UX designer dies All right, let's do a show I am I am I've been Putting it off because I was hoping Blair would suddenly appear like a magical science fairy and Start joining us for the show, but it hasn't happened yet And we don't want to keep everyone waiting and she said she needed to be done with the show by 10 So that means we need to get our show Underway so that everything stays within the time with the optimism that Blair will be joining us because her internet outage Is gonna go away Comcast Okay, let's start this show. You ready? We are ready Ready for some In a hole three two This is Twist this week in science episode number 893 recorded on Wednesday September 21st 2022 I was gonna do another pun and I didn't write it down I Was gonna make the the title of the show more punny it'd be like It's autumn about time. It's it's autumn It's all about time Falling in love with science Anyway, no, it's really bad. So title of the show. Sorry for that edit Rachel Something about About a bad miss miss remembered pun that is actually funnier than the what the pun would have been itself I had a terrible pun I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Not sorry Okay September 21st 2022 Falling in love with science Hey, everyone. I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show. We will fill your head with Anxiety ants and ancient opium, but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer most of what humanity does on a daily basis is nothing new Trash will be picked up the roadways sidewalks and transit stations will fill up and empty out again Workers were put in a day's work papers will be filed Potholes filled Information will flow and transactions of all sorts will take place Guests will be welcomed food prepared and conversations will fill the air the daily chores will be checked off mostly Parents will put their little ones to bed students will study people will sit down to watch the latest version of ancient story archetypes this time with robots or Dragons or in space with robot dragons and Everywhere around the world another day will pass as so many have passed before We live in a world of our own making One of order routine and safety where we can maintain it and we repeat ourselves in conversations in activities and in mistakes So much of the same things over and over again that even now just talking about it becomes redundant. There is One thing we do that while routine and its execution can lead us down paths. We have not traveled before science Science is one avenue of human activity that makes new discoveries Where the call of the explorer to seek the unknown adventure is still being met by the pioneers of research And every day brings something new might even say there's always something new under the sun or that the more things Change the more they get talked about here on this weekend science Coming up next I've got the kind of mind that can't get enough. I want to learn everything I want to fill it all up with new discoveries that happen every day of the week There's only one place to go to find the knowledge I seek. I want to know Science to you and a good science to you too Justin and we're still missing a Blair She is having internet issues. Hopefully she will join us at some point during the show and Hello to everyone out there. Welcome to another episode of this week in science. Oh Yeah, we are here. You ready? Oh, absolutely. You've got science Have got all sorts of science ish stories. All right. Good. I have a few as well Let's see. What have I lined up? I've got not very Nobel prizes NASA news frogs and mosquitoes and editing RNA. What did you bring? Let's see. What have I got? I've got so much anxiety Yeah, I've got so many ants and And I've got not enough microbial nomenclature to go around as well as Decent supply of ancient Well Someone's having I guess the opium balances out the anxiety. Maybe anyway, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine Everything works out in the end It's hunky dory and everything on this show is Gonna be talked about with respect to science science the process the wonderful tool in our tool belt for Exploring the universe and the knowledge it brings you can Find out about all this science that we talked about every single week if you're not yet subscribed you can Mash that subscribe button on YouTube on Twitch on Facebook. I don't know. I'm just I'm going saying what the youngs say You do subscribe subscribe We're also on a podcast thing, you know all the podcast things we do that you can find us on the podcaster thingies Look for this week in science wherever Great podcasts are found because that's only where this week in science is found Somewhere a place else we point out that that we have a website Which is very important because We have links to the stories that we talk about yes So instead of just hearing somebody saying something that the about a science thing that they probably made up Go I've heard about this research. Oh, it's horse. I'm right about stuff All of the sources of the information that we talk about the studies that have been published There's links to them or at least the pressure releases in some cases In at our website where you can go and find the press release or the end and then therefore the actual Right, you can go and look at it yourself, right? But we're also on the social media the social media Twitter Instagram we are twist science everywhere else. Just look for this week in science our website is twist.org and On those streaming channels that I asked you to subscribe on we do stream every Wednesday night 8 p.m. Pacific time ish We're there. We're there. We're here right now and now it's time for the science You know what time of year it is Justin This is the autumn fun. Did you remember it? It's It it you you autumn be falling in love with science Sorry No, this is not the autumn pun, but it is that was a very Noble in fact egg noble Yeah, it is the ignoble award season the ignoble prize is Announced with several of them are handed out for different categories every year and it is all in the name of pointing out the fun in science bringing a smile to people's faces where science is involved and This last week on the 15th of September the 32nd first annual ignoble prize ceremony was held and The winners are as follows for applied cardiology a team out of the Czech Republic Netherlands UK Sweden and Aruba won an award for Seeking and finding evidence that when new romantic partners meet for the first time and feel attracted to each other Their heart rates synchronize Yeah, they're like those all those songs two huts that beat as one You know, they're all accurate. They're right If you're in if you're falling in love for the first time you're synchronizing So does that mean that people fall in love easier if they have the same body mass because I feel like like having Your heart rate meets Zoology it's a crazy thing exactly the literature prize was for a group of researchers Canada use USA UK and Australia for analyzing what makes legal documents Unnecessarily difficult to understand and you want to know what it is the word writing Poor writing not specialized concepts Drive processing difficulty in legal language. That's the name of the paper biology goes to a collaboration out of Brazil and Colombia for studying weather and how Constipation affects the mating prospects of scorpions first I had no idea that scorpions could suffer from constipation second female Scorpions apparently suffer from constipation after their tails have been cut off and yes, it does impact reproduction and mating prospects for the males because the females are not feeling very good science everyone science And if you're interested in the title of this paper fitness implications of non-lethal injuries in Scorpions females but not males pay reproductive costs Medicine goes to Poland for showing that when patients undergo some kinds of toxic Chemotherapy they suffer fewer harmful side effects if ice cream is involved. It's true Ice cream used as cryotherapy reduces oral mucositis. So it's it can be ice cream That's great. I mean I Hope doctors start prescribing that All right engineering goes to Japan for trying to discover the most efficient way for people to use their fingers when turning a knob Wait Rotary control The reference is how to use fingers during rotary control of columbner knobs art history Is very interesting. This is definitely I'd wait I got a pause for a sec. Is that like a condition? Are there people who are just like, uh, yeah, uh, I Can't I can't do rotary knob devices. It's just Rare condition if I have a door has one of those things, but if I have to turn like a handle I just I don't know how I can't think my fingers need to be efficient Efficiency, I mean you need better efficiency. Let's try and design those columbner knobs so that they are easier for the fingers Okay, I need to stop talking about that now and move on to anthropology art history goes to a study entitled a multi-discinaire multi-disciplinary approach to ritual enema scenes on ancient Maya pottery So that I learned something new right there Ancient they were ancient animals. Yep. We have learned something new. This is what the show is all about Physics was awarded jointly to two groups China UK Turkey USA And this is for a study. We actually talked about on this program related to how ducklings manage to swim in formation and to conserve energy by Riding each other's waves They do wake writing and wave writing and wave passing and let's see the economics prize is for Italians for explaining mathematically why success most often goes to the most not to the most talented people but instead to the luckiest And for finally The safety engineering prize surprisingly goes to Sweden For developing a moose crash test dummy They give them driver's licenses. This is another thing. This is But in Sweden a moose can get a driver's license and they're terrible drivers Because I mean if you're driving trying to drive with those antlers sticking out of the car windows, I guess that makes sense Welcome Blair. You have joined us. Let's hope that your internet Your internet holds up that would be fantastic, but those are the Ig Nobel prizes we have learned some we have laughed some and We look forward to more of these next year But you know what this means the no bells are coming up Get ready for some big awards to be awarded in what are you gonna wear to the no bells this year Kiki? probably Blanket and slippers. Oh, yeah Because of the time difference. Yeah, you could go to the ceremonies. You're in the right time zone Close okay Justin Your turn to tell a story. Oh gosh, what was I gonna start with are you feeling anxious about it? Yeah, I'm nervous researchers and link coping messing that up University Sweden have discovered a biological mechanism that increases the strength with which fear Memories are stored in the brain. So fear if you're not familiar is an essential part of Avoiding death in most living things Escaping life-threatening situations as well as learning to avoid them in the future heart rate goes up adrenaline maybe is kicking in getting ready for that fight or flight response And classically we have a zebra that is commonly grazing on the savannah Suddenly there's a lion and it chases after the zebra zebra runs Because the fear response kicks in so it's given it all it's all to get away from this lion And it does it escapes. Yay heart rate returns to normal zebra goes back to grazing on the savannah eventually maybe a little twitchy-eared at first Just calms down and goes back to eating in some conditions that affect humans like post-traumatic stress disorder ptsd anxiety related disorders those fear reactions are excessive and persistent Even when the threat of danger is gone intense anxiety, even though the danger is no longer present this is kind of What is being experienced in ptsd and a lot of anxiety disorders? So This is in this case the zebra has escaped the lion But then can't calm down afterwards can't eat can't sleep It affects the relationships with other zebras and they turn to excessive alcohol use to help alleviate their symptoms Study there was a Published in molecular psychiatry. It was on rats. It's providing new knowledge on the mechanism behind anxiety related disorders And also to identify perhaps a shared mechanism between anxiety disorders and those who get anxiety disorders and those who have higher rates of alcohol dependence Researcher is suspected that certain individuals have greater tendencies to develop pathological fears And this has this caused this caused by the way that their brains process the fear memories So some areas of the brain Are more important for processing fear related memories than others The amygdala is activated when threats are experienced And works together with parts of the frontal brain lobes, which is the prefrontal cortex Which are very important for processing regulating. I suppose emotions And we've sort of discussed this in the past. It's a bit of a one-way connection So the amygdala can fuel the prefrontal cortex with all sorts of uh emotion juice emotional fuel and fear Uh, and like be afraid be afraid be afraid. But the prefrontal cortex has a hard time telling the amygdala enough I got it. Okay. Okay. I heard you Shh, because the amygdala can't really intensely bad hearing or something It's not really built to hear and get information and it's really built to put information out So when the amygdala gets stuck sending fear fear fear to the prefrontal cortex, that's part of the The mechanisms behind these stress disorders Why is a prefrontal cortex bossier? That this is what I want to know. We need a bossy prefrontal cortex And apparently it does try Because it actually has to play Like this is the pics cartoon in my head. We should have an expert talk about this The picture the cartoon picture on my head is it has to play a game of telephone with other parts of the brain To get back to the amygdala Because it can't just tell it directly Yeah, exactly call a friend who has to call a friend who has to call a friend back the amygdala Who's hard of hearing to begin with it just keeps on doesn't care Uh, according to stella barbie a assistant professor of the center for social and effective neuroscience at link coping University who led the study? We know that the network of nerve cells that connects the frontal lobes to the amygdala Is involved in fear responses these the connections between these brain structures are altered in people with PTSD and other anxiety disorders The investigation led them to a protein known as prd m2 An epigenetic enzyme that suppresses the expression of many genes. So that's kind of interesting already We now it's an epigenetic enzyme. So it's not something that's Hard boiled into the genomic code necessarily, but it's something that is uh an alteration That is producing this protein Uh They found they previously found that levels of this prd m2 are lower in folks That have alcohol dependence And it is very common for alcohol dependence and anxiety related conditions to be present at the same time So they decided hey, that's this is what we're investigating. We're gonna see if there's a link here and how this is operating So in order for new memories to last they must be stabilized and preserved as long-term memories The process known as consolidation researchers in the current study Investigated the effects of reduced levels of prd m2 on the way Fear memories are processed and according to barbier We have identified a mechanism in which increased activity in the network between the frontal lobes and the amygdala Increases learned fear reactions. We show that down regulation of prd m2 increases the consolidation Of fear related memories. So it seems to allow more amygdala fear Messaging to get Stored for the longer term right, it doesn't allow the uh prefrontal cortex to have as much input to erase some of that fear Yes, yeah, I got the message or I don't need to put this on the you know It's sort of like if oh guys, nobody's gonna remember this a long time ago When you wanted to watch a movie you had to you had to buy it at a store take it home Maybe put it on a shelf But it's like If all of the uh, if all of the movies that you had on that shelf were screened too All right, I don't know if that's it. Maybe just the first one. I would like I don't think those are scary That was mine. I don't know is I don't watch scary movies because I don't like them All right, the researchers identified the also identified other genes that were affected when the level of prd m2 was reduced genes which resulted in an increase in the activity of nerve cells that connect with the frontal lobe And amygdala, so it's not just that it's not erasing It's also getting more messages in because it's also allowing more connection So it says uh conclusion patients with anxiety disorders may benefit from treatments that weaken Or erase fear memories the biological mechanism we have identified involves the down regulation of prd m2 That's what's causing this or associated with the cause of this and we currently do not have any way of increasing it So there's not a cure But that means if it's identified maybe there is uh drug targets and that sort of thing that can take place This mechanism may be part of the explanation why some individuals have a greater vulnerability to developing anxiety related conditions It may also explain why these conditions and alcohol dependence so often are present together Yeah, so that's really this is really interesting because I have heard of the two going hand in hand for for a while It's been a known Like a known Combination of factors, but the question is what exactly has been going on to make it happen Why does that why does it lead to it? So it's really interesting to start figuring out what's involved in allowing the fear conditioning to Set in more to allow the anxiety to become potentially overbearing And if you can't treat the alcohol dependence Then it potentially does give other targets that we can work on to help people at least maintain the things that Combat the anxiety because sometimes I think there may be a feedback effect between people not wanting to be anxious And so they drink more To not be anxious to and then it just cycles and cycles and cycles So if you can break the cycle somehow it could end up helping to treat alcohol dependence Yeah, and there's also something that's sort of interesting that we've talked about before with students who study and then You know And then take a test the next day and then students who study then drink Then take a test the next day It's actually the drinkers that do better the next day and partly it's because they think They are limiting the amount of new information that's coming in I thought it was just that if they drank while they studied and then they drank It's not while they study then they did better No, it's not while they studied it was after they studied So so the person yeah, it was after this was another study that I'm remembering because there was a whole thing about if you had a Condition while you were studying and you had that same condition when you took the test Then that also helps. So yes This one was about Basically more about how memories get formed and and alcohol sort of interrupts They think what the idea was that it interrupts a a lot of new memories being formed So what you've learned before that is all the brain has to work with And so that's why it gets locked in better because it's not competing with other information through the rest of the day So the thing that was sort of interesting about this this occurred Is that to me is that Alcohol if the people who are consuming a lot of alcohol as maybe is a stress relief May also be allowing Those fear memories to lock in Greater because there's less competition because they're drinking times are not allowing as much memory formation So then it becomes a really vicious circle of accelerating Anxiety as opposed to while attacking the symptoms Anyway, either way you look at it. Yeah, this is great because there's two targets PTSD and anxiety that are huge and there could be alcohol dependence If there is a drug target or a solution that can be found to Upregulate this this one epigenetic gene in certain people Yeah, that's cool Very cool. Hey blare you want to talk about screen time Yes Something screen time. Yeah, so this is this is a case of dot dot dot in rats Hey, that was my last one Um, but this is a study indicating that potentially exposure to blue light Via regular use of tablets and smartphones May alter hormone levels and increase the risk of early puberty This was a study on female rats divided into three groups of six So also a very small sample size and exposed to either a normal light cycle six hours or 12 hours of blue light light so the six and 12 hours of blue light groups found puberty occurred significantly earlier than than those exposed to normal light And the longer the duration of exposure the earlier the onset of puberty Hmm Yes, they also found reduced levels of melatonin increased levels of reproductive hormones and physical changes in the ovaries Previous blue light studies have shown that it can be linked to disrupted sleeping patterns As we know there's even an interesting study about wildlife and blue light out this week, but I did not I couldn't bring you everything um And uh, and so I think that I think the main result of that was that it's affecting uh, bird migration and it's affecting So there was that one. There was also one about wallabies. So wallabies There was lots of blue light in the news this week But ultimately we know that blue light can impact hormones in your body We know that it can impact your circadian rhythms We know it can impact all sorts of different systems. And so now it's looking like Blue light can also impact the onset of puberty. They do think again This is dot dot dot in rats But they think that there might be a correlation between that and the fact that in recent years There have been studies that have reported increases in early puberty onset for girls And particularly during the pandemic They think there is a potential link because people were on their devices way more during the pandemic And so that could have impacted this increase in early puberty Very difficult to assess in human children lots of variables that you can't Remove from the equation very difficult to figure out what's going on But I don't think this is a totally bonkers study because of the previous studies on blue light and hormones that we have seen Yeah, I would agree with that take home Uh that okay We can't just completely take this and say humans stay off of your devices because it's but Because we do know that there are these impacts like you said circadian rhythms circadian rhythms then do affect hormone production And so it can have these cascading effects This is something that we should be looking at and be considering very carefully. Um, you know It's going to it's what it's going to turn into though is like whether or not people are giving their kids Uh carob or chocolate whether or not they're giving their kids Sugar or you know, whether they're keeping their kids away from products that have aspartame or Are they consuming a bunch of caffeine? Yeah? Yeah, you know, this is those there. This is the Is going to sit within that body of public choices that have to do with lifestyle and some people are going to be aware of these things some people are not and Um, you know, it's it's it's really interesting as we learn more and it'll be interesting to see how The information is adopted in terms of public health and what messaging our public health Bodies really end up sharing right but yeah, well and also I'm just now thinking about the fact that okay, so We have we have an okay amount of research on Uh puberty timing in women Which has been getting the age has been getting lower and lower and lower for a very long time before cell phones became popular I'm just kind of curious how that was measured before Right if it was huge data if because because also women's health has always been a very weird like It's been tough to figure out how to collect that information without infringing on On things it's I don't know. It just seems like we don't actually we can't actually have that That reliable longitudinal data on this I don't know. I don't know and and does This does the fact that school systems were closed impact that longitudinal data and how like is Is there we know there were impacts on kids going into their doctors We know there are impacts on kids going in to get vaccines We know there are impacts on those regular checkups and then also because schools were out There also were not kind of those touchstones that kids would normally have for you know, two years at least So does that gap impact? What we're seeing and the data that they're reporting on that's yeah, yeah, I don't know it's it's it's a It's an interesting question. I also just wonder if like 50 60 70 years ago um did Do we have reliable data on when people Enter puberty? That is a great question because I wonder about that just just knowing generally The way that research into women's health. Yes Were women in the 50s really calling their doctor when they got their period for the first time? I don't know if they were and I don't know if they could reliably say I started my period when I was blank and is that information going into A database anywhere, right? A lot of diaries and journals, right, but how does that help you With longitudinal data on the normal timing of onset of puberty in women. I don't know I'm just throwing it out there as an interesting kind of Addition to this question of is it really earlier? Is it significantly earlier? I don't know I'm just asking but regardless just watch watch your children's use of blue light and also there's the whole question of does it impact male rats because they weren't in the study so Maybe a question for next time There's more questions. There are always more questions when it comes to research like this I just hope that can that people continue following up Now things that we are going to continue following up on always the nasa news This week some really fun stories gorgeous pictures coming out from james webs Space telescope from nasa a new view looking close in at neptune has given us the Really beautiful pictures of the neptunian Ring system, you know neptune has rings, right? Neptune has rings. We don't talk about neptune's rings because I mean Saturn Saturn is the the ringy showstopper, but Neptune has rings that has a bunch of moons and Rings and this is the first time that we have looked at the rings of neptune in about 30 years Which is pretty exciting in itself so we're able to look At neptune in the infrared whereas Hubble has looked previously in the visible light spectrum And so now they're able to compare what we could see through the beautiful visible light Thanks to Hubble to this infrared information, which is giving us a lot of knowledge about The gas that's there the energy that's being released in terms of heat how hot are the clouds what's going on in the atmosphere of this gas giant Um the methane so when you think of neptune, what color do you normally think? blue Blue it's not blue. It's like white Yeah, so one of those Where do they come the mobiles there where they got the all the hanging plans always it's big blue thing Right. It's always neptune because neptune is the god of the ocean Yeah, and that's why they named Neptune neptune because it's blue, right? But it's not because the visibly that's what the methane gas would be absorbing and and putting out but no. Oh, no, no, no To uh j-wist it does not it looks more white in the infrared. Uh, and in case I mean, but that's not even Anyway, they're also bright streaks, which are methane ice clouds And spots and they reflect sunlight before it gets absorbed by methane gas. So there are clouds and Made of methane ice, which is Fascinating to me. Uh, there's a thin circle of brightness that circles the planet's equator and uh, the researchers think it could be global atmospheric circulation that powers winds and storms in the atmosphere of neptune it the atmosphere actually gets warmer toward the equator and Uh in it has a when you think warm, it's not Nice and toasty warm. This is still a very cold gas giant. Um, it has 164 year orbit It's north pole is out of view for astronomers But there's a very bright spot a glowiness that james webb has been able to see That suggests that there might be more of these icy I see clouds up near the northern pole or something else going on in the atmosphere Um, anyway, there's a lot of really, uh Fascinating aspects. They're also able to look at the rings and the moons and Triton they say is covered in a frozen sheet of condensed nitrogen Reflecting an average of about 70 percent of the sunlight that hits it And this is actually brighter than neptune itself because neptune likes to absorb the sunlight because of its methane atmosphere Okay, triton also What The Yeah, you could I mean they could make it blue probably if they wanted to this is the wavelength. These are the near Wave lengths that they're that they are Could actually be blue to at least because we're just basing it on human eye Anyway, I mean not the blairs. Not all humans. No, no, you know, some Most humans would still see this blue, right? Anyway, uh, moving on from neptune, which I guess they also believe that triton May have been a captured Kuiper belt object because neptune is so far out there and large enough to have that kind of a grab gravitational pull Very interesting side note Now moving on from, uh, james web. We also have, um Old nasa missions the kasini mission out to Saturn speaking of of, uh Rings of rings exactly and this old mission to To Saturn with kasini has discovered that the phosphorus that is involved in The ocean underneath the icy crust of enceladus in cell the enceladus is moon of Saturn It's got an icy crust and outside it inside of this icy crust. It has What they think of is kind of like a a carbonate ocean. They're calling it a soda ocean Which I think is very fun Like soda pop, but not really it's kind of though because Based on their new analysis of the chemical processes that might be happening within this Ocean under the ice on this moon of Saturn Uh, it could be leading to lots of phosphorus being taken up from the rocky core and the minerals that are there and being, uh Made soluble into this soda and so it's like a phosphate Ocean like, you know, phosphates they were sodas that you used to go and get at the at the soda stand I'd like my my cherry phosphate, please Yeah, so Enceladus is moon is now our solar system soda shop But what this really means is that it with the phosphorus In the liquid in the way that it is this Ocean is potentially even more Habitable for life Could be could be we don't know for sure We still have to go there which with which people would like to do and maybe this is more evidence Which will get us there faster Finally, NASA news speaking of things that NASA is just going out there to go do the dart tests Dart is happening Monday This coming Monday. So as of our next episode We will be able to report on the dart mission to go and tap on an asteroid It's heading out to the binary asteroid ditimus and uh the ditimus reconnaissance and asteroid camera for optical navigation or drako has snapped all sorts of pictures of stars and they've lined up this mission um and drako is going to keep looking at Ditimus and dimorphus which are the two this binary system these two asteroids and dart is going to just jump all in there and impact Using its smart nav system to uh get to get in there and and and boop an asteroid and try and set it off course But it's not like ah, this is one that's coming toward our planet being as it's a binary system Dimorphus is a little moon asteroid of ditimus and so it'll go boop dimorphus And then see whether or not it can change the orbit Of dimorphus. This is I think one of my favorite things that nasa is doing So cool, uh, I first of all it's making contact with an object in space Whether it's a planet or a moon or an asteroid is always is is just I don't know visceral The space exploration type thing Also, it could prove, you know, if we bad you get good at this then we can stop being afraid of Uh small meteors I'm worried about the opposite I'm worried about a ruby goldbergie and domino style effect of poking it and then it goes off course and and accidentally bumps into something else That pushes it into the course You know, I'm just gonna go with the assumption that although Everything is neatly balanced. Thanks to gravitational forces and masses within our solar system It's also a messy system and it is not a static system. And so This little thing I'm just gonna go with this this little this little boop This impact is not gonna have the butterfly effect that Yeah, I mean most dominoes when they fall over don't hit anything else But every once in a while This is why I never make videos of myself doing domino runs because I set up the dominoes And it's this really pretty pattern and then I go let's go and then Like three dominoes fall over and then they don't touch each other anymore At least you've got the steady hand to set them up. I I can't set up more than three without them falling At least it doesn't matter if they do fall over because I'm only knocking over like one or two Yeah, it doesn't change anything. Anyway, cool stuff going on at nasa and hopefully we will have interesting news about this Uh, this dart impact by next week's show But let's talk about earth for a minute. Justin Oh, okay. Every once in a while Uh, you guys sleep, right? Sometimes No, no Usually just after putting head to pillow Closing your eyes just before drifting off into dreamland a question might pop into your head Is my foot the right temperature? Should it be under the blanket or should I expose it to the cooler air of the room? Should I have gone to the toilet before bed? Is my alarm set for the right time and how many ants are there on the planet anyway? And while science may not have the answer to every one of those questions, it has come closer to one of them reported in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences 20 quadrillion That's the current best estimate of the how many ants inhabit planet earth That's too big of a number. That means nothing Okay, so if now that's fair the quadrillionth place is not that accessible Irrelatable to most people. So try this 20 000 trillion Still too big. Nope. Still too big not helping. Okay. I'll shrink. I'll shrink it 20 billion times a million No, now you have two big numbers. That's not helpful That's just a lot times a lot I'll reduce it even more two and a half million ants For every human being on the planet. See that one's better. Okay. Good. He's getting there. All right. Uh, how about 12 megatons? Of biomass. Yes. Yeah, I don't know what that is. That's too big. Okay So then it's more it's more than the mass of all of the world's mammals and birds Combined in a big ball and a scale. Yes. See that one that one makes sense. Good yet It would probably be a smaller ball a small ball of writhing ant life I don't know. I don't know how the density of an ant versus that that I didn't I see now I have more Did they round this to the nearest quadrillion because I got to tell you every second the number changes Well, yes, so so it is an estimate. Yes, uh, with a big count a broad broad brush, but uh compared to previous estimates, it's either, uh, uh, twice the number that they thought uh before by other estimates or it's, uh, 20 times more Ants than they thought to get the new figures the researchers combed through 12,000 ish reports from databases and multiple languages from around the world across time They narrowed it down to a mere 489 studies that had rigorous enough methods of collecting and counting ants to be included And then uh, they extrapolated their number from there The team was surprised to find how concentrated ants are in the tropics And that they were being most uh being most plentiful there as well as in savannas and in moist forests So not too dry ants don't like a dry forest as much as they like a moist forest Well in the in the dry in the dry habitats, they're underground But the moisture is always very nice. Yeah, so this could still be a massive underestimation, but uh, the The point I think of this study though, uh, if you take a moment to reflect on what it means to be an earthling Uh You know, it might might be the ants That are the dominant species on the planet not only Are there Million more of them for every one of us, but they're they're just their mass alone Is greater than all the mammals and birds apparently. I don't know why they threw the birds in there That doesn't really feel like it adds a whole lot to the equation because I feel like there's more birds than mammals, which is why you need the numbers Okay, okay, you know and in this in this 12 20 quadrillion, right? That's 12 megatons 12 megatons of biomass and a megaton is 1 million tons so If you have a one ton Pickup truck that's 12 million one ton pickup trucks worth of ants of ants So, I mean it reminds me of another Study from a few years ago where they tried to quantify how many bug spiders eat. Do you remember that? Yes And it was equal to it was greater than the weight of all of the whales on the planet They eat that every year, right? So like These social math things are hard to try to Explain but ultimately what we're getting at here is there's a lot of invertebrates And specifically arthropods. There's just so many Yeah And as long as they're and we're safe as long as they don't start working together Exactly ants not well known for working together. Oh wait Well not working together with spiders. That's a different situation. Hopefully not Right layers nightmares And speaking of arthropods. Yeah arthers arthropods uh and insects, right insects We're talking about all all of this some insects our our blood sucking Insects that tend to spread diseases We don't like those insects as much as other insects But there are wonderful animals on this planet that eat those blood sucking insects and we thank them very much for it and we We celebrate our frogs and we celebrate our toads and salamanders and we save them And we make sure that no funguses kill them ever like the kittred fungus. Oh wait No, I'm completely wrong here. I really this study that I'm talking about was just published in environmental research letters Has discovered that thanks to the kittred fungus, which has been traveling around the globe. They um linked spikes in malaria cases to die-offs of amphibians in places where The amphibians died and there you go that were linked with the deadly back Bat uh batra cotrickium Dendrobetiditis Something like that. Yeah Bad fungus that kills the kills the amphibians it spreads thanks to climate change and Human movements and those amphibians died. They're not eating the mosquitoes which are spreading the malaria And then you have malaria outbreaks and so we have to think I mean well duh everyone, right? Everything's it's all connected. It is and this is just another example well, that's that's interesting because um when I was first learning about conservation education and talking about like why to save the frogs, right? The conversation usually was around the fact that they're indicator species. So their value Amphibians value is in this kind of view that they are extremely sensitive to changes in water quality And so if their population drops They are an indicator that water quality habitat quality environmental quality Therefore like potentially human health Could be impacted, right? So that was kind of the main reason To to save the frogs This is a much more compelling reason But it's still the same story, but it's it's a very tangible example. Yeah. No, absolutely and and it's a it's another kind of Feather in my cap of saying like well, what really is a keystone species because What does that mean? What is an indicator species? Amphibians are controlling vectors in an area that makes them pretty darn important to humans But also to other animals There are other vectors that they're eating of other diseases that impact other animals and plants probably That that they are controlling so they have an important job Save the amphibians Yeah, stop the fungal spread We need to hire the Dirk gently holistic detective Yes, we are all these connections Are you feeling connected to science? Do you have twists to thank for that? Share it with a friend today make more connections through science All right, this is this weekend science. We're gonna come on back with our covid update Oh wait, no Covid's cancelled everyone Apparently president biden has said that the pandemic is over So covid is no more. So we will no longer do this segment of the show Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on. What in the same sentence though. Didn't he say he said the pandemic was over But we still gotta we still got a problem with the covid I don't think he knows what pandemic is So, you know, no, no, he politically does and what it means is that it's going to roll back funding for all sorts of things like vaccines and public health efforts and and Sick leave and any of the funding is over not the pandemic. Yes, but it's the same thing You can just get covid and be sick and you just have to pay for it yourself and Um, yeah, but remember you have to go get that omicron booster now And a flu shot and a flu shot. Yeah. Anyway, yes And the omicron booster the new formulation of the booster does work very well against the omicron. So, uh, I can't wait to get mine Whenever I can schedule it Folks in the chat room are saying they just got the covid. Yeah, it's not gone It's not good People are still I went to a back to school night tonight and uh, I was in the very slim minority of people who were Wearing masks in the office Not surprising though, but anyway the covid update Is over for tonight. We may bring it Depending on news, but we're gonna move right forward right now to another favorite part of the show We love to call Blair's animal corner Oh my goodness, it was such a hard choice picking what to talk to you all about tonight But I found a couple of great stories. So first I want to talk to you about octopuses Octopus arms, they're pretty great They can operate independently They'd still move when they're separated from the body We think maybe they're they're neuron clumps in there to the point where they have kind of almost brains in each of their arms They're crazy So knowing that and looking at the way that octopuses move around You would think that each of those arms have equal footing if you will under uh, whether they have any preferences or not about which arms to use in which moments that it would just be like Whichever one is closest, right? When they're moving around the it doesn't appear to have any pattern or favoritism to any particular arm and so Trevor Wardill an assistant professor in the college of biological sciences At at university of minnesota wanted to study octopus and other sepulopods and Whether they have certain arm preferences over others when hunting So they studied the california two-spot octopus They dropped in different types of prey crabs shrimp into tanks and they recorded video The octopuses started hiding in ornamental spongebob dens And they had one eye facing outward They went for the snacks right away Crabs move slowly shrimp move fast So each type of prey also has different hunting tactics in order to catch what they need They found that octopuses used arms on the same side as the eye viewing the prey So they did use whichever Arm was closest Based on what they saw But No matter what type of prey came by They always attacked using the second arm from the middle So they switched which side based on their orientation, but they always used that second arm When hunting crabs they pounced on their prey with a cat-like movement leading with the second arm And when hunting shrimp they avoided spooking the prey so they kind of snuck up They led with their second arm after they made contact with the shrimp then they used neighboring arms One and three to secure it So they they were shocked the researchers were shocked at how predictably octopuses Used arms to capture prey so despite the fact that kind of visually it looks kind of to be all over the place There is a method to how those octopuses have and they do have They they exhibit favoritism towards certain arms like handedness So it it seems like the second arm from the middle It doesn't matter which side they're ambidextrous about it But they have they would rather use their feet than their legs I guess is more what it's about even though they they look morphologically the same they still have Grabbing arms as opposed to other arms that would help out The the thing that I will kind of throw in here Is that octopuses have a specialized tentacle called a hexacotlis Which is how the males will actually deliver the sperm packet to the females So there is specialization In the arms we know this So if there is special specialization in one of eight arms That means they have to in their little donut brain Figure out Which arm is which and use the right arm? So If there is also a right arm a correct arm to catch prey with Their donut brain should be able to handle that too I Love that you're calling them donut brains, but that's not even It's not insult. It's shaped like a donut. It's shaped like a donut. Yeah, exactly You donut brain. Well, I'm an octopus so So yeah, and so then speaking of the donut brain The next steps for these researchers is they want to study how neurons facilitate arm movements and differentiate arms so That is going to be pretty interesting. Just they have to make sure not to feed the octopuses anything too big Make sure the octopuses chew or when they swallow it. They will damage their brain Because their esophagus goes through their brain Their donut brain. That's why they have a different brain. Yes. I love I love octopuses so much. So, yes, um There are so carefully they have a favorite arm Yeah, you said the maybe I'd love to know. Yeah, they have their their hunting arm They have their mating arm for males and do they have other arms for other favorite tasks? Yeah, do they have their their walking arm? They've their Manipulating a shelter arm. Exactly. Are any of them good at turning knobs? All of them. I do believe What about a columnar knob and how many how many tentacles does it take? How many indeed? Um, yeah, so moving on from octopuses to you guessed it wood lice Desert lice pods. No, I didn't guess that at all. I was doing it No expectation wood lice would be thrown at me. Yeah, they're two centimeter long insect things that live in the desert they they look like um They're isopods. So they're related to those those big Bug-looking things that live under the water. Some of them eat Fish's tongue and replace the tongue. We've seen those pictures on the show, right? But anyway, so they look like those but they're land ones So I'm sorry to bring that up to all of you unrelated. I apologize. But anyway Let me just bring it back around Okay, so desert isopods desert isopods Kiki brought up an image So these are not tongue replacements. No are yeah, these are but they are related to them. Anyway Yes Desert isopods either They're not they look exactly like I would just think that that's what that was. Yeah They're like insect armadillos. Yeah So they are an interesting species to study for their mating habits that you are expecting that They mate once in their lifetime. They spend the rest of their life, which is a year With their chosen mate and their family of 60 to 70 offspring In a single burrow They the females dig the burrow The males fight to in a particular female and burrow So they are they are trying to find the best female and the best space Both parents take care of the babies the brood and all family members young and old continue to excavate and clean the burrow So they they keep it nice and large They expand it as the family grows and they remove detritus and other, you know Shitted exoskeleton and things that shouldn't be in there So when the females are choosing where to dig their home it under normal conditions The largest male will get the largest female This is a simple case of mate selection the males looking for the largest female the females looking for the largest male so usually They will the they will it's kind of a mutual success thing bigger females bigger males, however In their natural habitat Scorpions also live and scorpions are their main predator And so what researchers Um from Hebrew University in Jerusalem wanted to look at in the negative desert Is if you give Isopods to these desert isopods two locations one Near an Israeli gold scorpion and one far away from a gold scorpion What does that do to those mating dynamics? Is it still Biggest female biggest male great success or does it change the dynamic at all because you are changing the The value of the burrow So what they found was that under risk of sort scorpion predation There was a size assortive mating just like in normal, but Males that chose and fought over females were on average smaller Compared to the females so it appears as though the bigger males were going. I'm not messing with the scorpion I'm going to go pick the largest female I can that is the farthest away from a scorpion So they kind of took care of that and they had more male male contests near the safer burrows So the also just in general fewer pairs were made in those risky sites so it really seems like males had to Had to do kind of a cause benefit analysis Which is something pretty intense for a little desert isopod to do a little wood lice Is doing this kind of white detailed Yeah risk calculation To try to figure out which female to go for and which burrow to go for Um, so smaller males often accepted second best and moved in with smaller females But they also picked Lurking scorpion dens more often medium-sized males chose between smaller females in safe places and larger females in risky places So they kind of got that middle ground They had to push pull and then the largest males got the safest burrows with the largest females So the males are anticipating future risk of predation. So that is a pretty intense thing for a brain a little clump of nerve cells to be able to do But it also means That they they weren't just recognizing scorpion no scorpion. They were understanding the gradation of closeness of proximity So it wasn't just safe unsafe It's like this one's closer But this one has a better female. Is it worth the risk? So they were really making these kind of intense Danger or reproduction danger reproduction, which one? Yeah, and so the reason this works so well as a study. I also thought this was interesting is that scorpions Don't really go off wandering to look for prey They they emerge and attack prey When they are detected by the vibrations that isopods cause when they walk across their burrow roof So basically they got to walk right on top of a scorpion to get caught Um But the odor of the scorpion does alert isopods. So the the isopods also have The mechanics to be able to smell out scorpions and know, uh, this this place smells bad. This place smells dangerous But the but really you got to get right on top of them for it to really be dangerous So then so there's a couple things one is uh, okay Being less risk averse in your youth. That's the thing that we can see happen Across the animal kingdom having You know having learned lessons from the past perhaps or getting a wisdom with age As the well in this case you get eaten if you get near the scorpions So you don't reproduce so only the ones that know to avoid scorpions can reproduce Right, right. So maybe it's a built-in fear version But then but then it's also, you know, but based on size though So the longer you've been around maybe you've seen a scorpion So it's not it's not that it's one year lifespan one year lifespan It's one one single mating experience. There is no repeated experience So everything's going to be based on instinct on just what's in their little brains and neurons to begin with It's not learned But it could be because if they have that sense of smell, here's the thing if they have that sense of smell They not only can smell when there's a scorpion nearby They can also smell when one of their own has been devoured by that scorpion And that may be something that the smaller ones haven't experienced yet or But but see you're associating size with age and that's not correct That's not all the same. They they live a year and it is a single mating season. This is not Single mating see not just a single time that they mate But there's only one time when all of them are born and then they have the different size stochastic Different Okay, then the other one is the risk assessment for a small one might be that like I put out less Vibration when I really won't even notice me. There's bigger things. Yeah I mean, I thought that's actually the vibrations is a really interesting point Since that is an indicator for the scorpion smaller ones would Vibrate the soil a little bit less But yeah, maybe they're less that they have a better a closer range That they can get to a scorpion to get a female it could be it. That's why there's smaller females Smaller females smaller males closer to scorpions because they're not Or bigger females or bigger females they can get the better female for the next generation or the smaller ones The bigger females are further away from the scorpions because it's less No, not always that was that's the thing is that they could they could Get a get a female Out of their league a lice out of their normal medium size males not not the smaller ones Yeah, the smaller ones aren't aren't are ended up close to the scorpions with the little females Okay, but because but that's a that's an equal strategy survival strategy Which is how the their size diversity is persisted because the little ones can can put off less vibration and be closer to the scorpions And the big ones have to go further away To live their big lifestyles There's one extra piece of this though and that is that size is often related to egg clutch Which is part of why the female the larger females are desired So they make another large clutch, right? And so, um, just the number of eggs So that's why part of evolutionary success is linked to the size Yeah Maybe but this is also the small one is get that we need to get them away from the scorpions altogether Yeah, well now what I want to find out is The clutches do little ones make smaller woodlice and do the big ones make big, uh, you know, like If two big Woodlice have a big have a clutch. It's a large how genetically related is Are they larger woodlice that are produced and if so you have these these two strategies that are living side by side Ones that can be you know the small ones get together small ones. So here here's the here's the only issue with that though And I mean we could talk about this all night, but but we're not going to because we have that Yeah, the one issue with that though is that when you remove the scorpions from the equation Larger females are better Are they because the large one that's the basis of this study is that when you look at pure just mate choice All of the larger all of the males want the larger be the small ones prefer Larger females they go as large as they can But scorpions you add the scorpion They they they change their preference They get the largest female they can That is as close to as far away from the scorpion as possible. That is what they are trying to do These games they're involved in woodlice maybe exactly That is the take home point Oh, no, there you go. Oh woodlice. You're teaching us about the world we live in This is this week in science. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode if you are really enjoying the show If you're thinking I time subscribe to this show I really love the show every single week. How can I help the show out? Well, you can head over to twist.org click on the patreon link and support us Monthly through our patreon community choose the amount of your support $3 $5 $10 Whatever you can afford is it all helps it really does $10 a month and more and we will thank you by name at the end of the show We can't do this without you. Thank you for your support All right, Justin It's a time to bring us to some name calling and then that ancient opium that you brought Yeah, uh, let's see. Where is the uh humans? we have uh They have a a habit of naming things I have a name you have a name that thing at the end of our shoelaces has a name It's a convenience for conveyance. It's easy for conversation And memory-alike to assign names to things so that we can refer to them later biologists some Oh, is that what it is? The end of the shoelaces the aglet I just remembered I was I was thinking it the whole time I wonder what it means to say aglet Okay, sorry to interrupt No, no, no worries. Uh, I didn't know what it was. I knew it had a name But I didn't even bother looking it up because I'm like I I literally don't care I don't want to know But now I have that thank you. You do. You're welcome biologists for some awful reason at some point decided that latin was a useful language with which to name things More officially by no more nomenclature is the biological system of naming the organisms in which the name is composed of two terms with a first term indicates The genus and the second term indicates the species of the organism And actually it's up worked pretty well a little off-putting to outsiders because maybe it's hard to pronounce some things Very useful and say referencing one type of bat As opposed to one of the other 1400 ish bat species that are out there So system works basically And so my micro biologists on the other hand are doomed Because they started down the same path as the plant and animal biologists using Latin binomial nomenclature to categorize microbial life problem is There isn't enough of an agreed upon naming structure or naming method to keep up with the pace of discovery In the world of dna sequencing And I think at some point we just run out of latin words to the way like Because there are we've been making them though like there's david david bowie Animals, you just add the latin suffix on there Yeah It's kind of ridiculous But there's thousands of species of microbes are discovered every time a teapot of seawaters run through a sequencer Thousands of new versions of existing microbes are being created in labs So something must be done through the runaway train of Needing names and then a paper published in nature microbiology researchers describe Seek code a protocol that allows for the naming of newly discovered bacteria and other prokaryotes based only on their dna sequence So until until now microbiologists have to follow a proud protocol outlined in the international code of nomenclature and prokaryotics icnp As part of process researchers must succeed in growing the species in isolation in a lab Must submit a type culture of a living or frozen sample of the microbe that will serve as the reference of its identity And it sends it off to to two different world Repositories and then they also have to publish a paper with a description of it in a scientific journal Uh for it to officially be named And i'm seeing the problems with this already because not all bacteria are amenable to being To be to living in a laboratory And then being preserved As a reference is another there's all sorts of steps in there that you you can't name them all So there's well, and you just said you just said it's happening. They're discovering them too fast But this involves a peer review process Yeah There's a peer review process There's a lab process and meanwhile the the databases of microbes in That have been sequenced and are sitting in databases keeps growing exponentially So Because we have all of these new methods There we're finding samples in the air in animal guts, of course in all of the waterways of the world and soils And so yeah, there's a glut Thousands and thousands of microbes identifiable only by their dna are now waiting attempts to culture them for further characterization although as you said You know many more they're not even gonna try because they don't have anything but the dna sample them Uh The team behind seek code developed it as a response to some of these issues researchers who have deposited and published the dna sequence of a possible new prokaryote life File an application on a website. No cultures required System will automatically check to make sure the sequence is unique by going through existing databases seek code Will also require that the proposed name follows certain guidelines The whole david bowie eye aspect right making sure it's it's uh, They must just have people who are like studying latin at one of the like that's sad Oh, I found a use for your education. Oh great. Yeah, you're gonna be working at a research lab. That's amazing It's a minor. It's latin is a month. There's not many people that take latin as a major, right? Oh, i'm gonna get i'm gonna get so many letters in latin You're asking for it now Uh, even people who who can read it and even uh, understand and speak it Don't use it conversationally. That's and they're usually priests. So Uh, so anyway, they're trying to do all this, uh This is uh, jeremy dobsworth Geo microbiologist at california state university san bernadino. He has attendably bestowed the name wolf ram e raptor girl, a kensis to To a speech. Okay. So yeah, you can kind of make it up as long as it sounds latin No, he's he's putting things together and yeah, it is make it a up. I mean, yeah, david bowie eye David added attenborough again Yeah, there's make it up stuff, but okay. Just add an eye to at the end of things and you're fine so he got this he got this archery from uh Hot springs it relies on tungsten to survive and has many more species and from his research group. He plans to enter He tried to do it. He's doing it through this the the the seek naming system here Try to do it the other way, but he has not been able to grow them in complete isolation So even when he he was able to grow it in the lab It had other things growing with it and so can't submit it So this is so you can't get the traditional route name and this thing would just stay apparently unnamed and unknown to science, I guess Some microbiologists are refusing to accept the genome as sufficient evidence of the species existence Because the organism is not physically identified and growing in a lab the thinking is According to edward more at least newly discovered, but not cultured microbes are simply hypothetical microbes Which now you can see there's this divide between people who have I have the Sequenced I have the genetic code You described something because it had a flagella and drew a Cartoon and a book that's the old way the new way is I can I can actually synthetically probably reproduce this thing one day because I've discovered its genetic code and I've captured that in a database, so there's yeah, there's a little bit of a of an argument about how To name things or what when it qualifies as being named actually more though Uh, who's a microbiologist at the University of Gutenberg favors a numerical classification system But where do you even start that? Where you start or end that how do you begin the signing numbers to your number one? Your number two everyone raise your hands and when we call you number put your hand down I mean, it's just gonna be the same as the as the words, right? I mean different sequences are gonna mean different things so Well, except that we are with one two three are going to be related, right? So then but we're humans We're gonna end up putting a name to it anyway. Yes, and then hey, I'm number two, which is you know, uh David Bowie I blah blah I whatever And and that one oh by the way, there's 8,000 versions of me But so this is this is what happened the confusion that started to happen and became a parent during The diversification of the COVID-19 lineage where we started with the alpha And you know, we didn't used to call it the alpha the beta the gamma that came later We first it was just SARS-CoV-2 It was co, you know, just SARS-CoV-2 because that was it But what the geneticists started doing is they started seeing all of these mutations and diversifications And so they started tagging them and they are they were given numbers They're given like letters and numbers to Represent aspects of the mutations that are taking place and those letters and numbers have been complicated for people So then they came up and they said we need to instead of saying B14.1 blah blah blah blah, you know, we need to call it alpha beta gamma omicron But even once we started doing that it's omicron one two 2.5 I mean suddenly it's just we're getting into a name and numbers So it's a complicated question regardless And so that's what we're going to be for right now right now We are having the emergence of two different naming systems, which could be a stop gap to a universal Or maybe even a third with the with the numbering system To could be the stop gap to the or it could just end up in and future chaos uh But okay, but I want to point out because this is still nothing compared to the train wreck that is going on in the genomic gene naming side of things As many genes have actually several names or numbers Assigned to them already as they were discovered many different times without essential database Yeah in different labs, you know, uh different iterations of of genes that Do you have sometimes numerical systems attached to them of slight variations on those genes? But at the end humans will want to have a name on a thing like you say so that we can talk about it In in any kind of context of conveyance Because if you throw numbers at people It's it's already very relatable My last story of the name Is loading right now So this is a this is a new study out of Tel Aviv University, uh, which I believe is in israel They have discovered the world's earliest known evidence of opium usage Opium residue was found in ceramic vessels discovered in an excavation at a construction site back in 2012 hundreds of cannonites Graves cannonites was just being uh ancient indigenous people to the area Hundreds of these graves from the 18th to the 13th centuries bc Have been on earth at the site the vessel the vessels that contain the opium are about 3400 years old They were finding graves apparently having been used in local burial rituals rituals A number of indigenous Graves from the late bronze age were found in the excavation and led them to the of these offerings That were apparently tended to accompany the them into the afterlife What was also interesting among the pottery a large group of vessels made in cypress Not even from the area We're stood out because they kind of were similar To the shape of the poppy flower And the hypothesis had already arose already Back in the 19th century that these types of vessels were used for opium, but nobody had any proof of it now An organic residue analysis has revealed opium residue in eight vessels Some local and some made in cypress making it the earliest known evidence of use of hallucinogens in the world This is Vanessa Linares of Tel Aviv University explaining this is the only psychoactive drug That has been found in the Levant in the bronze age In 2020 researchers discovered cannabis residue on an altar in tel arad, but this Dated back to the iron age hundreds and hundreds of years after The opium and tel yahood were at this place Because the opium was found at a burial site it offers a very glimpse into the burial customs of the ancient world Of course, we do not know what the opium's role was in the ceremony Whether it was the canyons in yahood believed that the dead would need opium in the afterlife It might be a long journey Or whether it was the priests who consumed the drug for the purposes of the ceremony Maybe gave it to the the mourners Moreover, the discovery sets light on the opium trade in general One must remember that opium is produced from poppies which don't grow there, right? They grow in asia minor. So That is the territory current day turkey Whereas the pottery which we identified The opium was then was made in cypress. In other words opium was brought to yahood from turkey through cypress Although I suppose they they could have ended up in the vessels after two So some great importance was being put to this drug that was then used in a burial ceremony partway around the world Really interesting. They have no written sources To describe the use of narcotics and burial ceremonies So they're just they can only speculate As to why it was part of it why it was there why this this thing of great enough importance to Yeah, it's you know 3400 years ago Wasn't really, you know to have a trade over great distances like that just really fascinating I mean, yeah, those are those are huge distances and It's interesting to see the direction that things potentially were flowing. I mean, I think it's it's still Evidence in terms of connecting Turkey and cypress and you know all all of these places but but at the same time In in the story that they're particularly specifically telling but it it, you know, it is a good story and it you know, it tells it not just a story of you know this drug that has been used for pain relief for relaxation because of addiction has been used for ceremonial uses has been used for so many very of so many reasons throughout our history for thousands of years And it's giving some really interesting insights Let's dig up more graves and and likely just because again, uh This is this is 3400 years ago It means in turkey it was even though we don't have documentation of I guess it's the oldest in the No, it's the oldest in the world evidence that they're saying But it must predate that because if it's being grown and exported from turkey It's probably been there for a much longer time Yeah, although we're not, you know This is not necessarily drug usage as we do it in our pharmaceutical grade mass production Addiction riddled world of today You know things these sorts of things this was a crop that was grown that didn't have a food usage So could only have been really utilized for this purpose There and it looks like it was used ceremonially not not recreational at least at least By the candidates or whoever the indigenous people were there 3400 years ago Let's tell that story. We don't know we weren't there until we have other evidence. That's the way that it looks Mm-hmm I've got a couple stories for the end of the show here. Let's schmooze Everyone Let's talk about schmooze schmooze Is a newly discovered small protein which is part of a family of proteins a group a type of protein That's tiny. It's called a micro protein. They are much much smaller than Normally studied proteins and historically proteins that have been studied there But like 20,000 of them or so and they're just big They're the proteins that researchers can see and have been paying attention to and more recently These micro proteins have gained a lot of interest along with stuff That's RNA sized, you know, little tiny proteins that can slip in and in between the cracks in our cells that can maybe Diffuse a little bit more easily across membranes and get places and take care of jobs That they might have that we've ignored for so long. So schmooze Is part of this family of micro proteins. It's approximately the size of the insulin peptide And it can be very easily administered And it has been discovered as just reported in molecular psychiatry that the schmooze protein Is encoded by a newly discovered gene within the mitochondria. That's the part of the cell that Is responsible for producing the energy the ATP that your cell uses for its metabolism And uh, it is also associated with some 20 to 50 percent higher risk of Alzheimer's disease And nearly a quarter of people of european ancestry have a mutated version of this protein Quarter of people of european ancestry And so have this protein mutated conferring 20 to 50 percent higher risk of Alzheimer's disease so the interesting part here is that uh historically And I think we talked about it on the show a while ago the There's been one direction that's been pushed In Alzheimer's research for many years and it came out in the beginning of the summer that A lot of research is now being questioned with respect to the its validity and the pathway of Alzheimer's Research and there have been a group of people quietly working in the background Saying well, maybe it's not these amyloid plaques and maybe it's not it doesn't work exactly We're not seeing these things work the same way and maybe there's other pathways and so Some people are saying hey, maybe Alzheimer's is an immune system Dysfunction maybe it's something going wrong with the brain's immune system leading it to miss mischaracterize Markers on cells and attack there are other researchers going down this route of looking at mitochondrial dysfunction And so this is where this particular schmooze protein comes into the story Is that it being within the mitochondria it opens up kind of new directions For addressing potentially Alzheimer's disease and more broadly mitochondrial function Super important too because as we discussed We got a couple weeks ago the The initial amyloid black research that set us down this path and Looking at it from just one perspective Is unreproducible That's what I was saying. Yeah, thank you Worst thing that has ever had the worst research ever boom doggal Fakery, I mean I was taught that like it was ever like it was gospel in school talking about the plaques It was all what it was about billions of dollars pursuing this and countless brilliant minds And and Yeah count countless minds working on that but many minds Sitting back and looking at the data going. There's something wrong here And so thankfully there have been people working in parallel on different directions potentially getting funding. Yeah getting funding through other other pathways, but This particular study it's very it's It's it's interesting also because they're they used Modern techniques of big data. They identified genetic variations in mitochondrial DNA that were associated with Alzheimer's risk and then they were able to Uh discover the the mutated gene code for the micro protein and then start looking at how It's the gene was encoded into various protein the micro protein protein forms and how that changed things and they've done uh cell culture and animal experiments showing changes in energy metabolism based on schmooz levels And where schmooz is living inside the mitochondria in the inner mitochondrial membrane uh, so it's a it's a really number one Could be very impactful just for Alzheimer's but number two This particular path of looking into micro proteins is a huge huge research area because these little proteins Are relatively unstudied as yet. Yeah And there's a lot more So many names to come up with my final story for the night is about moss Of moss and humans And you might think that this is a story about ecology and how we interact with the environment But no it is a story about how researchers published their work in nucleic acids research on how they took gene mutation machinery from moss and Put it into human cells so they took moss genes Making moss proteins or put them in human cells and then check to see what would happen. Well normally in the moss cell this mutation or uh, or you know error correction machinery in these little plant cells It is active on two points And it's only active Fixing the RNA transcript So it's kind of like you've you've got a printing press right and the error is in The the plates for that printing press So you print the book and then you go oh we got it wrong and you go in and you correct the pages that have been printed after the fact That's kind of what this error correction machinery does in moss Anyway, they said oh, let's see what happens. This is this evolutionary machinery They don't have very many errors. It's awesome human cells. We've got all these errors all the time We've got cancers. We've got all sorts of problems because we got all these mutations and errors We don't fix the problems as much as we should So let's see what happens. They expected that it would just dive into the human cell and change the RNA but That's not what it did in the same way what they found is that this moss error editing machines ppr 5 6 and ppr 6 5 Which only act in the mitochondria also in moss Introduce nucleotide changes in RNA transcripts of the cell nucleus in human cells And are active at over 900 points in the human cell targets as opposed to the two where it's active in moss And so they did not expect this at all And so this this moss Problem solving machinery It is working differently in human cells and they don't really know why so Is moss something that can become a symbiont and other things It can yes, okay. Well, it's Well, not some species. Yes, right. Maybe this is one of them They could be Maybe this is like, yeah, like, okay, we have a whole plan for this because this is how we've done stuff in the past Somewhere in our genomic hope although I have to say the the my biggest takeaway from this This study is how well you resisted making the of moss and men I I thought about it of moss and men. Yes Oh That's a good one too No, no, no Well, go ahead and moss me up make me boss woman Correct my genetic mistakes. I'm down. So they've just they've just done this in cells But the question is, you know, we have evolved on land and our You know error correction in human cells. It's not great. I mean we have a lot it keeps Down a lot of mutations for sure But there are mutations in all of our cells constantly every cell that divides is a new opportunity for more mutations to arise within our genome within those cells as we are living And it would be great if we could solve that problem we could reduce cancers we could Increase health we could potentially lead to longer lives. These are these are all sorts of Benefits that that would come from improving the error correction of our of our gene copying So Let's see what happens We'll have the moss men future. Maybe moss men will go live on another planet I just need I would just need to take Need to dunk myself keep myself nice and moist That's great. You could hang out with the ants in the moist forest. Yes Blair Blair in the mossy forest That does it for me for my stories. Do we have anything else tonight? Just our good nights just And I do I do hope it is a good night for all Thank you for joining us for another episode of this week in science time for some shout outs for the science friends We do appreciate our science friends out there all of you who are watching live. 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then all of a sudden it would go your internet's gone and it did that every couple minutes it would it would be there long enough for me to load a story i'd go to scroll and then it would it would break and go nope i can't read that anymore so hi thanks it's so uh Xfinity did not list any outages but uh a third party site said there was an outage in my area code so like i think there there obviously was something there was a struggle happening right maybe everyone's watching andor because i came out today i don't know three episodes three episodes yeah they dropped three at once i have not seen any of them no spoilers thank you internet i will see them tomorrow triple premiere oh that's that's totally what it is the entire bay area is just watching yeah it's just watching and or for all of you who are here with us this evening i just want to say thank you for watching twists instead of instead of before after matter you chose us now thank you what are we competing with what's going on and or what i mean with blair on the show i think we really do fit within the star wars universe there you go there we go i got two i got two helmets yeah it's all good uh blair do you need to run away i do i have to run away i'll be here next week uh internet permitting if it's not one thing it's another huh well just make sure that we all sacrifice some hummus and pita to the internet gods yes yeah absolutely i i sacrifice a lots of ball soup to the to the internet gods earlier tonight that was that was not sufficient i guess all right well i'll see you both next week happy you be back missed you last week enjoyed watching that was a wild experience trolling you in the youtube trolling i know i saw your comments i'm like oh blair trying to bring you into the show as as much as i could yeah no i saw all right well say good night blair good night blair say good morning justin good morning justin and i don't know kiki are you saying good night i don't know are you guys yeah all right good night kiki good night everyone thank you for joining us for another episode of this week in science we look forward to seeing you next week take care be safe stay stay safe stay healthy right and stay curious let's keep waving all night