 Hey there world this week in science is almost here for you. This is our weekly Broadcast of our podcast and look who we've got we have a Justin He has that deer in the headlights look of all parents who are newly parented Who are not getting enough sleep a little dementia might be setting in it's your parenthood dementia Yes Well your brain doesn't quite work the way it normally does Firing on all cylinders because you are lacking sleep. How much sleep have you gotten in the last few days? Oh I got a full eight hours This week over this week. There we go We're chatting right now because we are experiencing some technical difficulties on Blair's end We were trying to troubleshoot, but I wanted to get live and get going To say hello to everybody so you're not just waiting forever Blair had some weird digital effect where her audio was not just going Clicking clacking but was doubling up on itself. So it's a real digital problem Could be in the microphone could be in the software. We've been working all sorts of things She's restarting I think and she may or may not rejoin us These things happen. Oh Look at me checking my phone to see if she has texted me to say everything is broken. Oh, yes taking forever to restart That's probably just an update like sometimes those updates ruin everything else She's a Mac user, however They don't update those because I've had Apple products that definitely definitely do that to me like whenever my my Bluetooth stops working on my phone. I would know that it was time to update it Something's broken It would just stop working. Oh my goodness that happens with my internet occasionally and that's when I have to Call the Comcasters and say hi. Hey, what's happening? I restarted everything unplugged plugged it back in gave it that 15 30 seconds waiting period Still no working and then they go. Oh, yeah. Well, no, I didn't do anything and then suddenly it works We don't have to update things except for the science so Justin I think We can start the show because Do it you have a disclaimer and when very hopefully Blair will come in in the process maybe she says What did you do oh? Oh, she has a What is this Apple screen? Can you see the little bar on the apple? She said it's happening for the third time now so her computer is I Definitely needing some TLC. All right, everybody we all need some TLS tender loving science Grouchy gamer says that tell Blair to unplug and replug Mike USB connectors. It can help. We've done that. That's a gamer Grouchy gamer in fact Kiki had Blair blowing out all of the ports. I did I was like blow on all your ports get the dust out of there Which is just it might work in one in a million cases, but it's always Kiki's go-to to make other people do I just I've always think thought it was just like some weird thing that she's like I want to see somebody blowing out the port on that That's right. No, why how many times do you get to say? Blow the ports. Anyway You See if we can do a little bit of the show starting and then the show going and So good to see you here, and I hope that I hope that parenthood hasn't changed you too much for us. Oh Yeah, it might have I Damage to my brain function ability thing We'll see. I'll be this is the first time I'll be talking in a voice that is meant for adult humans Oh, I'm actually talking to adult humans right now We're gonna talk about little molecules and little microbes. Oh, no microbes wash your little fingers and toes It's been a few few weeks of just holding up the baby being learn to speak Learn to speak Tell me tell me why you were crying I've done all of the things. Are you trying to teach the sign language the baby sign language? Thing about newborn babies is that they're just awful Really true they should just stay inside longer This is really like Well, there's some evolutionary benefit to things it's like a baby sleep a lot and that's probably because you know The mother wasn't running around Doing stuff right away after birth so the baby should just sleep a lot and that's fine And they come out the way they do because if they waited too long, maybe too big and there's all sorts of things I'd still just I'm trying to figure out the evolutionary advantage to filling a diaper while you sleep Just that's the one that I'm like, you know out of all the things Well, it's easier than getting up and going for a walk pooping themselves as they sleep is One of those things that I just don't understand I don't know that there's another creature in the animal kingdom. It was just sleep and poop at the same time But it's a constant Hey, and then and then and then zero control upset by it Be upset by the fact that you've pooped yourself in this it because I get that if you have pooped yourself in your sleep There's some sort of evolutionary advantage somewhere along the line who knows when or why But then we're just okay with it make perfect sense, but no, no, it is completely upsetting Who has pooped himself It is not Taco Tuesday. It's Wednesday. It's science Wednesday now. Okay I can't wait to meet the baby one day. Okay. Yeah We're gonna science now. I don't know where Blair is but we'll have fun anyhow The beginning of this show shall we starting in three two This is Twists this week in science episode number 862 recorded on Wednesday, February 9th 2022 is this the science trap Hey, everyone, I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show we are going to fill your heads with megajoules lasers and golf, but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer sleep It's that thing you get plenty of and tell you don't and then the world stops operating as it should You might find the coffee maker making only hot water you or find yourself waiting for a stop sign To turn green or holding a crying baby at 3 a.m. Wondering who even is this tiny human? They weren't here a week ago. In any case sleep Something your brain needs that and this week in science coming up next I've got the kind of mind I can't get enough. I want to learn everything every day of the week There's only one place to go to find the knowledge. I seek And a good science to you too Justin and Blair, how's your audio? Three restarts, that's the charm six actually it decided to reboot six times in a row Well, we're glad you're here and we hope that you stay that way I was doing this in the meantime. I was like, what can I cobble together? Fantastic She's doing man on the street interviews Lady on the street, let me ask you about science lady on the street Okay, we should tell Blair we already started the show All right, I'm glad Blair has crashed the show and welcome to everyone out there to another episode of this week in science We are so glad to be here all three hosts Hail and healthy and sounding five by five Everyone we are here to talk about science and we hope that you are ready to hear all about it I have stories tonight About What did I bring stories about did I write something down? Oh, yeah, I did fusion pathogens and friendly lady brains Yep, Justin, what do you got? Let's see I don't know. Oh My thing won't load now. Oh gosh. Well, I got I got a uh Martian Martian laser story uh Martian laser spaceship Discovery, I should say There is why it is old people don't use apps and Oh and the first humans in in europe First humans in europe. All right, I'm excited about that First current modern type humans Not on vacation necessarily. Yes European human permanent vacation Blair. What is in the animal corner? Oh, I have the latest used for spider silk and then I have cheaters and doctors Cheaters and doctors. Okay. All right. I'm excited about all of these stories and more because there is So much more to come in the entire episode ahead If you have not yet subscribed to this weekend science You know, you can do it if that's what you want to do head over to your favorite podcast platform And you can find us by searching for this week in science We are also on facebook youtube and twitch where we stream live weekly on wednesdays We are twist science on twitch and twitter and instagram But you can find all the information About us at twist.org Now it's time for the show shall we dive right in? i'm gonna start off with a little bit of Yeah It's not good news might be. I don't know what's gonna come of this This week the president's scientific cabinet member the first scientific cabinet member position ever Eric lander resigned After allegations of staff bullying and mistreatment came to light and it kind of fits with lander's past performance and ego and things that he's done, but In the president's white house. There is a zero tolerance policy for bullying and so lander when everything was reported He resigned And so now the question is what does this mean for biden's science agenda? And we don't know this one this one hurts. Uh, this one hurts the lander is Brilliant That's why he got the job in the first place. He's an amazing at least uh He's an amazing teacher Researcher the thing is Is it worth it? I would say yes and to get rid of all those people who he abused they had it coming What? It's yeah, you know, no sometimes sometimes You gotta you got a brilliant mind if they're referenced you have this happen in all sorts of walks of life Coaches go through this. Oh, this one coach is terrible to work with. Hey wins games. Yeah, that's why he's still a coach Other than this terrible human being All right, so what this is the the big question and there's a big moment right now, especially in science with regards to uh Just how people treat each other with not There's a lot of harassment in workplaces around the world Um in science, we know that there are hierarchies and power trips and harassment and bullying and all sorts of things that go on And the question is how much will We continue to take how much ego is going to be allowed Into the scientific lab into you know lander responsible for the brode institute and the Like basically the world's foremost genetics laboratory He built that and he's and and his ego is even to it and he maybe wouldn't have been where it is If he hadn't been such a jerk But you know, he pushed and prodded and made it happen and like But when there's a zero tolerance policy Doesn't matter if you can get if you if the only way you can get your work done is by Forcing people to do it by making people feel bad about themselves Maybe you should try something else because there are other ways to lead and you can lead by example You can lead by kindness and you can lead by allowing people to do what they're good at I think this is exactly the point kiki is that is that this is something I Often am shouting about is that just because you're good at something doesn't mean you'd be a good manager of that thing Right. And so you can be a smart. You can be a consultant on science You can be part of a panel on science But that doesn't mean that you're necessarily the material to run A department or a team or a cabinet or any of these things And I think that that's the piece here is that so much of our society is built on elevation based on Kind of achievement, right But often that elevation happens without the appropriate training and changes and expectations when you manage people And and so this is this is maybe kind of a comeuppance from that Maybe this is something that needs to be taught in higher education Alongside the discipline that people are learning is how to actually handle people Well, I think this is this is a huge problem in the sciences because you go from Working in a laboratory being a graduate student doing a post being a postdoc doing your own work working for other people And then suddenly one day you go and get a job As a professor at a university and you're given your own lab You pretty much will have had zero training unless you paid attention and took on roles the roles of a lab manager during your Your your post grad period You will have have had zero training In how to just how to work with people in how to do any of the things that People in business normally do and now the one of the issues here though I mean is lander comes from also he's a mathematician and a businessman And so he actually does come from the business world where You know people are rude and mean and latter climbing and they get things done a lot but I is is our priority as humans when at all costs Doesn't matter who you step on on the way up It doesn't matter who you hurt to get where you want to go um I don't know it's it's just it's a very interesting moment for our country for considering where we've been politically and also for I think science, but I think the bigger question here is what does this Not just say for science in general, but what is going to happen now that biden's science cabinet position is empty How is it going to change the cancer moonshot? Well lander wasn't incredibly involved in that so Maybe it won't change that at all. There was going to be the arpa h which is like a biotech a new biotech initiative and Is that going to fail now? Don't know like there there are a few things that are very much in question at the moment We'll see. Yeah. Well and not to mean I mean on the on the pro side Let's also remember that anyone that he was managing who didn't quit because of him Um that he was also modeling behavior, right? And so that's another reason to kind of remove this behavior is because it becomes a vicious cycle This is how you leave. This is what I learned. This is how I was treated and so I think it's it's also really important to make sure that the the people who are being because are in politics, right? It's a career now. So it's it's the people are being groomed to kind of move up In these cabinet positions that they're being modeled the right behavior as well Exactly. So it's sort of an interesting if I took though if I took the just to play devil's advocate Uh, never never a bunch of people who went from students to Uh, you know getting a phd then going into the workforce what have you're going into a you know Academic workforce place like that versus somebody who did like you say come from the business world. Hey, here's results Hey, uh, not good enough what I'm what I'm getting. I need actually some people who are gonna Go out there. I don't know what I don't know what the complaints are. So I should be very careful about this, right? They don't know What actually I have not read up on this. I just like lander. That's all the only the only matter of motivation He's very likable in sound bites and he's very Clever and you know people who have spent time with him. He yes, he he You know for media and for you know, very you know per like just Moments, he's great, but apparently he has methods to get work done Yeah, that just didn't come from that may have come from that lab That basically invented genomics. Okay It didn't come from that lab. It came from somewhere before Okay, but my point though is my point though is that if that's Has worked for him can work for other people. He just needs to find the right mix of hard-nosed people Who can deal with that environment? So that they make other people miserable when they're working for them later. Yes An excellent Yeah, just like I do here at this weekend science. I drive You're gonna do your work and you're gonna listen to me or else. Maybe I'm gonna make you feel bad about yourself We'd have a tight 90 That that hurts right right in here Justin, okay, let's talk about fusion for a second. Let's go move on Yeah, following on the heels of this last month Well, actually it's like back from august september of the national ignition facility the united states laser fusion Project announcing that it had reached a big threshold for power production after making some tweaks the european jet Fusion it's a tokamak facility Uh experiment has doubled its output just reported That they have doubled it to 12 megawatts 59 mega joules for five seconds. This is a world record for fusion energy production and basically it it says To the world that uh, they are on the right track for the eater project, which is the larger European tokamak fusion project, which is expected to be a power production facility for europe So fusion tokamak fusion creating using magnets to create a hot plasma And the exciting thing about this. I mean that they need they need to keep their magnets cool is what they need to do They could only run it for five seconds because that's how long it took for the magnets to overheat And once the magnets overheated It stopped working The five seconds that seems like a really long time though On the scale of this kind of power production. It's a really long time. Yeah Because some of that some of these reports of like high like the there was that that laser one it was It's like I got this it was like a nanosecond. It was like what that doesn't count You couldn't even all right ready? Uh, tell me when to start. Okay. It's over. Wait, what? At least you got to do a five count on this that sounds pretty that sounds problem One of the things that people are hoping fusion will be ready for is climate change prime time You know, can we use fusion to help us out of this climate change Predicament that we are in and the answer is no No, we can't You have to cool everything constantly Well, it's not just that but I mean the the energy that there the stuff they're using to make this happen is deuterium You know the deuterium comes from seawater. It's you know, it's not Prolific in seawater, but it's seawater and there's a lot of seawater and hey we want to do salination or desalination for for pure water purification for drinking water. So, oh, we've got all this water We should get out the deuterium and oh, there's all this supply. It's great And the cooling that that'll be fine once you get the fusion running It'll manage itself It'll the energy will be enough that it'll be able to take care of all those things However, it's still going to be like 20 or 30 years at least I mean, we're probably not going to see uh eater really working or niff even really working for a couple more decades and then It comes down to building fusion power plants, which again Takes time and so if we need to be really fixing stuff within like the next 10 years It's out. It's out. We need to fix stuff now and so fusion can be a future game But we need to change our game now So we keep putting all our ducks in these future I have too many now. I'm mixing my my metaphors and I get it's getting messy We're putting too many ducks in the future pond Yeah, we're putting ducks in I don't know In the egg basket, but they're eggs, but they're also ducks. It's no it's definitely anything to avoid uh Fixing efficiency and just general use reduction Exactly, what if can we keep everything like we're doing it, but we just what about nuclear? I know what about fusion no, what about it's okay, but now we can't do all the whole system is the problem It's gonna take time to overhaul the nuclear plants It's gonna take time to build the fusion plants once we get it really working It's still not really working, but it's getting there, but it's still gonna take time We don't have that time So that is the big take home is this is great But those are future ducks Back to the future duck or Tell me about the future of martian lasers in space. Justin. Yes. So Uh, uh laser powered martian spacecraft has been discovered Mars, huh. Yeah, what is it good for? Well one thing future humans Might have her we might be putting our future humans in a martian pond You know question is isn't if Person isn't if we're going to settle mars But if when we settle mars, we will be able to get packages from earth in a respectable amount of time Uh space x envisions a human trip to mars would take six months with its chemical powered rockets But six months is a really long time. It's half a year in fact Also half a year of a sustained space Faring can really rack up radiation exposure Uh in the astronauts or even the payload That you're taking to mars so 2018 nasa challenged engineers to design a mission to mars that would deliver a payload of at least a thousand kilograms in no more than 45 days Engineers decided that the problem was too hard and offered no solutions No, of course, that's not what happened engineers came up with solutions. That's what engineers do Uh harder the problem more creative they get to solve them and engineers at McGill University Montreal designed a propulsion system that would run the craft off of space lasers And then uh, I would have to aerobrake when it got to the Martian atmosphere so McGill's concept Is called laser thermal propulsion. It relies on an array of infrared lasers based on earth 10 meters in diameter so We're talking, uh, I think one of the examples was it's about the size of a volleyball court laser array combining invisible infrared beams each with a wavelength of about one micron Creating a a total of a hundred megawatts Uh of laser being fired, which is about the equivalent of 80 000 us households or less than five seconds of Super power generation so maybe we can just use it for this Uh the spaceship orbiting would already have to be up there, right? So you'd have to already have this craft in space in in some sort of medium earth orbit And the laser would then be firing at the back end of the craft filling up, uh Sort of a chamber that contains hydrogen plasma So when its core is heated up to 40 000 degrees kelvin 72 000 degrees fahrenheit hydrogen gas flowing Uh around the core gets up to about 10 000 kelvin 18 000 degrees fahrenheit and will be expelled out of a nozzle creating thrust enough to propel the ship away from the earth over an interval of about 58 minutes of Being hit by this laser I would have some other slight Onboard thrusting that would allow it to maintain its alignment with the earth so the laser can keep hitting it So when the beam stops being over payload zips away at a velocity of almost 17 kilometers per second relative to the earth fast enough to go past the moon's orbital distance in a mere eight hours when it reaches the martian atmosphere In a month and a half it will be traveling at 16 Uh kilometers per second Which if you're not familiar with kilometers per second that is about the same as 960 kilometers per minute mars In only 45 days did it got it good however Problem is once there it's moving at 16 000 meters per second and it's presenting a different issue How do you stop the thing? lasers on the other end Exactly you would have them have lasers on the other end and in a different reverse thruster of the same thing Is one of the possibilities So but that also requires all the power generation of 80 000 how how is this is said so if you don't have that on mars yet They need to use air brakes, which apparently is a thing that's not just in loony tunes All right Well, space brakes Well, I guess your brakes when you hit the martian atmosphere. Is that the idea you just hit it really fast Yeah, so well, so they can't use chemical propellant because apparently for that it would use 96 94 of the weight of the vehicle of the the original thousand kilograms Uh that nasa was asking for it would all be fuel used to do a chemical reverse thrust So that's out so Yeah, the lasers the lasers is the best option, but you already have to then have the infrastructure on mars What they used is uh the air air capture or air braking With a single pass around mars We're basically jamming the craft into the martian atmosphere Spaceship spaceship would experience a deceleration of up to eight g's which is a lot That's a lot of g's People are gonna love that Everything about all the g's for acceleration first And then all the g's of of slowing down. Oh my god So at least the acceleration it sounds like you could get about a minute of build-up on that acceleration Uh, you're gonna you're gonna be done decelerating very quickly I don't even know if it's gonna be a a couple of minutes because a couple of minutes of eight g's is maybe you make it You know, you're trained. You're wearing a g suit and all that yet. Maybe you make it. Maybe you don't This really doesn't sound like this is for humans. It sounds like it's for cargo So for so for cargo, it's a fantastic But the thing is they really want it for the humans too because then you don't have six months of space radiation exposure Yeah Is that it's not a one-way trip well Oh, it might be because it might just be a penal column share of maris is going to be it could be the next australia Uh, large heat flexes on the craft also are a little bit of problem right now The heat from that air braking would exceed our thermal protection system materials Uh, however It is below the heat that would be experienced By the materials that we have that are under active development that look like they'll be coming out So it looks like we've got on the horizon Thermal shielding that would be able to handle that and this is a quotey voice of manual duplay who's lead author of the study worked on the project for over two years at the mcgill Laser thermal propulsion enables rapid transport Missions of one ton with laser rays the size of a volleyball court There is that volleyball court reference to the the laser ray Some laser electric propulsion can only do uh with kilometer class arrays. So much, uh, much smaller array than uh, other previous Proposals that were in in this ballpark great advantage Uh, it's extremely low mass to power ratio far below even though cited for nuclear propulsion technologies Due to the fact the power source Isn't on the craft the power source The main power source is down here on earth Or on mars or on mars. Yes, or eventually mars. That's cool I like it. Well, I mean we already have these you know These solar sails that are working with the idea of just using light to propel them We've got crafts that are already working according to that That technique and so this is just taking it a little bit different a different tech on it and The intensity of laser light Pew pew pew Martian space lasers Okay, Blair. Yes. What's your next story? What's your first story? Oh my goodness. Yes My very first story of the day. Um, it's all about spider silk We know that uh scientists have their eye on spider silk for a lot of different purposes But what if you could use spider silk As a platform to grow nerve or muscle cells Wait, so this sounds like how superheroes get get started Oh, okay. Well, there's that angle. I was trying to get the superhero angle with it And so yes, we will grow the superheroes on spider silk. Exactly. Yes more spider silk than men Um, so spider silk. It's non-toxic. It's biocompatible It attracts virtually no microbes. It's tough. It's stable and it's biodegradable All that to say it's a perfect thing to stick in your body to grow tissues on So, uh researchers from University of Beirut, Germany Have optimized a natural product in more than one way simultaneously Using a biotechnological approach They made a two-sided spider silk fiber Which provided Damaged nerve cells or muscle cells with a platform for growth one side of the fiber is suitable for cell adhesion And the other side is used to attach factors or other substances So one of them was formed from a spider silk protein in which the team substituted a single amino acid and by doing that They reversed the net charge from negative to positive of that protein And the surface of that material then became more attractive to cells. So that's your spot for cells to grow on Um, and then they the other side they added the amino acid cytosine cysteine, excuse me. Sorry cysteine And in the addition of cysteine it makes it possible to employ click chemistry Which is a method for functionalizing materials where the reaction partners react So easily with one another that it says if they can be clicked together So all that to say They were able to make this fiber In a way that it was perfect for muscles To uh to grow on there. They're excited by electrical impulses Um, and so they were able to figure out this perfect kind of spider silk scaffolding for cells That is really groovy This is so interesting. I mean, we're looking at so many different uh platforms for growing cells, right? You know, yeah, 3d printing. We've got you know, so there's a lot of plastics got the bleached, uh pig pieces Yeah, exactly. Yeah We've we've taken organs. Yeah taken organs from other animals and just cleared them of everything except just the Cellular substructure and just said here now you can grow cells But this is this is really interesting because it'll allow the cells to grow more organically and flexibly Yep, absolutely. Yeah, and there's no danger of any foreign material getting in Um for the most part it's it doesn't start with something that's not compatible and it is um naturally uh kind of repellent to microbes so In theory it should be a perfect opportunity to grow cells on so Yeah So they made some crazy two-sided spider silk for your body Gold gold coated spider. Yes. Oh, yes. I forgot to mention the gold coating Yes One side was coated with gold nanoparticles. That was that click chemistry Which made them electrically conductive Gold this is This is amazing. I love it. Yeah, thank you for this Of course We will grow our superheroes on gold coated spider silk. Yeah, forget adamantium laden skeletons. My skeleton is covered spider silk, man I love it. Um, uh, let's see my last story for this intro portion of the show. Uh, how do we get pathogens? some researchers have been digging into what has led some uh, some microbes to become pathogenic to humans specifically because Maybe in the dirt these organisms are not pathogenic But then when they get into people they are and so it's a difference of environment. Yes, but What is it that actually teaches them to do the things that harm humans? And the example from this particular study that was published this last week is uh, that they're There's with coveted There is the black fungus that has been outbreaking in coveted patients where the immune system is depressed and then a fungus gets in and causes a fungal infection that can be very very dangerous and difficult to treat this fungus is caused by a fungus that grows in the ground rhizopus and rhizopus is normally Not a problem At all. This is the normal fungus. It's in the dirt It lives with plants and it's in the dirt and it's happy But there's a predator that is after rhizopus. It's an amoeba. That's called Dictylostelium Dictylostelium the amoeba comes Amoeba-ing after the fungus And the only way to describe that Amoeba is coming and rhizopus is like What do I do? So what does rhizopus do it partners up with another bacterium called brow stonia brow stonia lives inside of Rhizopus and can hide from the amoeba as well because the amoeba is really after everybody and everybody's like what do I do amoeba? ralstonia gets nutrients and protection from rhizopus But the thing that rhizopus gets is a toxin That ralstonia produces to protect itself from the nasty Dictostelium Dictiostelium And so rhizopus in the dirt when it is partnered up with this little bacterium Can protect itself and it doesn't succumb to the amoeba and everything's great But you put rhizopus with ralstonia in a person And suddenly that toxin is incredibly toxic to people and so the problem is Not necessarily these organisms, but where they are and when they are so understanding these ecological connections is really important potentially for Helping human health because now we know that if somebody who Presents with a rhizopus black fungus infection If we treat the toxin You can potentially let the immune system Dig in and do the work it needs to do to rid the body of the fungus Yeah, so it's an ecological connection That's really cool. That's you know, that's that's a situation where These two buddies are worth way more together than the sum of their parts in to our to our deficits But it's definitely one of those things where you're talking about ecology. That's exactly it, right is organisms interactions Creating something wholly new and different and Yeah, it's I know it's scary and it's sad for people who are infected, but I also think it's kind of cool Exactly. I mean, it's it's what these organisms have done teaming up together To to survive and exist in dirt You know, but yeah, so it's this multi-level Multi-level interaction that is fascinating and we have to remember that We exist in this world of complex interactions Yeah, and it's important for healthcare too, right? So especially, you know I I understand when you when you're seeing something over and over especially right now You're dealing with covid patients in healthcare settings. You're trying to just Kind of deal with symptoms as much as you can because the sheer volume, right? It kind of you don't have time to stop and think and go I wonder what happened with this bacteria and this fungus hang out So it's yeah, it's pretty wild to think about as uh from a human health standpoint that you have to consider The ecological connection of these things No, no, we want to consider everything one-off isolated in a box Just kill the fire that we like to categorize. Don't give us another layer of complexity Don't give me interactions between things producing things that the individuals didn't produce on their own. No Forget everything you knew about human health. No, never mind. Sorry. Don't forget. Don't forget at all. Just add this, please You are special snowflake Oh my goodness. All right, everybody. This is this week in science. Thank you so much for being a part of the show this week We're so glad that you are here with us Why don't you bring a friend next time tell a friend about twists because the science needs needs to be shared All right, let's come on back for our quick covid update That's the correct sound effect That's for sure the right one All right Removing Justin from the screen until he comes back. So, uh in covid news this week. Let's talk about A new cdc statement You've heard the news lots of states are dropping mask mandates right and left. They're like Our numbers are down. Everything's great. Everybody's had covid. So we're all perfect protected um well The cdc director has come out and said That was the press release Don't rush to the finish line yet Yeah, so uh because we are in a global situation even though there may be states and places with um With lower case numbers and uh with higher with higher uh What is it vaccinated numbers and also uh people who have been infected so higher numbers of people who are protected Um, there are lots of places that still are suffering and here in oregon You know, I think also in california, there are case numbers are dropping but hospitals are still full and we are we just passed 900 000 dead across the country which is Not something we want to get an award for this is something that we have brought on ourselves with our human behavior Just remember We can all make choices to protect everybody else. So, um, you know, keep an eye on uh the case rates wherever you are When cases go down below about 50 people per 100 000 per seven day period Uh from 50 to 100 it is considered high by the cdc And once you're below that you start getting into more moderate Zones of infect infectivity infectiousness within or transmission within a community But 90 I think it's something like 99 percent of counties across the united states have high levels of transmission at this point in time. So As much as we want it to be done It's not done yet and let's not drive it faster to the finish line. Let's try and keep Our hospitals from filling up. Let's let this thing kind of peter out on its own We've done the masking. We've done the social distancing this time. We can keep doing it just a little longer Just watch those case numbers. Keep an eye on things in your local area And use your good judgment This is such a strange situation where when we're doing something that's working We choose that as a signal to stop doing that thing It's working. I don't need to do it anymore. Yeah, it's my brain was really having a problem with this today because It's oh great. We did this thing and it dropped cases down We're not done higher than they've been in most of the pandemic They're at the levels of the peak from last year. Yeah, and we're considering that like good Because omicron levels were insane Four weeks ago, which was not that long ago. Remember covid Is around for five to 10 to 14 days depending on the on the variant So 10 to 14 that's two cycles. That's two cycles of infection What are we doing? It's so the county are being human. We're being human But it's yeah, the county where I work is the one bay area county that is not dropping its mask mandate next next week and everyone's very mad And the the public health official who made the decision said There's 2,000 cases a day of covid still in that county. Yep I'm not dropping the mask mandate. I'm like, you know what all the power to you may have Thank you. Yes, let's Let's protect each other mask at work, but you know what? I It gave me tmj, but I know everyone Blair wears a mask even though it gave her tmj So badly that she couldn't come to the show last week. Yeah So just a little bit longer. I'm still wearing a mask so I don't kill anybody. Thank you Um, another aspect of the ongoing pandemic becoming endemic is the question of what are we going to do about booster shots? And are we going to want to have? uh variant specific booster shots that we will take every six months or so well There is some new data out from maderna, which is actually really interesting and um actually supports the new data out of maderna which In which they have done a monkey trial and in their monkey trial using an omicron booster shot So they had monkeys that had been vaccinated with other maderna with the original maderna vaccine And then they either received No vaccine no booster shot an omicron specific booster shot that had been formulated specifically for the omicron spike protein And uh a regular maderna additional booster shot They found that there was no No benefit to the omicron specific shot in these monkeys. They also are testing this on humans We're waiting to see if this is verified But so far this completely lines up with this idea of what's called original antigenic sin Antigenic imprinting that people have been talking about and worrying about with the idea of like oh We if we just get too many shots What is our body going to be responding to? And so researchers think that's what what's happening is that Even though the omicron variant is different enough to cause breakthrough infection cases in vaccinated people The body when you give a booster shot it doesn't care whether it's The other spike protein or the omicron spike protein because there's enough stuff that's similar That the body is just like I know what that is and it just brings up its old B memory cells And it says I've already got this and it makes it makes antibodies Which is supposed to do and that's fantastic, but It's not making omicron specific antibodies. So The question now is what will we do in terms of shots going forward? Definitely this needs to be played out and tested in people and we need to look at a couple of different types of booster shots, but What this suggests is that we might not need to have lots of different variant shots as it evolves and mutates and that we may just Need to kind of On a regular basis get a booster so Boosters will be good still, but it might not need to be a special booster Is it still a booster if it's an annual shot? Like is our flu shot considered a booster? Well, it's not a flu shot booster But it is similar. I think because the flu is it the flu virus reconfigures itself differently enough every year that our bodies just like I don't even know what to do with this and so our bodies Are always Yeah, but so I guess that's my point if the if our annual covid shot is formulated for the latest variants Let's say So it could be if it is is this is just a silly question But is it still a booster then or is it just your annual covid shot? That's at a certain point in time. It'll yeah, it might be just your annual covid shot. I don't know the lingo I don't know the lingo. This is something that This needs to be worked out by the public health people branding The public health group has been excellent at Throughout the pandemic so they need to figure that out. Anyway, I I sent some sarcasm No Let's see. And beyond this question of boosters and original antigenic sin, which is such a dramatic term for a scientific concept There was a Pew Research survey out this last week Pew wanted to know how the public felt about COVID-19 the United States COVID-19 response And what we find is after two years People are really upset a lot of people are confused and the big number is That the majority of people are Are majority people are pretty much confused 60% of us adults say they felt confused as a result of changes to public health officials recommendations on how to slow the spread of coronavirus and this is up From last summer. So people were confused and they're more confused now. So they're Note to officials you're communicating poorly What did I just say? Yeah, and also and also Part of it is communicating poorly a big part of it is also failing To have a solution to have a plan. Yeah just failing No, just failing to have the appropriate solution at every point Along this journey we've been on And then and to change the change the story as it goes. Yeah We're gonna just have a hard shutdown But it's like it's like nobody wanted to be the adult in the room and say yeah No, we just We just need to go to bed now. We're not going to get better the tantrum Or whatever is happening in our country is not going to everybody just needs to sleep Here's five hundred dollars box of groceries rent relief and and a video game. Uh, go have fun It's you know, it's one of these things because this is and this is a this is a tangent and I won't go into it But it costs more money Costs society more money to incarcerate An individual Then it would have costed to educate and furnish them with a job now why it is that we continue to fund incarceration And not education as a society is one of those things that no adult in the room said hey We're doing this wrong It's it's the same reason we do this with the shutdown. It's the same reason we do what we do with climate change It's instant gratification It's all about that. It's about I want to fix this right now I don't want to wait to see you It's patchwork. It's ad hoc. It's always it's always trying to uh, uh, fix the Uh, the symptom and not the cause and it's uh, it's yeah short term solution always no long game Never a long game. No We are lucky in this report. However the survey which Isn't necessarily representative of all us adults. Um, they say that they found 78 percent of us adults From the survey said they have received at least one dose 73 being fully vaccinated 66 fully vaccinated as all 66 percent of fully vaccinated adults saying they received an additional covid 19 boosters shot in the last six months um, but this does fall along partisan lines, however, where Uh, 73 percent of fully vaccinated democrats say they've gotten a covid 19 boosters shot compared with 55 percent of fully vaccinated Republicans, uh, so these partisan differences are a big issue and especially when it comes down to, uh, what We will require vaccinations for in the future. So range of activities from Uh proof of covid 19 for air travel 58 percent generally favor that which is um Was split between democrats and republicans, uh 76 of democrats Favor requiring vaccination for a sporting event or a concert 26 of republicans for that And they still want to go that's it. Stop still want to go. They still want to go Yes, they still want to go to a sporting event or a concert. Yes Yes, so there are some really interesting numbers about all of this which, you know, do give us insights into the divides that are affecting our public health issues in this day and age as we Hope that we can just let this Omicron wave crest The problem I tend that we have in public health Uh with with nobody doing the things that will protect each other From this is the same thing the planet has the problem with humans It's like it's like we are experienced. We're like gosh. What is what is what's with these humans? They're just destructive and they don't care about their own sustainability, let alone the rest of us Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's how the rest of the world Life forms have been thinking about humans this whole time. Yes, that's what you guys do if you hadn't noticed Yay humans Oh This is this weekend science. We're done with coven. At least this section of the show for the time being I'm done with it Done with it Thank you for joining us for another episode of our show If you are enjoying twist, please head over to our website twist.org and click on that patreon link You can help support the ongoing Production of this show weekend and wake week out if you choose ten dollars or more per month Not even per week per month. We will thank you by name at the end of the show We really can't do this without you. Thank you for your support All right coming back now with more this week in science and oh wait, I know what time it is It's the tmj hour. Oh wait, no No, no, no, no, it's blairs animal corner What you got blur Well, we were just talking about the The perils of being human. Let's talk about animals animals. They're just they're not human. They're fair Non-human animals Yes, unless they're big fat cheaters. Oh, no I want to talk about cheating animals the study from duke university not cheating, you know, like extra monogamous Copulation but more about just cheating like A scam if you will a swindle So this the story actually reminded me of Something that happened. Well, I should say it reminded brian. I was telling him about it And he said, you know what that sounds like that sounds like the ghost army in world war two. Have you heard of this? either of you This was um inflatable tanks This is a british the british. Yes inflatable. What so this is actually So this was um something developed in actually in the u.s. Army in norlands and then it was shipped overseas And so the ghost army had two dozen missions between may 1944 and 1945 and they um Were kind of tracking the nazis and then they would set up all these inflatable tanks And so the idea was that on uh reconnaissance missions or for far away It would look like they had way more tanks Then they really did Now did it cost nothing to make them? No, it definitely cost something Did it cost nothing to set them up and move them around? No, it definitely cost something But definitely a lot less than building and moving tanks And that's really what this story is about is about um a Swindle a trick done by animals in a similar fashion So animal weapons are often large clunky heavy appendages think about uh antlers on deer lobster claws They're metabolically very costly for the animal to maintain They have lots of muscle because they're used in combat And so some animals can spend 40 percent of their energy budget for a day Just maintaining themselves sitting there doing nothing, especially if they have these large um combat based appendages that are very costly And so this study wanted to look at snapping shrimps and one species of fiddler crab They wanted to see how these animals were developing these huge claws And if that was impacting their metabolic output So it turns out muscles like I was saying require a lot of energy to maintain But chitin the main component of a crab or shrimps outer shell is mostly inert It takes energy to make it but once produced it costs almost nothing to maintain The same goes for keratin which are things like rhino horns bird feathers and of course our fingernails And so these initial kind of investments to make this big flashy thing could uh Actually end up being very advantageous if they're not spending a bunch of energy Maintaining it after that just build it and you're done And so for each species they looked at the relationship between weapon size and the Ratio of soft extensive tissue to hard cheap exoskeleton They found that the larger the weapon the higher the proportion of exoskeleton it contained So the muscle didn't grow proportionally leaving larger weapons with more cheap crunch and less expensive muscle The the idea is their opponents have trouble assessing whether they're bigger stronger stronger or simply have A giant claw that's worth nothing Um and so the reason that this seems to work is that as is the case with many animals that fight with each other they The battles are often won by intimidation a lot of the time they never even come to blows And when they do escalate to full blown violence, they're rarely lethal Also specifically if you're looking at shrimp and crabs If a crab claw gets ruined they can pull it off and grow a new one So it's really it's advantageous to them to kind of try to trick Other uh other crabs into thinking that they're they're more formidable than they actually are And so the the example that they gave here in the article Was if there were two knights face to face One had an average size sword and the other one had a massive fear reducing sword covered with blood the the Knight with the medium sized sword runs away, but it turns out that larger sword covered in blood was plastic They never know right and so that is exactly how these crabs get by So this is a good example of a species figure kind of through evolutionary chance They're being a greater advantage. So I said figure it out and then I was like no, no, no Let's be real. So really what's happening is out of chance. Some of the claws had more kite into muscle The the kite into muscle ratio was higher in the kite and end and so they Were just as good at scaring off other crabs but They put less energy into that claw and therefore had more energy later To breed to move to eat to do other things And so there was a large evolutionary advantage to taking this tack if the Output is the same if you scare away a crab no matter what doesn't matter if you're faking it Well, it does matter because in the end if that becomes a A driving like you said it's a driving selection factor. So you have more Fakers, right? So what does this mean? for uh, the spring crab feeds like How do I choose? Yeah, so don't necessarily pick the giant claw because it might it might be really thick with kiting and not have a lot of the meat inside Fair fair. Yeah Your crab might have been faking it. Yeah Gotcha I wonder how how much more often this happens like what other features on different animals would be like this I mean, we know that you know horns on deer are big signals But those aren't necessarily muscularly attached and have It, you know, it's a different tissue Need so I don't know I'd it'd be interesting to see how many other traits this would potentially connect to Yeah inflatable tanks as one Anyway moving on pretty soon it's just gonna be inflatable crab crab claws. Yeah, why why not? So moving from cheaters to doctors, uh, would you see a chimpanzee doctor? Uh, well, you know No, I would not see a cheater doctor either at this point. I'd consider it Yeah, well, uh, I've not been super impressed With some of the healthcare advice over the years So scrape your knee. Maybe rub a bug in it. Uh, yeah, break your leg No, rub a bug in it. Wait, wait, wait, wait, what sounds like that could work Uh, bruise your face rub a bug in it. Where you know, I thought about trying to Rub a bug in it. I I keep trying to say rub a bug in it. Is that are you meaning to say that? Yes Yes, I am so a study from austin brook university and a zuga chimpanzee project has for the first time observed chimpanzees applying insects To their own wounds and the wounds of cons specifics So dr. Chimp saying rub a bug in it They investigated the behavior of a community of about 45 chimpanzees with a special focus on their social relationships Interactions and disputes with other groups their hunting behavior tool use and their cognitive and communicative skills And by chance They found One of them Regularly capturing insects and applying them onto open wounds Then they kept looking And found 22 events Mostly involving individuals applying insects to their own wounds But in many other cases They would apply the insects to the wounds of others So Self-medication where individuals use plant parts or non-nutritional substances to combat pathogens or parasites Has been observed in the animal kingdom before it's been observed across multiple animal species insects reptiles birds and mammals, but This is the first time As far as these researchers know as far as we know That An animal has been shown to apply Something topically in this way So this is a very specific thing External application of animal matter onto an open wound Has never been documented So now Now ancient chimpanzee secret We need to see if it works Right, okay, so you're jumping right to the heart of the matter here So the bug might have an anti-inflammatory or antiseptic property or Might it might be That such a behavior has no beneficial consequences and is instead part of local chimpanzee culture Just as this is a it's a biting remark from the from the researcher Just as a large number of medical treatments are in human societies, which we know is true Crystals anyway, um moving on as the next step the researchers do aim to recover Coming up to me. Oh, yeah, there you go. Um, so the next step is to figure out Exactly what Justin was asking. Um, they want to Recover remaining insect parts that were used to apply to wounds to identify the species one Because they still haven't figured that out And then figure out if it is if it's if it's there's a selection process on top of it Not just any bug can't just use any bug you need specific bugs or will any bug do it Any bug in the storm Yes, so that's one is it a particular bug and then two Carry out bio assays to investigate the potential pharmaceutical properties. What specifically in the bug Are they using if anything and then they also want to focus on the social dimension of this behavior Who are the main actors? Who are the main receivers of treatment? Is are there a couple of kind of designated doctors in a chimpanzee troop? Um, where does everybody get to play doctor? Does everyone do it? As well as the social learning process to allow for transmission How do how does a young chimp learn to do this behavior? Is it specific to this group of chimps? Does it happen elsewhere? Does it happen in bonobos? There are a million questions So many questions and did these chimpanzees Happen to come in contact with humans and are they copying a behavior they saw in humans? Like did a human get a bug bite and then Rub something on and the chimps missed a step All right, there yeah, there are so many questions about that leap from you know, uh, just kind of a happenstance use of plants like putting particular herbal plants in nests to uh, you know certain plants have anti pest Properties like in there in the compounds that are in their leaves. And so a lot of birds Rodents will put these kinds of things in their nests But when did that start happening? How did it start happening? Is it learned? Is it How do you know is it just that's just what grows in the area and it just is accidental or You know, and then how does that go to a cultural societal step? like Yeah, and bonus will we discover a new pharmaceutical from this? Oh, we can all rub a bug on it. Yeah, I can't wait for my rub a bug on it spray. Yeah liquid bee for what ails you Do you have a bug bite a cut a burn? Are you in pain itching? Rub a bug on it spray just for you Love it Thank you for bringing this story. It's uh I love the stories that bring more questions Yes, and answers It's like who we get to report on this for a long time to come. Yeah, you really crack something open here. I love that A bug you you cracked a bug bug open squirted it on Crack a bug on it My goodness All right, Justin, would you like to tell us some stories now? Bring us from the animal corner into Justin's lack of sleep time Yeah, yeah, I will as soon as my Oh guys, this new computer is like really slow loading things. Okay, so homo sapiens That's what the uh current modern human scientists call themselves Uh, and this version of the upright ape Maybe merged in Africa Over 300 000 years ago really became the complete anatomically current modern human around 195 000 years ago First early modern humans outside of Africa We found our israel around 185 000 years ago possibly Greece around 210 000 years ago There's modern human remains that have been documented in east asia 80 000 years ago australia 65 000 years ago and then europe however Like it takes a you know took them a lot longer to find europe even though you would think europe is much closer To africa than a lot of those distant places Uh current modern humans don't show up until Somewhere in the 45 to 43 000 years ago And that's based on just five isolated dental remains from three sites in italy 45 43 000 years ago. Okay most recent neanderthals Yeah, most recent neanderthals Uh 42 000 40 000 years ago in europe that's the most recent so there's like this It's like there were neanderthals Boom and then there's humans and that's kind of that's kind of it uh Records show the earliest modern human remains and then the transitional technologies of those humans that they brought to europe Are found above layers where they find the androtom Activity so there's no mixing of these layers. There's no then mixing evidence of the cultures It is impossible to point to any likely encounter between the two populations in any particular region of europe for any amount of time at all until now This is grata mandarin Mediterranean france reveals the earliest known arrival of modern humans in europe to date This is between 56 800 and 51 700 years ago and It shows evidence of successive replacement phases occupation by neanderthals occupation by modern humans occupation by neanderthals again occupation by modern humans yet again And that took place over the last thousand years of neanderthals existence in the area So this is not just a site that has you know close to but this is jumping back and forth for a very long time The site yielded nearly 60 000 stone and bone objects and tools It's quite a big number As well as 70 000 animal remains that were dominated by horse bison and deer. Uh, there were hominin fossils nine dental specimens representing a minimum of seven individuals ancient dna analysis It was carried out on the horse fossils not on the human fossils Reason being they basically want to assess whether the level of dna preservation Uh, was good enough to merit destroying the fossils Right because you you once you Go to analyze it. You've destroyed bone. You've destroyed tooth. You've you you can't go back Yeah, they want that data, but uh the poor preservation signal from the horse material made them to the side They're not going to sample the remains uh, the the hominin remains at this time, which which is extremely important and just by itself this is an interesting story because uh, and that's the site that you got up there on the live stream You know if we if you go if you cycle down through that you can see all the the stone and bone tools and stuff quite a prolific site for artifacts That they have discovered here. It's just incredible. So one of that one of the interesting things then is here is here's part of what archaeology has to always Decide what to do we can look at a thing and everything you look at is destroyed every time you do a dig You're destroying evidence in a sense. You can only dig it once You can only record where things were where the layers are the site parts of these sites had been uh looked at in the past But uh in the long past and it was such a shoddy job. They couldn't tell the layers of neanderthal tools from these other What are they now realize are current modern human tools? In its sense because the the work hadn't been done in an adequate way you destroy it When you look at it for one and then to do the dna analysis having to destroy something that they can get maybe morphological Forensic type of information out of still and can look at um Maybe not worth it yet. So that's the thing also methods of extracting dna methods of doing this are improving as here's goodbye So the researchers are like, you know We have the thing you'd want to get your hands on to do this But our technology isn't there yet So they're preserving that information for future archaeologists or researchers to look at by not attempting Uh the moonshot with the dna extraction But rather wait, you know waiting for for that to be a more common place but it's it's it's really great that they're able to At least do the dating to the point of being able to look at all of these artifacts and Everything and say we've got human hominid and we've got neanderthal. They're all mixed together But this human stuff has definitely been here. So we know it that humans Were in europe before we thought humans were in europe And so and this one it's actually not all mixed up in this dig that they're doing They have they've gone back and they're they've gone back layer by layer and they can see Transitions over time as it went back and forth between human and neanderthal Uh one of the other things that's sort of remarkable is the those the standardized small points Some of these are measuring only one centimeter in length three centimeters your tiny points And they're a Very big difference. So there's a technological difference from the neanderthal technology that's found at the site Uh, they were given a unique cultural attribution of neuronean technology Because they resemble tech found at another site, but until now that neuronean Uh, they it let's be it's the name of another cave Where something similar was found that's where it got this name and it's very similar to that technology that is But this is much earlier This is much earlier than than that other site And so there might be a technology link to these uh, these modern humans And other modern settlements Previously in different areas who up till now they haven't really known For sure that that technology was from modern humans And they didn't know who made it. They just had been finding it It's like very unique compared to the neanderthal technology. So So now there is also this path that can sort of be followed and traced to sort of see where the human trade routes But it sounds like a fantastic site the number of artifacts they have to study the number of the tools that are present the the changing Layers over time showing that back-and-forth interaction for the first time and the oldest current modern humans in europe We've been there. We've been there Not just neanderthals people were there. We were there So cool The last last one I have is uh Ah, this is not much of a story. Basically, uh, there was a study that finds health apps Could help old people with everything and anything from sleep to diabetes But uh, most of those older adults don't use them And the reason they discovered that the these people aren't using the these these medical apps Is because they're old people Really Well, there's like a whole page of words. I could say about percentages of people who it's like More than halfway they'd be interested in using apps That do all the things that apps that are out there programming You can even link them to diabetes monitoring that you're wearing They can you can link it to your blood pressure You can link to all these sorts of things that help monitor you can then take that to your doctor and say Hey, here's what I've been experiencing and none of them are using it And what they're finding is uh compared to a decade ago Most older adults didn't even own smart devices The tablet thing the phone whatever now that number has gone up substantially and yet They're still not using it. So so they need need tech help Maybe also part of it is there's I guess a fear of having that data health data out there Look if you're already an older adult Who you who cares? Who cares? Who cares would you nobody's tracking your blood pressure? nobody no no Big tech isn't looking to see what your glucose level is. That's not what that's about nobody cares I mean we could we could talk we could talk forever about the sociology of this I think a lot of it is that the this is also the demographic who Is most likely to be swindled by online scams And so I think there's a huge fear Because they can't they they're not they didn't grow up with the internet. They're not trained inherently to be able to tell what a Reliable and reputable source is to pump information into versus something that's going to try to steal your bank account information Yeah So I think there's an inherent fear because they feel like victims Which they often are the ones who are being targeted as victims by apps and the internet Well, there's there's that and then there's you know also just Picking up the phone. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if my dad's watching right now But I mean he he's got he's very into apps and his smartphone and all the things and he's on his phone all the time just like everybody with the with With these mobile devices that are attached to us all the time but there is also you know, just the the adoption the full adoption and What are you really doing when you adopt it? Are you using the smart device as just a phone and for texting and for facebook? or are you using it as like The the the journal of your life, you know the thing that connects you to everything which so many younger People are doing so there's you know the variation in in how you use the technology Yeah, that's the thing that occurred to me is it's going forward that's Probably going to be less of a of a thing. Yeah Third of them though, but it was in a third really expressed interest in wanting to use a lot of the A lot of the capability having want to have the capability a lot of these apps Provide, but we're just unaware of it before the survey even like Like the needs to it seems like There needs the medical profession that the the rubber bug in it chimp Can have a rubber bug in it app where you like put in your symptoms And he's And it can just say rubber bug in it over and over it, but the medical profession is missing Huge amount if they're not if they're not telling patients about this if they're not including some sort of health monitoring apps For their patients to connect to their medical record to connect to their doctors to the doctors like don't even come in I just looked over your blood pressure has been fine Whatever I think that's the thing that the the point that kind of keeps coming up is public health communication So if the people would be interested in using the app, but they don't know about it Whose fault is that? Well, so will the app replace doctor visits that uh insurance companies can make money off of? I'm not super cynical about it, but I I can tell you right now on my phone. I have three different apps from my healthcare provider for different things. Oh, nice And uh, it's it's annoying because I think it should be one app But I do have three apps on my phone. That's the thing though I'm not going to download a fourth health app right now I I mean I'm going to say I'm I don't want another app on my phone If I can avoid downloading any app, I will avoid it. Just leave me alone with your apps I don't care. I am an old person and I am not interested in your apps Okay, don't give me an app. Just call me on the phone. Can you send me an email? I don't know texts are awesome No more apps Kiki wants to go straight to the entree No apps no apps So Kiki brings up a great point like I what was it the thing there was Like I was like, oh, hey, we got a deal that you can have a coffee here, but you need to get our coffee app Okay, well, why don't I just do a transaction? No, we need you to use the app for your transaction now. I'm sorry You can't I'm gonna go get coffee someplace else because I don't care And you go across the street and they're like, oh great. Hey, welcome. I'm glad you left them Here's a hey download our app and you can oh no Yeah, you're right. It's gone. It's gone to the point where it's too much Just everybody you want to have to rule them all Just one app that you can go into Call it just the smart device that has all the apps in one week I miss websites I miss websites. I like I can choose to go to it. It's not I was like I like a website Give me a computer and website. I when I exit out of that website. It's not tracking me anymore That's what That's what the ads exist so they can track you It wasn't that the thing that apple kind of like told everybody to like Oh, hey and google and all that. Hey. Oh, yeah, I was just talking about uh drinking coffee And now I'm getting coffee ads on my On my my social media stuff. Oh my phone is listening to me No, it turned out it was all those apps you downloaded that you gave insane amounts of permissions to Listen to your every conversation without you even knowing it and this is why the old people aren't using the health apps Yeah, when they start getting their push notifications for sales at the funeral home, they're gonna be like, what did my health app say? Or it's because you and all your friends have the same apps and so or maybe you don't have the app But all your friends do but all your phones know that you're all friends and so the other apps know you anyway And so you still get the ads Like it's really gone too far honestly This is my new t-shirt that I want The metaverse can bite me So but hey, but metaverse is it might be where Blair ends up This might be the head in the jar the future. Maybe how she lives forever. I know Because because hang on if if the apps and all the social media people document themselves for a lifetime of tweeting And all that information goes in to the algorithm It just knows basically everything about you. You can die. It doesn't care the the meta version of you Can persist it knows all of your patterns. It knows your likes and dislikes your reactions It knows it can just you can just keep on going. Nobody dies anymore I'm gonna learn how to fly All right fame anyway I have stories I have some science stories. I want to talk about breaks Shocking wants to talk about So no genetics So no, what's a so no genetics? Yeah, so it is an area of genetic manipulation of nerves to eventually affect behavior uh behavioral responses memories even That instead of using a technique like optogenetics or invasive injections that uh researchers could use ultrasound To stimulate nerves and get them to do what they want. And so this whole story of sonogenetics came about because It was an accident really a researcher was Uh playing around with some c elegans and discovered that when They put a particular kind of of when they put ultrasound over the c elegans the c elegans was like And flopped around and didn't like it and wanted to go away So then they turned the ultrasound off and the c elegans is like They're like, okay, what happened they turn it on ultrasound The you know, of course c elegans, it's a little worm. So it's not making these noises, but I don't know how to Visualize I think that's exactly what they would sound like Yes, so the c elegans started this uh this process back in like 2015 This little nematode is pulsing under Ultrasound stimulation and then they were like, okay, let's figure out what it is these researchers Like they spent months and months and months and months nothing nothing nothing They couldn't figure out what molecule what protein was responsible for making The response to the ultrasound in the worms until finally ta-da one day Happy happy they nailed down. It's a particular protein That is called trip one a transient receptor potential a one and it's a A membrane channel that allows ions to travel across a membrane But basically it stimulates them the nerves in these worms and gets them to move so it's the idea is that trip a one is a response to toxins or to To painful stimuli to stimuli that are dangerous and so This particular molecule they have looked to see whether they could stimulate it in other organisms and so Indeed they have discovered that in this This paper they've just published in nature communications They have sonogenetic control of mammalian cells That using exogenous trip one a channel so they They they they were invasive a bit because they injected the The crisper stuff into the brain to get these trip one a channels into The neurons in the brain for these mice Which we wouldn't want to do in the future but if you And they're looking currently for other molecules that won't just turn on A nervous response, but also turn it off because they don't can't necessarily turn it off once they've turned it on In these mice that they injected This receptor into their brains. They were able to put ultrasound into the over their heads and then the limbs of the mice The muscles tightened up and the limbs shook So they were able to create movement in these mice by adding this protein to the brains Of the mice and maybe one day We too will be able to use ultrasound to stimulate behaviors in animals And people so this this is what I was going to ask. I was going to say go ahead Put this in a box shove it in a storage facility. It's a bad idea except I'm sure there's actually a good Application of this. Can you tell me what that would be because I'm having trouble figuring out what it is So for right now, it would be a it would be research applications. Uh, so Essentially at this point in time, uh, there would not be a hey, let's go use this and you know, put somebody underneath ultrasound and then Have something happen, right? We wouldn't necessarily we don't want people to walk through an ultrasound beam and Suddenly start convulsing, you know, you don't want something like that. Yes, we do No, we don't not yet. No. Yes. We do. Yes. We do. We need we need a human kill switch We we do we do so maybe that's what it is But at this point in time what this is is that optogenetics light only Goes so far into the brain the blue light that they're using the wavelengths that they use can only travel so far through the skull And the neural tissue in the brain to actually have the effects That it does and we've been using optogenetic research very successfully for a number of years now to Figure out what different proteins do and what different areas of the brain are for and so optogenetics has been great except it's been limited and so ultrasound Can get deeper into tissue can go places that other techniques cannot and aside from the Injecting stuff into the brain of the mice it is uh, it's not invasive With needles right aside from that Yes Yeah, so it doesn't be very useful in society Uh, you know because it comes to point every once in a while. It's a it's a less lethal Uh version than all of our less lethals are it sounds like you just uh, you know Somebody's uh doing the wrong thing somewhere Yeah, you shoot them with the ultrasound beam And they stop Yeah, so You know the where this will go is still definitely Up in the air. Um, it's applications are still very limited. They only have an on switch They don't have an off switch. So if important Yes, it's quite important. Yeah So they're looking for other molecules that could be used other proteins that could be used for different purposes and so this is kind of the interesting thing what molecules naturally respond to ultrasound and are also biologically active and important within, you know Physiological systems It's a big question. I don't know. Do you know we want to know inquiring minds want to know And then moving on from sono genetics Let's use sound to influence the genes and the brain Uh researchers, this is a I guess a little bit nicer story, but not anyway, researchers at Reichen CBS uh out of uh, Tokyo they have been looking into social isolation loneliness loneliness social contact What are the aspects of the brain that manage our will to connect with others And they also published their study this week in nature communications reporting on social contact seeking behavior in female mice they focused specifically on female mice because Most other studies to date have only used male mice, of course And male mice in their social interactions are very different behaviorally than female mice male mice Yeah, so male mice you it's hard to know Uh, very often their interactions are agonistic, especially when it comes to male to male Interactions, whereas there are many many examples of different species of mice house mouses being one of them where female mice They breed in groups. They have their babies together. They help Raise the babies all together. And so that social contact is also part of maternal instinct maternal nurturing and so the the The reality of how the brain works and how the instincts work for motivating social contact between males and females in mice and possibly also in humans, but this is specifically in mice because of what they've seen in the the mouse breeding and maternal instinct and the way that they do things but humans because we also have maternal instinct we just in western countries now kind of do things on our own historically it was all very social Um But there could be a very a link between these things. So so these researchers were using that as their motivation for Digging into this study. And so yes, they took mice and they put them together in cages and then they They isolated them and they put them into different groups And they wanted to find out. Okay. What was happening in the brain? We know oxytocin is a big part of connecting and that's in males and females. So oxytocin Dopamine these things are all very Related to these instincts. However, what they found is in a particular area of the brain of this kind of hypothalamic Previsual cortex Area of the brain they found a specific protein called amylin peptide now amylin peptide is produced by the pancreas And it's also involved in digestion and insulin production But it's also involved. It's also produced in the brain And specifically in this area of the brain and what they saw is that When these female mice were grouped together socially amylin mRNA levels the the messenger RNA that goes to create more amylin Was nice and high they isolated the females amylin mRNA dropped and When they brought the female back together with the group Amylin mRNA went back up again. They also found that if they had like a whole group of females who knew each other Amylin RNA was higher than if they had like a few that knew each other and a couple of strangers So that kind of they're thinking that it has to do with how much social contact they have They also found that there were behaviors that the females did when they isolated A single female from the rest of the group where the female If it was in complete isolation where it couldn't see any other females It was just isolated But they had a particular uh paradigm in which they had a a metal divider between The other group and the individual and it started out with the single female trying to reach and connect with the females on the other side that they were isolated from And during that time the amylin mRNA was very high the behavior of the contact seeking was very high The female they they they described this as becoming depressed The female became depressed and that amylin mRNA decreased and the contact seeking decreased So what they're saying? Yeah, so there what they're saying is they they think that and still causation is not completely proven here But the idea is that this this protein and now and we know that it's active in other mammalian systems That this is specifically relevant to female Contact social social contact And so if it is active in humans this suggests that You know potentially there are targets for people who are depressed who are isolated who are feeling lonely You know, this is a potential research direction to look at this amylin peptide to To see whether or not it can be a therapeutic target for increasing people's Urge their motivation to seek out social contact and stimulation so You know, maybe it's metaverse contact I don't know but it just not being alone and because we know that being alone too much deprive social deprivation leads to Mental deprivation leads to pruning of your neurons leads to depression And there's a whole bunch of stuff that can affect mental health and physical health So it's a very interesting directions It's it's too bad. There's nothing going on in society right now that would be relevant to this conversation Yeah, there's a there's another study out. I didn't bring it but uh people are looking at levels of loneliness and it's like Levels of loneliness or the highest they've ever been Yeah Like I get it But I was also thinking about the experiment with the the fact that they took You know social mice and then they said oh you can't be together anymore And they split them apart and the mice struggled and wanted to be together and tried and I'm like thinking of that is like The first part of lockdown when everybody was like, we can do zoom calls. Yeah It's great. We're gonna connect. It's gonna be awesome. And then finally we were all just like, okay. I'm just done I'm just gonna watch Netflix until I run out Yeah, yeah, exactly Yeah, so there are there are a few parallels there for sure, but it's um You know discovering how You know, it might be this very Specific detail of there's this peptide in the brain that gets activated that is involved in making us want to be around others You know, it could be very very specific kind of detail But at the same time the the implications of it go further You know into the human behavior into the human psyche into Mammals social mammals in general Why are we social? Why do we want to be social? Is it and we women become depressed more often than men So, you know, is that related? Is this something they I don't know. Is it related to amylin? maternal instincts this you know this this system that was created to motivate Females to find social protection and bonding to provide a better environment for the rearing of offspring So for more more maternal success, but it also comes, you know, it has changed to a social situation Yeah, I have a feeling it has to do with men being Largely throughout history if not to this current day Pretty much detestable creatures Uh, and so the brain needed To do some sort of coaxing internally behind the scenes Yeah, the female coaxing want to be around us Just to keep you know, the whole evolution thing life going Let's do this It's like, yeah, we know we know he's not great But here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna make you need that contact anyway Even though beneficial Yeah, we've got our own definition of that So you're gonna want to hang out with him Despite everything. Have you seen him? Yeah, we have. We're sorry. We're gonna flip a switch that makes you want to hang out with them Anyway We'll use ultrasound to do it All right, I think we made it to the end of our show so fun to have you both back this week I did enjoy talking to everyone all by myself last week, but it is so much more fun with the two of you Yeah, how are your hormones last week when you were all by yourself? I wasn't alone. I was with our twist community. That's true I was with a whole bunch of people and we were having a really great time Oh, so I think we're done here. We're gonna we're gonna Finish up this show with some big thank yous. Thank you to Blair and Justin. Thank you both for coming back this week Thank you to everyone. Thank you to everyone for joining us for this episode. Thank you so much I hope you enjoyed the show Shoutouts to fada. Thank you for your help on show notes and show descriptions And social media. Thank you to gourd and aran lore and everyone who helps to keep our chat rooms happy healthy fun places to be Identity four for recording the show even though you're not doing that this week and rachel Thank you for your editing and your assistance. 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It's another app, isn't it at twist science at dr kiki at jackson flying up blairs from nazaree We love your feedback if there's a topic you'd like us to cover address the suggestion for an interview a hike Who that comes to the night? Please let us know We'll be back here next week and we hope you'll join us again for more great science news And if you've learned anything from the show remember It's all in your head This week in science This week in science This week in science it's 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 This week science is coming your way So everybody listen to what I say I use the scientific method for all that it's worth and i'll broadcast my opinion all over the air Because it's this week in science This week in science This week in science This week in science This week in science I've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news that what I say may not represent your delations Slow fade wait no the after show slow fade to the after show This is the after show. It's the show that's after the show. It's not really a show It's just a time and we're here and we're glad you are so thank you I've decided that i'm going to Sing everything from here on okay well be about it You just say that while speaking i know right singing voice I'm just telling you right now This is the moment before I break into song I won't do that to you Ha ha now i've been watching a lot of old whose line is it anyway And they have so much of the singing and I am so impressed and amazed at their abilities to Make up words Make up words Yeah, and be on tune and have the different styles of music like they've really got it They're great Rubba bug rubba bug in it rubba bug in it Yes, garab Maybe I should change the title of the show. Would you rub a bug in it? Do you have itches aches and pains rubba bug in it I love it. It makes me happy to say rub Rub in it Did I post on the I did I posted on the twitter Did I post from the app or from the browser? I do a lot of twitter from the browser Same I do A lot of browser twittering and then Very often I might peruse the app, but I don't I have I have a thing I don't like typing with my thumbs If I can avoid sending an email With my phone, I will avoid it if I can avoid sending a text I will avoid it if I can avoid typing something in an app on my phone. I will avoid it I don't like it at all And yes, you might say why don't you turn on the voice to text feature kiki That's a dangerous Crap It's crap. But also then you're that person walking around in public talking at your phone like this And then you're the enemy you've turned into the enemy. So Yeah, you'd be doing that Good night. Bada. I do have a friend who she does her her texting While she's driving She does it voice to text and she definitely is hands-free She's driving and not looking at her phone at all because When when you read the texts it It is like this stream of consciousness gibberish Reading thing like it hasn't been edited at all. You have no and it takes a moment To translate. Yeah, what is what is this? It's really funny. I love it. It makes me happy Oh, my blood alcohol percent is 97 What? That's not blood alcohol. It's oxygen. That's not what I meant to say. I'm tired Excuse me. Can we can we test your blood alcohol? That would be fun No, I meant oxygen. Damn it That's good 97 it's good 98 98 Better. Yeah. Do you think you have COVID? Is that where you're testing? No It's just here on the mill. We have one too And and I just use it sometimes because I like it It's interesting It's like oh this red light This light can figure out oxygen I think I'm just taking shallow breaths because I'm tired because I'm like if I take some deep breaths and it goes back up to 98 If you take deep breaths right now though, you will yawn because you're tired Everyone we are now breathing with Blair 98. Oh, there you go. See deep breathing Anyway Increase your blood alcohol content naturally That was quite a slip Increase your blood oxygen levels through breathing. Yeah Nature physiology metabolism metabolism respiration What me seeing who what yeah, I want to sing everything now. I I sing when I'm alone So how's everybody doing? How are you? How's the baby? Oh, Bambinini is fantastic. Good Gaining weight getting longer Stronger cuter Yeah, amazing less lump-like more small human like as the days pass Yeah Oh, it's been great. There's there is still like I don't know when like the last time I've had like a proper shower What is it? February now It is February. Yes. I don't know a weekend of February You know, I got you get a you get like a couple hours of sleep here and there and you're like, oh, that was great Wow Yeah, but uh, yeah, uh, everything is everything is good. Uh, I think they're all I think Bambinini managed to sleep through the show Which is pretty fantastic. So that's fantastic. Yes. I would show him off to the world, but don't wake him up Do not wake up. No, do not poke the baby Yes It's a great rule One of the best rules And let and let sleeping mommies lie and All the sleeping people sleep Let the sleeping people sleep please It's a very different schedule Nope, uh newborn It is yeah They don't they don't mean the lack of one basically. No, they they kind of have a schedule. They're on like, uh Yeah, I guess two to three hour Yeah, I guess that's what I meant is like it's like a day less three hours Yeah, yeah, it's really It's uh, what do you call uh big adjustment? What do you call it? Yes a big adjustment What do you call it hell? Yeah, that's it. That's the definition. Yes. Hey, it's hazing If you make it through you you you pass as a parent, that's great. I love that But it doesn't like like this is, you know, how do people with more than one of them? Like I don't understand how Oh, like twins. Yeah At the same time Because you have more than like I don't understand how it persisted I don't understand how it persists like that the genes that require you to be they allow for twinness Should have been gone a long time ago Some selfish people just managed to keep them both alive so the genes continue There's a reason that we celebrate, you know, the The octomoms in the world the rarities of those massive numbers of of offspring at the same time it's because What how on earth? Not possible. You need you need All the peoples to make yes The tribes. Yes, we need your tribes for sure People are We need the tribes tribes Keep us happy noodles Justin noodles says, uh, even when the baby is 13 let it sleep Oh happy birthday to noodles is fun. Probably is much sleep Noodles says his son turned 26 today. Oh nice Happy birthday to Lugema Fusul's day What what'd you say Justin? I said happy birthday in Danish Or what'd you say? Yeah, you didn't say happy you dance To Lugema Fusul's day Okay, thank you. You're just making things up now So so but that's the thing that's that's apparent. That's how Danish works No, that is it's true. The Danish don't have like a set language They're like The real strength of the Danish language is then just Figuring out what the other person meant by the sounds that they made And responding and it kind of goes back and forth to Lugema Fusul's day. I gotcha It just goes back and forth until eventually it's it's as though there was a language involved at some point But it's it's really it's not Is that you're talking about Fusul's day? Gotcha Danish and uh Norwegian it's very idiom based right like it's a lot of like phrases that mean things Shocking when the walls fell Maybe I don't know that I don't yeah, I I I I don't know maybe Maybe there's I don't know. I remember my dad telling me something like that at one point I don't know Oh wait, okay, 14 strange Danish expressions and how to use them. Let's learn Danish everyone I don't know. Here we go Uh This is what I'm talking about it's just made up. Yeah, it's just made up now at Tanagra. I gotcha Now I might hand you a tissue Or I might offer you a cup of coffee Now if a cup of coffee appeals to you you might pretend that's what you said And then we go on from there. See that's sort of just how how Danish works Honeffold what? His arms wide Honeffold chicken drunk When a dain is very drunk, they are not drunk as a skunk, but chicken drunk Heneffold, Heneffold, yeah, Heneffold Uh foot is uh is a word for drunk and it's it's it's great because a lot of Danish A lot of English originated from the Danish language Through how England came to Exist over these years, right And so sometimes you can kind of reach for an English word and sort of dainify it a little bit And you know, you might be right If you want to have something you say Can I have it up have it have you know So after a big meal once somebody is like asking if I want more food on a night tag No, thanks. Yeah, I have food. I'm full. I'm saying I have food. No, I'm telling everybody. I'm drunk So I've stopped eating No, thank you, I'm drunk Oh my god Der er ingen ko pa isen Der er ingen? There's not what? Der der er ingen ko pa isen There's not Copenie, there's no cow on the ice There's no cow on the ice. Yeah So kath his eyes uncovered. I gotcha How about this one der er ugler i mosen Mosen Der er ugler Ugler Mosen, I don't know what you're trying to say. So one of the other things is like a lot of the There are no owls in the bog Okay, so so also what's the hard part about reading danish is that like G's I think are wise unless there's two of them and then there's like an h in the front of a v But you don't say the h sound or you do and you don't do the like they have like you have to learn it You know like every once in a while, there's a there's something in english that's like an exception You know, it's I have to accept, you know exception When you say this word or this word is pronounced like the entire danish language is exceptions Every word you have to learn how to pronounce separately from everything else that you've learned It's you can't just look at a word go. Oh, that's how you say it. Oh, yeah That's how you said it when that other word that we had before but we've changed it because and part of it is This is truly the history of danish. It was it's five isolated languages That were isolated so much so that they got squished together They couldn't communicate because they were five different languages That had been isolated in a small area for over a long period of time and then they just kind of put them together and so It's sort of left the rules don't fit. They're not consistent throughout the The language which is somewhat true of any language, I guess It is very close to it is very close to english in a lot in the way that a lot of english words came from danish So it's like nonsense nonsense nonsense. Oh, I understand exactly what they just said for like a bunch of words in a row And then now it's gone again. Oh I almost had it sounds like accents in england That's sort of where I that's where I'm at. I have I I can I can do enough of a danish accent That I sound fluent, but then I have to Oh, no, no, sorry chap. I don't speak a lick of english No, none at all. No, sorry old man. No can't help you there Like this is what happens I can start to talk to somebody and then They'll talk back and I don't understand any of it. I hate for store I hate for store That'll be yes. Yeah, I feel like that's always how it goes You can like learn how to say things and then when they come at you full speed, you're like, oh god too much And it also hurts that like everyone here pretty much speaks english Better than most americans, by the way, which is weird. Yeah, when he speaks english and then it's You know, they can hear you struggle And they're helping you out or they're just trying their english out with the native speaker and want to do that But he's not a whole lot of opportunity to do immersion Thankfully because it would not work It would just be Oh gosh, no, they handed me another cup of coffee. Look, I'm trying to I'm trying to find where the train Leaves To go to this other part of town that I can't pronounce because it has letters that they're all Bobulated in a way that doesn't make sense to my brain Yeah Yeah, it was tough when I was in israel. I was dealing with pretty pretty much straight immersion during the day but then I was living with a bunch of English speakers when I got home at night I do think it would have been it would have been more effective If we couldn't have spoken english at home But it also probably would have been maddening So Eric naps is oh, I meant the dialects in england. Okay. Yeah, so they have there I have not experienced or I can't tell my ear isn't smart enough to tell different dialects in uh in danmark in danish uh, but I hear tell that the people of uh, southern yutland Are completely impossible to understand wouldn't they speak? I don't know. Yeah technical terms actually the universities here upper the graduate universities are taught in english Uh And that helps because they Yeah, why blare why is it why are you? Yeah, why are you kiki? I'm logged into the twist stream yard account. Okay. Oh, you're not going around on the interwebs pretending to be kiki Yeah, check it out It's a it's blareki uh edit avatar. Let's do that. No, if you're in my account Hold on What could it hurt? Nothing nothing at all Um, yeah, I gotta find one Higa Higa are you practicing Higa right now? Justin Lots of Higa There's no good photos for me to use I was trying to do something funny Yeah, I was gonna pick something funny and I can't find anything good Here okay here are some more danish Phrases that I cannot pronounce because I don't speak danish And I don't know the alphabet so Come here and play kong gulirad Uh, wait, wait, wait, uh Come here, but don't uh Something with the And something I'll I'll end Er oh Spill kong Kong gulirad play Come here, but don't play with the furniture Don't come here and act like king carrot Oh, okay. Yeah, that's I believe that's a phrase that comes up a lot. Yeah, don't you dare act like king carrot Don't you act like king carrot? Don't you even dare at sluga on camo. I don't know what to say to swallow a camel Oh, well, we know what that did make sense. Okay. No, I'm sorry Okay, yeah Let's see. Oh, I can't print. Okay. So so oh with the line through it fur fur What Javelin it's then then the a and the e together. What's that sound? I can't pronounce this one Javelin Third javelin first Javelin before the devil puts his shoes on Oh, you were shopping for shoes. How do you say shoes? Put how would you say put your shoes on have you said that before? Oh, yeah, I say Uh put your shoes on That's one of those weird. No, that's one of those weird ones with the english language is so derived from danish that it's completely the same Sure, sure. Yes I see you with your new avatar. Yes may help you Here I can put it back. Oh, wow. It was you. Who am I? Who am I? There I am. I'm back. There you are I like hunefold Oh Walk as the cat around the hot porridge Where are you getting these phrases from? It's from a nordish nordic culture website The blazer on half pelican The pants are on the pelican It's blowing half a pelican The blazer Dead dead blazer dead blazer on half pelican It's blowing half a pelican What's regarded at in your dog? It's not cling on So that's actually the beginning of baowulf in old english somebody mentioned baowulf in jet I Busted out her extensive cling on dialect Okay in high school we had to we had to memorize um The first couple stanzas of baowulf in old english And that this is like the nerdy high school I went to is that we all brought plastic swords to school one day And then we started like our teacher took us to other classrooms and we all broke in and Started chanting baowulf at random classes Then they were scared and they had reason to be oh man. That was pretty great What we got and uh in yard dog. Um They would gooning up bring your fru non There you go. Hey, oh that that also sounds like one of those makeety up languages. Yeah It's old english Not until somebody wrote it down. Did they realize do you do you realize like None of these sounds are making or tracking with meanings. Yeah We're writing it down. We're trying to establish that for the first time Nothing we're gonna have the sounds we make mean things specific things Are repeatable they use in the same way. Oh interesting Here I can show you what it looks like. It looks crazy I don't think we ever read it in the old english or looked or tried to look at it in the old english when I was in high school My teacher didn't go that far like just do baowulf and just translated I forget how this is like something something apalinga ellen fremedon. Yeah, there you go apalinga faradon. Yeah off schling schlegem skepa fretem monagum mayfum meo delester ofta esoda erles So there's words You know It says danish evolved from old east norse old norse so it might be I don't know if it has similar origins Because old english definitely has some biking routes in it Interesting older Very interesting Noodles used to speak a bit of dutch Oh Hey, have you ever heard of the thing that is talking about a cat walking around a bowl of porridge? Dana what? Have you ever heard of it saying about uh cat walking around a bowl of porridge or something? Oh Translation cat walking around a bowl of porridge is the kin to uh the identifying the elephant in the room What that's the same meaning apparently. Yeah, it's a it's a saying it's a real thing I thought kiki was just making stuff up I'm not Your beowulf reading sounds like a cape bush song. I think it's more like cock-two twins I'm like Blair has no idea who I just referenced. I don't know what that is. I think it's the intro to Okay homework for Blair. Say the words again to the cock-two twins COCTEAU Cock-toe twins Three people Hey homework California A scottish band from 1979 to 1997 90s Yes What are what song are they famous for? okay, um What was the song that Heaven or Las Vegas? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Ads Whatever. Yeah, I'll never listen to it homework later I gotta roll people are waking up. I'm gonna have to roll. Yeah. All right. Go be a papa. Yeah, that's good Go let the mama sleep. Say good morning, Justin Good morning, Justin. Say good night, Blair. Good night, Blair Good Good night kiki Good night, everyone Thank you for joining us for another after show and show and all the things everyone stay well Stay Rested and Stay fed Stay sane if you can at least as much as possible in these days and times Come on back again next week Stay curious