 About the new one. Wear a blanket swatter, you will. Wear a blanket sweater, yes you will. Try, you must. Science, you will. Wear a blanket sweater, yes you will. Yes you will. Wear a blanket sweater, we're live. I always know how to start this show off right. In three, two, this is twist. This Week in Science, episode number 600. No, I'm gonna start it over again because there's more than 604. This is twist. This Week in Science, episode number 640. Recorded on Wednesday, October 11th, 2017. The webs we weave. Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Kiki and tonight on This Week in Science, we are going to fill your heads with noise pollution, microbes, and corn. But first, disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. The modern world as we know it will end. This is not a warning of terrible things to come, nor is it a call to action to repent, throw caution to the wind, or give up on long-term goals. The message, the modern world as we know it will end, will not be followed up with an advertisement urging you to purchase a year's supply of dehydrated foods or a small coin semi-precious metal to be used as future currency. In fact, the modern world as we know it will just end, as it has many, many times in the past, with a new, more modern world in its place. Because we always live in the most modern of worlds. Shedding off old worlds of modernity as easily as updating to the latest version of an operating system, and to that process of increased knowledge and understanding, to the patterns of progress and discovery, to the clear-eyed steady pace of science and technology, there is no end of new insights in sight. Only new beginnings. And nothing could put this into a more convincing context than This Week in Science, coming up next. What's happened this week in science? Good science to Kiki and Blair. And good science to you too, Justin, Blair, and everyone out there. Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. We're back yet again, one more time, as we do week after week, to bring you the latest in the stories in the science world that we thought we just couldn't pass up. We're just wonderful to talk about. So we're here. I have new stories about Mars, some cool stuff discovered on Mars this summer, brain hacking, and, you know, regular old matter. Regular old matter. That's right. What do you have for us, Justin? I've got better living through gut bacteria, better living through corn, a new species in a box, and new schizophrenia mechanism discovery. Oh, yes, better living through schizophrenia. Got it. Just better living, better living all around. Let's get there. Modernity. Let's do this. Blair, what's in the animal corner? I have some good neighbors, some noisy fish, and some coal miners. Interesting combination there. Interesting. One of these things is not like the others. All right, everyone. Let's jump into the show. And as we do, I would like to remind you all that you can subscribe to the TWIS podcast on iTunes and the Google Play podcast, Portal, Stitcher, Spreaker, Tune In. All the places where good podcasts are found. You can also search for us on YouTube and Facebook. If you look for This Week in Science, or you can just visit twis.org to find links to these various places and all the things like calendar pre-ordering links. If you head to twis.org and you're interested in the 2018 Blair's Animal Corner This Week in Science calendar, you can pre-order it now if you're interested. The link is at our website. And now let's talk about This Week in What Has Science Done for Me Lately. Stephanie Grody from Pennsylvania wrote in to say, I have gardened all of my adult life, but only lately, with the invention of the internet, have I come to use and appreciate science in the garden. I must understand how vegetation decays in order to have a working compost pile. When our trees, vegetables, and flower plants are attacked by pests and diseases, I research insects, caterpillars, viruses, fungi, bacteria, and try to use the most environmentally friendly solutions. Plants also need the proper amount of sunlight, water, bright pH, and soil nutrients, all of which I test for. I must know the ways plants pollinate and who the pollinators are. To predict harvest times and adverse pressures, I keep track of growing degree days. In processing the harvest, I make sure I'm canning and freezing safely. The use of charts, graphs, and journals helps me apply scientific methods. So for the work of entomologists, soil scientists, biologists, and many others, including thousands of citizen scientists, I am most grateful. The beauty and wonder of a garden is a great romance, but it's science that provides the answers to the most puzzling of nature's marvels. Thank you very much, Stephanie, for writing, and that was just a beautiful, beautiful comment on gardening and the science that's involved in it. I love the various ways that people are writing in to let us know about how science affects their lives, day in, day out, week after week. I don't think we got a limerick yet, though. Come on, guys. Okay, that's right. Blair has challenged you for a limerick. You can do this. You can do it, and we will read it on the show. We will. If you want to send us your note about what science has done for you lately, please leave us a message on our Facebook page. That's facebook.com this week in science. We do want to continue to fill this segment of the show with letters from you, our listeners, our minions, week after week. Thank you so much for doing this. And now, let's talk about some more science. Science, science, science. How does your garden grow? Right? Well, our universe has been growing, right? Since the Big Bang, it's been expanding. And we've had our scientists trying to figure out all the things that our universe is made of. We know it's made of baryonic or normal matter. It's also possibly made of dark matter. People are looking for those particles. They're trying. We'll talk about that in a minute. And also dark energy. There's a lot of evidence in these directions based on the standard model of physics. Now, did you realize that we've been missing a very significant proportion of the normal baryonic matter in the universe? Like we've like I've known dark energy. We don't really see it. And it's out there. Okay. How much is it? And there's an estimate. Dark matter can't see it. Estimate, you know, 30% or whatever. But for what we know, right? We're like around 4%. Right. But it's not there. Even that 4% isn't there. Yeah, we're still there. Yeah, we've been missing most of it. Yeah. Yes. So we have been missing it. We were about 90% short on our sighting of normal matter, even though it's only like 4.6% of the known universe. We've only found 0.46%. Something like that. Yeah, very little. And so this is, you know, the known stuff. Planets, like ours, solar systems, galaxies, the things we can see. We've been able to see a very small amount. And so recently we've had experiments and telescopic projects, big time things, taking a deep look at the universe. The Planck telescope has allowed us, and the Hubble telescope have allowed us to be able to image the trails and paths between the galaxies. And so we've come to understand that there's actually, there's dark matter. There's this hint of mass in these connective webs between the galaxies, these trails that really are like the threads of a web that connect galaxies to each other across the universe. And so the idea was that, okay, there's dark matter in there. That's where the dark matter is. But this new experiment, researchers, decided to take a new look at these webs. And they had to take a very, very close look because this normal matter, if normal matter is in the web also, it's really diffuse and we haven't been able to see it, right? So how can we magnify it? How can we see it better? So they took pictures of galaxies and they kind of layered them on top of one another. And this layering effect enabled them to, in effect, magnify the radiation that is coming from between the galaxies, between the stars that are really putting out all sorts of light and radiation. And so they also relied on an effect that's called the Sunyayev-Zeldovich effect. And this is a phenomenon that causes photons that are left over from the Big Bang to scatter energy into just a little bit higher energies as they pass through electrons in gases that are around galaxy clusters. And so they took this effect and they went, well, if there's maybe diffuse gas in these webs, maybe we can kind of get that slight increase in the photonic energy as it passes through this very diffuse gas and the electrons that are situated there. And so they used these galaxies, like I said, from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. And there were two teams actually that have published on this in a recent and two different completely separate studies. And they found pretty much consistent results that the filaments, that the density of these filaments are just under three times the average density of baryons in the surrounding void. And so there's, and that's one team, and there's another team from Edinburgh that concluded this figure was about six times the average density. And so a researcher from British Columbia says we expect some differences because we're looking at filaments at different distances. And the end result really is that because of the way they're looking at it and the fact that we have two teams looking at it, even though, you know, this is science and physics and it's a little bit of a controversial result as to whether or not their technique is correct and giving them an accurate result, the fact that we have two separate teams doing something similar, getting fairly close results and seeing an increase in energy in the tendrils of webbing that pass between the galaxies suggests that the hypothesis is correct, that there is a very diffuse gas of normal baryonic matter that is also distributed along these dark matter tracks. And it makes up maybe about half again of what's been missing. This is fantastic news because that even 4.6% as a baryonic life form, I didn't feel insignificant in the universe. But at 0.4, 0.46, I start to feel a little like I'm underwhelming in terms of participating in it. So knowing that even through a diffuse gas somehow being represented in my form of matter throughout the universe, it's a bit reassuring. That's right. And both of these articles have been published on pre-print servers. So they haven't actually gone to publication yet. They're on the archive.org server. And so they're open for comment. And the comments are quick and fierce at this point in time. But it's maybe we've found a lot more of the matter that was missing. So what's the matter? It has to be somewhere. It has to be somewhere, right? We just have to figure out how to see it. Unless it's everywhere, man. Or nowhere, man. Or nowhere, man. No where, man. He's missing. OK. Moving on words from these matter matters to other matter matters, dark matter. I just wanted to quickly talk about there's a wonderful presentation by one of our favorite physicists right now that's available online. Let's see, I'm not looking at the wrong link, of course. I'm looking at the wrong link. Oh, good gracious. You know, when you think you've got everything lined up and then you realize, nope, that wasn't what I wanted to do. It's the dark matter. It's doing it to you. The dark matter is making me so confused. The anti-Kiki. Yeah, exactly. We are annihilating the Kiki and the anti-Kiki. Annihilate. So we've talked for a while about emergent gravity, right? The idea that Eric Verlind has been running around postulating about me. This is the idea that we potentially don't need gravitons or gravity particles. We don't potentially need dark matter particles. Maybe there aren't particles involved. And that gravity itself is an emergent property of space and time. And so he has just recently given a talk on this at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. And the talk is available online if you're interested in it. So he's going around right now and saying, dark matter, you don't need it. Who needs it? I've got this great idea. Other scientists are backing me up. We are going to move forward on this. Yet at the very same time, there are two experiments that are getting underway to find dark matter particles. These are detectors, basically dark matter wave detectors that function on the principle that a particle can be both a particle and a wave at the same time. And there's a new study that's suggesting that we can even use the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors to allow scientists to see evidence of dark matter. And it will be, once again, these gravitational wave detectors are operating on such a small scale, minuscule scale, that it's amazing that they can detect gravitational waves to begin with. But now to think that there could be an additional signal that results from clouds of dark matter that form around black holes, that these gravitational waves that have, because of the clouds of dark matter, there could be a strong stochastic or random background to the signal that they read from mergers of black holes in these situations. So potentially new experiments using operational detectors that we are using right now to look for these. And we're going to be getting many more. So maybe this will just give us new messages from the gravitational wave detectors that we currently have. And then additionally, researchers at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, or Slack Department of Energy, Slack National Accelerator Laboratory, and the Covley Institute for Particle Physics and Cosmology are working together on a new dark matter radio to listen for the tune of dark matter particles by using the idea that these particles are going to vibrate at various frequencies. And based on hypothesized and theorized frequencies at which you would find dark matter, they're going to tune their radio up and down the same way you would go in an old car stereo up and down the dial, missing the static to find the signal. And it is based on this idea. Peter Graham, who's a theoretical physicist from the Covley Institute, says if dark matter particles were very light, we might have a better chance of detecting them as waves rather than particles. Our device will take the search in that direction. And the search for these hidden protons, they're going to find hidden protons that they're looking for because there are dark matter waves that are actually associated with these dark matter candidates. One are these cousins of photons, very small in mass considered hidden photons, or possibly axions that can be produced from light and then turned back into photons of light when they encounter a magnetic field. Sceptarci Shaudhuri, a Stanford graduate student, says the search for hidden protons will be completely unexplored territory and as for axions, the dark matter radio will close gaps in the searches of existing experiments. Yes, so sweep the dial. They're going to sweep the dial. This, it's also an interesting experimental setup. They're using a device that's highly sensitive in the magnetic scale, magnetometers known as superconducting quantum interference devices or squids. So, Kiki. Yes. I would like to hear your rendering of what you think dark matter sounds like. What do you think they're going to hear on that radio? That's right. It's going to be like... Are you going to start singing Enter Sand, man? That's really what you want me to do. So, I love this idea. This is a fantastic direction to take this in. My early prediction is that they won't find anything, but that's a fantastic reason still to do the experiment. Absolutely. I mean, we have a hypothesis, test it. That's how we science. That's how we... Yeah, in a way, in a completely different type of experiment. But this is how Higgs Boson was discovered, was looking for it at first in ranges of energies where they expected most likely to find it and it wasn't there. And they kind of did a sweeping of the dial and looking at different energy ranges until they narrowed it down and found it. So, it'd be fantastic if they did find it. It'd actually be more fantastic if they did find it. But it would also be fantastic if they find nothing. So, this is a fantastic experiment, regardless of the result. As is often true. Often, quite often. Now, a result that was popularized was reported this last week by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I'm going to outer space, but within our solar system at this point in time. There's a report out of NASA that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter looking at images from this orbiter, they have found evidence of hot springs, hydrothermal vents on the surface of Mars may have pumped into the basin of a sea in Mars' southern hemisphere about 3.7 billion years ago. At which point in time, Earth had similar undersea hydrothermal conditions. At that point in time, life was getting started here on Earth. Right? This is, to me, this study blows my mind. I love it. They've been looking at the Aridiana Aridania, sorry, region of Mars, and have been looking at blocks of deep basin deposits that have been surrounded by and partially buried by younger volcanic deposits. And in looking at them, they have been able to say, these look a lot like things that we find here on Earth. Aridania basin is in southern Mars and is an area that they think held a sea about 3.7 billion years ago. And these sea floor deposits, they think came from underwater hydrothermal and volcanic activity. And we all know hydrothermal vents, hotbed of life, deposit of minerals, lots of good stuff there, right? Lots of little, little porous places for things to get chemistry started. Yes, lots of chemistry and exciting chemistry that was life getting started on Mars or was it already going on Mars at the same time that it was getting a start here on Earth? Was it? We don't know. We don't know. But hydrothermal vents, you guys. Yeah, that's a good sign. That's, it was, wow. The vents, it's like the secret key that could potentially allow so many things to happen. Yes, Paul Niles of NASA's Johnson Space Center says even if we never find evidence that there's been life on Mars, this site can tell us about the type of environment where life may have begun on Earth. Volcanic activity combined with standing water provided conditions that were likely similar to conditions that existed on Earth at about the same time when early life was evolving here. This site gives us a compelling story for a deep, long-lived sea and a deep sea hydrothermal environment. It is evocative of the deep sea hydrothermal environments on Earth, similar to environments where life might be found on other worlds, life that doesn't need a nice atmosphere or temperate surface, but just rocks, heat, and water. Like tardigrades, right? Maybe they're, maybe they're from just microbes. Microbes. Tardigrades. I still think they might be. Tardigrades from Mars. I'm serious. I kind of think they might be from outside. You think tardigrades are aliens, don't you? Potentially, it's possible. I'm just saying it's possible they can survive the vacuum of space. They can survive radiation. And they love, they love a good moss. They love a good moss, but they also, they just need to be wet. You know. Yeah, and actually if you, if you, I was studying that picture that you put up there, Kiki, and there looks like there's, you know, plenty of craters that look like meteorite strikes at least, all over the landscape. You know, tardigrade habitat. Patterned. Yeah. Well, no, if you, if you get something that hits Mars hard enough, right, you could see that material going out into space. You could see that material somehow drifting into the orbit of Earth at some point. And then, yeah, tardigrades. Absolutely. There we go. Yeah. All right. Those are my. That's what your story was about, right? That's. Tardigrades for Mars. Nope. Nope. Way to, way to make those big connections there. You guys making connections where there aren't any. I did it. I just hope our listeners can follow all of this. Sorry guys. Sorry. I got excited. I've heard this before and I doubt that it's true, but like there could be dinosaur bones on the moon. Right. If, if, if, if a massive extinction event was created by a massive meteorite that, that hit the Earth and may have launched material out of the atmosphere. Burned up. Yeah. Dinosaur bones would have burned up, but there is. But if they were surrounded by a massive Earth that was wet as it was going up and all of that burned off first and then the dinosaur bone. But the idea is. Anyway. That is. We have found, we have found. To some. I've found Martian rocks, I think, on Earth before. So I mean, it's. There's more and more of this primordial ooze scenario than we ever thought on Mars. Exactly. That's really cool. It is very cool. That's the real story. All right. This is this week in science. Justin. Tell me how I'm going to age healthily. It's one of the largest microbiota studies ever conducted in humans in it. Researchers have shown a potential link between healthy aging and a healthy gut. They studied the gut bacteria in a cohort of more than 1,000 Chinese individuals, a variety of age ranges from three to over 300 years old. These were self-selected people who were extremely healthy with no known health issues, no family history of disease. Although that sounds a little bit. Everybody's got some family history of this place. Results showed a direct correlation between health and the microbes in the intestine. Cody voice. The aim is to bring novel microbiome diagnostic systems to populations, then use food and probiotics to try and improve biomarkers of health. Said Gregor Reid, professor of Western University and scientist at Lawson Health Research Institute. It begs the question, if you can stay active and eat well, will you age better or is healthy aging predicted by the bacteria in your gut? The study published this month in a journal M-Sphere showed that the overall microbiota composition of the healthy elderly group was similar to that of people decades younger, many decades. The gut microbiota differed very little, in fact, between individuals from the ages of 30 to those over 100. The main conclusion, more Cody voice, this is a different person I'm Cody voicing now. Should I change it up so I switch it up? Yeah, change it. But my conclusion is that if you are ridiculously healthy and 90 years old, your gut microbiota is not that different than a healthy 30-year-old in the same population. Said Greg Glure, the principal investigator of the study and also professor Western and scientist at Lawson Health Research Institute. Whether this is cause or effect is unknown at this point, but the study authors point out that the diversity of gut microbiota that remain is the same throughout their study group there. There, but there was one really interesting thing. So they say there may be health benefits to maintaining a diversity because this is also a very nicely diverse microbiota in these groups. There might be a, that maintaining that diversity as you age may be like keeping low cholesterol or that sort of thing. It's one of those things that your doctor could look into to make sure you're remaining healthy. What was also sort of interesting that they found a distinct anomaly in the group age 19 to 24 that had not been observed in large-scale analysis of other populations and they suspect it may be unique to this healthy cohort in China. The distinct gut microbiota, this group was a surprise finding and they're going to do some further study. So oddly 19 to 24 seemed like very different microbiota compared to what they were looking at from 30 to over 100. They don't say how it's different? They don't know, well they didn't specify here. Here they're just saying it was, it was a distinct anomaly that it was so different. But again, it might be that like there's, it may be something along the lines of there's a certain food that's trending for an age group or something of this nature. Like that's what they need to go back and find out. They don't know why that happened. Yeah, or if you know there's a change in the hormonal profile, is there something that happens around 19 to 24 that changes your gut pH? I mean that's probably about the age as people get older also that they lose the ability to process lactic acid and milk and become lactose sensitive. There are all sorts of things that happen at that transition point between youth and adulthood. There's the scientist using her noggin. Noggin, I gotta use it sometimes. But I think what I think is interesting is we've also had stories previously that suggest that your microbiome that it might simply, it might be characterized by your genetics, that it might be your, that's your fate, your microbiome type. There are other studies, I mean even though we can change makeup by maybe fecal transplants, but it's not permanent. You potentially have to keep doing these things to keep yourself healthy. And then there is like such a tie-in between the microbiome and our metabolism. I think that all of this is really just a fascinating And that how the microbiome can actually direct the expression of proteins by certain genes. And I don't recall this, we'll have to go back and see them, the studies that say you're fated to your microbiome. But that it would be likely that a family would share the same microbiota, microbiome, because they're having such close contact and interaction with each other. Maybe you didn't eat all the same fruits and that sort of thing. It's looking like it's both. It's genetics and environment. But you could have, yeah, you could have, well. That's what I remember from what we've talked about at least over the past few months. It seemed like there's been evidence for both. Yeah. And then the question is though, this study, there's a difference. We can see that there's a difference. If you are a healthy 90-year-old, you have the microbiome of a 30-year-old. You probably have a lot of other factors that are very similar to those of a 30-year-old as well. So the question is, which is cause and which is correlation? You know, what is it? Is it your genetics that leads you to have a metabolism that allows you to foster a microbiome of a certain makeup and that is just a healthy body, a healthy microbiome. Everything works in a certain way. Or is it that you adopt a certain lifestyle and that allows you to be healthier? I mean, we know that some people don't have healthy lifestyles and they're perfectly healthy until very late in life. So that argument suggests that this whole conversation about how much fiber you should have in your diet is bullocks. Part of the deal. I would argue that a lot of those people, even if they are outwardly very healthy, may have digestive tract issues later in life. It depends, right? So I think it's definitely, as is mostly the case in these sorts of situations, probably everybody's right. And very likely the way I see this too is that it could be that diseases that you might encounter genetically or otherwise might affect your microbiome themselves. And that might be what leads? That's the question. Does that then lead to the expression of that disease? Or is that just a side effect of having that disease that doesn't affect or cascade? Mostly I'm thinking it would cascade and a lot of diseases may actually come down to how they've affected your microbiome. It's fascinating though. I hope I can have... I want to go test my microbiome and find out how young it is now. That's like the new version of 23 in me sending in a little something different instead of... Sample. It's still a sample. You can still swab it. That would probably be sufficient. It probably would. And it would be a sample and it could tell us so much. I think that's the next step. Let's start correlating these things a little bit more closely since we're finding out... That's what we should do. We should start a company that tests your microbiome, sends you back results. There we go. This is your profile. These are the kinds of species and what proportions we find them in. Number two and you. That's what we call it. Yeah, number two and you. But isn't there also... Isn't there DNA in feces? Yes, but they can... Yes, but you can... So you could do it all with number two and you, potentially. All in one. Also, it turns out you're a 3% sheep. I don't know. 4% chicken, 12%... You know what time it is? All this talk of animals has me thinking about Blair's Animal Corner. Oh my goodness, we were just talking about longevity. This is the perfect segue into another conversation about how to live longer and how to live healthier. And guess what? It all comes down to your neighbors. Yeah, your neighbors are killing you. Or they're saving your life. You know, it can go either way. I know my neighbors are very upset if we stay in the hot tub too late at night. Well, you might be shortening their lives that Kiki because according to a new study from the University of East Anglia, UEA, and the universities of Leeds and Groningen in the UK and the Netherlands, they were looking actually at birds and how the quality of their neighbors could affect their health, their fitness, and their longevity. And so they looked at Seychelles Warblers. The Seychelles Islands are off of the coast of Africa. And these small birds have very distinct territories. So if you think about it, you would probably like to sprawl out into that backyard where your hot tub is, take over your neighbor's backyard, expand a little bit, have your own jungle gym back there. We'd love to have more space. Who wouldn't, right? But there's only a certain amount of space on this planet and we have to carve out specific territories for ourselves. We've done that by property lines. Animals do it in other ways, but they have defined territories so that all these animals can coexist in an environment. That being said, if you have a defined territory, that means you also probably have a neighbor or two. And the interaction between neighbors, especially in these warblers, is actually pretty complex. Specifically, if it's a family member, you would expect that they would treat each other pretty well. And that did come true in this research because for a couple of reasons. So the first is that your relatives are probably a little more trustworthy to you, at least. You maybe know a little bit about them or the evil you know. But also their DNA is like yours. So it benefits you both to have each other's back and to treat each other well. So there's definitely a mutual benefit to being good to your neighbor if you're related. Where it got interesting was looking at non-related neighbors. And they found that if the relatives or if the neighbors were familiar, if they had been there many years or many seasons, they could actually see a difference in the animal's behavior to those neighbors than to newcomers. So they actually fought less when they had these familiar neighbors. And there was less dispute over space or resources or anything like that. They deviated from their territory line less when they knew each other. And where it got really interesting was measuring body condition and telomere length. Our buddy the telomere. Basically those little caps on the end of your shoelaces that keep them from fraying. That's the textbook kind of metaphor. The name shoelaces. The name shoelaces plastic thingies. But they always have a name and I never remember them when I want to think of them. But actually it's kind of garbage code at the end of your DNA so that when you're duplicating your DNA and it messes up, it's messing up the garbage at the end of the line so it doesn't mess up the important information. So the longer your telomere in theory, the longer you can live. So their telomere loss was less when they had more relatives or when they had more familiar neighbors in their neighborhood. So in theory, this means fitness, length of life, all these sorts of things potentially have a benefit to having neighbors you know, neighbors you trust and neighbors that you're related to. Because they stress you out even though they're your family, they stress you out less and so it's the familiar versus the unknown. Absolutely, yes. And that's right what they were saying. Fighting with neighbors is stressful. Yeah, is the neighbor going to take my food? Is the neighbor going to steal my territory? Is the neighbor going to do these things? This neighbor is not going to increase my fitness, my intergenerational fitness. Yeah. Whereas a family member, if they succeed and have babies and offspring, they will. Yeah, absolutely. And all that time that you spend yelling at Frank and Karen next door from your porch, you're not going to the grocery store. You're not cleaning up your house. You're not nurturing your children, right? So you're not doing the things that you need to do for your own fitness if you are taking up time squabbling with your neighbors. And that is true for these birds as well. When they tested their body condition, this also proved true. So it's interesting because I know sometimes the last thing you want to do is talk to your neighbors when you get home at the end of the day. But maybe learning their names and their children's names will be good for your health. Actually, there was an article in the news recently as a result of the Las Vegas shooting incident and the way that we don't necessarily know the threats in our community. We don't know the people you can count on in your community because we don't always know our neighbors. We don't know the people in our communities. And so we can actually help our own mental health by getting to know who lives around us. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And even just when I went to visit my friend in Kentucky a little bit ago, everybody hangs out on their front porch. And so, you know, we got invited over to the neighbor's porch for some sweet tea. And I got to know these people and I was just visiting. And it's just a very different way to go through life than I am currently programmed to do. And this, I know this is a story about birds and I want to remind everyone of that, that this is not a story on humans. This is just a story on Seychelles warblers. But this could very well be indicative because we are still animals with territories, with neighbors, with resources to protect. And so ultimately, when it comes down to it, knowing the people around you and being aware of your surroundings could help you out. Everybody needs to watch more Sesame Street. Yeah. Absolutely. And then I have kind of a fun story about fish, gobies actually in particular, and just how noisy they are. So only kind of recently have we started to find out exactly how much noise fish make. We didn't really know before that fish communicated with sound with each other. Let alone that they had all these different sounds that mean different things. And so now once we know kind of how to clue into that, we are uncovering this kind of treasure trove of information about fish noise. And a new thesis, a doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, that's in Sweden. Gothenburg. Yes, has shown that gobies, both sand gobies and common gobies, make sounds that are key to reproduction. So to us, underwater noise is fairly invisible. We can't really hear it when we're above water, if it's happening under there. But it actually, it's interesting, it travels five times faster than noise does in air, and it travels over much longer distances. I love this. This is from Eva Lotte Blom, author of the doctoral thesis. She says, we can record the noise of boats that are far out of sight, and the sound is basically unchanged underwater. It can be likened to living in Gothenburg and hearing the sound of all the cars driving around in Stockholm. Not super relatable, so I looked it up. Yeah, so that is equivalent to 470 kilometers. Justin, you want to do the quick conversion for me? Yeah, if you're not familiar with kilometers, 470 kilometers is approximately 470,000 meters. That's right. Or for those of you that like the standard form of measurement, it's about 300 miles. So our sound remains unchanged underwater in this analogy for about 300 miles. That is very far. That's really far. Yeah, and considering how loud a boat is, imagine hearing that for a 300-mile radius around you. She says that would be very noisy and would probably not be permitted since it would be considered a health hazard. However, this does not apply to our seas since there are no clear noise regulations for that environment, which is why she wanted to study gobies, because we now know they make sounds. So the gobies, the males, they hang out in sand. If they're a sand goby, they make a little kind of burrow underground, or the common goby, they'll actually go in a little shell or some sort of shelter like that. They'll find this is their nesting space that they're offering up to the female, and they make their sounds. And the sand goby makes a sound like a purring cat. The common goby sounds like an intense woodpecker. You got it. These are my interpretations of animal noises. I'd say that's scientifically accurate. So the female then picks the male, based on the nest is what we always assumed, but this new experiment looks at exactly how much this sound has to do with mate choice. And they found that when they drowned out the male fish with a sound that was similar to the sound of a leisure boat, same frequency and same volume, they found that the females were not into it. They hardly made it at all. If they did, it took way longer than if they were in a silent aquarium. If it was silent, they had really good success. In addition to that, half of the eggs in the noisy aquariums died before hatching. And if they did hatch, it took longer for them to hatch than the eggs in the silent aquarium. So let's unpack this for a second. So first of all, these fish need sound to mate. So if there is sound pollution, they can't hear their potential mates. They're not going to find them. They're mate selection no longer works. Not going to happen. Beyond that, there's this egg problem where the eggs are somehow being affected by this noise pollution, which kind of pulls it back around to the doctoral candidate's comment about how this would be a public health hazard if it was above ground, which it would be, absolutely. But the kind of most interesting thing that she mentions at the end is the studies also show that when you do experiments involving fish, the environment needs to be as quiet as possible, or results could be affected by noise. This is my brain exploded a little bit because think about all of the bubblers and coolant systems and filtration systems that we put in laboratories to take care of our laboratory fish. How much noise do those things make? Because outside of the water, they make a lot of noise. So you can imagine inside the water, they're probably making a lot of noise. So that actually could be confounding some variables in studies that we've been doing forever. So it's kind of, it's a, oh my gosh, duh moment. But when I read it, it was fascinating. It was kind of how a few months ago we found out that we've been keeping mice at the wrong temperature. Right. It's this huge, and you know, I don't want to throw away everything that we've learned from fish and laps. It's still very important research. But this is another reason that reproduction of studies is so important. Reproducing a lot of these results or just trying them again, making sure that you don't have a confounding variable. That's a huge part of science. And now that we know that sound could be a variable, we have to control for that. We do. It definitely should be controlled. I guess the thing is, you know, nature isn't perfectly silent. The environments in which these animals live are not silent. There are other animals making noises. There is the sound of the water itself. There is a lot of stuff actually going on. And so the question is, take away the sound, see the behavior, and then slowly add sound back in, different types of sounds as well, to see how behavior changes concordantly. And what a complex system. Yeah. And once we think about this, if we want to study how animals behave in the wild, then if we can measure what sound is like where they live, if we can measure the frequency of just kind of background noise, and we can try to make kind of a mix, like a white noise mix for these animals in the lab, it might be a better environment for them. And then the other question, I think Ed from Connecticut brings this up. He says, when I moved from the city to urban country, I couldn't sleep because it was too quiet. And so if the fish are raised in the noisy bubbly tanks, does it really matter? Because that's what they're used to. And if you were to try and take it away, would it affect the results? It's a good question. But if it's an animal that- Have a humation, that's a huge deal. Yeah. So then in this case with the gobies, it sounds like it absolutely would still affect them because they have ingrained into their biology to use this sound to signal mates. So it depends on what they're using it for. It depends on many things. I think though, not just signaling mates, the fact that eggs didn't hatch and then were delayed in their development, that's troubling also. What is going on there? Is it because the mother who lays the eggs is stressed because of the noise and so there's compounds that are delaying development or retarding it completely? Or is it that the noise itself is affecting the eggs? Yeah. Are there some sort of queue, a conversation between the unhatched little fishes and the parent that's being drained out? That's an even more subtle conversation that's having to take place. Like, it's okay. Can you come out now? What? I think, did you hear anything? What did you... What did mom say? I don't know. Come here. It just sounds like mom and dad are fighting all the time and they're like, stop. They're not there. Stay in my room. How come mommy doesn't sing to me anymore? Wow. Yeah. So many interesting questions arise from this study. I mean, I'd love to see more from this because this is the... And yet, we've got another product. We've got another product we can pitch. It's at the Fisherman's Ear. Right? Yeah, you drop the little fish microphone in the water. You got a little earpiece and you can hear if there's fish there. And if all of the motor boats going around the lake or the river or the bay are drowning out your Fisherman's Ear, guess who's going to be helping us lobby for quieter boat motors? Fisherman themselves. I can't hear them fish. How am I going to catch a fish if I can't hear them talking? Kind of quiet up all these boats. Electric boat engines. You got it. Could be. But you know what? It's time for us to take a quick, quiet break. Well, actually it's not going to be that quiet because I'm going to keep on talking. Justin and Blair are going to be quiet for a little while. I'm going to keep talking. It's time for us to take a break for some messages. We'll be right back in just a few moments with more science. We've got brain stuff and I don't know, lots of other things. There's lots of other things coming up so you don't want to miss it. More science. Stay with us. Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to us, for watching us, for being a part of the twist community. We do love that you're here every week with us. And do you know what? You want to plan next week? What about weeks in 2018? You can do that. Head over to twist.org where we currently are taking pre-orders for the 2018 Twist Blair's Animal Corner calendar. It is going to be a black and white calendar. It's up in the upper right hand corner, right under the words that say pre-order your 2018 calendar. 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For those of you who are not interested in the financial aspects of things, we would love your support in helping us share TWIS and finding a larger audience. The more people we can find and bring into the TWIS minion community, the better for everyone. The more we'll be able to do, the better we'll be able to do it, and you'll all be a part of it. So if you can share this week's episode of TWIS with people you know and love on Twitter, on Facebook, in person, pick up somebody's phone and say, hey, do you listen to podcasts on here and then download the subscribe to the TWIS podcast, help them do it. Maybe they'll love it and maybe we will have a new listener thanks to you. All of you, we appreciate all of your support. We really couldn't do this without you. Yes, we are. And Justin, what do you got? Oh, okay. So the world that we are living in has avoided mass starvation and famine, despite an exploding human population, largely due to our ability to overcome tremendous obstacles, food from places it will grow to places it might not before it goes bad. There were preservatives that increased shelf life, canning, freezing, and transportation infrastructure made it possible to move foods great distances and store them for longer periods of time. Farming practices have made for more efficient use of every acre of farmland. But as the human population continues to boom along, we need still greater breakthroughs. And there may be one of those on the way, in way of corn. Yeah, because corn. We're not using enough of it already. Right. Well, that's the thing. Corn grows pretty easily. It's a huge crop throughout the world. Now, record scientists have found a way to enhance the nutritional value of corn. They've inserted a bacterial gene, I believe they used E. coli for this, that causes it to produce a key nutrient called methionine. Methionine. Methionine. Methionine. What is it? Methionine. Methionine. Records University, New Brunswick Discovery could benefit millions of people in developing countries such as South America and Africa who depend on corn as a staple could also significantly reduce worldwide animal feed costs because they add methionine. Methionine. I need it. Methionine. Add methionine artificially, synthetically, to feed to boost its nutritional value for animals. It's found in meat and certain nuts. It's one of nine essential amino acids that humans get from food, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. It is needed for growth and tissue repair, improves the tone and flexibility of skin and hair, and strengthens nails. The sulfur and... Methionine. Methionine. By the end of this story, the last time I say it, I'll get it right. Methionine. Okay, here we go. Methionine protects cells from pollutants, as well as slows cell aging, and is essential for absorbing selenium and zinc. So, yeah, they inserted E. colibacterial gene, the corn plant genome, and grew several generations of the corn. They fed it to chickens, and the chickens did well. I'll died. Oh. No. Methionine and corn kernels increased by 57%. And, yeah, the chickens seemed happy. No, they didn't die of glare. They're like, ooh, methionine. Happy and healthy. Ooh. Methionine. One of the nice things that also came from this study is that the growth of the corn plant was not affected at all. So, it didn't cause an energy usage or something like this in the growing of the plant that had shorter, smaller plants or less output. So, win-win-win. So, less if they can go forward with this. They can grow crops with methionine supplement and forgo the supplements and all these expenses that we're using to feed animal crops or animals so that those, you know, then that's reduced cost of then having them as food, as well as creating this nice thing for subsistence farmers. And I don't know. I don't know. But didn't we have a study where, was it gerbils? Were fed nothing but corn and went mad and ate their young? Was it? Yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar. Yeah. So, if we're going to have to rely on corn, or if there are folks who are relying on a large corn diet, maybe making it a little more nutritional will prevent them from eating their young. So, I just also want to, while we're talking about this, quickly plug that there's this thing called the Factor of 10. And so, the reason we're worrying about this is because we need to feed animals that we are then going to eat, right? That's the majority of the use of this. But you can feed, you can make 10 times as many calories. You can feed 10 times as many people on the same land used to raise livestock versus to raise a plant product to feed people. You feed 10 times as many people, you make 10 times as many food calories, just feeding the plants on the land to the people rather than raising meat. Because it doesn't go through that extra step. Right. So, the whole trophic levels thing, right? The whole food chain. So, that's... I just want to throw that out there as another... I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with subsidizing the corn with good nutrients. I think that's great. But I also think part of the like Solving World Hunger conversation has to do with using land in a way that is going to be more efficient. And if they're using it for... I think it's missing now. But if the methionine is an amino acid that's essential, that's found in meat, and if we're raising less meat, then you can have the corn somewhat taking the place. If you have a way to replace the amino acids that only come from meat. Absolutely. You're totally right. You have to provide a source for people. And especially considering how much corn we already consume, it would be cool if all of those corn calories that I'm consuming every day because I love my popcorn and my corn chips and all of my corn syrups. It would be cool if there was some sort of benefit to my body for that. And instead, you just get cornier. I just love my corn, guys. I am a chicken. Part of this I'm missing though. And fill in this for me, Blair. If I'm eating the food that my food would eat, what is my food going to eat? You're not going to need as much food. That's the whole point. You need less cows. You need less pigs. You need less chickens. Oh, that's terrible if you're a cow pig or chicken. They'll be blessed if you're not born yet. I don't know. This is the rationale I've always used to. You're letting them live for a short time. My eldest daughter refuses to eat cows because she thinks they're cute. They are cute. And I've tried to explain to her that if we didn't eat cows, there wouldn't be any. There's no other function. It's not true because they wander India. That's true. So, sacred. Milk, first of all. Milk. Cheese. That's separate. That's not beef. Yeah. That's plenty of cows. That's enough cows. That's enough cows. That's plenty of cows. And leather and cowhide carpets and furniture. I mean, there's plenty of other things without the eating of the meat. Well, and I'm not even saying don't eat the meat. I'm saying part of the conversation is just eating more plants and less meat. Well, and what was sort of the interesting dynamic here is that it would be less expensive to produce the meat product by this invention and less need to eat it at the same time. So, it's actually sort of hitting both sides of the argument equally and giving them both ammunition. And we'll propel both forward. So. Listen, there's a lot of us. The thing is, there's a lot of people. More chickens and more corn. We're going to need more of it because there's going to be more of us. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There's lots of people. We need more of all of it. So, genetic modification is part of this story. It can't not be. Yes. So, I appreciate science helping us figure out how to support this enormous number of people on this planet. Yeah. Science. This is like people. The population of the earth is going to be powered on a science propulsion system. Yeah. That's it. That is it. And it is, I always thank everybody I encounter in the biotech industry who's working with plant modification, whether it's modifications to insecticides or to soil or to the plant itself because we need to make big advances in these fields in order to feed the future population that is on its way here. And this doesn't even have anything to do with climate change. This is just population growth and how are we going to do it? Oh, yeah. That's a whole other conversation of why we need this, too. A whole other side of the conversation. Moving forward into a completely different conversation. Yeah, I'll do it. I'm going to jump into, I've got a couple of stories coming up. Maybe I can just do them one after another and then Justin can do his story about hacking the brain. Researchers have been working recently on different ways of using either drugs, magnetic stimulation, electrical stimulation. How do we make the brain better, stronger, faster? How do we get to that point of bettering what we can already do? So there's research that just was published and the researchers have looked into a drug that's called oxyracetam. And how do I get my hands on it? It's a nootropic and it's actually available over the internet because it is not regulated by the FDA. This is these racetam families. They do have effects on neurotransmitters and neuro receptors within the brain. But this particular drug, their particular study, this is Shengli Hu, a third military medical university in Chongqing, China, and colleagues, took a bunch of men from the military. These are guys who are in good shape. They're already in the military, but they took them up to about 12,000 feet, 4,000 meters above sea level. High altitude of above 8,000 or so feet, you start feeling the effects of hypoxia, low oxygen conditions on your body and your brain. Your cognitive function slows down. Sometimes you get a tummy ache, you feel nauseous. There's all sorts of things that happen when you go up to high altitude without proper acclimatization. So all of these men previously came from towns around 1,800 meters above sea level. And then they spent eight days at this altitude and then climbed for three days to get up to the 12,000 foot level, 4,000 meters. And then they stayed for about a month. These men, while they were there, took 800 milligrams of oxyracetam three times a day for the first 15 days of the study. And then 20 other matched participants didn't get any intervention at all. They didn't take any pills. And then they took a whole bunch of tests of attention and memory at the start and at the end of the study. And then again, 20 days in. And so at 20 days in, they had been up at those 4,000 meters for about nine days. And so they should have been feeling some effects. But by nine days, maybe they would actually be getting a little more acclimated to that height. All the participants showed a drop in their cognitive ability, attention, memory at 4,000 meters. However, those that took this smart drug, this nootropic oxyracetam, they had a smaller drop in their abilities than the control group. So this stayed smarter than those who didn't take the drug. They took blood flow measurements and it indicated that what happened is that in those individuals who are not taking any drugs, the circulatory system vasoconstricted and then dilated in ways that shunted blood to the brainstem, which is responsible for those basic body functions of respiration and heart rate and just keeping the body going. So cognitive ability drop is probably related to a reduced oxygen flow or blood flow through the brain because there's vasoconstriction happening, saying, you don't need to go there. Go to the brainstem. Keep this crazy high altitude. You're dying person alive. Like when you're at high altitude, low oxygen, your body is basically going into a survival mode because it thinks it's going to die. And this oxyracetam, they found that the blood flow changed where it went. So more arteries dilated and blood flow throughout the brain was increased, which supported this idea. So we don't know whether diverting the blood could have long-term negative effects or whether it's just all good that you change the blood flow, get more oxygen to the higher cognitive function regions of the brain and beyond potentially helping climbers, emergency crews, people who do go to high altitudes on a regular basis or even for long periods of time to be able to think faster and better at those high altitudes beyond that, it could also help in neurodegenerative diseases that affect blood flow, dementia, Alzheimer's. Maybe this shunting or opening up of arteries to move blood around the brain could help some of those symptoms. What about a normal, healthy person that would like to increase their brain function? Would this work? I don't know. Go ahead and try it. No. Say what happens. I am not suggesting anything. This is not meant to be a statement of support from me. No, I'm curious. I'm curious. It's regulated. There are several nootropics and there are websites from people who are brain hackers who are trying to increase their performance on a daily basis. A lot of them are college students who are trying to do better on their performance and tests and be able to study and do better. Many others are people who work in high pressure jobs, other situations where quick, high functioning cognitive abilities would give them an edge over the competition. How quickly does it work after you take it? I don't know. That's a great question. That's very interesting. I just wonder too if there's a limit. And that's what we don't know. Yes. Right. If your brain is super healthy, you have really good blood flow through your brain. Will this actually do anything for you? Yeah. If your brain is, if you're not in a position of- If your brain isn't already oxygen starved. Yes. And if everything is normally dilated and constricted and healthily so, maybe this has no effect. But there's another concern though, is that if you're increasing blood flow to areas of the brain and getting artificially these arteries to dilate or contract, is it possible that if you have a weak arterial wall in your brain that this could influence the development of a brain aneurysm? So there are downsides to shunting blood around your brain, your brain that should be taken into consideration, but I don't know exactly how this particular drug would play into that. So you're saying I shouldn't play around with the blood in my brain? Your brain is perfectly okay. I think you're fabulous, but if you're interested, there are a lot of people who have been- It's doing fine. Yeah, there are communities of people who are very into this and there are places where you can find lots of information about nootropics, how they work, and experiences that different people have had on them. At this point, a lot of this stuff is anecdotal. But I mean, seriously, hacking the brain and then- And I just, I just, I can't get it on Amazon Prime, so I'm going to pass. Pass there. It's got to be here in two days, free shipping or nothing. Another way people, like I mentioned, are hacking the brain is using transcranial stimulation. And this week on the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at Boston University have found that by timing electrical, external, direct transcranial stimulation to the theta waves in individuals' brains, that timing it so that the sine waves of those theta waves are in phase, it boosts the cognitive ability of the individuals. If they are out of phase, it decreases the performance of the individuals. I mean, I don't know if I would want to walk around being constantly stimulated to be able to have a performance boost. But this idea came from the idea that sometimes different brain areas, and so they're coming from a position of neural dysfunction, that some brain areas aren't synchronized with their electrical fluctuations, their oscillations with other brain areas. And because there's a dyssynchrony between different brain areas that need to be talking to each other in synchrony, that causes some physical and mental problems. And so the idea was that they could use this stimulation to enhance the oscillatory language used by the brain. I'll take the pill. It's low frequency. It's not really that it's yes. Yeah, anyway, they had 90 test subjects, average age 27. They completed attention and reasoning tasks while they were receiving transcranial, alternating current stimulation at the frequency of their theta waves either in phase or out of phase. And in phase makes it way better. Out of phase way worse. Yeah. Yes, so maybe this could be used as a therapy, but like I said, if I needed to function at a high level, I don't think I'd maybe want to be walking around going, having constant electrical stimulation. But then again, I mean, I hold my cell phone near me all the time. So. Which does nothing. So it does nothing. Yeah, it does nothing. Yeah. Anyway, a couple of cool brain hacking stories to speak. I wanted to share. Sue, what else do you have, Justin? Oh, so I guess I'll do in reverse order what I had. This is a scientist from Trinity College Dublin, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland have discovered that abnormalities of blood vessels in the brain may play a major role in the development of schizophrenia. The network of blood vessels in the brain regulates the transport of energy materials and out of the brain. The blood forming what is known as the blood brain barrier. Barrier. This is a scientist working in the Smurfitt Institute. Yes, there's a Smurfitt Institute of genetics at Trinity College Dublin and the Department of Psychiatry at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland have discovered that abnormalities in the integrity of the blood brain barrier may be a critical component in the development of schizophrenia and other brain disorders. They find people living with a chromosomal abnormality terms 22q11 deletion syndrome are 20 times more likely to develop schizophrenia. So this is that this is the disease that affects about one percent of the population. So if you've got a 20 times more higher chance, that's a really going to, you know, be expressed significantly more and people who have this gene deletion. And it turns out that this has this gene happens to be involved in blood vessel formation. Correct. Yes, got it. So they've got this whole, you know, thing that they didn't know was associated with the brain disorders that, yeah, could be abnormalities in blood vessels. And it's so OK, we have all these other drugs that are already out there that are mood or attention to, you know, affecting different parts. But here's a new concept. We can treat the thing that we know is going wrong. And so this is going to open up new pathways from your treatments whether which might be the supplement thing you were just talking about. You know, I mean, like, try that. Right. Like that would be if it's an over the counter and you've got, you know, somebody who's suffering from schizophrenia, maybe that is something worth having a try until science comes up with a more studied care anyway. Yeah, a cure that can actually go in and fix whatever blood vessel issues there might be, whatever communication issues there might be. Yeah. Quoty boy share. While it is a vex, well accepted that improving cardiovascular health can reduce the risk of stroke and heart attacks. We now believe that drugs aimed at improving serobrovascular, cerebrovascular may be an additional strategy to treating brain diseases in the future. Nice. That's awesome. That is awesome. And then, and then, and then, and then it seems like this story I'm about to tell you has been told before on this show. This is not a repeat. This is not the same story you've heard on this show several times before. But it seems like maybe even a few or more times a year we're telling you the tale of an unknown species turning up in a dusty box in the basement archive of a university or a museum collection and it's happened again. And ichthyosaur first discovered in the 70s but then dismissed and consigned to museums storerooms across the country has been reexamined and found to be a new species. Confirmed. Fish dino. Yeah. Now back in 1979 after inspecting several ichthyosaurs from the UK paleontologist Dr. Robert Applebee announced a new type of ichthyosaur called proto ichthyosaurus. Other scientists of the day dismissed the discovery of Applebee's proto ichthyosaurus and suggested that it was an identical it was just identical to an ichthyosaurus. It's just a common UK found ichthyosaur. No big deal. Now detailed study led by paleontologist Dean Lomax University of Manchester and Professor Judy Maseray State University of New York have reexamined compared the proto with the regular old ichthyosaur and found major differences in the number of bones in the front fin. The four fins of the species being different. The differences likely reflect differences in the way the species moved through the water. How they swam was likely different. So there are also differences found in the skulls but it was another discovery. It was about the fins that also got the team's attention there. The unusual four fin structure was originally identified by Robert Applebee in 1979 but some of the historic specimens he examined had been faked and this fakery had been missed until now in some instances an isolated fin of an ichthyosaurus had been added to a proto ichthyosaurus skeleton to make it appear more complete which led to the genuine differences between the two species being missed. This has been a major problem because it stopped science from progressing. We also found some pathological fins including ichthyosaurus fins with pathologies that mimicked proto ichthyosaurus forfin structure so it was a lot of sussing and sorting and figuring out until they came up with this and then and then former undergraduate student Rashmi Mistry University of Reading reading who had been studying an unusual ichthyosaur in a collection the Colm Museum of Zoology for her undergraduate dissertation contacted them and it turned out she had found the let's see I was doing my I have the equity voice whilst doing my dissertation 2016 I studied several ichthyosaurs in the collection including a very small skeleton it had an unusual forfin that matched proto ichthyosaurus which understood to be widely unrecognized genus however when I contacted Dean he was very excited he told me that this little skeleton is the only known small juvenile proto ichthyosaurus yeah they found a little bambini ichthyoproto ichthyosaurus little bambini so over 20 specimens of proto ichthyosaurus were identified during the study this is significant as each they all had the same structures so they became you know consistent they got rid of the bad data from the sort of fake specimens specimens are all from the Jurassic period between 200 and 190 million years ago and come from areas around England so then while searching through collections they also came across a skeleton at the University of Nottingham this specimen was different to all other known examples of proto or not proto ichthyosaurus and the skull and the humerus and then been identified as a no species the team have called this one proto ichthyosaurus apple bi in honor of Robert Appleby who had his initial discovery kind of quashed by scientific opinion because of us it's because he named it first fish dinosaur he's like no no no forget about yours mine was first proto proto right here they're like no no no get out of here right and it's because it was I think older but I think the the um the one they have they just didn't want to be usurped and then the one they have now is is its own sole example right so so it's exciting I mean what I love about this study is the thing that we always talk about which is finding things in the drawers of museum collections and then and then secondarily is the fact that that in museums they used to take fossil bits and stick them together and make other fossils and say it looks about right this is what it is and our discoveries were based on some of those and so there's a lot of potential correction that needs to come from there not not a ton but there's a ton and I get it it's frustrating you have 30 percent of a sample over here 25 percent of a sample over there you want to put something big together I want to see how it all looks together but just give it time we're we're not done finding stuff or put your put your guesses up there in like a different color or something be very clear say like okay the blue bones those are guesses yep here are the actual bones that we Blair's multi-colored highlighted version and then we will we will cease to have this sort of confusion about this unless they do yellow because I can't tell you between did you guys see the study from the proceedings of national academy of sciences this last week also that was again from museum specimens a researcher looked at 1300 birds collected between 1880 and 2015 from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin and looked at looked for soot particles in order to construct a record of black carbon so soot particles trapped in the feathers of the birds and yeah and so black carbon is particulate matter it's caused by the burning of fossil fuels and we know it's a major source of air pollution is a problem for public health and it's also a contributor to climate change and in this they were able to actually put together a record using these dusty bird feathers yeah that's so smart and what did what did the dusty bird feathers tell us yeah so the darker the feathers was the more soot that they had and they the results indicated that black carbon concentrations may have been actually higher in the past than our model estimates suggest particularly in the industrial era between 1880 and 1910 and so black carbon may have had a greater impact on that period of climate change than we have and we have thought and also yeah if you look where it is very industrial region where those feathers they specifically looked at bird samples from those places and times because of what was happening there at that time and place my final story also is talking about birds you got me thinking about egg-shaped things dwarf planet how maya dwarf planet how maya lives in our solar system out beyond Neptune and researchers recently they said we want to get some more information about how maya and so they have published an article about their research in nature this week they let the dwarf planet eclipse or transit in front of a background star background star you're at one five three three one eight two five four three and they looked at it with 12 different telescopes across Europe they were really just going to be looking to figure out the size and shape and the density of the planet and self but as they saw the light blink out as the transit occurred they discovered a ring around how maya this is the second small planetoid dwarf planet mini planet I got it stick with one I get confused to it we got to have one label for these things I know I don't know planet micro planet dwarf planet stick one and stick with it planet junior we call it yes so another small planetoid called charry clo has been discovered to have a ring around it as well and the question is what we thought only big gravitational bodies in our solar system like Saturn Jupiter Neptune Uranus these big gassy bodies that they were the ones that would be big enough to have these ring systems but now we're finding these little tiny planet things dwarf planets that have rings as well and so astronomers have to kind of go back to their hypothesis of ring formation and say what is going on here I don't I don't think that would help you I think that would I see I'm not surprised by this at all I think that would be expected I think it would be bizarre if this dwarf planet had rings the size of Saturn's rings yeah but then it would have scaled down versions would just mean physics is continuing to follow the same rules down to that level with yeah but the question is so Earth we had a big giant collision that probably resulted in a bunch of debris we don't have a ring where's our ring yeah I don't know the moon we don't have a ring so what is it that's keeping this ring around how how may I what's the ring what is what forces are maintaining the ring around Chereclo and not letting them are we seeing it before it's going to turn into a moon is that where it's going is that where it's headed or is this a stable ring system you know this is there are very interesting questions that must be asked Blair tell me about coal miners well all that black carbon we were making that are now all up in those words whether that a lot of it came from the burning of coal and you know as much as we'd like to support the coal industries individuals some of us might like to see a little less of the coal industry itself but that does mean we need to find some new things for these people to specialize in and a new program from the university of Delaware is trying to turn coal miners into beekeepers they are trying you first I was expecting solar industry workers I was expecting no and this is what's so interesting is that the University of Delaware wanted to keep Appalachian history and interests at the heart of what they found and they took an old camp site that was once owned and operated by coal mining companies that saw thousands of kids go through of coal miners go through camp every year they took this space and they turned it into the Appalachian beekeeping collective and they are now training ex coal miners how to be beekeepers um the the lead researcher Debbie Delaney she uh actually went there herself to this camp and she says these people are so tied to this place when I was there over the summer at least twice a week someone would drive by and say I went to camp here 50 years ago this place means so much to me it is a really special spot there's so much risk history and then also on top of that people are very tied to the beekeeping elements even if they're not exactly aware of it every hill has a name all of the plants are very special to these people they're very tied to the land and so this is part of keeping that land beautiful and natural sustaining the environment sustaining the bee species that are there and actually the Appalachian region has a history of beekeeping kind of a rich history of beekeeping there everybody's grandfather had bee she said it's because it's all hardwood forest there which all produced nectar and pollen so it's a really good area for beekeeping really high quality forage I think both of those things make it ideal so so far so good these ex coal miners are learning to be beekeepers they're raising as beekeepers they're trying to raise a strain of Appalachian honey bee that is might resistant and that's a big piece that's a big piece of this research and they're hoping that then these beekeepers can take this information back home and start making small batch honey and selling it yeah absolutely meanwhile from coal miners to artisanal honey producers exactly yeah and keeping the culture of the region yeah it's wonderful yep I hope it works reeducation is what we need to do so people aren't so afraid of what they're going to do as we there are other move off of coal yeah there are other programs where we teach on Justin a lot of there are other programs where they coal miners to code as well so this is an ongoing program where there are coal miners that are exiting these factories and within just a few short weeks they're actually skilled programmers for engineering companies and tech companies so there are lots of opportunities out there for them there's actually not that many of them yeah that's also on the planet coal miners in the market like that's not like a major segment of our problem the problem is it's the concentration so there are specific areas that are very coal dependent that their their entire economy is kind of based on this this particular structure but this isn't the first time ever that there has been a switch in where a certain area gets their main job source or money from this is not the first time this has happened but we can certainly help these people through and if we can help the environment on our way get some pollinators out there that would also be great it would be I'm all about these multiple levels sustainable ideas yeah let's do it absolutely yeah and on so many levels I want to say thank you everyone for joining us for twist tonight I think we've made it to the end of another show bum bum bum we did it we did it thank you to all of you in the chat room for joining us this evening for this conversation thank you to those of you who are chatting and watching over on Facebook and YouTube and also thank you to Fada Identity 4 and Brandon for helping out behind the scenes on some of the things that we do around here thank you also to our Patreon sponsors I would like to thank Gbert and Latamar John Ratnaswamy Richard Onimus Byron Lee E.O. 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We can science it's the end of the world So I'm setting up a 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 below the warming with a wave of my hands And all it'll cost you is a couple of grand Just 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 earth It's this week in science This week in science This week in science Science Science This week in science This week in science This week in science Science Science Science I've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news That what I say may not represent your views But I've done the calculations and I've got a plan If you listen to the science you may just better understand That we're not trying to threaten your philosophy We're just trying to save the world from Japanese This week in science This week in science is coming 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week in science This week in science This week in science This week in science This week in science This week in science This week in science And this brings us to the end Of yet another episode Of This Week in Science as we bring you all the science and you like it because I said so no get your calendars everybody pre-order pre-order pre-order your calendars calendars I like them get your calendar or pre-order it go to twist.org and click on the link and then if it doesn't work let me know but I hope it works for you I need to sell a lot more great yeah everyone buy five buy 10 buy 30 buy your calendars get your calendars get your calendars here get your calendars at twist.org I could never have been a barker where is Justin when we need a good barker I have a rollie ball that's good what's that for I don't know I think it went with some kind of little robot thing I don't know robot thing got a little tiny robot thing it could also be it's my new fidget spinner yeah my fidget thingy I could just it's just annoying why would I do that all the time I don't really like that I totally like the fidget cube idea but the fidget spinner is well I don't know it's just having something else in my hand while I'm trying to do things but maybe it would reduce the nail biting that's the like I use fidgets all the time and um the fidget cube is cool because you can kind of conceal it in your hand and it doesn't kind of bother others but the fidget spinner can bother others yes because it makes a sound and it's like visually very distracting and it depends you can get very quiet spinners yeah there are very quiet ones they'll be pretty visually distracting yeah whiskey renegade I hear you about the property taxes I hope they're not too terrible and Ben yes fun employment fun employment is great for being able to stay up late and watch twists I'm glad you were able to join us it is so great it is good it is great yes oh and fada's taken off because mr robot is returning to the usa networks tonight I don't have cable so I have to get everything maybe a little bit later on amazon either wait for it to become free on prime or actually pay for it I like it when it's free when I when it's just part of the prime thing I know I went to try to watch Star Trek Discovery and I was very sad yeah you can only watch it if you pay the online fees on that particular channel yep and this is the way everybody like ah they just we are giving us what we wanted but not I just want them to all go in on the netflix or amazon prime thing I pay for three of these different subscription services I'm not going to pay for hulu I'm done with that I'm like don't give me advertising on something I'm paying for that's why I don't like cable there is that and I am still paying for that but I I'm not super clear on what I'm paying for I guess I'm paying to get the episodes earlier than yeah to get them earlier yeah and if you have cable yeah why have hulu if you have cable and netflix and amazon that's right so I don't have tv so that's why I I do netflix and hulu and amazon on your computer yes well that's what it is it's getting it when you want it where you want it yeah but that's like why make a show that you can only get if you pay a completely separate like five to ten dollars a month well I'm not going to yeah but that's what I'm saying is like not going to I'm like I got a budget I'm gonna stick I'm not gonna sign up for another another show another thing it's just frustrating because like I've wanted a good new star trek for so long and I was really excited to watch it and I like tried to figure out how the other day I was like nope there's just no way what you what you can figure out is if you have a friend who has all these services and is paying for it see if they'll invite you over right absolutely or I get away a bottle of wine and popcorn and yeah let's watch star trek yeah I don't know anyone who pays for CVS um online though but um right because I see now I'm just gonna wait for the first season to come out on dvd and I'm gonna get it from the library oh look at you because what the heck man and libraries are awesome for stuff like that oh yeah I haven't seen orville yet oh yeah the orval and then Pam says red dwarf is coming out with an is a returning what yeah I didn't realize that was still happening right that's exciting that was on when I was a child I know that'll be interesting bring it back like dr who and all of the other great ones wait let's come back red dwarf oh that's a good one I'm sorry I've been moving around all this show I'm like so stiff and sore or lower back in my hip I can't wait to lay my three bones I've been an absolute wreck today because I can still do anything that I could do when I was a a young man of a certain age a spry young whipper snapper I can still go toe to toe with that guy run climb dance do extreme yoga moves as I proved to my children uh during an extensive dance competition that includes some pretty serious yoga moves last night yeah until the next day until the next day yeah I can't move my body and it doesn't work anymore my neck won't turn my legs won't extend all the way so I I went camping this weekend and I rolled off of my sleeping pad woke up couldn't move my arm or shoulder then started to feel better we set up this double-decker hammock situation I was like I'm gonna get in that top hammock got up in there got down from the top hammock oh good look at the next day yikes it was tough it was real tough yeah there is starting to be that voice in the back of my head that never existed before that reminds me now and like I was I was I was somewhat conscious of it last night like oh this is gonna this could be I could have a difficulty from this going forward tomorrow like I was in the back of my mind for like maybe the first time ever that there's gonna be a correlation between this fancy footwork I'm showing off yep and deteriorated state tomorrow and sure enough right away tomorrow this morning was just oh oh it's still I'm like I'm like sore muscles back legs the whole how can we get the microbes to help our joints help me out man come on good question Hannah Hannah from Facebook says she said she just found us through Facebook and is going to be subscribing but she also says I'm a special ed teacher and has mixed feelings on the spinners so it's here's the thing is like we all do yeah I know right like fidgets are great I am so happy that society has come to terms with the idea that some people need to mess with their hands in order for them to think and be calm and I'm one of those people I'm one of those people that when I used to get the bus transfers the officer would get on and ask for your transfers and I just show him a palm of confetti they'd be like sorry like that's I'm a fidgeter but um there's a difference between fidgeting for yourself and and like being distracting to others and there's also like a difference between using a fidget spinner like out on the yard or like just whatever or in like a meeting right this is very different or in a test where someone next to you is like bothered by it right so if it's a fidget that you can use without then bothering people who need stasis then I think that's perfect but that's I think that's my biggest complaint with the spinner is that it's less discreet yeah it's like a baton it's like a mini baton yeah and a lot of them the nicer ones come apart too so then you know the the teenagers that I had in my programs over the summer that had the fancy fidget spinners that come that come apart into like five different pieces that was the part that would totally distract and drive me crazy was they'd spin it they'd take it apart into all these pieces and then they'd like snap them all back together and then spin them again and I was like can you just too much too much too much yeah now to mention some of these are really expensive and then if they misplace them they're so upset because these like super fancy metal fidget spinners some of them are like 80 books what yes yeah yeah why would what yeah oh my goodness people spend money on anything where they'd rather spend their money on this weekend science should we get a uh this weekend science fidget spinner probably no oh look here's a hundred dollars oh car alarm down the street that's awesome um okay everyone remember denver what is it november fifth fifth six six i think we're we're actually doing we're at the semological society of america's meet annual meeting uh so we'll hopefully have a meetup i think it would be fun then evening we arrive because you know to find someplace anyway get there in the afternoon and then have a meetup in the evening grab a beverage and some food at a pub near our hotel i think sunday evening the fifth might make a good friend of mine is just come back from the uh the giant brew fest that took place there i guess last week breweries all over the nation that's right roi was there and uh he says there's some places we have to go and see cool yeah i don't have a lot of time but get us a list uh just there's like one area and i can find the name it is years ago the guy who's like was the mayor and thinking my people could govern them now uh he opened a brewery and a depressed part of town which is now like come back to life and it's like old buildings it's been it's it's up and been there it's up and been there for a while i guess but uh but it's beautiful because it's got all the old all the time facades because you know nothing got torn down to get rebuilt but um yeah so there's some places we need to at least one place we should try to get to to go have a beverage and enjoy the history yeah um so question can we put our hands on some of those pills for altitude so we'll be able to think well while we're doing the show yeah as we'll test it we'll get our sense of oxyracetam yeah test it out ourselves there we go yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah all right twist i don't know that i i don't know that more brain activity would help i usually just rely on caffeine for this but uh what are you talking about it's fine i could use plenty of extra time to think about it i just feel like i need a sedative more than i need in that whole stimulant what are you talking about i'd love to go faster faster faster better stronger smarter faster just gonna hide over here um so i spoke with joanna who is organizing our live show at the entomological association meeting uh society meeting and she said that we'll have about an hour and a half we're gonna schedule three interviews so something similar to the baltimore show that we did um three interviews and then we'll each bring one or one story or something that kind of revolves around the idea of entomology i never talk about insects i don't know what i'm gonna do i don't know what you're gonna do though there's absolutely no invertebrate stories no i never talked about invertebrates i wonder if i could if i could do a story about the etymology of entomology maybe if it's interesting you keep focusing on this a lot because i because i'm no joke i believe for my entire life i've been saying the entomology of a word i wonder what the entomology of that word is not realizing this whole time that was think the wrong word okay strengths we love ruining it for people listening to this show at 2.5 times that's right if you're listening to it super fast we love every once in a while talking really fast so that you can't really understand what it can just take because somebody can really listen to this and it would be really fast justin is the voice of reason i did see someone wrote on quiz.org recently commented saying that they do listen at two times every week yeah so last week when at the end of the show i think we spoke very quickly that was probably a lot of fun for them i'd love to hear back about that oh i got any form in the chart it says to be careful because they might bug us like a wanker like a wanker that's a good one i think that's funny i like it not the slap all eight of the insects knees all six spiders eight and six six i got it six to eight you know you know it's only a rule um mic beam over on youtube says did we ever save the bees from the beer from last week's show no no we decided that that was okay yeah because it's the icky a sore all over again this is how we do science this is part of the deal um and you know not to people always get mad when i do this but like not to put a point on it killing kill every being an animal for science to save lives or habitats for some reason that's bad but killing animals for food or clothing right is okay yeah for real guys yeah everyone needs to relax yes everybody does need to relax and enjoy my new shirt made entirely out of wasps it's skin of wasps this is 100 wasp wing is it itchy it's a little uncomfortable actually but as a fashion statement wait till you see this in the light it glimmers yeah it doesn't seem like no other yes all right yes Dave Robison episode 640 and i got your email Blair forwarded it to me it's a long email we didn't comment on it on the show because i just got it today today it was busy and yeah Justin doesn't know anything about it so fair point in your email does it have anything to do with me well he did he did say that uh should we talk about it on the show show next week for show show sure um it was mostly about Fukushima um and just that uh he has no need to comment i just had to vent i totally understand that it may have seemed like uh we were kind of making light of the disaster a little bit which is mainly just my way of kind to of trying to like swing the pendulum back to a reasonable left level of concern it's kind of just like all right everyone just take a couple steps back like yes and so i i will say my i have my own like personal emotions in relation to nuclear energy just because when i was in high school and i took ap environmental science and i had this dialogue with my teacher this is basically like so you're telling me we need to pump water constantly to cool this space and when we can't use the space anymore we just case it up in cement bury it hope it's fine it's a perfect plan you're telling me that's the environmental option yeah i don't know so for that i've always just kind of been like this is kind of like a this isn't a problem for today this is like a problem for tomorrow me so i'm just not going to worry about don't worry about the buried nuclear reaction yeah so so as we've been getting i mean i've been covering renewables and sustainable energy for a long time with this show and also with other shows on the twit network and um before that i did the what was it back in 2007 i think it's still available on and back and listen to k-old natural energy podcast um and even you know even 10 years ago people were saying you know nuclear is a part of a well-rounded energy plan but and at the time sustainable some renewables we're not coming online powerfully enough or efficiently enough to really make a dent but now as davie mentioned in your email we've got solar and wind that are really starting to come up and there's the potential that these less environmentally damaging uh and sustainable resources could really power large swaths of humanity's infrastructure meanwhile nuclear new nuclear plants they take about 15 years just to even get approved and then you're talking a decade to get built they're like 25 30 years before been going online and then are they only gonna last 50 years 60 years and then you still have a problem with the waste even though the modern nuclear facilities are supposed to be less wasteful and blah blah blah you still have to deal with the waste at some point yeah and there's potential risk and there's potential risk big risk as you know we know and as yes the average is you know we've got these probably one a decade or so of a meltdown of some kind and there's human error involved so i am pro nuclear in the defense of maintaining our energy infrastructure as it is now and hopefully allowing us to power all our needs into the future but if we can get the other renewables and sustainables up to a point that they that they'll get online faster and better and cheaper then we just need to scrap lands clear as fast as possible once that happens because like you know it yeah coal it's a big power storage nuclear big power storage in those radioactive particles right if you have a solar field you're not suddenly going to have to cover it all in cement and never use it again no so it's definitely you know and i i feel like it's an exponential growth right like the efficiency of these solar panels are getting better faster with each passing year because it's a more viable option it's kind of we've always been talking about this since solar was first a viable thing you know it's been part of the conversation that you have to pay into it for the technology to get better and it might take a little bit for it to get started but then it's going to snowball in a good way yeah and and davis saying in the chat room uh his main point was that the food shaker disaster is on and that's absolutely correct it hasn't been contained it is still an issue but the issue is one that it has and it really does have to do with distance and for those people who live very close to fukushima yes there are going to be cancer issues there's going to be the thyroid issues that are already popping up they're going to pop up more things in that local environment yeah yeah maybe i wouldn't trust a fish from right near fukushima probably not a great idea but we do know that the the things that are making their way over here water and other everything is it's fine so far so uh yes it's ongoing it needs to be dealt with it absolutely needs to be dealt with i mean the fact that it's like an open oozing gaping nuclear wound has self inflicted infected wound yeah that no one can treat because it's dangerous yeah i mean that that needs that we really need to figure some stuff out about around that um yeah you can't build something that is at least a little bit likely to have an event like this happen without a plan to fix it when it does yeah and then i think from our perspective and Blair touched on it a bit is that the thing that that we get upset about and we didn't mean to make light of the fukushima disaster at all it was mainly that it's the um i guess chicken with the head cut off syndrome that people have about so many issues related to nuclear and what has happened with fukushima and the spread of misinformation and so yeah um well yeah i think you you mentioned in your letter that you thought we made uh the point about the story fairly well that we were particularly covering that time but yeah well and it's i think it's important to remember too that that we as citizens of our country pay taxes that support organizations that monitor these things and you know so back in april i was all jazz when i showed up like the epa yeah the oh but back in april when i i um toured the ocean side water treatment plant over here in san francisco on um skyline boulevard um right next to the zoo when we toured that facility i was shocked at how often and how many types of water quality testing they do very far out off of the pacific coast constantly constantly the main reason they started doing it was to make sure that their output from the treatment plant is not negatively affecting the environment which i thought was super awesome and amazing but on top of that they're just by kind of the nature of that process they're also monitoring all sorts of environmental changes from other factors and these organizations are all over our country all along the pacific coast there are other organizations that are specifically looking at radioactivity and other potential threats in those spaces and that's mainly what i was also trying to report on was that hey we're still testing this and it's still okay yeah it is still okay you not eating your fish is not going to solve the fukushima problem in fact it's going to create an air of helplessness that will disengage everyone which is the main thing right is that hope uh there's been all sorts of social science research on this that hope actually breeds creativity positive prospects for the future and teamwork and fear breeds all of the opposite of those things a shutdown of creativity um isolation and uh no hope for the future just we're doomed so if we're going to find solutions to these problems we have to find some sort of way to report facts without making people feel like they're doomed yeah we're not doomed but yes dave it's an ongoing problem and the problem is there are lots of ongoing problems in the world and it's uh keeping the attention around things enough and so the unfortunate thing is that uh when when something that's semi-newsworthy about something like this an ongoing issue comes up that's when people jump on it and jump into their various uh propagandist uh perspectives yeah and that that's that's the unfortunate aspect it's hard to get just kind of straight news across around something that is so controversial and is an ongoing issue yeah so maybe instead of trying to scare people into doing something about this problem by telling them that that their fish is poisoned instead i've never said that we could talk about the process of nuclear power and how it could be improved and by doing that that includes improved responsibilities for uh disasters like this and then you can take that and use it on the current disasters we're trying to clean up so yeah so first of all fukushima 100% avoidable if the backup generators were able to plug in the fact that they had generators on site that could not connect to and therefore provide power to the fukushima plant to keep the reactors cool is it that's i mean it was literally the plugs didn't fit because why did that happen okay so it's ridiculous now fukushima the one thing i always try to point out to people in that is just give it context the fukushima radioactivity that's even there is what we release into the atmosphere of the united states through the burning of coal every year the radioactive isotopes is is like a fukushima a year over the united states put up into the atmosphere now doing that every year we haven't devastated this country are their cancers as a result of it yes and i used to be very over the years very pro nuclear power and i'm not anymore i'm i'm more like for it retroactively like backwards like if we had you know 20 of these plants that 50 more of these plants 100 more of these plants across the nation we would have gotten off of a lot of fossil fuels and onto an electric car likely a lot sooner than we have but we didn't but we didn't and so now now that better option of of alternative fuels that didn't have that huge um cost and no way i don't think we've gotten any better at cleaning up the superfund sites or figured out the storage issue or any of that in fact i think those continue to be ongoing expenses that we're going to be stuck with for a long time as they continue to fail in where they're being stored sometimes on site sometimes there's a you know there's a site in washington that's that's that's having its own it's a waste yeah the handcraft site is having some issues which is collapsing and and because oh something about the wood that they used is the beams for the concrete actually that gets deteriorated and so then the concrete strength was compromised the structures are compromised and there's things breaking down there but um so yeah at this point i i totally agree i don't think that that's a necessary option going forward i think it's been a better option than fossil fuels even with this cost once you look at it you know in a larger perspective it's been a better option uh but it it isn't worth it now we have a lot of other directions in the fact that we're mobilized into getting solar everywhere like everywhere there are solar sales companies multiple ones there's a there's probably a dozen who could put solar panels up in any neighborhood in america right now or in your local area so um uh just just recently there's a new uh a couple this last week was reported there's enough wind energy over the oceans to power all of human human kinds activities to have all of human civilization enough wind power over the oceans so we just have to figure out okay how can we harvest that right how can we do it and then another another study has come out that wind power now like solar is cheaper than coal-based electricity in some parts of the world so not all over the world but in some parts of the world so but that that we think there's another one that i read that was talking about how the um the uh the evaporation if we could harness the evaporation from the ocean we could power all of the world but it's like yeah what like we put a giant pressure cooker thing over the entire ocean and somehow that like i mean but there there's yeah there's there's a tremendous amount of energy pumping into from the sun and through through the activities of this planet that we can and need to find another way of harnessing power because there's plenty of it but the the exciting thing also is like uh last year i believe there was a long-term vc fund started for sustainable energy where uh recently one of the problems is you know the government kind of got into funding stuff and got a black eye on some things but actually made some some of their investments in the green power initiative actually did some really great work came out with some great companies that are having huge impacts in the solar arena at this point in time um but the vc problem is that when money gets invested these investors want short-term returns and they don't want to look at it in terms of the maybe 15 to 20 years that it might take to get a technology really working and into fruition and so the exciting thing is is now there is a long term and it's not the only one but there's a long term sustainable energy investment fund where the investors are like we are in this for the long run because we want to put money in to make these sustainable green technologies succeed and so money is going to the right places um the the research is potentially going there and as Blair was saying earlier hope leads to creativity and right now if you look at the news about solar and wind and how things are are looking better that's going to create hope that's going to create even more creativity to harness that evaporative stuff that you're talking about the wind energy over the oceans that i was talking about all this stuff it's going to be a an iterative cycle it's going to be a positive feedback loop i think so and by vc you mean venture capitalist not ventriloquist consortium right um no yeah but i think you know the other big part of this is making it fun or part of a social construct or desirable in some way right which comes back to your whole vc thing right why were prius is so successful why were why are tesla is so successful it's because of a couple things there's something about them that people really want there's something really appealing one of those things is that they look totally different from everything else so you start to see them everywhere and they become a normal thing that you see so you're not sticking out you're actually you're doing the cool thing that everyone's doing right now whether we realize that we're doing that or not that's definitely part of it and if you only saw one tesla every five years then you probably wouldn't think there would be infrastructure for you but but this like subconscious idea that they're popping up everywhere makes it accessible makes it fun you make you you're part of a movement and it's um it makes it i mean we have a term for it that we use in um conservation education where we call it social norming right so it becomes a social norm for you to do a certain thing if you're the only person on your block without solar panels that's going to become pretty high up on your list of priorities yeah and in the north sea uh denmark denmark filled the north sea with giant wind turbines and and now that's where their electricity is coming from yep well i was thinking even if you could just power the um the giant uh transit ships the ships taking those giant like cargo containers around you could power those by wind this this wind that we're talking about that would be a huge huge huge impact on our carbon footprint and would quiet down oh it's way down this is the thing we'd quiet down the seas so that the fish could go back to talking i think it's i think it's all it'll all work together we can do this it's going to happen it's going to happen um so yeah go ahead yeah so so dav i'm glad that you sent us your your email and that you've got your thoughts off of your chest and thank you very much because it led us to a very interesting conversation thank you which has now ended it has ended i ended it right there did you see me do that how much do you in real time end a conversation but it has been a great night of conversation we've been here for about two and a half hours i want to thank all you minions for for sticking with us for hanging out for joining into the conversation with us for having your own conversations i've been following along in the chat room too always an interesting crowd i sometimes wish i didn't have to do the show and could just hang out in the chat room right i know because it's an also it's another cool place to be hanging out while the show is going on i'm glad you guys all enjoy hanging out there as well i'm gonna go stretch and then lie down for a few hours okay you guys thanks so much for a good show that's always say good night Blair good night Blair say good night Justin good night Justin good night kiki good night kiki good night everybody have a wonderful week we'll be back again next week remember you can keep up with us on the social medias and we hope that you do but join us again next week thank you so much