 We are here. It's time for this week in science's live broadcast of our podcast It's morning for Justin it's evening on the west coast for me and Blair We hope that wherever you are it is some time in the day Yeah, I'm in space exist for you that is our sincere hope It is our hope We used to be We blowed our expectations. We just like you to be on a planet in our universe Yeah, on a planet far far away Welcome we're gonna start this show. Are we ready to go? We got it all good? Yeah, yeah, I think everyone's ready to go then so let's get this party started in three two This is Twist this week in science episode number eight hundred fifty nine recorded on Wednesday, January 19th, 2022 Within the margin of error Error error error I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show we will fill your head with Concussions disruptions and curiosity but first Disclamer disclaimer disclaimer intelligent life It was not tried before on this planet before the human lineage not like this anyway A life form with such great intelligence and creativity the tool maker the builder the architect and engineer Able to transform hostile terrains into suburban sprawl Well ever able to change behaviors and adapt to new environments when needed the language user able to talk and tell and teach Passing information from one generation to the next a collaborator a competitor A connoisseur a creature unlike anything the world has seen before humans are a grand experiment of sorts But as far as sustainability goes it is still being tested Whenever there has been a human weakness with humans they have sought to overcome it with technology with culture with science But as things stand now there's one weakness that is going unchecked which threatens all the progress we have made so far The almost entire rack of critical thinking among among many of its human peoples Critical thinking that approached in navigating information is able to tell a good source from a garbage source Critical thinking the ability to understand interrogate information without bias Critical thinking that human skill that can develop and replaces attempts to complain our way out of trouble Instead thinking our way out Critical thinking the only thing you'll ever need to bring with you to another episode of This Week in Science Coming up next I've got the kind of mind that can't get enough I wanna discover is it happen every day of the week There's only one place to go to find the This is that I don't know what just happened there Decided to go to the next song really fast Do your good science thing again I think it does that most of the time It doesn't do that most of the time It does I catch it most of the time No Good I did the beginning of my good And now we gotta do it again again So we're never gonna get out of the starting box in this rate Here we go Good science to you Kiki and Blair And a good science to you too Justin, Blair and everyone out there Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science We're ready for another wonderful show full of science surprises Woo-hoo, curiosities from the world around us Made real by investigation and knowledge Let's talk about it Yeah Tonight on the show I have stories about What do I have? I've got some Poo pills I brought my poo pills I've also got ribosomal disruptions And I have Oh yes One of the other most great stories Bone building bots I don't know Yeah, bone building bots And lots of COVID stuff But what do you have Justin? Sticking with the bee alliteration I've got 40 billion black holes B-b-b-bellion Anti-freeze mice Cream And two stories about my wife on Mars baby Two Oh wow, okay That is a plethora, almost a virtual plethora Blair, what is in the animal corner? I have a story about tiger parts I have also cheating birds And before we get to the animal corner and the short stories I have a concussion Sorry, what happened? What happened this week? I have a story about concussion Okay, yeah Well that's better Alright everyone, if you have not yet subscribed to us You can find us all places that podcasts are found Look for This Week in Science We are streaming live on Facebook on YouTube and Twitch This Week in Science on Facebook and YouTube Twist Science on Twitch T-W-I-S-C-I-E-N-C-E We are also Twist Science on Instagram and Twitter And if I'm forgetting anything You can find all sorts of information at twist.org Alright, let's dive into the science We're gonna start this show off with some tech I've talked, yeah, I've talked previously On the show about quantum computing And one of the issues with quantum computing Being its failure rate The number of errors that are just going to pop up At the quantum level, lots of bits flipping back and forth There are errors all the time And if you are going, especially if you're talking about cosmic rays And little tiny things that can be impacted By all sorts of stuff around it You have to make sure that if you're gonna make a computer A computer processor that is quantum based That it has a very low failure rate A very high accuracy rate And so to this week, not today, but this week There are three papers that have been published in Nature And they all report different methods Of increasing the accuracy of quantum computing In their two bit spin based processors To over 99.5% accuracy So they are getting to the point that This is going to lead to the chips For the quantum computers that are yet to come So there are two teams One team, researchers at Q-Tech Which is a collaboration between Delft University of Technology and TNO And another team out of Reichen Who have been using silicon based Semiconductor spin qubits They have both gotten well above the 99% barrier For two bit, qubit, gate fidelity And then a group out of the Out of UNSW Sydney They have a silicon based quantum processor That uses a different system Two phosphorus atoms that have been introduced Into the silicon chips And so it's those phosphorus atoms with electrons Spinning around the atoms So the atom bits are going back and forth And back and forth And the electrons can kind of get shared around And so the electrons that get shared Between the two phosphoreses Can get shared with other phosphoreses And so it allows these communication aspects To take place And it reduces error In their group out of NSW Sydney They reported 99.37% accuracy Which TNO, that sounds like Depending on what you're doing That sounds like a really good error rate Right But a phone call Just googling it A telecommunications error rate That's considered okay is like 10 to the 9th Okay, so I mean, maybe it's a big improvement Over what they had before But that means your computer You're going to turn it on every once in a while Yeah I'm not into that It's nothing though I'm not going to do it And because there's so much processing going on all the time It could actually manifest In a really huge reduction of ability to rely on Yes That's what I was thinking about Is the sheer number of calculations happening Meaning that it's going to Exactly It's the law of big numbers And so if you have the massive numbers of calculations Even if it's a small error rate It can still be a big error rate It can still be a problem Depending on what you're dealing with So, yeah Well, remember what the fatality rate of COVID is And what that's actually turned out to be In human numbers Yeah, so to turn it into something that's real-time right now Yeah Gosh, Dware Take it right through that Right out the beginning of the show I think it's a very good reminder For people who have not understood how big numbers work This is in your face This is how a very small percentage turns into big numbers When you're working with an original really big number There's something that I know would happen Which is that the hardcore computer enthusiast With their like 128-bit resolution screen Is going to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah But it's quantum It's quantum Yeah, but your display is all blocks Yeah, yeah, yeah But it's quantum blocks Okay, fine The big aspect of this really is that this Before they were getting accuracy rates That were below 99% accuracy They were getting in the 98% range Which just wasn't enough And now that they are above Especially with some of the methods out of Reichen And Delft universities They're looking at into the 99.5% accuracy rate Which all of these make it plausible That any of these technologies could be adapted, Mass produced and used And especially the Australian group in Sydney Their silicon chips, they aren't semiconductors Their silicon chips with the phosphorus Is something that could be used in the manufacturing technology That we currently have So it wouldn't be a lot different to upgrade Or to change manufacturing So yeah, so we're getting there The quantum computing, it is coming And it's, you know To have three papers come out all at once These are independent groups Reporting that they're getting there So this is great Replication is part of science Justin, what do you have? Okay Okay, let me tell you something You know I'll know the song 40 billion billion black holes on the wall 40 billion billion black holes Take one down, pass it around 39 quintillion 999 Quadrillion 999 Trillion 999 Billion 999 Million 999 9999 Black holes on the wall Everybody That's going to take a long time Yeah, that is a really big number Seeing the big numbers Speaking of big numbers But that's how many black holes Apparently they're out there 40 quintillion spaghettification zones A four followed by 19 zeros Or a 40 followed by 19 zeros And each one of them More massive than the sun Some just a couple of suns Some hundreds and hundreds of suns Are spread out there And that's anywhere in the universe That's not our galaxy doesn't have that many But anyhow all over So this is a first in a series of papers Being published in the astrophysical journal One of the kind of fun things I saw out of this So researchers determined that about 1% of matter in the universe Is already locked up in stellar mass black holes Right We've already lost 1% of our universe We're not getting back That's not it being lost It's us knowing where it is We know right where it is Well isn't that one of the big questions Out of circulation Oh we're missing all this matter Where is it? Oh okay so It's in the black holes 1% of it is in the black holes But this is technically So this is 1% of the baryonic matter That what we call matter matter So it's not that all Because we're like what 4% So it's 1% of the 4% Of matter in the universe then I guess Is locked up into these black holes The 4% that is all the stuff That we interact with That we know that we call matter Is such a small portion of What's in the universe Oh I thought you were reading that Like the dark matter So that's the thing Is the dark matter So 4% is baryonic right And then there's like So they say 1% of the baryonic matter Is locked up into black holes already But it makes me wonder If something can be Gravitational and attractive As we now have learned from a Oh I don't know if we talked about it last week Yeah we did The anti-matter was Responded gravity just like anything else So it would end up in black holes Maybe the dark matter does too Maybe that's where the missing matter is Maybe it's already in a black hole Mmm Anyway I thought that was a fun story Mostly because I got to sing that song though I was actually thinking about And then I started to panic Because I'm bad with big numbers Big numbers are impossible to hold In your brain and do a thing That you can actually Oh gosh then because There's 70 sextillion Stars In the estimated In the universe There's already 40 quintillion black holes Does that mean there's like Which one's the bigger Large giant number And it turns out It's not even a Big number by itself The difference between The number of stars And the number of black holes But still It's a big number So does estimating this This just gives us a better idea Of how everything's distributed Is this just like oh So now we know okay stars The ratio of stars to black holes Yeah I just liked it because I got to sing about black holes But the real So one of the kind A little bit deeper than I got into it though Is they were This analysis was based on Figuring out how black holes Form where they would form What different galaxies And gases and things Where the metals are in the universe Where the mass is in the universe So it is They've actually also said that they can backtrack this This isn't just a current map That they can play back Towards the beginning Formation of the universe So this is over all of time That they're sort of looking at These formations Right so if we know That they're black holes now Then they were stars previously And this is like how things probably Added up Yeah this is how they added up This is where the metals are In the universe Cool so it's part of a much Bigger piece of research But it does make for a fun song If you're on a long road trip Starwood don't forget to Go straight to the black holes And start counting down If nothing else it teaches the kids About really big numbers Alright Belair do you have Big numbers for us No You're gonna sing sailor songs No I have a story about When you get a concussion And You're like I'm alright coach Put me back in And how that's a bad idea We think you have a concussion Difficult to diagnose Difficult to track Difficult to figure out where you are On your healing journey from a concussion And so with all that A group of researchers From Boston Children's Hospital Kind of out of a chance meeting Between Sports medicine doctors And Somebody who worked with Urine Decided to look at Urine to see if you Could find out whether a person has a concussion Or not from a urine sample And so It turns out that There are actually Markers in urine That can let you know If a patient has had a concussion Or not Yeah So they looked at 95 athletes 48 who sustained concussions And 47 controls They measured proteins in mass spectroscopy And Of the 71 proteins That differed significantly between the two groups The two stood out most Were IGF 1 5 Which were both actually Lower post concussions Significantly lower And that's because they're directly related With brain injury repair So the body retains them after concussion Rather than excreting them in urine So if there's suddenly less of these proteins That is a good indicator That that individual has gotten a concussion So are they then Having to compare the sample Against a previous sample Because I mean if it's like this went down You'd have to know Or is it like oh this is what it normally Is in the blood And it's just not that Yeah so So in this kind of first version They're doing a lot of that baseline Versus current But in theory you could come up with background levels For a general population And be able to make a much better Educated guess than how we currently Diagnose concussions Which is a less invasive Process than getting stuck In a CAT scan And can be done Very quickly and easily In the field even You can just kind of check for a specific thing And say okay you're benched Yeah for high schools it might be A little bit different But for definitely for professional sports They're probably taking urine samples Before the game anyway So it could be very personalized That's cool That would be great Their next step is They want to expand The kind of the realm Of who they're looking at Still planning on looking at athletes for now But it sure would have been great After I got in that car accident For me to be able to just pee In a cup instead of go in a CAT scan And for them to be like I don't see anything bad But you have other symptoms Okay It would be really nice To be able to say yes You have a concussion Figure that out really quickly Without sticking you in a machine Go home Lay on the couch Yeah brain injuries They're so difficult to diagnose And they are their brain tissue Yes you can have inflammation Yes you can have swelling You can see some of those things Always there and it's not Always visible the way that we look And so that's yeah that's a great one I like it I mean especially for the high school athletes Maybe we can Prevent further damage that will Hurt the kids long term I mean that would be great to prevent Kids from going out and getting A second concussion in Succession kids and adults Because that is often where a lot Of trouble starts is when you get The repeated concussions in Kind of a short window Oh you just had a Massive crash with your head To get somebody else maybe we won't put you back in That sounds like just a good crash And that's new because of course it used to be I got your bell wrong Best way to recover is to get back out there And get it in there Toughen up kiddo This is one of those fields And you know Is going to The money they spent on sports medicine Does translate To the rest of society With a lot of innovation That comes specifically From keeping athletes on the field Or knowing when to take them off Question from the chat room Did it say how long it takes For the markers to show up Great question And since I lost all of my notes I My computer decided to refresh All of my tabs and I lost all of my Notes but I don't See it So let's see Athletes who sustained a concussion That were diagnosed by Sports medicine physician provided a repeat Year in sample within seven days and again One, three, six and Twelve months after the injury So they weren't doing like A really quick Sample This isn't on the sideline Within seven days This is to see if you can play Next week In theory it would be great If everyone got pulled as soon as There was a suspect of head injury But You know We do what we can Okay probably in a very tasteless Segway Speaking of put me back in Researchers have been working on Pooh pills To treat Untreatable bowel disease So people who have Infect bowel infections With clostridium difficile which Can be Devastating to health It's very difficult To treat and over The past what five ten years Researchers have realized that People with healthy microbiomes And their gut if you transfer If you transfer The feces From a healthy person to A diseased person that that feces Can make the diseased person's Gut better because it Repopulates the microbiome of the gut In order to Not just be taking feces From one person to another What they've been doing is Growing bacterial spores That were isolated initially From feces. They have created Pills full Of these bacterial spores That can be taken with a glass Of water to as a Treatment and they just Completed their Third or their phase three Clinical trial And were very Successful in Their efforts and so this new Pill is called Sir S-E-R 109 made By series therapeutics It It The stool from Prescreen donors is treated with Ethanol to kill all the viruses Fungi and vegetative bacteria And so what gets left behind Are spores, nothing That's actually active And a lot of them are from A phylum that's called Firmicutes and this group Compets with C difficile In the gut for resources And usually wins That's what you hope for and so The Firmicutes can also Change the composition of bile acids Which then change the pH Of the gut and change The habitability for C difficile In this phase three Trial they had a higher Dose they included 182 Participants that were Infected with C difficile And they were randomized For placebo or not And after following A standard course Of antibiotics They were given their treatment C difficile infection Recurred in 40% of the Placebo group but only 12% of the treatment group So Small study still 182 but this will pave the way For phase four trials And open A study of this being Applied for FDA approval to see whether Or not they can treat People with gut disease With C difficile infection With Bacterial spore pills You must be doing something Because C difficile I'm not mistaken It has a So what do you call it? Like a hibernation mode Where it's a rough little Nut to crack Which is why Like this 40% That it resurfaces Because it sort of hides Goes into a Like a pod mode Or whatever Make any upping words It's the spore It's the same as Survived the alcohol And the cleaning of the feces But from healthy Guts it's the good bacteria And so it's the spores And it's the C difficile spores That survive to re-infect the gut But in this case because you start giving the pills The firm acutes can come in And just go uh-uh This is ours Out-compete Out-compete Microbiome gut competition Like I don't know The microbiome version Of Like uh-uh When you send in a species to Compete with another species Biological control Let's hope it doesn't end up Like the rabbits Or other stories That we know The toads, yeah The toads, exactly What you got next, Justin New skin cream is being developed To combat frostbite In mice Apparently this is a big mouse problem Uh-uh Poor mice out there with their little toes People who uh Live, work, recreate, and cool temperatures Are at risk of frostbite The condition that happens When ice crystals form In the skin and they can cause damage To the muscles, to the bone To nerves And in defense For somebody who gets frostbite Is just warm up Just warm up really quick Problem is, a lot of people who get frostbite The reason they got frostbite Is because they're out in a sort of extreme Uh, remote location And which is why they're so uh Exposed to the elements So that creates the delays Which means the condition can Do some permanent damage That permanent damage can be Awful scarring To amputation of limb So it's a really uh You know, really Horrible thing to have frostbite Okay, this is an ACS Applied biomaterials Researchers developed a cream That prevents frostbite injuries in mice When applied to the skin 15 minutes before Severe cold exposure The researchers wanted to test The frostbite prevention properties Like molecules commonly used In labs to cryopreserve Cells So they're like, hey, this is uh This is how we're preserving The cells in our lab When we put them into the deep freeze Why not use it on humans But first mice So it's dimethyl So foxide DMSO Which keeps crystals from forming inside cells Whereas polyvinyl alcohol That prevents ice crystals In the spaces between cells Which can damage membranes So they developed a formula Of this which yielded a survival Cell survival about 80% While protecting cell membrane And cytoskeleton Combination also allows cells to divide And still express proteins More normally after cold stress So this is not just preventing The initial injury but also Speeding up the recovery from injury The team then mixed their formula With commercially available aloe vera cream And applied it to the skin of mice 15 minutes before a cold challenge The cream reduced frostbite Wound-sized tissue damage and inflammation Sped healing Compared with no treatment The cream did not prevent frostbite When applied 30 minutes or more Before the cold challenge however So multiple applications Of the cream Not a problem, the skin was not damaged In our study The effects of the antifreeze Of course in people How frequently it would need to be replied Still has to be determined So this is a big deal for anyone At risk for frostbite But is it practical? Because it sounds like you need to Anticipate the exposure In advance And then be able to apply the cream In a way that isn't causing The exposure in the first place So the first thing I thought of Was putting it on my dog's feet I was taking her out to the snow Yeah, that's a smart idea You don't have little dog shoes? No Little doggy snow booties But it could also I can imagine it would be useful For people into Extreme outdoor Exploration The adventurers who head up To the tops of Places like Mount Everest People who Because there you are, there you are Lying awake in your tent Thinking about how that second cup Of hot cocoa at the end of it Long days of mountaineering seemed Like such a good idea at the time Only now With the sun gone down Alpine winds howling At your tent flaps Now is your full bladder Makes you twist and squirm In your arctic sleeping bag Now it occurs to you That your image of raving the Elements when you set up this adventure Vacation absolutely did not include Bearing your essentials to The icy blast of a frigid sub-zero Gale So now Now Maybe this product doesn't look So bad, suddenly The mockery of the Vettan mountaineers was worth it As you generously cover Your exposed surfaces Your soon-to-be exposed surfaces With 15-minute antifreeze And you think, who's laughing now They should make themselves Cursed and hold their manhoods Cheap upon the peak for fear Of frostbite that they did not Dare to pee with you upon this night The next morning they get around The campfire with all the Human hard cursing Mountain guys And you tell them your tale of terror And bravery and triumph in the night And then they go I usually Use a bottle for that It's nice to know You haven't thought about this at all Justin It's like the one scenario I could come up with Where you were like, okay 15 minutes, I got 15 minutes And I'm going to think ahead And then you've got to know That you're going to be exposed To be exposed to get back in again It's the only scenario I could think of You would Plausible You would really ever use that Alright Alright, alright What's up next? Is it my turn? Blair, did you have another one? Alright, so I'm going to move on We didn't play pee poo stories in a row, by the way And this is not a planned... We don't sit around and talk about like, hey Should we talk about pee and poo that just happened That way We don't plan it ahead of time Nope, this just is the magic of twists Great minds And then there's us And then there's us, yes So, you know, every time I see a story That's related to aging I always think about Blair And how she doesn't want to age And so I'm like, okay, I've got to report all the things So that Blair can become An ages head in a jar In the museum In Futurama And so Researchers have been, you know Delving into our cellular Elements to determine What? What can explain aging? Why do we get misfolded proteins? And then there's the Things that lead to diseases Like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's And so a group Out of Stanford University has published In Nature this All this week Their work looking into The ribosome They weren't necessarily Initially Looking at the ribosome They were doing detectiving To look at the system The protein Translation Transcription translation So you have the copying from the DNA Then it moves from that copy To the ribosome And the ribosome is the organelle In the cells that takes everything And starts putting it into the little pieces That are necessary to fold it into the protein And What? Oh, yeah, if I could use A quick analogy The ribosome is that giant Copier In the office that when it gets jammed You always have to call the one person Who knows how to get into it To pull it It's way down in there One guy who knows how to get away But it's the printer For doing that translation It turns the proteins Out one side mRNA Yeah, mRNA Comes in and it turns into proteins Because of the magic Of the ribosome So the researchers were Looking at the ribosome going, okay What's going on here? And they discovered In their Very Very high resolution Search They really got close to those Organelles and things Moving along in the cells They looked in yeast And they also looked in sea Alligans, the wonderful Little worm that is the staple Of laboratories around the world And they looked at the movement Of the ribosomes on The messenger RNA and they found That older cells Have Ribosomes that move a little More slowly and those Ribosomes actually Like stall sometimes And even bump into each other There's Disorganization happening In that Translation process And so When they have decreases In the ribosome performance That also increased the amount Of misfolding that occurred And the number of aggregated Misfolded proteins that they saw And so the researchers say This is a two-pronged situation Where aging leads to increased Stalling and increased ribosome Collisions But the cell loses the safety Net to deal with it Because also in aging As that ribosome Is creating the proteins That would normally be used To clean up the cell It's messing up the proteins That would be used to clean up the cell And so the whole system Starts to degrade Because the machinery that makes the system So the researchers Went on to do From the yeast experiments And to do some more experiments With the worms and they found that Even if the overall fraction of Newly made proteins With altered translation Is low, this little effect Even just 10% Can overwhelm The ability of quality Control to work in the cell And start to disrupt processes Within the cells themselves So it is an Issue now that it It all Dominoes It all is a process One piece linked to the other But now we can see That there may be targets That are involved in translation And transcription That we should be looking at How can we find out Well, the next questions Interested in Why does aging affect ribosomes And how can we fix it Because if we can Keep the ribosomes Spray Then you might be able To reduce the amount of Mutations. And so they actually went on And did an experiment in which They reduced Mutations That were related to aging In the ribosomes. And of course the ribosomes Continued to work well. So this is a Direction that they're going to be working Fix the ribosomes Fix the cellular safety net And keep your cells Blair Healthier, longer Give me fresh ribosomes Ribosomes Don't let it avalanche Don't let it go There's something about the New version of life finds a way Eventually life just Gives up Sometimes it does Eventually life quitter talk And I won't know about it Eventually life stops trying Go home Go home This is This Week in Science Please don't go home yet We still have much more science to come And we do appreciate the time That you're spending with us tonight If you do enjoy the show And share it with a friend Okay let's move on to our Covid update Doo doo doo doo Doo doo doo doo Doo doo doo Beep beep Doo doo doo Pie Bada bada Bada bada Covid news Covid news with Dr. Geeky So any good news this week Dr. Geeky Yeah, I don't know. It's all it's all kind of Sorry, I can't let me just give it to you. Okay, so some researchers looked at original data did a meta-analysis of bunch of the clinical trials of The clinical trials looking at the Again my things around here. Let's see clinical trials for the vaccines that are currently in use They looked at the placebo controlled COVID-19 vaccine trials to compare the results of adverse events between the vaccine groups and the placebo control groups to see Adverse events what's going on because we want to know like where are those adverse events really coming from and in their overall analysis of Adverse events what they found from 12 clinical trials of these vaccines Adverse events reports from 22,578 placebo recipients and 22,802 vaccine recipients That's a lot of adverse events on both sides of the coin They compared the numbers and they said that they found that after the first injection more than 35 percent of placebo recipients experienced systemic adverse events fever headache fatigue all sorts of adverse events 16% of placebo recipients also reported like pain or swelling at the site of injection which of course That poked exactly the first injection from the vaccine recipients. They had 46% experiencing One of those adverse events and at least two-thirds of them reported one local event like the pain and the swelling They received the vaccine the pharmacology pharmacologically active treatment So what this means is at least some of their adverse events are placebo because the placebo event events are very likely placebo and so what the Researchers are saying is going on here is that this is actually what is called a no-cebo effect It is a harmful or negative placebo result so a large number of The adverse events that anyone gets vaccine Pharmacologically active event, you know having received fever headache fatigue Just because you got a shot I mean is possible. This is not this is court. This is just looking at the data Yes, but the it's the comparison of the numbers between the placebo and the Vaccine group that give us give the researchers this conclusion I Suspected this if only because in my anecdotal experience of people around me a Lot of people who are like who get my vaccine today. I'm not looking forward to feeling like Who for two days? I'm not I know it. Yes, they they inevitably felt terrible oh And so and the people in my life like myself who are like, I'm fine It's fine. I'm fine. I was like you say that but I didn't even I had even heard about I had not even heard about there being like Day after a second shot thing That you could like there was no negative effect. I hadn't even heard about it till you told me about it And I was in bed for like two days Yeah That is not saying that there are not real adverse events, this is not minimizing that at all But it is the end and the placebo and no sebo effects are Real people do feel bad people do have fatigue and headache fever Yeah, that's a fever have a response, right? It's a systemic response this is your body responding to It's Itself really because you have primed it to respond in a particular way, but it's a The researchers who worked on this though They're not putting this information out to try and make anybody feel bad or to you know to Nullify or negate anybody's experience of Adverse events They happen people feel a way to do yes But what the researchers say? Medicine is based on trust our findings lead us to suggest that informing the public about the potential for no sebo responses Could help reduce worries about COVID-19 vaccination, which might decrease vaccination hesitancy so if we started talking about some of the Effects of just being afraid of a shot just or you know the pills that you take or whatever medication that there is this effect So that you should just be ready for whatever, but don't worry about it. Yeah, and this is just one thing I would love is I would love another double-blind study that's all plus ebos but the one that's being told they're getting a vaccine one that's being told they're getting like a Vitamin booster shot or something like that because I'm wondering if The thing that I would if I just look this in that I don't put a third of people into the having a placebo Effect is that I would I would just maybe There's a reaction people have to getting a shot that has nothing to do with what's in it But I could just be a natural reaction getting any shot. Yeah Because at that point then you Can be prepared for that going into any trial of anything that's injected But because that seems that seems high a third Which means the people who do get the shot if a third have an effect the other third could be a placebo Type of accident that's when they got they came up with an over like two-thirds of people of the two-thirds of vaccine responses Could be falling somewhere in that category I'm betting they have data for many many many clinical trials of injectables placebo responses. Oh Yeah, just any clinical trial has to have that kind of I mean if they get went bigger. This was just COVID vaccine specifically So it would be really interesting to do kind of a larger study Looking at placebo responses across the board and injectables kind of to Justin's point, right? Yeah Skin was pierced Well, it's something put in there and the body going like oh, we don't know what it is gear up because yeah What do we do that with other than vaccines and that's typically a vaccine symptom that you're expecting to get Whether whatever the vaccine is that's kind of what you expect Maybe a little bit of fatigue and soreness and all that kind of stuff it's I mean, I also think there's something to be said for allowing kind of the The idiot light on your own personal dashboard to go off and respond to it And you know, we walk through our lives of so many weird random aches and pains Especially, you know, as you get older, you're like, oh, that hurts today. That's great moving on with my life I'm gonna forget about it, right? And then if you if you give yourself Permission to feel bad It allows you to focus on that pain and and kind of give into it in a way this is my personal experience We're not gonna talk about how I went to bed this afternoon And then got out of bed took a shower popped an ibuprofen had a glass of wine and now I'm here So I think there is something really real to giving yourself permission Yes to feel crummy And it it makes it maybe makes you feel worse than you would have if you were trying to power through your day But ultimately if you tell yourself like, okay, I'm gonna allow myself to have a terrible headache for two days There is some psychosomatic Implications there I think and it depends on who you are and what you're doing I was watching the sports ball game from the last weekend and one of the one of the my favorite players Debo Samuels Sitting there on the sideline You know looking at the game and he's been playing but you can see he's got he's totally skinned his like forearm And it's like raw and bloody and he's like he's killing me pay any less attention to it. He's not even That I would have been like, oh, I need a skin graph Wrap me up take me to the hospital But he uh, you know Professional athletes live in a state of dealing with pain is a normal part of life Not affecting Yeah, which is why it was part of why I think that that um on the whole men Responded poorly to the vaccine as compared to women is Women are used to being a pain All got man flu from it. Yeah, what feels bad today What does it feel bad today? Really? I just wait for the days that I do feel good. That's what I look forward to in life. Oh, this is strange How weird I get one day this month awesome all right COVID Additionally has to affecting just about everything in daily life. Um, it has affected How sensitive we are To things that we find disgusting I love this story. I wanted to bring it and I didn't at the last second. I'm really glad you brought it It's so good So these researchers were testing Hypotheses an old hypothesis about disgust was that basically you are you and you're going to find Things disgusting. You're basically going to always have the same level of disgust about particular things That's just you and how you respond to stuff And so these researchers at Ohio State University were like, yeah, let's test that out and so They, uh, they published their work in the journal personality and individual differences and they looked at, um They looked at What is known as the calibration hypothesis which suggests that disgust Sensitivity is a more fluid measure that changes with time and circumstance So they had a bunch of surveys from 2018 so pre pandemic to 2020 and then They looked at it. There's about 2,300 participants and they compared using this. Yay pandemic natural experience opportunity Uh to see whether or not people's level of disgust changed and there were some really Interesting results. So the sensitivity scale this disgust sensitivity scale Has people rate experiences and they rate them on a scale of zero to four and they will rate Have you rate things like smelling urine while walking in a tunnel under a railroad track? Seeing someone put ketchup on vanilla ice cream and eat it I Love that you find that more disgusting than the urine She's a big city. She's from San Francisco. The smell of urine on a walk is normal. That's nature Yeah, also those zookeeper come on They had them they had them rate visual images like rotten meat with maggots in it uh to see what was The most unappealing and they found that the Average pee pre not pee pandemic pre pandemic sensitivity was 2.82 And during the pandemic that increased to 3.26 And so it got worse. Yeah, I'm thinking with all these people ran who can't smell any more Yeah, we're getting better but what their hypothesis is what they're concluding from the results is that basically because we are in this disease scenario where our Sensitivity is heightened. We're looking for those like oh my gosh. Someone just sneezed in the elevator. Ah, you know whereas pre-pandemic Someone's sneezing in the elevator. It's like it's in tight You know science. Whoo But after it's suddenly like oh my god. You just infected me. You know, this is this very big deal. So Instead of it just being related to disease transmission what these researchers conclude is that it is a general disgust That just disgust in general is heightened So there's a million potential confounding factors here. Oh, yeah One being that everyone was stuck at home for super long And so they were not exposed to other people's idiosyncrasies in the same level And so my stuff is my stuff other stuff is other stuff Yup, you do that that way or this doesn't smell like my house or you know, there's just the comfort zone shrinks When you're in quarantine for months So like we were at the beginning of 2020, right? So that's a thing but also there is um a precedence for this in in the animal kingdom too where animals want to distance themselves from individuals that are showing signs of sickness and that animals that are actually sick Distance themselves from the rest of their group or their colony also. So There could be a lot of different things going on here. It could just be our brains being crazy. It could be related to isolation Yeah, everyone goes on next door to complain about people parking in the wrong parking spot in front of their street and all that kind of stuff, but Yes, yeah, so It's interesting. I would like to know kevin reardon in the chat is saying ice cream with ketchup. It's the worst Yeah, who does that? Cat's up, I will say also Who does that? Cat's up or ketchup. Yeah ketchup I don't that's not a thing anybody's done Is it I never have why would why would you do that? I mean what I will say If you have let us know send an email There are types of ice cream that are very good that have salty or savory elements to them And that is too far A step too far um, let's see last COVID COVID section study is related to facebook Researchers publishing in plus one Found by looking at facebook data or I guess meta now if we got face meta's facebook platform I'm so confused meta's meta data Meta's meta data tells us that yes august 2019 to december 2020 The number of link shares and reshares related to climate change and global warming Guess what? Decreased we got distracted by COVID Of course everything became about COVID and vaccines and all the stuff And we were like what's climate change that that old thing It doesn't feel like that's a new present danger compared to a global pandemic even though it is though Yeah, there were a couple of interesting peaks and they do seem to correspond with the timings of like the the cop The the international meetings of on climate that bring politicians together is a reason for that meeting one Right to bring it back into the public sphere of awareness. Yes Yeah, so not survive not surprising COVID Distracted us from some some big picture issues. Yes the way Internet on big pictures and specifically facebook algorithms work They're they feed to themselves. They're they're a feedback loop So right and they're really difficult special interest groups, too Right and it pushes for things to trend further. It's not like oh, let's spread the trending out The algorithms really try to hone in on as few trending topics as possible. So You can see how by the nature of the beast Right if if if the pandemic is happening Algorithms are going to push people to those posts more that are going to feed into that conversation more that are going to Pull away from the less popular conversation So, yeah Very good insight there. I appreciate that. I hadn't considered the algorithms and you should always Always consider the algorithms You're not seeing everybody's facebook. You're seeing your facebook Your facebook is not the same as everyone else's But that's all I had for covid this week. I didn't want to talk about other things so Talked about some fun covid related things. Yes This is this weekend science. Thank you so much for joining us if you are enjoying the show Please head over to twist.org And click on our subscribe button If you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe to the show This is this weekend science and we're gonna come on back With that time of the show that we know and love as blair's animal corner With blair I have tiger parts Why rather I don't I don't and no one should Oh but A lot of people do it's because Tigers are among some of the most trafficked and most endangered animals on the planet There's less than 5 000 of them left in the wild. This is of all of the kinds of tigers There's more than one species of them. But yeah, there's only about 5 000 left in the wild And previously studies on tiger trafficking have focused mostly on 13 asian countries, which are the ones where tigers still exist They don't really look at the united states or a lot of other western countries And so most of these tigers are being Traded for their parts for their use in medicine And so The way kind of western countries have always thought about this is that's part of ancient chinese medicine and so They're using it over there and the problem is over there and they need to figure out how to save their animal You're guessing where i'm getting with this data from the us fish and wildlife service obtained through a freedom of information act request Revealed seizures of tiger parts illegally entering the united states from 2003 to 2012 And they actually found 292 seizures in that data set now interestingly enough in 2019 A study looking at trafficking of tigers looked from 2000 to 2018 So definitely overlapping a lot of this same data set and documented 624 seizures of illegal tiger products, but estimated that only six Of those were in the united states So this new data set that is more thorough seems to Very solidly debunk that data set from the previous study In fact, um, it looks like almost half about 46.8 of global seizures of tiger parts Were going into the united states So about half. Yeah, that's a lot. It is a lot and they Let's see. So they they were they were looking at these parts. They found that 65.8 of the sea's parts had known origin 99.5 of those known origins came from wild tigers, so These are not farmed tigers. These are not captive tigers. These are tigers being hunted in the wild being Processed into usable parts for medicinal needs And this is medicinal needs. This isn't trophy. This isn't somebody who's I want I shot Tiger I want a stuffed tiger in my living room or something Here is the thing about that You could see Specifically if you're looking at asian countries, right, you could see there being some cultural Kind of importance to using tigers as medicine We would hope that Cultures could adapt and learn to use other things or to find more value in the animal as it is alive As has happened with other trafficked animals However, if half of this stuff is coming to the united states A lot of it is going to wealthy oftentimes white individuals who there's some sort of Trophy aspect to it. It is part of a novelty or a souvenir or some sort of cultural icon of wealth And this is something that happens with traffic to animal products all the time Unfortunately with rhino horn and tiger all sorts of parts And bear bile and all these sorts of things a lot of the time the blame for the trafficking gets pushed onto People who live in those areas who had traditionally used these things in medicine over many thousands of years But what this type of research is telling us is that that is not the whole story And the united states in particular needs to take more responsibility in Preventing these trafficked animals from going extinct So they yeah, go ahead question. Yeah How then Would you redefine? Uh somebody like the joexotic tiger king thing that was on the the netflix Who's in jail for raising tigers and illegally selling them? in the united states Uh Is he one of those long-standing tradition? The people that we should be protecting because at least the trade isn't coming from wild tigers You know the answer to that. Well, no, but it's if it's either or It's not either or though. That is a false Yeah, I know it's a false It's a whole wide of With as we've discussed previously on the show with when you when you exploit captive bred wild animals It increases demand doesn't it increases demand and it also reduces perception of scarcity Yeah, so this is this whole thing about giraffes, right? Nobody knows giraffes are terribly endangered because every zoo has them And it's good that the zoos have them because they're actually maintaining genetic populations that can be released back into the world But that part of the messaging is essential because there's this disconnect and just like with tiger king Lots lots of people probably watched that show assumed there were tigers everywhere. Not a big deal We have tigers here. We have tigers there tigers aren't a problem There's lots of tigers in texas at least Texas florida Ohio There's very specific states that have extremely lax wild captive wild animal loss, but that whole thing aside when we look specifically at trafficking Knowing this there are things that we can do as the united states taking on It around half of these this trafficked animal chances are that this isn't the only trafficked animal that we're taking a bunch of In in it reports, but so their suggestion is to take the hotbeds, which are san francisco dallas and atlanta An enhanced detection effort so you can do that with mass spectrometry Wait, wait, say that again. San francisco dallas dallas san francisco, absolutely are the hot spots of Of trafficked tiger parks. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay because for a second. I thought it was the of keeping captive tigers. I'm like How You can't have a Very density we're back yards Super high premium and it's got one of the highest captive tiger populations. Okay. Sorry. It's no no in in california You can't have a hedgehog or a ferret as a pet. So there's very No, no, but for the trafficked animal parts san francisco dallas in atlanta You can set up dna analysis. You can set up mass spectrometry to to kind of better Vet Things coming in through the ports But also if you know this much is coming then you can customs agents can completely change what they're looking for Customs agents probably aren't looking for tiger parts coming into sabersisco dallas in atlanta Because the expectation is they're not coming here But if you know they're coming here in large numbers then they can completely change what they're screening for So in this case knowing where the where these parts are going can absolutely help stop And and persecute kind of the The channels through which this stuff is coming in I say let's make 2022 the year of the tiger Oh, it is already. Oh, I know Oh Well speaking of stealing and trafficking tiger parts we're going to move on to stealing Lovers This is this is a study on pied fly catchers They are native to europe. They migrate back and forth to northern parts of africa And they are mostly monogamous But they will sometimes have yeah, but sometimes they will have extra relationships on the side So the the prior research on these birds have shown that The monogamy that they normally have helps with their gene pool And that when there are predators nearby Multiple birds from multiple nests will work together to protect their young So this is an interesting tactic because wouldn't you want Other birds young to get eaten So that your young would have a better chance at survival and mating in the next season well I don't want anyone's young to be eaten, but if that is going to happen then yes, you'd rather be someone else's of course Yes So after they observed this that multiple males would band together to ward off predators They these researchers as international group of researchers wondered Why is this happening? Why are they cooperating? There has to be some sort of tactical benefit to doing this And so they had this kind of sneaking suspicion that they wanted to test out They set up 40 44 nest boxes In groups of threes each box became a home for a male and female and their offspring And then they started studying their mating behavior and placed stuffed predator replicas near the boxes to see their defensive strategies They found that commonly male birds would mate with other nearby females When their companion was off foraging those dirty dogs, but What was really interesting was that the males seemed to know which Children were theirs if a predator arose near nest that did not have any of their offspring They wouldn't help But if the threat arose near hatchlings that they had sired and they did double check this with genetics They would help fight off the threat as strongly as they did in their home nest Yeah, so if bob down the street Comes over and say hey, I saw you had a termite problem. So I went ahead and took care of that for you Also, the fence doesn't squeak anymore. I would put a little stuff in there. Oh, hey, thanks, bob. That's a really nice Oh dang it Yeah Yeah, that's that's a nicer version. It's more like, um, I saw this really suspicious car pulling up. So I uh, I I followed it I chased it out of the neighborhood. I posted about it on next door. I don't know. I guess that's probably the right one I called the cops. Anyway, um, yeah, so this is a very interesting case where What looks like teamwork and community is actually just Working community taking care of themselves Of health taking care of the neighborhood. Yeah Yes, taking care of their own genetics Sometimes it takes a village That's selfish gene, you know, well, I mean we're joking, you know, oh the it takes a village ha ha taking care of that but Yes, the selfish gene is at work here, but because of the way that it's Breds the genetic material around It's also beneficial for more individuals so it can be it can be It's but it can be better for the whole community Yeah And we see other animals practice similar behavior when it comes to siblings or or cousins or nephews because there There is a shared genetic similarity. So if If your cousin succeeds and their progeny succeeds that helps your genes continue, right? So this is definitely Definitely not royalty or anything from a Shakespearean play Yeah, it's definitely a more nefarious version of that But this then the the male who was the the quote unquote monogamous make, uh A reason does he just ignore the danger? Or do they work together because they work together because then it's then it becomes Uh a more of a survival trait for the mother To be promiscuous. So a bunch of males think that that's their offspring and I'll come to help Because right, so it's not just the gene recognized gene. There's got to be some oh, I know, uh, that's my uh side lady In that nest but if like five other birds also are thinking that they'll all come and help So the the the implications that I read from the study are that the the male birds actually know which ones are theirs But then the one that's The normal or the mostly monogamous mate of that female Should then maybe not care. Well, so he so he's he's protecting his home nest That home nest is his home and it is also his prime real estate that he uses to you know Get the ladies so he needs to protect that home nest So he already has that reason to to take care of his home The the the neighbor is coming in knowing exactly if they are related Still, uh, you're not Sounds like a little bit more of a good strategy also for the female involvement certainly Yeah It's good for everyone. Alrighty This is this weekend science. Thank you Blair for a great animal corner. You got it. Yeah If you out there enjoy the animal corner Help us bring the animal corner and all of twist every single week head over to twist.org Click on that patreon link. You can support this show be a producer An executive producer behind the scenes Funding the show the science show of your dreams Click that patreon link choose the level of your sport $10 and more per Month and we will thank you by name at the end of the show. There are also other fun gifts that come along with that as well Thank you very much For your support. We really cannot do this without you All right, Justin. We're coming on back with more this weekend science. What do you have? I have really really really really big news What's that the type of carbon? That is associated with biological life processes here on earth has been found by a curiosity on mars and not just a little bit a whole lot of it Analysis of powdered rock samples collected from the surface of mars by kyroste rover are rich in a type of carbon carbon 12 that on earth is Everywhere that life is it's the one that it's the one that life uses So I guess the lighter easier to use carbon of the different types of carbon there this is quoting Paul Mahafi who serves as principal investigator of the sample analysis at the chemistry lab of board curiosity We're finding things on mars that are tantalizingly interesting But we would really need more evidence to say we've identified life so We're looking at what else could have caused the carbon signature we're seeing if not life This is they published in the proceedings in the national academy of sciences So it's out there you can go track it down The biological explanation they have would be ancient bacteria in the surface of mars would have produced the unique carbon signature as they released methane into the atmosphere Then ultraviolet light would have converted that gas into the larger more complex molecules These molecules would then have rained down To the surface and now would be preserved with that distinct carbon signature in martian rocks So there was life on mars. Uh, how we're going. Oh wait, hang on. What there's two other hypotheses that offer non biological explanations Uh, the carbon signature could have resulted from the interaction of ultraviolet light with carbon dioxide gas in the martian atmosphere Producing new carbon containing molecules that would have likewise settled to the surface And another speculates that the carbon could have been left behind from a rare event Even hundreds of millions of years ago when the solar system passed through a giant molecular cloud rich in the type of carbon detected Christopher house a kerosene scientist Pennsylvania state university who led the caravan study says all three explanations fit the data Oh, that's never good. That's right. That really narrows it down. Yeah Yeah, we we just we need more data to rule things in or out because all three fit So living creatures on earth use that carbon 12 to metabolize food for photosynthesis versus the heavier carbon 13s So significantly more carbon 12 and carbon 13 in the ancient rocks along with some other evidence suggests they are looking at life-related chemistry But they are biased because they are earth scientists looking at this And that's our one really big example Of a planet that we've studied and this is where the carbon 12 is and uh, according to Andrew Steele Curiosity scientists who's at carneggie institution There's a huge chunk of the carbon cycle on earth that involves life And because of life there's a chunk of the carbon cycle on earth. We can't understand Because everywhere we look there's life Modifying it right? It's like it's always involved. Yeah, it's so it's hard to Tell which one is which what's going on? Uh, so mars is either going to be an example of a planet that used to have life and so Maybe it has that signature still and we can start to figure out How those cycles work because there's still something of a Carbon cycle. It's not the same as it is here on earth though with Yeah, so it's interesting researchers found that nearly half of their samples had surprisingly large amounts of carbon 12 Compared to what they have measured in the martian atmosphere and in meteorites So the this was these were all five of these sample samples are in gale crater Uh, which is where water has been we think we're pretty sure Yeah Great place to go check Yeah, and uh, you know pick the right place and you're finding the thing that you think you might have if there was an ancient sort of lake there life was Yeah, again house saying uh on earth processes that would have produced the carbon signal We're detecting on mars are biological We have to understand whether the same explanation works for mars Or if there are other explanations Because mars is very different It is very different Other martian life news. You thought that was it. You thought oh, that was the tantalizing martian life news Ah, there's another one organic molecules Organic that means life right organic molecules still carbon, right? That hurtled to earth from mars. This is one that was discovered in Antarctica in 1984 the allen hills meteorite Had we knew okay. Gosh. This has organic molecules in it and it turns out this is uh from Uh steel again who was from it was also part of the last story They are not from life But we're synthesized during interactions between water and rocks that occurred on the red planet about four billion years ago so This is uh andrew steele karnagy again who's publishing in science this thing, but that's it's telling you two great things one mars four billion years ago had water rock interactions taking place That's huge, but these particular organic molecules Not so much from a life thing Yeah, just a bunch of seas They they can they're commonly associated with life although they can be created by nine biological processes as well That's uh things like carbon and hydrogen Sometimes oxygen nitrogen sulfur some other elements They found the evidence of water rock interactions similar similar it says to those on earth and Steel goes on a little bit these kind of non biological geological reactions are responsible for a pool of organic compounds From which life could have evolved And represent a background signal that must be taken into consideration when searching for evidence of past life on mars furthermore these if these reactions were happening on mars Yeah, it must have happened on ancient earth as well and even uh and sellities Uh it may have explained some results we got from saturn's moon and sellities and sell this uh, so Do not it the meteorite itself doesn't look like it has life signal upon it But it has the signature for the precursor and now that we know that's four billion years old That's right around when this planet was getting uh getting cooking too. So So basically we didn't need to ever go to mars. We just should have looked more closely at this meteorite Not so much a smoking gun more like a ice cold Holster with no gun in it Exactly. What did that used to hold? Hmm tantalizing clues perhaps Oh my mars is so full of fun. I just can't even with it What do we have next Well, I'll tell you what we have own building bots Yeah, I have bone building bots the alliteration is just So much fun bone building bots. Why would you ever want bone building bots? Well, maybe you would want bone building bots that and I love saying it and I might say it a little bit too many times I apologize, but I don't really apologize. So it's my hashtag. Sorry. Not sorry right now bone building bots Could be used to create grow to grow Very strong solid structures wherever we need them Very small to larger size depending on the need. Uh, they could also potentially be used to actually Strengthen broken bones to help heal bones that have cracked or been broken So what about if you like to have osteoporosis? You just have kind of weak brittle bones Just kind of give them a tune up Right, could we I don't know if it would work exactly in the same way You'd probably more like to, you know, add a little bit more calcium and vitamin D to your diet at an earlier stage Maybe make those microbes in your gut happy To start putting all the proper nutrients into your bones earlier, but Oh our bones They are organs of their own, you know They're very complicated. This however is a very simple process It's inspired by our bones and the fact that our bones Can grow from when we're babies and they are relatively soft and cartilaginous into Stronger harder bones and researchers in sweden and japan We're inspired by the fontanel in baby's brain in in baby's heads and Justin you're about to have a you your your partner is about to have a baby um You you know that fontanel you want to describe that fontanel? It's uh, they're cone headed babies So you get a baby and then they look like a cone head from seven eleven ago Yeah, they can look like a cone head, but yeah, why do they look like a cone head? Is because they have a soft they have a soft section of their skull Yes, and we have their brain There are multiple smaller bones that are this are that make up the skull and at the top of the skull there is a hole the fontanel and that That is covered by soft connection connective tissue that then Bone grows into and brings all those bones together hopefully into a solid skull above the brain and You know, this is you know, some parents will try and fix their baby's cone-headedness with head braces and other things just I don't know just don't Baby on their heads for their head for too long at one time There's all sorts of uh, things parents will panic about because uh, Wasn't any experience with any Children yet, but you can see like the A ridgeline of the bones will be very prominent sometimes in newborns These are things that go away with then, you know, like the first month of being on the planet But but if you're a new parent, I guess if you had never uh, didn't know anything better and nobody told you You might think it was a look like a birth defect like that's not a human head That's not how it's supposed to be shaped But you think you will fix themselves. Do you think a nice round head is going to come out of a very small opening? Oh, no, there's some squeezing and cone making that takes place nice round heads come of c sections, so Well, let's talk a little bit more about this process the researchers were intrigued by the idea of creating materials that would have different properties at different points in time going from soft and flexible and then to hard and so They liked this idea of a micro robot something that could be injected into the body through a syringe And then they would unfold and develop their own rigidness their own rigid bones So these researchers, uh, published their work in advanced materials and their micro bot is one that They use An agar gel at or an algin alginate alginate gel and on the gel A polymer gets grown and then that polymer is electro active And so when they apply low voltage to the polymer It changes its volume And so the micro robot then moves in a specific direction now again The definition of a robot here is very flexible This is really is it a robot? It's just something that's doing a specific function so This is the the the debate that we you know, we could have it or not have it. I don't know Anyway, these micro robots, they're very they're very I don't want to talk about that I want to put that picture up there and put in all sorts of different pictures over there um They apply the the stiffness and if they've determined that if they Pattern the gel with either horizontal lines or diagonal lines They can actually get the gel to curve in different directions. So if it's Patterned with horizontal lines, then it forms like a rainbow arch Or if it has a diagonal line, then they apply the electricity and it curves like a corkscrew and so the the material they um, they showed that they could Create these hardened bone materials and that the um, they would on the other side of the polymer on the other side of the gel they would apply biomolecules that would then grow and harden and They applied this to chicken bones And they saw that those biomolecules actually incorporated with the chicken bones and then the um When they removed the electrical application The uh, the polymer came away from the bone leaving the the biomaterial behind attached to the bone So this is just an interesting proof of concept. It's uh, not actually something that is going to be used the next time You go into the doctor with a broken bone at this point in time, but it could Lead to you know, these developments of materials that might be really useful for you know, who knows battlefield um injuries or for you know Cracked bones if you do have osteoporosis and your bone is cracked you can get it strengthened. Yeah, give it like some, uh Some braces kind of give it um, yes Like a splint almost made out of just gonna have to kind of give it struts and give it more We know when i'm 200 years old no matter how much milk I drink now my bones are gonna start turning to powder. So You know I'm like imagining like a corkscrew wrap like a ribbon that goes around my bone and just wraps itself around my bone to keep it strong A little bit of reinforcement that well if it if there's anything to it and if it does if it is gonna become a treatment You know where we're gonna see it first Our uh sports ball people Oh for sure or in wolverine because they'll figure out how to use this technology on adamantium And then that'll be the perfect way to coat his skeleton. He'll be all said Because the marvel universe is the real world. Oh wait, that's not marvel. It's the other one. Well, so it is marvel But it's not I know It's not the mcu talking about I'm talking about Xavier's men. Okay I need to get I need to get more uh pop culture references. I need like a guide post Oh, I made a I made a a faux pas the other day talking to my 10 year old son He said something about the mcu and I was like, oh, yeah the marvel comics universe. He goes mom canon Actually, it's marvel cinematic universe, but that's oh my goodness All right, I want to hear about all these things after the show we have now finished the show and I hope your bones are strong and your Your heart is light and you are sprightly and your ribosomes don't bump into each other. I hope that Your pills are filled with Never mind. I'll just I'll just stop right now I hope that your levels of disgust decrease over the next several months And then I hope you enjoyed this show That was fun Thank you all for listening. Thank you. Thank you We have come now to the end of the show of the show of the show and it is time for us to give Show touts show doubts too Fata, thank you for your help with social media and show notes gourd and are in lore. Thank you for Manning the chat rooms keeping everything happy and light and identity four. Thank you for recording the show And rachel. 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She did you know it might work out um you can also buy some uh a 2022 calendar still on our website We have a few left so click on that frog Please sell out so that I can continue to make calendars every year and you know, we make our money back Anyway, you can also contact us directly email cure site. Here's this weekend science.com Justin at twist minion at gmail.com Not not come or me blair at blairbaz at twist.org Just be sure to put twist TWI as in the subject line or your email will be spam filtered into one of 40 quintillion black holes In the largest shell game ever played and we will never be able to find which one it's in Oh my goodness love not large numbers If you like you can tweet at us on the twitter where we are at twist science at dr Kiki at jackson fly and at blairs menagerie We love your feedback if there's a topic you would like us to cover or address A suggestion for an interview a haiku that comes during the night. Please let us know We'll be back here next weekend. 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 weekend science This weekend science This weekend science is the end of the world So i'm setting up shop got my banner unfurled. It says the scientist is in i'm gonna sell my advice Show them how to stop the robots with a simple device I'll reverse global warming with a wave of my hand and all it'll cost you is a couple of grand Science is coming your way So everybody listen to what I say I use the scientific method for all that it's worth and i'll broadcast my opinion all over the air Because it's this weekend science this weekend science This weekend science This weekend science Science this weekend science science science I've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news that what I say may not represent your views It's this weekend science. We're done. We're done Done done Well done. We're done Well done I think Justin ran away Like He's not his computer's not on there. He's there But he turned his camera off and everything off completely instead of just kind of Removing himself Does he know how to do that? I don't yeah, maybe not. I don't know Thank you everybody for watching the show. I hope you enjoyed it We had a couple of fun bloopers in there If only I mean, could you imagine that would be a lot of work? But that would be like the project of a lifetime to go through All of our twisters and find the funniest bloopers Twist bloopers through the years it'd be great player. It'd be really great. It'd be really great. It'd be really great All right, Laura. I know you're no sell-out, but we would like to sell out of calendars Right, I feel like people didn't buy calendars this year because time doesn't matter It doesn't matter anymore No, we have sold almost all of them. I think there are Maybe Maybe 15 left. Oh, it's good. Yeah It's not too bad Not too bad. Yeah As long as we get close that I can keep making them Yeah, Eric. I'm glad you like your calendar Yay Oh, our Lord gave up on trying to find your stuff player Because it was too much probably just it was just too much There's just too much awesome in there Oh gourd Did you see gourd's comment? Uh, but you've got the wrong ear level. It's so much better Yes fair Gaurav, uh, don't feel guilty about feeling optimistic about omicron. Um Yeah, I don't I don't feel that you should feel guilt about that at all. Um Well, I mean all the if you're vaccinated and you're still making You're going out But if you're making choices appropriate for yourself and the people that you would generally be interacting with Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. The so the models based on what The the kind of the flare-up that happened in South Africa There's an expectation that It'll last a few more weeks Yep The the issue is peaking peaking in oregon about this week, but there's a It's gonna run its run its course. Hopefully like in the next What four weeks or something like that? Yeah, maybe well and then there's also the added piece that omicron popped in Right when everyone was getting tested after having traveled for the holidays So it's the combination of the fact that a bunch of people a bunch of asymptomatic individuals got tested, which is great It's really great But if it wasn't for omicron a lot more of those asymptomatic of individuals would not have been infected And so because and so it's kind of this perfect storm A bunch of asymptomatic individuals getting tested and having traveled During the variant But also getting tested and then on top of that it being this variant that can break through the the vaccine so All those things together that means that that the numbers are bonkers But yeah, if you're testing yourself if you don't feel well If you're staying away from people that you know have suspected exposure or symptoms And you're staying away from people who are susceptible If you if you still feel like, you know, you can go out especially if you're you're younger You know, and yeah, it everyone has their own risk assessment that they need to do But you're vaccinated They imagine you're wearing masks some places Yeah, yeah, and I'm you know, I'm in the office. So I'm I'm double masking in the office and Trying to get my hands on a on a good amount of n95s, but there's also this issue where They say you can reuse the n95s over and over But that isn't with an expectation that you're wearing it for nine hours straight like I am so Well, yeah, the recommendation is I think changing it out every three hours Yeah, and and people aren't doing that. No and and for me, that's not it's it's not possible for me to do that So do you have an instant pot? No But but I thought also there are ways to sanitize them. I thought sanitizing n95s They're still effective, but as you sanitize them their effectiveness approaches decreases Surgical masks anyway, so if I'm going to be reusing an n95, but I can get a fresh surgical mask every day There is a part of me that thinks if I'm gonna double mask and I'm gonna put my surgical mask and my cloth mask over it That might actually be better than reusing an n95 over and over right so I think I've told this story before I was I was better to have an n95 every day. Of course I had the uh I'd also love to you know, eat a chocolate cake every day and not gain any weight. So I got stopped in the airport. Uh this is earlier on in the but uh I got stopped in the airport because I had my like the cloth gator thing over my face And and you have to wear the proper mask to the airport Even when there weren't any sort of mask mandates even when they weren't really recommending Like oh, it's just for the healthcare profession. You still needed one to be on an airplane to fly internationally if that tells you anything But uh, but I had to I had to lower it so I'm wearing a mask under this right also Like I'm doing I'm not taking you're doubling up. Yeah I was doubling up like this isn't affected by itself, but with this on top of the thing now i'm But yeah double masking I think and I and I is it is it annoying to hear me talk about taking six weeks off Is it is it at this point? Is it annoying because now people are talking about giving up? Yo, yeah, that's where everybody is Everyone's gonna get it. Let's just Let's just have more death Yeah, instead of It's six weeks like how how short like I am somebody who I consider to have a short attention span Like I know word with me saying this now and would like to talk about something else Because that's how short my attention span is and yet I am like completely okay with the idea of Let's just take six weeks off and the problem is you know who this affects more than anything It's just to me. It's got to be like business and banking in wall street Care more about profit always But it's that Justin it's something else though also It is the sunk cost fallacy. I am convinced It is an interesting cost Because if we do that now then the last two years were a waste They were No one wants to admit that This is this is a huge emotional response Yes to not want to have made the It proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the last two years were a waste But that means that the sunk Because now the thingy is always going to affect every decision forever because we could have had that same Sunk cost thing after the first lockdown Uh shutdown did work and then we but that was like by the by six months We were like oh, we already tried to give up. Yes, we would have saved multiple millions of lives If we had said, okay That was uh, didn't work and it would have saved money Yes, and it would have saved money But this is the problem though people don't want to go backwards They don't want to shut down further having opened things up because of what was lost In whatever level of shutdown that existed before so there's that sunk cost, right? So you don't want to move backwards when you know, you're gonna lose more But it's it's also this weird mental thing where We've come this far But I think partly it's paul disney says, well, there's way more than six weeks of content to watch on the internet But the best the problem is that's the real sunk cost. We were like, I already watched everything I wanted to watch I know we're done. I'm run out of I've run out of good shows. There's I mean Dance is over. What am I gonna do? I have to just walk it over again. Okay. So here's here's my here's my Giving a little to get a little We shut down everything but hollywood Okay, netflix can still the only people who are allowed to be out In the world are those shooting shows and they can use all the great locations now Because there's gonna be nobody to interrupt. There's no good You know, they can have all the monuments and the big locations and they can just pretend Whatever they want because there's gonna be no people around getting in the way of the shot Just hollywood can run everybody else six weeks So here's another thing you could do remember that um government stipend the the Not stipend. What was it the stimulus that we got at the beginning of the pandemic? You know what costs around six hundred dollars Actually quite a bit less a gaming system. Some of them cost six hundred dollars, right? But so just send everybody a nintendo switch, right? Just send everybody a switch and a couple video games and be like here you go. There's your three weeks. Enjoy That's a really interesting point because there's some uh, oh gosh I think it's a ted talk or something that was talking about gaming and the origins of gaming and they I think they told some story about this this group that like this This area is maybe it was in Greece or something where they were like We can't afford to feed everybody because the harvest wasn't good enough So they rolled dice and a big part of the population just left They played games and those that won or lost or whatever it was just left So there was enough food stores for everybody else and those people that left are thought to have uh settled in Rome And that was like, you know, maybe the start of the early start of the Anyway, I don't know how much truth there is to any of that but Yeah, just give everybody a console have them game for six weeks They might a lot of them might not come back because that stuff's pretty darned addicting. I hear But it's not too late. We're still we can still and we might save all sorts of other problems At the same time we're we're preventing this spread one of the uh, really great organizations, uh at estimating Disease and populations is the ihme up at the university of washington In seattle and for the united states. I mean they are predicting their prediction if this is basically Assuming there's no other variant. This is just with the variants that are Out right now their current prediction scenario is that like we're almost to the top of the curve and that by The beginning of march, we will have peaked at Pretty much all the cases the the deaths with only slight increases above that from uh beyond march So, uh daily decree daily deaths are on their all pretty much on their way down at this point So fingers crossed no more variants Um, I think fouchy said similarly He's very optimistic with omicron because of the exposure of everybody and the the possibility that if that's it And everybody kind of gets coverage and then we have like a yearly booster With the flu shot like this could be This could be really great moving forward. Um, we haven't nobody can get Yeah And we haven't quite peeked out on hospital resource use which is still But we're still going through it I mean, that's the metric that his his frustrated me his state of california did this We're like, well if we get up to this level of icu Then we're gonna shut down again your You could just shut down now and prevent that it just prevented from happening. Yeah, like what are you talking about? It's it's just ridiculous how how uh, the medical system has been Used and abused it's just insane that Exactly that like oh well You know, there's still room And if and I think one of the biggest I think one of the biggest, um Variables is mask use and this this shows that beginning in december 20 going into february 21 There was almost 80 percent mask use They were looking for 20 for 95 percent mask use Then in the summer it's summertime Delta was going away mask use like bottomed out and we haven't come back from it and we're still even now with omicron Not even to 50 percent mask use. I mean that's across the country and it would probably depend on you know by state But it's just this is one of the things Probably yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so this is Who say they always wear a mask in public? Yeah. Yeah, so this is self reported But still Always wear a mask in public. That's a tough one because I don't wear it if i'm on a walk. Yeah, I don't wear it outside. Yeah, unless i'm in a crowded area So this is one of the biggest things though. I don't know. This is one of the biggest things that can reduce transmission though Yeah, and this is that's huge Huh Yeah, social distancing is not is not social distancing is not happening doesn't exist anymore Yeah, and it's gonna become less and less and less as uh as omicron becomes less of an issue I did love me some social distancing. I gotta tell you It was so nice I might like to go to a restaurant every once in a while again I don't really do that. I you know eat outside sometimes but It would be nice to go to a restaurant eat inside have a fancy night go to a movie theater. I haven't done that like, you know two years, so That could be fun. That could be fun Not to have those considerations in the future. I know we're all thinking about that kind of stuff, but the museum, you know That's that's the big thing that I'm missing is Being able to go to those cultural events getting into the science talks and the museums and all those sorts of things I miss all that quite a few science museums are requiring vaccination for their guests, which is pretty cool So I did I did take my kids out to my girls out to the Cal Academy of Sciences late last year we had to show vaccination proof and We're wearing masks the whole time in there and it's a kind of an open building environment. It's not and it wasn't Too too crowded, but it was still like it was probably a really bad idea Was the rainforest dome open? Yes See that's interesting to me because it's so hot and humid in there And it's a contained sort of environment. Yeah Interesting But you're right. It's very open air otherwise besides the rainforest dome Um, and and yeah, if everyone you're around is vaccinated, there's you know At least at that time before omicron hit that was a pretty safe thing to do It was really rare to have breakthrough infections at that point that were um high enough viral loads to get you sick Yeah, but it's it's a whole nother ballpark now so and uh Go it's interest. This is an interesting question garav's asking about why omicron is replacing delta And why can't they both exist and they both can exist? But what ends up happening is they are competing that the virus Gets in and even if you get infected at the same time by delta and omicron What's going to happen is that because omicron is just Better at getting into cells even within the body. It is going to Get into the cells faster and do and do what it does Faster than delta will and so the immune response and everything that starts that omicron will really get going Is going to get rid of delta and you know, it all it all works out in the wash and so what they're What they're also saying is that omicron looks as though and this is the interesting thing That omicron infection looks as though it blocks Delta infection that because there are antibodies in common If you've gotten omicron, you're less likely to get delta. It's like getting vaccinated almost but delta Is not necessarily the same is not the same like amount of protection against omicron. So if you've had delta You can still get infected with omicron. So that that makes sense from a few standpoint. So I know omicron. So original og covid Could take up to two weeks to pop up. Yeah, and omicron takes like three days. So So that so they're definitely beating the other variants to the punch the omicron But it's I keep thinking back to kind of that whole idea about like a good and a bad parasite and how A good parasite doesn't kill its host and so the so omicron is really good at growing and populating and spreading and not killing you If you're vaccinated, right, which is the whole thing Eric nap has a hilarious joke though I don't want I do not want another variant but the next greek letter after omicron is pi And we know pi goes on forever Hey No, thanks Just oh my god, I I keep thinking we I know what's coming next and then you don't I don't because there's also the human element, which is the part that's exactly why so wild Is that they're you know, I I know people who got their positive test and are being diligent at home and Tested again after five days and it's still positive And so they're staying at home and they're not going anywhere and they're you know Being extremely careful, but that I'm you know for every one of those people how many people are Not testing at all walking around positive getting a positive test and then Waiting a few days feeling better and just going about their lives without testing again to check that they're not shedding anymore You know like it just it requires so much diligence, but also like resources You have to be able to I mean thankfully we're all going to get home tests soon But that's only four so if you use them all then what right? but before that When people were price gouging the home tests and they were difficult to get and They weren't always accepted If you had to get an appointment to go somewhere then You had to get the appointment you had to get Transportation to your test you had to take time off of work to get your test you had to Get somebody to watch your kids to get your test Then you had to sit around wait for the test results and then based on the test results do xyz, right? So I think you know, there's there's people being more conscientious, but there's also a severe imbalance to who can respond appropriately to a COVID infection Six weeks two years ago would be worrying about none of this six weeks now and we won't be talking about this a year from now Just do it Which is not doing anything Leave that that grocery checkout line that hasn't gotten you anywhere that you've been standing in for an hour Hopped to the new one where you have to start over. It's faster it is it is They just opened that line And how many times each of us have done that so many times. I'm already here. I've waited this long wish people behind me So garab said uh earlier don't look up was not good. I took the recommendation from twist y'all let me down That was a fantastic movie. I really liked it. I I got about an hour into it and then I had to stop. I still have an hour left in the movie I was tweeting my responses. I'm very upset with this film um Because it's painful because it's too much. It's too real Uh, yes the satire Is there it's supposed to be bad biting satire, but because life is parody at this point in time I know I just So apparently it wasn't as extreme originally and he had to turn it up Because the pandemic happened and everyone was like, uh-oh. This is what we wrote. This is actually just happening right We have to make this more absurd Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the absurd stuff is pretty funny But there's some stuff that I would love to re I have to go dig up interviews with the director at this point because Or the the writer because there's like the the ongoing joke About the pentagon general Charging for the free water I just she's like through the whole thing. She's like, I just don't understand But that's perfect because again so much like it's down to humans Right, it's all the problem and the solution He's a general Doesn't need the money. He doesn't need the money. Why would he do that? But yeah, it's it cut it is that I don't I really do like the way that the scientists are humanized. Um, you know that these are You know people with you know failings and they're you know, they've found something and they're you know excited about it, but also like scared and how do they talk about it and Oh my god. I'm freaking out because nobody's listening and suddenly You know, you're a meme instead of being a message and like there's so many things that just Are hitting So close to home I mean, wasn't it like, um Oh, I'm trying to remember the name of the politician like a while back. He was like a Popular dean, uh dean. Yes. Howard dean Howard dean. Yeah He excited yell and I was like, oh, yeah, he got a rick flair at the end of uh He got excited and that's awesome. But that it was like I'm still sad about it. I know I was like, I liked him. I thought he was a great choice Yeah, there were probably reasons he wasn't but I mean, who knows Yeah, but that was also back in the day when you like, oh, they wore the wrong color suit, uh, this late in the year or whatever And now um, you mean like Still this is no, but this is why we had to Ramp up the ridiculousness of our entertainment because reality became much more ridiculous I mean the day that I what five years five years ago I showed the film idiocracy to some friends of mine who had never seen it before And when I had seen it probably five years before that I was like, oh my god, it's the funniest movie and then we watched it It wasn't funny anymore. And when idiocracy isn't funny There's something wrong with reality But how do we fix it folks that's a big question here six weeks six weeks Yeah, so so one of the things like what we're talking about not not the six with the pandemic, but just people in general Uh, I really think like, you know, every once when I talk about sympathy for all the people who don't have Uh, haven't been educated or inspired to be educated or getting fed bad information Is the only thing that they can digest and so of course they're reaching out in the world and making obscene observations, uh, based on only being fed biased information or what have it. It's just uh critical thinking training Yeah, it needs to stop being a college level Thing that's not if you read did you read that article? There's an there's an article that like just out Like today, I think basically that we should teach philosophy of science in high school Yeah, no, it really should be it should be a core thing that I would go I would go I would go earlier than high school because you gotta think when Just all the way along critical thinking and curiosity inquiry. Yeah, I think the the critical thinking Uh, uh, if I had been better exposed To it before being a teenager Might have made better choices Maybe I mean teenagers are still teenagers probably not but I might have But uh because because the ability to just assess good information from bad information or to Have a follow-up question of your own to information that you're being fed Seems to be what's lacking because there's so much parroting of information that takes place Without critical thinking ever seeming to come into play I may be like the the the hard fact on this might be The thing I don't want to admit which is that A decent proportion of humans are incapable of critical thinking and that's why x y z all be horrible Thanks throughout history and all the trends that we see today and all this I don't believe that people aren't yeah I don't want to I think maybe that's what it is capable they're just Either They haven't learned how We're they're lazy I think elementary school. I think we definitely should so there's a great. What's the uh, what's the Oh, what's the experiment? where Okay, where you so the the goal is There's there's it's sort of like what is that suss thing? What is that the among us right? Among us. Yeah, there's a school classroom experiment like among us which is I'm okay. I'm gonna there's gonna be in this classroom Some of you are gonna be witches some of you aren't but the goal is To collect yourself into a group that does not have a witch in it And and everybody who's got a group with no witch Passes and everybody who's got a witch in their group fails and then the teacher goes around and whispers into everybody's here So we're gonna you know, they're gonna know if they're a witch or not a witch But you know nobody else gets to know and so then the class starts splitting up into groups and they're like, okay It's a big group over here. I know it splinters off over there You know with all these different little groups and then a couple of kids that look like witches Who are in the corner by themselves? Right? And then uh, okay. All right. All right the end experiment teacher says Okay, now we're gonna reveal everybody who's a witch raise your hand And nobody raises their hand Right There were no witches but because people thought there were they've all separated out into these uh these groups And that's you know, that's uh, I don't know why I went down that analogy, but that is But it is it's you know the way that people are influenced by other people around them and the way that people look at information isn't necessarily on its own merits, but Because of that influence. Yeah, it's since probably what? First second grade at my son's elementary school. They've been teaching Internet literacy media literacy and every year they kind of up the ante with How they teach and what they do but I mean I'm excited that it's part of the curriculum because it's so essential Well, and that's that's kind of what I was not to throw meta under the bus again, but also to throw them under the bus again uh They know how to Basically get us addicted to repetitive ideas right, so they they have figured out how to engineer everyone's own echo chamber and promote things That are easy and make us feel good and confirm what we already think we know and so It's it's a strange situation where it gets harder and harder to identify what a legitimate source is and also When to question things you know and when not to it because you only see the things that you think you know are truth pretty much And the things that you don't are so few and far between that it kind of just becomes noise and you scroll right past it So it's I definitely think there is there is a manipulation of our brain chemistry going on to suppress critical thinking When we are on these platforms Yeah Pull the lever pull the lever pull the lever What lever are we pulling? It's the it's a social media slot machine. Yeah the treat lever like whatever. You know dopamine lever. Yeah I feel so good Speaking of treats I'm looking forward to some good dreams As I sleep tonight. Oh, that's right. It's night time. It's night time Can I show you guys one thing actually before we go that I meant to talk about in the after show and I totally forgot Yeah, um So there was a story this week that I didn't report on because it's Is it the panda story? No. No, okay. No, that was just like They figured out a way to make themselves fat off of bamboo Okay, um All right But this one I didn't bring because it was just like a hey, there's this cool thing. Did you know it exists? Which is always a fun story, but um, it's not really as fun to talk about as other things um But It's very loud music in my ears, but this is a blanket octopus. Oh, that's an octopus. Okay So, um blanket It's like it's got little streamers. Yeah So the blanket octopus Uh Is a thing And I just kind of wanted to alert all of you to that. So I encourage you all to uh Read a wikipedia article about blanket octopus because they're crazy The females are about two meters long and the males are about two centimeters long Wow When they're young they can they're actually immune to the portuguese mana war Um nomadicis and they can break off tentacles from the mana war and wield them like little nunchucks to protect themselves Wow They have these uh blanket like appendages scientists think maybe that they can um Actually sloth them off to kind of give a predator something to chase as so that they can scuttle away Um, they're crazy. They're crazy crazy crazy animals that we know very little about Um, oh The ability to break parts of yourself off and offer them as as snacks to a predator So you can make your escape is yeah like lizard tails That's brilliant. Yeah, just like lizard tails. Um, but oh, this is the other crazy thing So with other octopuses the males use their hectic otolus their their uh sperm Packet bearing arm and they kind of just tuck it up under the mantle of the female and hand her the sperm packet and then Retract their arm these guys because they're so tiny and it's so kind of hard to get where they're trying to go the males fully detach Their hectic otolus and like shove the whole arm up into the females mantle And so then she just ends up collecting a bunch of these and then she picks whichever sperm she wants um So there's that That's awesome. They also make and I want that one. I'll take that one. There you go. They the females make a um I think it's calcium carbonate Kind of a little cocoon for their eggs so they can carry them with them since they're They're uh Not quite planktonic, but they're you know, they are their open sea. They don't stop really so Kind of nomadic out in the ocean. So they do that and they carry the eggs It a So secretion She's a young young You're yawning through a story because she's thinking about her blanket So anyway before I say good night Everyone everyone everyone go look up the wikipedia for the blanket octopus. It's not a long wikipedia article because they've only ever been seen like three times So it has to be more than three. I can see lots of pictures on the internet Yeah, not many though and not enough for them to figure out like are they terminal breeders? Like many many unknown details Yeah, so lots of questions about the blanket octopus because they're they're not often described. All right They didn't discover a single male blanket octopus until 2002 Yeah I love them. They're great. I just love when I discover a new animal and I'm like what what what what This might call for a twist security blanket octopus. Yes. Oh, I love that Somebody knit me a twist security blanket octopus You just knit a blanket and then put a little Little octopus at the end of it. I know. Oh, just as about to say good night What what what just happened his camera's still on he can't do it knew that What just happened You said he'd be right back and I said no way is Why does he do that? Oh There he is okay, so good morning, Justin That's what you were getting no I had to make it Did you just knit that for Blair She has it over right there. Yeah My dress only has four oom louts and one funny-looking. Oh good night Blair saying good morning, Justin. Good morning, Justin Good Good night everyone. Thank you for another great episode of twist. Thanks for being here And we will see you all again next week Yes Maybe there will be octopuses There's one right there. Have a good night everyone. Stay healthy. Stay safe. Try to stay as sane as possible Thank you so much