 We're not allowed to do it everyone. Not now. Not now that we're live. We're not allowed according to the rules of twist Yeah, no, we don't do it. We just do one in science classrooms if we do that My twitch feed is offline What is it? Let me know if it starts shoo brew or Yeah, it's my twitch feed within my fiend my twitch fiend. Are you all my twitch fiends my YouTube fiends? The book of face fiends We live Science we're gonna do a podcast right now everybody She sells seashells down by the science shore Um, I mean according to the twitch shower room we're live We are live. Oh Fantastic. We're good. Okay. I just want to make sure That we are live as someone in the discord said no twitcher runes Sure that we're silencing all over the place She sells seashells by the seashore. Isn't she like a scientist that this is I'm saying like you're not even joking like She wouldn't sell them if that were the case There's a there's like a story behind it and I think it was like Unless she was doing a social experiment was there people would pay for shells. No, I have no idea. I'd love to know That would be awesome. Okay, I'm hitting a button in tweeting. I'm sorry. We're late tonight But we're here oh a voice is out of saying hello de la la Welcome. Welcome all. Thank you for joining us for the live broadcast of the twist podcast This is what we do live around 8 p.m. When I'm not late every Wednesday evening and We bring you science Discussion and fun and we do hope you enjoy the show tonight things that are said that should not go in the podcast We'll be edited and not be in the podcast, but this is the live show. So you get it all The full science Monty. Okay. Are you ready to start? Are we ready to go? Yeah, Blair's nodding her head. We've got a Affirmation from Justin and I have pantry mods. Okay. It is time To get this show on the road. So without any further ado, let's Let's jump on it. Shall we Yes, we shall starting in a three two this is This twist this week in science episode number 842 recorded on Wednesday, September 15th 2021 science for Science for inspiration Hey, everyone. I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show We will fill your head with cannibalistic butterflies a mammoth solution and help for aging but first Disclame or disclaimer disclaimer the following program contains controversial subjects such as Facts supported by science if you are one of those people who somehow feel threatened by facts supported by science Know that you are not alone Many people in the past have had irrational fears of the known The earth was known to be round since before the days of ancient Greece a Greek astronomer Who would be a household name if not for having name that is nearly impronounceable? Estimated the earth's circumference to within 15% in the year 240 BC his major flaw Assuming the earth was its perfect sphere. We're bulging round in the middle and we like it that way But if it wasn't for that he'd have been exactly right Ancient sailors before this time likely understood that the earth was round as ships at a distance have a habit of Sinking into the horizon yet some people more than 2,000 years later still have trouble accepting that the earth is round despite Giudano Bruno and Galileo Galilei Both attesting to the fact that the earth orbits around the Sun and not the other way around many still who wore robes and to work We're feeling less special because of it and wanted them imprisoned murdered and forced at least one of them to recant So being afraid of facts supported by science has a long history The question is what do you do about it? The best thing to do in the face of the fear of the known is to simply learn more about it yourself Take some basic science classes watch a few science documentaries on a subject or read books written by Scientists involved in the work you are fearful of if learning isn't your thing. That's okay I get it, but then I have a question. When did this happen? You can no doubt tie your shoes maybe drive a car possibly even hold down a job So learning must creep into your life on occasion and if you try with science You might just find something interesting and that learning isn't so bad after all and if there's one thing We know for sure that we don't ever need to fear. It's that this week in science is coming up next Happen every day every week. There's only one place to go to find the knowledge I seek science to you Kiki and Blair and The good science to you too Justin Blair and everyone out there. Welcome to another episode of this week in science We are back again to talk about all the people that are up in space right now There are many one of them walk a or one or two of them walking around out there Doing like a repair thing this week, right? There are not only people out in space There are people in the International Space Station. There are people who were launched up by Jackson. There are people who were launched up by Space X yes space X is inspiration for today launched It's first civilian crew up into space. This is all civilian Totally space tourists. Do we call them amateur astronauts? Do we call them astronauts? Do we call them space tourists? I don't know, but there were 14 people in orbit around the planet today. I mean if this isn't a day for People In space My guess is most of them at some point could has been as close as 50 to 100 miles from you That's right. Yes Space is not nearly as far away away Right, but they're up there we have escaped the gravity well of our planet We're putting people into space and it's not just highly trained astronauts Amateurs people who want to go there can pay for it if they have the the cashola and can get themselves into space so What does this mean for the future of humanity? I don't know, but today isn't a day for inspiration for And science so we have a lot of stories today. I have stories about Fixing aging we want to we want to fix aging Blair I have like three stories that are just for you How we're gonna make your old age a better old age, okay? I've also got an influence of black holes and a rundown of The Ig Nobel Prize winners always fun. So anyway, it's already time for that. That's been a year You know, I came back around again, and I'm like wow, how did that happen Lord? Okay. Yeah. All right Justin What'd you bring? I've got ancient seas on Mars a mammoth solution to global warming just good news COVID edition and Why your cells are so sticky? I have sticky cells. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that Well, have you ever had a cut? Did you just ooze out? Oh? Okay, that's right. There's something it's not just surface tension that keeps all the stuff in Okay, Blair. What is the animal corner? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I have toilet-trained cows I have cannibalistic butterflies and then before that I have a fun story about humans and heartbeats I always want to stop the show and like here at least one of your stories each week We can't wait until later, but we can we can wait until it's the marshmallow for you Every time it's right away Instructions of the marshmallow test are finished. So we've put a marshmallow in front of you and so the idea I would like to jump into the show now. So let's get rolling on the science as we jump into it I do want to remind you jump it in That you can subscribe to this week in science everywhere that we are found on podcast platforms on YouTube on Facebook on Twitch and on Instagram and Twitter And there's so many places you can really find all the information at twist.org Are we ready for the science? Yeah, all right diving into the big pool of science I'm gonna start us off with the Ig Nobel Awards There's nothing ignoble about them. They are fantastic and fun And that's the whole idea of the Ig Nobel Prizes is that it's a Celebration of the weird and the unusual that makes people laugh and hopefully think a little bit This year's prize winners. They were awarded last Thursday online and the biology prize went to Sweden For a paper entitled a comparative acoustic analysis of purring in four cats a phonetic pilot study of vocalizations in three cats a Phonetic pilot study of chirp chatter tweet and tweetal in three domestic cats a study of human perception of intonation in domestic cat meows Melody in human cat communications meows a current origins past present and future They of course Won the Ig Nobel Prize for biology for analyzing variations in purring chirping chattering trilling Tweedling murmuring meowing moaning tweaking hissing yowling howling growling and other modes of human cat communication So fun So so fun kitty cats the ecology prize went to Spain and Iran for using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in Wads of chewing gum that have been thrown away and gotten stuck on pavements Sounds like a really good study. I don't know what's ignoble about it. That sounds like yeah What kind of bugs? Yeah, what microbes what bugs are in the gum that you chew and that you leave on the pavement and that potentially gets smashed by people walking by Rotten to their home on their shoe And their their paper was called the wasted chewing gum bacterium I Mean that in itself is the title of the next best-selling New York Times best-selling novel I think Chemistry Germany, UK, New Zealand Greece Cyprus and Austria shared this prize for chemically Analyzing the air inside movie theaters. You want to know why? Smells like popcorn Not just to analyze popcorn and how much popcorn people are eating Oh, no to test whether or not the odors that are in the air indicate the levels of arousal from violent sex Antisocial behavior drug use or bad language in the movies that people are watching. Oh, they were looking for pheromones They were looking for pheromones or any kind of Odorant that would be I mean Yeah, we sweat more we get excited. I were you know, who knows There's a lot there human behavior the kinetics prize Japan, Switzerland and Italy shared for Mutual anticipation can contribute to self-organization in human crowds Which really was to figure out why pedestrians run into other pedestrians. Oh What happens what happens other than using staring at your iPhone or whatever it is to to make you run into somebody else when you're walking I Don't know that that's a kind of be a kind of rare event or I just I guess I live somewhere if not enough people I was gonna say something controversial and say it's men who expect women to get out of their way Well another thing that I also don't get out of the way see like it's both ways when people run into each other I have learned that if you hold eye contact You will probably run into the other person because you predict that they're gonna go prediction particular direction They predict you're gonna there you are gonna go a particular direction and you end up kind of correcting based on your prediction and walking into each other That's why every New Yorker tells you not to make eye contact Don't make eye contact into the street. Otherwise, if you make eye contact, they know you they you can see them So they'll go if you don't make eye contact Bicycling bicycling at UC Davis. That's where I learned this and then finally. Oh wait. No, I two more They're two more entomology prize Was for a research study called a new method of cockroach control on submarines I didn't know there was an old method, but now there's a new method of Controlling cockroaches on submarines and for the transportation prize. Oh, and the USA can be thanked for that wonderful academic Transportation Namibia, South Africa Tanzania Zimbabwe Brazil UK USA this collaborative experiment was In order to determine the by experiment whether it's safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside down Should you transport rhinoceros rhinocerai? Right side up or upside down. It's rhinoceros So what's the answer To come up, but I'm very curious to make sure I have the right approach If it should how if it does come up how to transport Well, they they did find that suspension by the feet for 10 minutes did not impair pulmonary function more than did lateral Recumbency and apparently augmented gas exchange to a small degree relative to lateral recumbency biological importance in these animals of numerically small increments in Pressure in ox of oxygen the partial pressure of oxygen in a decrements in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide with suspension by the feet is unknown black rhinoceroses immobilized with e-torfine and a zap a zap her own We're not as hyper metabolic as we're white rhinoceros is immobilized with e-torpean So does that mean like however you can manage it just go for it? Just if you can move a rhinoceros using a helicopter just go for it If it's less than 10 minutes and you're fine Yes, oh my gosh, and yes the plural is rhinoceroses or rhinoceros It's a bevy of rhinoceroses. It's it's a crash of rhinoceroses Yeah crash well, okay Let's crash our celebratory symbols together for the awardees of this year's ignoble prizes The Nobel Prizes are coming up in early October. Who do you think is going to win our MRNA vaccines in the running? We will see we will see in just a few weeks, but in the meantime I think it's time for Justin to tell us about how marsh about how Mars rocks. Oh Yeah, so NASA's perseverance perseverance Mars rover has collected a second sample and analysis of the rock samples and actually kind of the the Place where they took the the view that they got within the rocks that they took the samples from Are giving them clues already to the craters past They can tell there was they well They kind of already know there was bulk volcanic activity and some period of persistent water It this is a quoting Ken Farley of Caltech project scientist for the mission It looks like our first rocks reveal a potentially habitable sustained environment It's a big deal that the water was there a long time I feel like NASA is starting to To sort of simplify their language, I feel like they took a class like Like last week when they found the sample, they're like I've got it and now they're like It's a big deal. Let's keep it just short to the point Say what the thing is But yeah, so it's a they've spied salts in the rocks which may indicate that groundwater flowed through and altered the mineral composition of of the rock or that the Liquid evaporated that collected there and then evaporated leaving the salts behind Salt mit minerals and these two first rocks May have also trapped tiny bubbles of ancient Martian water those are the things then if we get those samples back We could analyze further here on earth If they are present it could actually be like a time capsule for us to back engineer What processes have been taking place in the climate and then have built a habitat of Mars going backwards? One of the interesting things is those salt minerals that they can see already on these rocks are known to have Traces and preserve signs of ancient life when we find them here on earth So this is probably what basically this is it just turns out we found a Fantastic spot, which we kind of already knew because the science team already knew that the lake was once filled With or that the crater was once filled with a lake that it had water in it But they don't really have a solid grasp on is how long that water was present the crater and Gisero's lake might have been The lake in the crater might have been a sort of one-off event there could have been a flood that filled the crater and Then dried up within 50 years gone And so it has sort of the markings of what would have looked like a lake But none of the sort of long-term persistence of ten thousands of years or a million years of being a lake That would have really allowed life to take hold of flourish there Level of alteration that scientists see in the rock has already providing some clues It suggests that the groundwater was present for and I'm quoting a long time Rather long time Yeah, so that doesn't that doesn't Say tens of thousands of years versus a million years of this being a lake But it seems to be ruling out 50 years It seems to be ruling out the one-off event. It looks like this is a much more persistent site then then just a 50-year flood and then evaporation type of it, so You can't quite say what has altered the rocks yet, but again when we get them back. This is Mitch chuddle chudley NASA headquarters mission program scientists these samples have a high value for future laboratory analysis back on earth one day We may be able to work out the sequence and timing of the environmental conditions that this rocks Minerals represent this will help answer the big picture science question the history and stability of liquid water on Mars Yeah, and I think there's some other research that came out recently Through NASA confirming that there were these massive giant volcanic eruptions on Mars like super volcano eruptions And so you have to kind of think about the geological formation of this planet, right? And right now we're looking at the surface and so to know that this water and the chemical the geochemical evidence that there's They're finding in this these surface rocks is Basically, that's been there a long time, but that means okay. How long has it been? Since the volcanic activity how long has it been since it was impacted since the planet surface was impacted by by asteroids by meteors You know, so there are all these interesting questions about like the timeline of the geological events on the planet that allowed water To exist there for a little while But then to disappear from this and then also be so different from earth Yeah, to be able to analyze that water if we get a sample of these tiny water bubbles Might answer some of the questions about how water ended up on the earth I mean, we have an idea that some of that water came from a comet We also have an idea that some of that water might have already sort of been there sort of formed on earth so getting another glimpse of Water on a planet next door would be huge for that conversation Yeah, but be absolutely huge. I wonder if super volcanoes are necessary You know like spew stuff into the atmosphere and cool things down So maybe like the hot hot planet surface that allows condensation and water to actually stick around a bit Once everything cools down a little. I don't know I'm spitballing a little here. Yeah, you are but there's also interesting stuff about like the fact that we might have trapped samples in here And we might have groundwater and what have little niches for Microbial life to sort of have a little safe space to get started is because volcanic rock is very porous And so there's lots of little holes in there Which become micro laboratories of chemical reactions all into themselves So, yeah, I think there's a whole there's a there is a probably a very good combination of that volcanic activity And the presence of water that leads to things like It's a big story. It's a it's a it's the whole story It all has to work together for it to happen and whenever you're telling a story always have to wonder if anybody's listening How can we find out if they're listening Blair? Great question. Well as I tell you this story I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm gonna I'm gonna put put a nice little Pulsometer on both of your fingers so that I can watch your pulse and see if you're really paying attention to me because I have Yeah, recent study looked at subjects heart rates in relation to listening to a story And this is by themselves and they found that the heart rates Synchronized at certain points of the story if people were paying attention this is a study from City College of New York and the Paris Brain Institute and They wanted to see how we process stimulus and if that directly relates to our heart rates So what they did is they did four experiments. They took Healthy volunteers in the first one. They had them listen to an audiobook of 20 000 Leagues into the sea As they listened they followed their heart rate and it changed based on what was happening in the story They they measured with an ekg They found that the majority of subjects showed increases and decreases at the same points in the story Then in the second experiment they watched short instructional videos These are educational and there was no underlying emotional variation. No excitement. No romance. No danger And so that confirmed that there was emotional engagement That that it did not play a part in the synchronization the synchronization was still happening They were showing similar fluctuations while they were paying attention Then they had the participants watch the same videos these instructional videos while counting backwards In their heads and during that time their heart rates Went all over the place. They said they didn't synchronize de synchron. Yeah, no synchronicity. Yeah Yes, then in the third experiment They listened to short children's stories some while attentive and others while being distracted And then they were asked to recall facts So they found that the fluctuations were consistent and predictive In those who answered questions correctly, but those who did not answer questions direct correctly Their heart did not synchronize with other individuals So that does indicate a signal of conscious processing of the narrative Then they looked at the changes in breathing rates and didn't see any synchronization in relation to breathing rates Which is surprising because breathing directly relates to heartbeat if you are Manipulating only breathing. You'll see a change in heart rate, right? But so the breathing had nothing to do with it Um, and then the the final experiment They did healthy volunteers and then they also had patients with disorders of consciousness comas or vegetative states and Only the healthy volunteers in that case Showed heart rate synchronization. So all that wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait Wait a second They tested People in a coma This is a listening ability To people who weren't in a coma's listening ability How did they not get to ignoble this year? That's what I don't know. Well, it's a good question. It's a new study So maybe this next year You have to make sure that there's not something else going on in the room that the the sound wavelengths are affecting the I don't It was an extra level of control I suppose. I guess um, but all that to say your heart rate Independent of your breathing pattern fluctuates as compared with developments in a story or In the way you're being instructed on something in the same way another person does in a separate room in a separate part of the world pretty neat Yeah, I like to As Pada said here in the in the chat I think it's pretty awesome to think that everybody who's watching or listening to the podcast that we're doing right now You're all synchronized That your heart your heart rate is synchronizing because you're you're listening to and paying attention to this program So that's how we're all connected all around the world. Does that sound too new agey? I don't know but Yeah In which case you're probably not paying very close attention right now, right? I think no, I think this is actually if I if I may take one one extra moment to kind of Wax poetic on this. I think this is directly related to certain things that we were trying to do at the height of shutdown Is we were watching Concerts virtually we were watching live events virtually We were doing zoom meetups with our friends and it felt so sterilized and Unsocial but knowing this They're actually most likely was a connection in our experiences in those moments, which actually is pretty neat Yeah, and I think that and that and that connection behaviorally socially is essential to well-being as a human As you know our animal species So these are all things that do go together Scientifically Oh, that's great. Everybody we're all connected And we have been under pressure but really cool weird I hear where you're going Justin um researchers Published this last week in physical review d They're from the department of physics and astronomy at the university of Sussex about their discovery When they were confused about this extra number that kept showing up in equations that they were running on their quantum gravitational corrections to the entropy of a black hole Anyway, they talked about it. They thought about it and they realized that short child radius black holes have pressure Stephen Hawking Hypothesized and discovered that black holes emit thermal radiation. So to have thermal radiation, that's temperature. They exert temperature a change a change in thermal state Onto the universe They don't just do that though according to these researchers. It's not just temperature. It's also pressure black holes exert pressure On spacetime around them It's pressure. Yeah But that you know the thing about it is though What you're talking about. Okay. Uh, yeah, so there's a pressure on a spacetime It's like still like what is it even mean pressure in spacetime like I don't get it Right, it right What is pressure if you're talking about a These this black hole existing in an area that's Virtually a vacuum not quite. So what is this pressure? How much pressure? They're they're calculating this but it this quantum gravity Is exerting a force through pressure and I found this really interesting because what it does In a in a mental sense and maybe this is just an an analogy of course, but as somebody who had to learn In physics and physiology about and chemistry the ideal gas law PV equals nrt Right pressure times volume equals the number of moles times R T And so this this equation works really well for the real world for the macro scale And it's just fascinating to think about There's a place in spacetime where The quantum world where we go from the singularity inside a black hole that where in which everything breaks down All the equations break down Coming out of that to a place at which around the Swartz child radius you have temperature and Pressure being exerted. So there's a force going from quantum To actually the the the macro standard model influence which then is a pretty A pretty solid amazing also connection in a way like because it says like Well, we have this phenomenon where you can, you know Do the ideal gas law and change the pressure and then you can calculate how many How many molecules are going to be able to be present based on that different pressure? And oh, by the way, there's a reason for it. That's how the universe works all the way down It's not just a phenomenon that has a thing to do with gases It's actually it has to do with the actual infrastructure Of the architecture of the universe and that's why it's a law at a macro level Yeah Yeah, and as someone is saying pressure equals force over area, right? So it is a force Over that area, but it's also related to the temperature that that thermal radiation at the same time. This is If you have the thermal radiation It should go along with pressure and they They have figured that out. I just you know, it's it it's one of those little tiny details that I think forms the connections Within our understanding I am I'm gonna make lots of connections lots and lots of connections. I've got a connection to make. Yeah, okay Good, absolutely This is a harvard geneticist George church I think we've talked about a couple times on the show Back uh 2015 maybe earlier talking about Maybe bringing back the mammoth He's co-founded a new company Which isn't Which is sort of exciting by itself, but it's also I think it's his like 23rd or 24th company. He's co-founded But this specific company has the goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth And not just a one-off not just a zoo Gypsy circus sideshow anomaly. No, this is a He's trying to he's he intends to reintroduce herds of mammoths into the wild In quote unquote into the wild into the wild Which which country is gonna go? Yeah Wonderful. Just let them roam free like no, it's not gonna be in the wild. It's going to be in behind a barrier Isolated from the rest of biology Russia already said yes. Okay. But anyway, the company would likely uh would take the Wants to take woolly mammoth recovered dna Uh and make a hybridized Asian elephant That could actually thrive in arctic climates Using these herds of the hybrids to convert the modern mossy shrubby tundra Back into The grassy steps that they once were during the uh, please Pleistocene Pleistocene. Thank you When mammoths influence was strong and this is like some 11,000 and more years ago The reintroduction and the ensuing landscape changes could slow Thaw of arctic permafrost Which in turn can help keep dangerous methane and carbon gases out of the greenhouse economies So this is This is not taking into account the fact that it was climate change That made the woolly mammoths go extinct not the other way around like The woolly mammoths weren't there the lone animal battling against climate change Back 10,000 years ago No, well also elephants are currently ecosystem architects So the idea that you think that or that they think i'm not going to push all this on you justin that they think that They will reduce the melting of the permafrost. Yes fine, whatever, but they will still disturb Much captured carbon as they completely tear up the area, which is what elephants do So that's their their ecosystem architects because they disturb the ground. That's the thing that they do So that's a very good point Blair And i'll just leave it there No, actually i won't Sure, she won't Okay, so this is so first of all, let me get done with church church says we're de extincting genes Genes de extincting genes not species the gold is really a cold resistant elephant That is fully going to be fully integratable with the endangered asian elephant because elephants do so well on the planet currently 96 of them are killed a day Yeah, but this is a fair point Blair. I mean the first thing I thought when this announcement came through I was like, this is a pr stunt And this money would be better spent Being put into elephant conservation and that's exactly what it's doing No, it's conserving asian elephant genes if it's de extincting willy mammoth genes It will be preserving asian elephant genes. So here's the question. George church is a geneticist. He is a proponent of the gene he is not a Organismal biologist. He is not a proponent of ecosystems and organisms in an individual species He is looking at from the gene perspective So we're going to have a big debate from the ecosystem environment and species perspective So I'll make a couple of points there One if you can preserve the elephant but make it so it can live in a much colder habitat where there's less people and poachers And can be protected You're preserving a species to an extent. Yeah, you're assuming that russia will be able to Protect these mammoths and that they won't be hunted for sport because oh my goodness Could you imagine having a de extincted mammoth hybrid elephant in your head on your wall? Oh my god, they are going to be hunted for sport. Okay. That's what's gonna happen And maybe for food, but let me ask you this. Let me ask you this For food, that's too expensive. This is this is a business. This is a startup. This is a venture backed startup This is yeah, this is this is not going to be oh to help people for food No, this is all the money all the care about is the money and george church is just like gene gene gene gene gene Okay So so let me get finished with church. I didn't get done with church Uh Church says that the first hybrid calf could be six years away. It's self-sustaining herd might take decades so Let's move on to sergey zimov Who is sergey is a russian ecologist who back in 1996 started working on the Pleistocene park This is a fenced off area of the tundra in uh northern russia He's introduced elk bison reindeer Some kind of camel some other larger rivers to test the creature's effects on the landscape So what he's found is yes, they can have this sort of effect of moving seeds around increasing You know eating up the shrubs and stuff and it's mostly stuff has been Is now shrubs trees and mosses back in the day. Those are all knocked down by elephants Like you say tearing stuff up mammoths tearing stuff up knocking stuff down And was replaced with it was grasses that were there because those grass seeds are ending up in the mammoth And they're getting deposited with fertilizer and they're going everywhere Okay one of the things That he discovered there Is that the act of these herbivores going around and knocking down the ice Made the cold of the north and tundra Penetrate deeper into the into the tundra itself And made it colder as much as 10 degrees colder than areas that were not affected By these he's one life. So his idea is hey, this is a perfect solution For keeping carbons and methanes in if we can keep the tundra 10 degrees colder than it is now Because the other thing other than occasionally knocking down trees and tearing stuff up The other thing a mammoth would do would be pushing big holes in the ice everywhere it went Sort of like how they uh oxygenated lawn by wearing spikes on shoes and like walk around to get the I don't know if that's a real real thing if it works, but but people do it By knocking down the ice by compacting it they actually allow the cold air Of the Arctic to penetrate deeper into the soil freeze it more thoroughly Uh and prevent The the the thaw of the tundra, which is one of the things one of the things that they're looking at The other thing church's lab has been doing though Is they have also been working on ways To they don't they don't plan to use an endangered elephant to bear the mammoth child they're actually working on Uh the thing that remember a long time ago They were trying to see if they could uh rearsheep in these bags Get the lamb bags the lamb bags they're they're going to try to pursue a mammoth bag version Of this they still have to figure out they're gonna want to socialize probably with the asian elephant When the thing is is born they want to socialize it with the first generations at least with some Uh other elephants, but they're not going to use them as proxies there If this is successful It then means they can use that technology To approach any other endangered animal So you're talking rhinos Yeah, if they can if they can use it to bring back I'm I'm the woolly mammoth. I'm it's a pr stunt so it but if it can Kickstart more funding for these technologies to bring back species that humans forced extinct recently white rhinos Thylacines Thylacines, I don't know about the thylacines, but you know just the the very recent Extinctions, but at the same time we we we need to consider What the earth is like now and Whether or not this we can maintain the species that are here the genes that are here So, uh, it's it's it's this is interesting. I find this and I've I've I get excited about this technology and the idea of doing it and no, it's not Jurassic Park It's not even necessarily going to be a Pleistocene park, but The attitude that presages these advancements is one of Uh, a human ability to ultimately affect the environment on the earth and to be the ultimate master of this planet and I think there's a lot of hubris there But yeah, who knows maybe I'm wrong I don't know tough because it's the it's the same problem. I have when we talk about carbon capture Is that it feels like a conversation of like, oh, don't worry about it. We'll fix it in post We can we can get there bring it back later. We can dump more carbon in we'll grab it later. Don't even worry about it Yeah, just put more carbon in the atmosphere. We'll bring back the woomy woolly mammoth genes The the mammoth will fix it. So so but part of that part of that conversation And I totally agree with you like too much of green Uh, the green tech has been nonsense that has just allowed things to stay as normal Like the idea that we've already like a lot of people believe we already have carbon capture That's working and functioning and that we're not that's not a thing anymore. It's not really that It's not really that efficient of a thing so So but we already have these problems. We have species going extinct at the record numbers every year We have a need If we want I guess it's not a need. It's a choice to to preserve and to try to rebuild populations And I think the woolly mammoth with a with this global warming with this uh, additional Effect positive effect it has on keeping the tundra cold And perhaps those grasses can bind and sequester as well. I think that's a good enough story that i'm in I mean, I wasn't before but now i'm in for more better reasons than I had before Many more reasons, but maybe you should listen to your spirit animal jeff gold jeff goldblum Uncle You were so preoccupied Don't just read it. Do the voice come on. You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could You didn't stop to think if you should All right, everybody if you've made it this far this this this weekend science I We may or may not have more debates ahead, but we definitely have a lot more science If you're enjoying the show, please share it with a friend today right now even Hit up that social media. Tell everybody you're watching or listening Share twist All right time to come back for the covet update Let's try and run through some of these things Yeah, yeah, yeah Covet update. I know it's not good Oh, actually actually it is There is a lot of good news in the covet update. So I have to put my good news segment It's just good news segment had to go into the covet section this week Okay, so you're teasing everybody that there's some good news news to come Well, let me tell you the bad news I'll I'll do that. I'll start there According to the cdc covet tracking One in 500 americans has died from covet 19 And it's actually more than that Yeah One in 500 americans has died from covet 19 So just taking that statistic for the reality of the The numbers that of people who have died at this point in time Many of them more recently very preventably With vaccination now into interesting science about sars like viruses and things like covet 19 There is a study out this week reporting that sars viruses make the leap From animals to humans much more often than thought researchers overlaid the distribution of bat species and where humans live mostly in southeast asia to infer the potential overlap of bat species and who as we know from previous interviews specifically with anjolique courtals and lilyanna davalos and their collaborators That these bats carry a lot of viruses and their reservoirs for viruses and the question is how much how often do these things Spill over into human populations This paper estimates that there are approximately 400,000 human infections with sars family viruses every year So the big question is what makes it out of those 400,000 some odd cases? What is it that makes a virus really take the jump and go from a More localized outbreak to something that becomes a large pandemic I think it takes one extrovert Could be an extrovert there are many many factors in place there But if you're interested The research of our guests anjolique courtals and lilyanna davalos is actually featured in a pbs special on bat superpowers That is online now and will be airing on pbs stations across the united states very soon I don't think online. It's available outside the united states unless you have a vpn Oh, I've got to get one of those. Yeah Yeah Oh and by the way justin congratulations are in order for denmark Because they have recently come out of all their lockdown restrictions Thanks to Thanks to the danish people No, that's not necessarily a good thing. I think it's just like anywhere else. I think they just gave up It's it's no really it's it's all It's all fatigue. It's all the mask fatigue and the Distance fatigue and what can be open fatigue? That said in there and it's scary because they've got the delta virus just like everywhere else does right now, so it does feel like that the the Language that was passed around so often so early about the you know Having to wait five extra minutes to go out to recess over and over and over for the kids the same kids over and over again Well, everyone else is just kind of sitting quietly waiting to go out a certain point the teacher's like Man, I can't keep you all in here because of those two people just go out to recess Is it really feels like what it is? Oh my goodness. What are we gonna do sit and wait forever while the same 20 people don't follow the rules. I guess just go Just go well denmark is like 86 vaccinated and additionally only has about 500 cases a day across their country Which that's a lot it's a lot But it's a lot less than the number of cases we have here in the united states right now, which is like Oh, yeah, there's no i would not compare i would it's not fair to america to compare themselves to denmark Yeah, but anyway, one is a professional country that's been countrying for like a thousand years And one's just like trying to figure it out for like the first time. It's like it's like a country tourist Yeah, try this thing out right amateur country. I don't yeah, okay Anyway another study a couple of studies that are out this week related to fertility Uh, I don't know if you saw nikki minages tweet this week from the uh met up the the national the Met gala where usually she would be there wearing some fabulous outfit But she didn't go this year because she's not vaccinated and she said she couldn't go because like a friend of her cousin got vaccinated and then ended up with like swelled up testicles and Then his his girlfriend dumped him And so of course she can't go to the met gala because she couldn't get vaccinated and she needed to finish doing her own research Okay, well that makes sense because you're supposed to get the shot in your arm Right, uh, if you get it in the wrong place bad things can happen. I would yeah my caution against that Yeah, you want that you want to get your if you're if they're trying to give you the vaccine elsewhere You should probably talk to them a question question what they're doing. Uh, these studies out this week Confirm the vaccines none of the vaccines that have been Approved in the united states or elsewhere that they have around the globe Have been seen to affect male or female fertility or to swell the testicles and COVID infection can actually do all of the above So it's a better bet to get vaccinated than it is to uh to Get infected by COVID if you are worried about your fertility Um, additionally though, it seems like a lot of people around the world united states and in europe are not Thinking about fertility fertility has decreased not fertility but reproduction in general people people are not reproducing in europe and the united states, but I guess, you know, if you're not sleeping You're stressed out. You're not very happy. It doesn't really put you in the mood for babies Didn't go on an online date for almost two years. There's lots of things It's I was just having a conversation about nikki minaj. I just wanted to mention that While I was very frustrated and my initial reaction was angry because you know She said she wanted to do her own research and there is a wealth of research and people who actually have Spent their lives their life's work Studying these things not to mention all of the doctors on twitter that could help with this conversation In the end I kind of appreciate that she put her thoughts on twitter So that it could be talked about because it ultimately I'm frustrated because she has influence And she knows she has influence and there are people out there who use their own confirmation by us and said see And it supported their decision to not get vaccinated and that could kill someone and that makes me mad. However If by bringing it up and forcing people to talk about it and the white house offering Have some of their specialists chat with her on the phone And doctors online offering up real medical information If that helped raise visibility Especially among circles who were thinking the way that she was thinking that could be beneficial Yeah, I suspect because he Corbett even the one of the one of the women A black woman who is one of the women responsible for mRNA vaccines Reached out and said I will have a conversation with you. And I think that would be an amazing conversation I think so too. And I think it's also if if that conversation just prevents one person From getting the vaccine administered to their testicles Uh, I think it would all be worth it. It would it would be worthwhile. Absolutely All right, I have I have some good news But Justin, I think I'd like you to start out some of this this covid stuff because yeah You had a bad news and then a good news story Yeah, I guess I guess that's uh, this is a covid. Uh, actually maybe like My nose, I don't know. Um Isn't that pretty after all turns out Covid has been using a social filter on us This entire time This is a study the institutio de radio television espanola and the uab conducted during the covid 19 Lockdown they found that black and white images black and white 2d images of sarah's covet to Make the virus seem more infectious And who's revealed that that's the only images we have Our black and white 2g images That scientists have been able to produce The three-dimensional multicolored Multifaceted high resolution images that we keep seeing over and over again with every news report aren't real More so When they show the virus is that sort of beautiful not really realistic thing People are less afraid of it There's a connection Between seeing that version of it Versus the real like hey, this is a totally tiny thing. It's hard to even to see or detect Here's some horrible bad resolution black and white images that can kind of show Uh, a virus from a bit of an angle Those were terrifying The the the one that uh makes it look like it doesn't have any wrinkles No no dimples on the back side Yeah, it's the it's the the pretty face filter. Yeah, the pretty face When they get it ticket when they give the covid vaccine those anime eyes That's when you really know they've gone they've gone too far. Yeah Kawaii Okay Yeah, it's the it's interesting to have people talking about how covid is presented in the media We want pretty pictures, but yeah, they're limited. So then they have to be Spiced up and spruced up and And we forget how much that affects people so yeah, that's a really interesting point On this podcast from here on out Only the ugliest COVID pictures Only the ugliest ones give me some good Let's not call it ugly. This is just so for real. Let's just keep it real We'll keep the keep it real pictures of covid. That's right. Yeah We don't want young viruses aspiring to an unattainable role model I guess it's time for just good news everybody The segment that takes the worst horrible is the most awfulest thing You don't really want to hear anymore about topic in science and looks for the one good story that makes it sound a little better covid edition New study from loheya institute for immunology Helps answer a question. How long is this immunity against covid-19? Good for if you get vaccinated The report in science a low dose of Moderna vaccine lasts for at least six months And there was no indicator that vaccinated people will need a booster shot so When you hear it only last six months or you hear it last all the way up to six months You might think oh well, then of course you need a booster in six months, but that's not really what this report is saying First of all backtrack a little they didn't do the they didn't test the vaccine in the way that people have been getting it They tested it the way it was initially tested in the first round of studies, which is a quarter of the current dose So they did this quarter dose one one quarter dose And they compared it to people who had gotten covid naturally and they found That it was really not a big difference People who had gotten covid and recovered not the people who died obviously There's a difference there people who'd gotten covid and recovered from it Had the antibody immunity of somebody who had gotten one dose uh one quarter dose of the Moderna And what they also found was at that six month period the body's immune system Had picked up and continued Uh, it's sort of knowledge of How to handle this virus the the immune system got trained By that six months where the vaccine was being effective Which means there's a persistent Uh immunity Quotient that becomes available to people and again This is comparing people who had gotten covid and the natural response that the immune system had With a quarter of the single dose that uh people and the initial trial the very first way way back trial Had encountered so what we have now are people getting these two doses four times the amount and You know spread out because we found this the sweet spot So they don't know they say like okay We can't say that the vaccine in the quantities that people are getting now Are much more effective Might expect it to be But we didn't actually that's not what they studied But what they did show was a staying power For an mRNA virus that was training the immune system to take over And handle it things on it on its own and this just in there's another story of more good news Were you gonna do this the more good news story? I have more good news. Okay. I do have more good news So blare was talking earlier Happy happy good news Yeah, so All right boosters everybody long-lasting medirna It's very interesting. We'll see we'll see the data is yet to come there are competing studies out there dueling studies pre prints and post prints and all of the above but Just get vaccinated So there's the big question and we we're on social media and and even Looking at the media these days. It's hard to believe that You know that that it's not a majority of people who are fighting against mask mandates or Social distancing or these restrictions that have come about as a result of this public health emergency COVID-19 that has killed 1 in 500 Americans Pew research did a survey and they found that 73 percent of their sample set said they were vaccinated At least half of those people expressed confusion concern over vaccine information and health impacts, but A majority of people in the united states agree that the costs of The restrictions that we've come that we've allowed into our lives were worth it There are downsides and people see them, but the majority of people Agree that there is a benefit now. There's a huge partisan gap as which you would probably expect But majorities in the united states support proof of vaccination for air travel and college 58 percent of americans express concerns about unknowingly spreading the coronavirus We know asymptomatic cases can be super spreaders Americans it's very rare however Americans who are vaccinated and not vaccinated do see COVID-19 vaccines in very different ways Which you you would you would expect based on what we've we've been talking about over the last 18 19 20 months Americans hold mixed reactions to changing public health guidance during the coronavirus outbreak, you know Don't wear masks wear masks get better masks. Oh Don't social distance. What is social distancing these new words? We had to learn these new behaviors things were changing But a lot of people understand that that is the public health infrastructure following the science as we learn more Few americans. No access to vaccines is limited in developing countries. So there's kind of this expectation here in the united states that It's like it like it is here everywhere else, which it is not necessarily, but this isn't a really interesting Really interesting survey with the big bottom line that 62 of people surveyed said that it was absolutely It is Worth the cost that saving people's lives is worth the restrictions Even though there have been negative effects on businesses and economic activity and Whereas that also though means 32 of americans think more than one in 500 people should have died Just to keep those businesses more healthy. Well, that's not the how they would put it So I think I think if the question and surveys you can all surveys. Pio is very good about writing surveys But surveys are only as good as how the questions are worded Well, and I think this feeds itself self anchor the answers. Yeah the people who See this as an attack on their freedoms probably also don't understand that they are in the minority It's part of a false kind of equivalency Of it's it's the whole conversation that we've had a million times about climate denial that john oliver did so well where he brought on You know 97 climate scientists to talk about climate change and And three climate deniers to talk about how climate change wasn't real right and that's actually the debate though You see one and one and that's exactly what was happening here Is there was an understanding that for every one person that believed in science wanted a vaccine and supported the lockdown We were presented with one person who didn't and that was not actually representative of what was going on Yeah Yeah, and it's not and so there is the false equivalency in the media and in social media Where people are louder, you know where people can be Magnified in their impact Even though they have a minority viewpoint So anyway, it's it's worth checking ourselves every once in a while and and also reconsidering our perspectives and the the data within this survey does also Uh remind us that it's not Black and white that there are a lot of different perspectives even Within the partisan divide even within the vaccinated not vaccinated divide there are it's a very complex situation Each individual is a microcosm of it's their experiences and complexity Yeah, the big thing is though But there's also the ability for people to just get influenced and and and buy nonsense because I bet most of the people who are arguing against getting this vaccine have Five or six or seven vaccines in their medical history that have never affected anything and so to the point of Nicki Minaj wanting to do their own wanting to do her own research other people wanting to do their own research Even people who are vaccinated and came around to the idea of becoming vaccinated against covid Um a lot of people it's 50 percent of vaccinated 70 percent of unvaccinated say it's hard to make sense of all the information about covid 19 vaccines So science communicators If there are public health science communicators out there, we have our work cut out for us To try and make it. It's it's obviously a problem. We are not getting the information across excessively so That's and that is not necessarily on the receiver It's all about I think that's also because we're not being funded by millions of dollars of We need the mammoth money. Where's george church? So so this is by the way somebody mentioned like this sounds like an old story Uh, he's been running that they have been doing this mammoth dna lab thing. I don't want to talk about that right now $10,000 a year They just got 15 million dollars to push this project further. So it's it's got no huge shift Yeah, yeah, but yeah Oh my goodness. Okay. No more covid news. Let's move away from covid This is this weekend science. It's time for us to move on in the show and get back to sciencey science Not covety science. So let's discuss You becoming a supporter of this weekend science on patreon If you head over to this weekend sciences website twist.org And click on the patreon link that'll take you to our patreon community page where you can choose your level of support $10 and more per month And you will be thanked by name at the end of the show You'll also get some goodies in the mail at some point And we all love getting things in the mail. It makes us feel pretty special. You'd be part of the twist club That's right the club of twist supporters know that you are one of the people in this world who are helping to bring science Bring this weekend science to more and more people So head over there right now. We can't do this without you. We really appreciate your support And now it's time to come back with more this weekend science and that wonderful part of the show That we love and we enjoy because it's blood thirsty and oh, it's blairs animal corner with glare Before giant What you got there Oh my goodness. Well, you know how you you have your pet cow and just you know Darn it. If she doesn't wreck the carpet again It's really I know you let the cow in the living room and oh, you know, you say no Fessie, what's you doing over there in the corner? It's what you sleep in the house. Oh, no Problem again got me again. Uh, yeah, so toilet treating cows. Let's talk about this is a kind of a proof of concept um looking at the fact that cow urine Is really high in nitrogen as much urine is And this contributes to your range of environmental problems mainly looking at water contamination and climate change So the nitrogen and urine breaks down in the soil This produces nitrate and nitrous oxide nitrate leaches into lakes rivers and aquifers It pollutes water. It contributes to excessive growth of weeds and algae. It's It's bad and then nitrous oxide Is a greenhouse gas It accounts for about 12 percent of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions Of course, it's you know, it's don't get me started on the Red herring of other gases related to climate change besides carbon But that doesn't mean we can't do both at the same time, right carbon. I'm still gonna say It's gonna be on my tombstone. We should have followed the carbon But this is still also important. We can do two things at once. So anyway, all that to say That would be great not to mention the fact that I'm sure when you have cows on pasture If they are urinating on the pasture all the time That's probably not good for the pasture itself as well, which probably doesn't Positively impact the cows lives over generations. Anyway point being there's a lot of reasons that having cows Kind of cooped up into one location causes all sorts of environmental problems with their urine And so uh, that's you know in in New Zealand, Australia They're outside all the time these things happen out on the pasture in Europe and North America A lot of cows are kept in barns and then that actually accumulates ammonia That's what nitrogen from urine mixes with feces on the barn floor so All that to say cow pee is a problem So if it could be captured and treated That would be good for lots of reasons This research project looked at applied principles from behavioral physiology Or sorry behavioral psychology other ps To train young cattle to urinate in a particular place. They essentially toilet trained them and They actually used very similar methods to toilet training children to potty training other animals They call it backward chaining. So essentially um In in the animal training world and in kind of the the zoo world also This is called kind of catching a behavior. So they were confined into the toilet area They were just kind of waited around a little this latrine pen And they were for reinforced with a treat when they peed. I was like, yeah, you did it Where you're supposed to do it? What a good job And this established the pen as the place where they urinate if they urinate in the pen They get a treat perfect then they were placed in an alley outside the pen still nice and close They were reinforced for entering the pen and going to the bathroom If it began in the alley, they would get a short small spray of water to kind of like jog them out of it and then They would walk in and they would pee in the barn So seven out of eight calves are successfully trained and it took about 15 days of training The majority learned the full set of skills within 20 to 25 urinations. So um I don't have any children of my own, but I'm pretty sure that's very fast Compared to uh toilet training children, which they did say that is uh considerably quicker than toilet training a three or four year old Well, it really depends. 25 urinations. Yeah, it's it's sort of like When they're ready to be trained Uh, like when they're ready to take it on it's usually pretty pretty quick Well, you're you're adding in the fact that that human babies can also understand some speech So you could also kind of reason with them and a whole different one, but it doesn't matter Anyway point being they were I think I was like five and a half. I was like, I'll change my own diaper I'm not gonna go walk all the way into another room. Just like what are you talking about? That's insane Well, see there you go. Um, but any any who They were able to toilet train these cattle these seven of eight cattle So that means that first of all they could associate a certain area with a place They were supposed to go but also that they learned to to attend to their own urination reflex They were able to hold it essentially I'm not surprised by that because they're mammals and we train cats and dogs to do this Not to mention there are lots of animals that you can potty train or the latrine on their own rhinos We were talking about rhinos earlier. They like to have their very own Midden I always say they're midden. It's like a it's like a it's a bathroom for rhinos. Yeah. Yeah, it's a profile So lots of animals do this On their own they have a designated place. They like to go to the bathroom So it is also possible. I will just throw out there Maybe cows have wanted a latrine this whole time and you're like, I don't know pee on your grass I don't like this So But I I think part of this story just does say that people have Underestimated cow intelligence or trainability. I I don't know if I I'm sure I've told this story a bazillion times But there was a cow named Norman That used to play fetch Like you could you would throw a thing a rock or a ball or something Norman would go Grab it and would bring it back and drop it and wait for you to throw it again They had a very like retriever dog sort of behavior And if and if you went on hikes Norman would would follow you on the hikes. Good. Good. Oh, Norman. I mean Norman With animals, they're food trainable you you with cattle you can get them to come in to feed at certain times of day You get them to attend to certain sounds like a bell or something and they'll oh, it's time to go outside or it's time to come inside so this is all Stimulus training. So it's just uh, it's another step in that direction and Cows are smart. They are Yeah, they're sweet and they're smart and they've got their cattle intelligence that bow line brain of theirs We used what oxen for Probably longer back than we used horses to pull carts and stuff around do the farming equipment stuff. Yeah Yeah, absolutely Yeah, so so anyway, the the next step of this research is to try to scale it up So they did this with seven of eight cows So the idea is for this to actually do anything for the environment You'd have to get this going on a much larger scale It's you can you can tell small family farms to do these kind of environmentally friendly practices all day But really you need kind of those larger Large scale farms dairy farms Meat farms to do this properly in order for it to actually make an impact on the environment So what they suggest would be the next step would be a way to detect urination Because they did this by watching the cows and then also to deliver reinforcement automatically without human intervention So basically they could set this machine up and i'm already picturing like a it's called a furbo which is like a A little treat dispenser that you could buy for your cat or your dog That you can use on your phone and you can you can dispense them a treat when you're at work at work I don't have this but I think it'd be very fun. Um, but you could have something very easily that senses urination On this platform and then dispenses a treat. I think it would be pretty easy to do But so that would be their next step would be to try to automate this so that you could train cows on mass Lots to do this. Yes. So then the next next step would to be able to would be Monetizing or maybe the first step by any way to monetize it For the farmers because the farmer will even if you're getting pennies per the gallon, whatever it is Farmers will put in more work than the profit even makes sense to do because that's what farmers do anyway Farmers will incorporate it. Yeah, if you can find the the the profit market for those nitrates After for a chemical purpose for the down Yeah, I'm sure it'll catch on well and so the the other thing That that kind of you have to keep in mind besides figuring out how to automate the training consequences face I don't know what's happening over there Is are we going are we taking too long in the story? Oh, oh, she's doing the finger thing We're getting the finger what I was just giving us the finger That time when Justin interrupts you to make the tape taking a vlogger I was trying to interrupt and keep it from being interrupted Okay So the last thing that they want to do is figure out how how far cattle are willing to go to use the urination stall Which reminded me of the famous research that they did Disneyland to figure out exactly how many steps a human will go Carrying garbage before they drop it on the ground So you there are there are trash cans every I think it's 75 steps In Disneyland because they figured out that's exactly how far the average human is willing to carry a piece of garbage before they litter Yeah, and and I heard you told me that story Right before I watched like one of the Jurassic worlds and the first thing I noticed is there was no garbage cans In the Jurassic world like they like I'm like, oh, then there should just be litter everywhere Yeah, but so similarly figuring out how far cows are willing to walk Holding it before they will then just pee on the ground So that this is an important piece of the research to figure out how to incentivize the cows to do this in large bits, but I love the idea of using behavioral conditioning to improve The welfare of animals in farming and also to help with the environmental impact very quick I like the idea of incentivizing cows Yes, what is an incentive for a cow? What do they really want? I just want to treat Um, and then yeah from from toilet trained cows to cannibalistic butterflies Um, so everyone loves a butterfly. They're beautiful. They're so fun when you love to be let have a butterfly just land on you Majesty well, not if you're uh, a caterpillar of the same species This is a study from the university of sydney and they found that milkweed butterflies have have been observed Feeding on live caterpillars of their own species that is their own species young But but they got what a probiscus. Is that what it's called? Is this a little like straw? It's just like it's not like a probisket. No, it's a proboscis proboscis I will tell you all about the mechanics of this grusely demise so the milkweed butterflies they They like to eat when they're caterpillars when they're still babies they feed on toxic plants They hold those chemicals. They sequester them for self-defense in their bodies. Those chemicals are noxious They are unpalatable predators. So for example birds that would otherwise eat caterpillars are deterred by these toxic plants when they're both caterpillars and when they grow up and metamorphose into butterflies And so they also is responsible partially responsible for the bright colors of butterflies that is warning colors saying I am poisonous So they they're they're munching on this when they're caterpillars. They are accumulating all of these chemicals And so they also the third use of these toxins are to help male butterflies make mating pheromones And they also then package those into nuptial gifts to females during courtship So all this to say without these toxic plants Caterpillar and butterfly and then future caterpillars don't exist And so So they need the toxins they need all the stuff that the milkweed gives them Yes, absolutely. And so the male butterflies after they're older after they've already metamorphosed out of caterpillar stage They will supplement their diet by looking for more resources of those chemicals and They are usually observed getting them through plant sources So the way that they do that is they actually Damage the plants they they scratch them with their sharp tarsal claws Then plant they the plants kind of start like almost bleeding They start releasing this juice and then the but they're milking the milkweed Yeah, they can they can lip up they can lap up the little the little chemicals straight from the plants because from like the plant blood using their long curly tongues Caterpillars all they do their whole life until they metamorphose is eat these leaves And so caterpillars and the words of some of these researchers are quote-unquote bags of macerated leaves These are the same leaves that the butterflies are scratching at to suck this this liquid And so adult butterflies were observed Scratching at both live and dead caterpillars Tearing them open to imbibe their juices The caterpillar larvae they would contort their bodies rapidly They were trying to deter the scratching And butterflies they they were just lapping up all of the juices. They fed on the carcasses of their very own species of caterpillars So it's easier is the is is the skin of a caterpillar Thinner thicker more delicate than the uh, the cuticle I guess it would be of a plant Great question. That's that's an excellent next question easier to access the plant bags Or the desperate Or are they doing this all the time? And we just didn't know is it's the first time in 2019 in North Sulawesi in Indonesia that they saw this happen Is this the very first time and it's just always been part of their deal But the other crazy thing here is that this behavior does not fit in the traditional models of evolutionary strategy of predation parasitism or mutualism And so they have actually coined a new phrase for this which is kleptopharmacophagy chemical stealing for consumption Yeah pharma is the chemical or the pharmacological pharma co phagy Phagy. Yeah is a consumption. Yeah consumption. Yeah, okay kleptopharmaco phagy Carmacophagy probably kleptopharmacophagy Yes, so this is a new it's a new idea because Evolutionarily it would not be beneficial for them to kill their own young To rob them of chemicals to then give birth Well to lay more eggs that would result in more young, right? That doesn't make any sense So this is a whole new thing crazy. They want to see if they can find more of it They want to find out exactly what compounds the butterflies are interested in They want to find out if other butterflies in other places of the world do this Yeah, well, I wonder how far do the butterflies fly away from where they pupate So are the caterpillars in a different location from where the butterflies originated? And if so what that would necessarily mean that they're not that they're distantly related or not related So that would potentially Mean that they are getting rid of competition Competition for resources and it's also easy access to food and energy for their own survival for their own reproduction Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that could just and that right and that could just be it But you know if one day we find out that, you know, eight-year-old blood Uh, actually will make you live another 50 years as an adult Gotta hide all the eight-year-olds Like you'll have to hide them all because people will start taking your blood They'll scratch them scratch them and laugh it up. That's no good Once that secret's out of the bag, it's just gonna be trouble for everybody Wow cannibalistic butterflies. I am never going to look at these butterflies the same again butterflies You don't know what they're up to no, they're not all sweet and pretty Fluttering around. Oh no Wow, that is this I'm this news has me shook Blair. It really does Just don't just don't be a caterpillar. You'll be fine. I'm not a caterpillar I think I'm gonna be okay. This is this week in science We are going to move into our last couple of segments of stories I hope that you're enjoying the show if you want a Zazzle beach towel You should head over to twist.org and click on that Zazzle link You can find the beach towels. They are very cool. I have one. I really like it Really really like it a mug a lumbar pillow so many cool things Head over to twist.org and click on that Zazzle link. All right, Justin. It's your turn I want to see the the mug that can also double as a lumbar pillow. That sounds really interesting Last story of the night for me For those who are of a certain age Who are of a certain age and were once kids You may remember an action doll called stretch armstrong Or his equally stretchy nemesis stretch monster These monster. I don't remember the monster. I think I had the monster. I didn't have this the armstrong I think I had the monster. He looked like a lizard people kind of uh Almost Godzilla ish, but more you may need for I have his dog But these are these were rubbery Gel-filled toys that you could just pull the arms really far apart and you could tie them up and then They would sort of slowly retake their original shape. They would come back And if you're like some kids of a certain age, you may have eventually gotten Uh bored with the stretchy toy and gotten curious to see what was inside You might have used a probiscus Proboscis whatever you might have cut it open Just to see what was inside and quickly found out that there's this goo that just starts oozing out Now when you stretch it and it no longer becomes a A toy that you can So the question is why don't humans just ooze out when we get a cut What's the thing that keeps all of ourselves from just sliding out Whenever we get a minor injury and yes, there is the blood that's coming out But that's actually doing the clotting thing that's preventing It's sealing the wound But the answer turns out is tiny anchors Most of the cells in our bodies, whatever they are bone muscle Oregon tissue Are locked into the right place and don't just squish off With the help of tiny anchors. These are called focal adhesions These are strong anchors that use protein chains to link the cell to collagen Which is a protein that gives the structures to our body These little tiny super tiny anchors and what are we talking about here when we're saying tiny? These are One Ten thousandth The size of the human hair Few nanometers thick That's that's all they are. They're just Super tiny And they've only sort of just been discovered An image and understood This is this is uh What they're now looking at is Now that they sort of know this structure is here now that they know these tiny filamental anchors are here connecting things together They now are starting to look at what happens when those breakdowns and the first thing that they can see when those things are not present Is when cancer is taking place cancer is sort of runaway growth It's also metastasization, which means the cells that are then that cancery growth spurt tissues Don't anchor They go, ah, I'm not attached. I'll just go Play the field I might jump into bloodstream or however I get there through a lymphatic system I might move over to somewhere else and you know what now that i'm here I'm gonna start growing another tumor because that's what cancer likes to do So this is a whole like all of the things it's one of those things when you have to be like Okay, now we go back and rewrite all of the textbooks look at all of the other studies and now we have a Factor a cofactor a thing that we didn't know was part of what was taking place That we now can go and look at and see how it fits into the whole ecosystem of proliferation and metastasization Of cells so really fascinating study uh They use the cryo electron mic microscope for this Which is uh, which is a microscope Microscope that actually got somebody the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2017 Like this is it's a very new-ish and uh very uh, but it's the only way they could even see This thing even exists so whole new Piece of how anatomy is put together we were talking about pressure in the black hole right That maybe explains All of the other levels of pressure above it even if it's if it's present at the quantum level If it's if it's you know now we're finding anchors and attachments in the human body that we didn't know existed previously Another whole way of looking at the human body and human tissue and human tissue interactions Uh then becomes available to us Yeah, and it's really interesting to be thinking about how they interact in such a way that we can predict certain behaviors So like a mutation that changes the adhesion that leads to the cells metastasizing and just take it off and go and I don't live here anymore and run it away I'm not going to hold on to my neighbors anymore. I don't care about that. It's time for me to go do my own thing And and if you can if you can adjust that that right then if you can target that and say Now i'm going to make these mast cells Stick stick somewhere. Yeah, then you can do an excision and remove as opposed Right, so so it opens up a whole new level of treatment for cancers control and treatment. Yeah, this future goes forward As the research goes forward That's super cool That's really cool Anything that we can do to reduce the The damage done by so much cancer in our society We're getting better and better at treating it people are able to live with it longer able to do so much, but we can just let's just get rid of it Let's figure out how to control it Go away Like aging Don't we want to control aging? Blair you're ready for this. I'm so ready I just want to keep the kids off my lawn So A new study out this last week is looking at protein production as a factor of aging we know that proteins get kind of weird when we start aging that That proteins start they don't work quite as well anymore that the the transcription and the translation is less accurate and there are there are Jeans that are responsible for the process of transcription and translation and maintaining accuracy and there Is a particular protein and gene that we're looked at in this study That was published just this last week in cell metabolism researchers Were interested in how errors in protein creation Correlate to lifespan to longevity and so they ended up diving into this one particular gene and it's And its protein to see how it affected things They discovered that this gene rps 23 is so critical for translation accuracy That it is There's this at least one part of it of its sequence. It's genetic sequence that is basically unchanged It's been conserved across pretty much every species that they've looked at except for Those extremophiles that like to live in really really hot environments And the extremophiles that live in really really hot environments. They have this single nucleotide mutation this one nucleotide this one base It's mutated it's a little different And so the researchers were like, okay I wonder what would happen if we took the mutation that's in these extremophiles who live in these hot environments and we put That mutation into the gene that's in every other species If we just made that switch, what would happen? So let's look at yeast. Let's let's Take a look at Drosophila melanogaster. Let's look at yeast. Let's see what happens with with C elegans What happens When they changed that one single nucleotide mutation they found that the organisms Lived longer their longevity was increased their proteins Were translated with higher Fidelity there were fewer errors But that's sounds like really great news But some of the odd things that occurred as well is that along with that increase in longevity the developmental period also expanded so it took longer For these organisms to get through their immature stages to their mature stages everything kind of took longer But that was okay because they lived longer Okay, but then but then what I immediately want to know Is that there's a gene that makes them get past that mature site faster? Or gets to the mature site faster and who cares about longevity? If you pull it out completely do they like because that's usually what you want in a biotech environment is you want something It'll grow really fast. Oh, well, okay biotech you want it to grow really fast But in this particular situation they're thinking We just made flies that live longer What would happen if we put this in mice if it works in mice? What's going to happen if we change it in humans? So the question is how will it affect complex Organizm all biology physiology and is it Negative because the the trade-off that they're thinking is that maybe it wouldn't in all these species other than these really hot environment-loving bacterial species Why what what would keep it from mutating? Why not have more longevity, right? Why not have higher fidelity? Why not have better translation transcription? Why would this gene not mutate? Why is it so conserved? and they think it's because It's uh the the trade-off For getting to adulthood faster is that you're going to be more successful and have more offspring And so in just a normal natural selection process longer developmental periods are not Beneficial well in any life because you have less opportunity to die before you reproduce Right, so not to mention this is so is this humans? Is this extending life or is it extending reproductive lifespan because if it's just extending life Then there would be no evolutionary reason for that to happen Really, absolutely, and that's why We got to look for it It's not going to happen naturally as much because if you if you are no longer Reproductively viable. Why would your genes mutate to make you live longer? They wouldn't you're taking away resources from your future generations It's true. Maybe for most life actually, so it's probably true. But there's like when you look at bonobo baboon, yes, there's the grandmother Yes grandmother hypothesis that extends life. Yeah But Only so long, you know, yeah and and to all of this there is the question also Do you live longer? But do you like have the long slow decline? Unused earth feeling poorly early. I mean, how does how does that longevity work? The flies that their gerry ass their geriatric flies were still very youth youthful longer When similarly aged control flies were just not very active So they lived healthier longer and the big thing is they could Deal with higher temperatures, which hey, maybe that's a good thing with climate change. We need yeah, we need that But it also means your kids are going to be at home and well into their 40s. Yeah Yeah And I have a couple of quick two quick stories that I just want to wrap with the idea of we are advancing technology at this point in time that is going to allow us to fix so many problems and But so many studies recently are like organoid this organoid that and we can make organoids and study all this stuff There was a pancreatic Organoid that there was created this last week that they're going to be testing pancreate pancreas science on looking at drugs for Insulin resistance and all on all sorts of things that could help diabetics Another study that's out this week Just it created cochlea organoids so your inner ear And as I'm sitting here, I'm not really hearing The high pitched. Oh, there it is the the high pitched That's in my ears constantly because I have tinnitus or tinnitus. However, you want to pronounce it That is a sign of hearing damage and hair cell loss My ears are damaged because I was dumb and went to loud rock concerts and Really enjoyed that stuff in college players raising your hand as well Maybe many of you out there depending on your age are experiencing similar Impacts, can you say all that in a lower frequency? I heard none of right You lose that higher range of hearing as you get older Yeah, and it makes a sound like and then there was silence but if you Maintain the health of your hair cells in the cochlea in your inner ear It can allow you to maintain your hearing into old age. But what if okay? What happens is when you damage your hair cells? They're damaged and a lot of damage over a long term Period of time they die and that's what leads to this hearing loss the tinnitus that I'm dealing with and all sorts of Not being able to hear higher registers all sorts of stuff like that. So what if we could Bring back hair cells. What if we could regrow them? We've talked with Alice in coffin on this show previously about hearing loss and hair cells and she studies fish in fish They can regenerate their hair cells People cannot mammals cannot for the most part regenerate their hair cells. What if we could and so this group of researchers has developed a cochlear Organoid in which they are doing a large-scale drug screen to determine whether or not there are any Targets and also any drugs that we can use To regrow hair cells and they actually discovered one cancer drug anti cancer drug That is approved by the FDA for use against cancer that Through a different mechanism all together It it stops blood cells from forming. So stops Cancer from developing but in this case it it's a completely different mechanism that allows it to It it blocks an inhibitor of cellular growth in the cochlea Could it be used? Yeah, could it be used? To bring back hair cells and restore hearing health. They're starting to do animal studies on that now So like vascularization Reduces the production of the hairs. No, it's not the vascularization. It's completely different mechanism So it's the in cancer It stops the vascularization this drug that they've that they've discovered works in the hair cells in the cochlear organoid It's not to do with vascularization But there's a a a molecular signal that it blocks and that molecular signal Blocks the ability of the hair cells to regrow. So when you turn when you take away that break The hair cells are able to regrow At least they showed that in the organoid. Now we have to see if it works in animals Maybe it'll just work in mice. I don't know we'll find out but this is a very Exciting development as a platform for learning about potential treatments and prevent potential targets and my final My final quick story is a similar technology the kidney X prize there is a prize between the u.s. government and And the American association of nephrology that are trying to develop a synthetic kidney That can be implanted to help people who have kidney disease who are on dialysis who are waiting for kidney transplants who, you know have all sorts of loss of The the good factors of life, right? So having to be on dialysis and on a dialysis machine if they could instead Implant a synthetic kidney-like device They might be able to do away with dialysis all together A ucsf team has created a device They just won the first of the kidney X prize to get 650 thousand dollars It's a drop in the bucket when it comes to technology like this But it is going to support the development of from a prototype To clinical trials to see whether or not this device This bio artificial kidney Can work In people and they think it will so anyway There are six other teams that have also received awards, but this one is very promising So congratulations. Maybe we will have devices To do away with kidney transplants and dialysis machines Maybe we will have drugs that will bring our hearing back to our youthful levels Maybe we will scrape the eight-year-olds and lap their blood. No, I mean no no no But yes, even if you could if you could improve hearing so that it was better I don't need it to be perfect But also just if the kidney if the artificial kidneys could just reduce How often people have to go do dialysis? It would be a huge increase in quality of life So, you know, we can we can shoot for the mood. I love that like Oh, what if we could just give you an artificial kidney and you don't have to do dialysis anymore at all, but Even even putting kind of a band-aid on it to make that process have to happen less often would be a huge A huge help to the people going on dialysis, but also dialysis centers who are often overrun with people who need dialysis Very much so have we made it to the end of the show? I think we have Yeah, I think we did it so many good stories this week so much interesting conversation We could have kept talking about a lot of things Trying to keep us on time everybody But I do want to thank you for listening to the show. I hope you enjoyed it Also, it's time for some shout outs. Shout out to fauna. Thank you for your help with social media and show descriptions Thank you to identity for for for Recording the show not identifying the show recording the show. I'm glad you identified us a long time ago Thank you to gourd and ar and lore and so many other moderators who keep our chat rooms happy and clean and just a wonderful community place to talk about the show and science and I would like to thank rachel for Editing the show. 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Blair, you look shocked and appalled. No? Okay, good. No. Thank you everyone for joining. How are things going? Come si, come sa. Yeah. Come si, come sa. Come si, come sa. Thank you everyone for joining. Michelle Kelly, yes. Thank you for joining us this evening. It's always nice when people are able to. Watch live. Depending on their schedule. I did discord notifications. They make it so hard to turn these things off. And then I have to mute my computer. I'm no. I'm going to sit down. You sit down. I'm sitting. Oops. Edit. I don't know how to use the thing. Ah, there it is. Thank you. I was sending a note to our in law. I see you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I hope everyone had a wonderful week. I hope it's all good. It's cold in the Bay Area. It was warm for a few days in the Bay Area. This week. Yeah, I mean. It's warm in my part of the Bay Area. Yes. So it's, you know. It's chilly in my whole life. What's warm even mean in the Bay Area? I'm going to get you catching up. He almost got to 70 today. Stop it. No, it's 90 at my workplace. Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. And it's like 75 to 80 at my house. Almost every day. Blair is not excited over the idea of woolly mammoths returning. No. She is shocked and appalled. Shocked and appalled at the idea. I found it to be reinforcing the idea that I had had of the potential impact of returning an animal to an area where it had previously rained for a very long time. You know, the idea that it could help mitigate the release of gases from the tundra by keeping it 10 degrees colder, that's huge. You'd have to have so many of them. Herds. Groving herds. I mean, we've had a hard enough time bringing buffalo back to the United States. So we did it. Not as easy as just going release the kraken. You know, it doesn't work like that. No, I know. But we did it. And it takes work and it takes effort and it takes apparently a $15 million initial investment. And it's going to take more than that on top of it. Frumpy wants to know why. Hey Justin, why metric for most units but not temperature? Okay, Celsius, what is it? 23 degrees, something like that? Yes. This is the room temperature. I get it. We have to use Kelvin. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to be scientific about it, let's use Kelvin. But it's a great question from me because this is, I am. He doesn't know how to do the calculations as quickly. No, no, no. I'm in a relationship with somebody who is only knows the metric system. So I'm trying to explain that it's like, okay, it's 103 degrees where I am right now. And it's like, oh, well, that doesn't sound like, it's just a number. And then when they do the translation into the Celsius, it's like, oh my gosh, that's insane. Let's see. I think roving hurts of woolly mammoths. So one of the actually, one of the more important questions, good for the environment, I think. But how does it impact the native peoples who use those hunting grounds? And, and so here, so here is this, Gareth Phoenix. And this is the ecologists and biologists who know ecosystems. Yes. Right. Articles shared by Arn Lore in the Twitch chat, the Guardian firm bringing back woolly mammoth from Extinction. Gareth Phoenix, professor of plant and global exchange ecology at the University of Sheffield, says, well, we do need a multitude of different approaches to stop climate change. We also need to initiate solutions responsibly to avoid unintended damaging consequences. That's a huge challenge in the vast Arctic where you have different ecosystems existing under different environmental conditions. For instance, mammoths are proposed as a solution to help stop permafrost thaw because they will remove trees, trample and compact the ground and convert landscapes to grassland, which can help keep the ground cool. However, we know in the forested Arctic regions that trees and moss cover can be critical in protecting permafrost. So removing the trees and trampling the moss would be the last thing you'd want to do. Maybe. Where did Blair go? Oh my gosh. She disappeared. After her last connection. I mean, I think, I think. Was reading. I keep looking at what happened when they reintroduced wolves to Montana. And. And it was, it was about. We're only like within like a decade. Okay. In Montana. There were a few, there was a few decades, but it was still like, but, but it was the. The unforeseen cascade of impacts that the wolf had that allowed beavers to flourish that allowed, you know, the, that allowed a regrowing of forests to take place. Like there was this whole, like their place in the ecosystem was, was a thing that forged the, the forests and the streams and the beaver habitat and the deer habitat and made all of these things play their role properly. And when you took the wolf out, the deer didn't need to stay to the open areas. They would wander around the forest. And when you wander around the forest, the deer, after they eat seeds and poop are doing so under the canopy. And then new growth doesn't take place like it does when they started getting afraid of wolves started hanging, hanging out in the open fields and started replanting berries and shrubs and trees again. You know, and then. And so it's like the. Right. And so as Aaron Laura is saying, the wolf, the other than wolves, the ecosystem that was around when they were removed is still around. And the Arctic now is different than when the mammoths were there. So it's not the same ecosystem. So it's like we're like, we're like going this is what the mammoths did. And so let's just do this. But that's not entirely correct because the landscape of Montana as an example had changed dramatically. And then there were other species, which also created these wetland areas that like allowed. Fowl and other like fish species to have breeding areas. Like. And I agree it has changed. But if the mammoths as a lynchpin species. Can. Can show us. What it could be like. We might be surprised as we were when the wolf was reintroduced. So what are the downstream effects of the other. Habitats that are that they contributed to. Very possibly. But what I what I think though is, you know, this company. Coming in there, it's a like I've said so many times already. It's a PR push. And it's disingenuous for them to come in and say woolly mammoths are going to help with climate change. And it isn't the one that's saying that. It's an ecologist from Russia who has already done this research that was started back in 1996, which by the way is way before a church. Probably partnering with this company because he wants to do his place. And so this is a way to make it happen. So this is a business partnership. And it's all about business and making money. Absolutely. And you know, if you're going to do business with these mammoths that are going to have a big enough impact to have an impact on the climate that would be beneficial and you have to go through all the research steps ahead of time to see if you're ever going to get there. I'm just right. Which is which is nationalist aspect and the media circus is what I am upset about. Like let's let's it's a moon shot and you might not make it to the moon, but you're going to learn a lot on and realize that the research there preceded the thing you think it's trying to lob onto to get funding. It was already showing that research is already on the books way before churches even talking about mammoth genomes. The church has been in this for a while. No, no, no, but now like maybe 2008 the park was established and that research was already producing results starting back in 1996. Decade George has been involved in all this stuff the whole way. You also Justin you keep bringing up the wolves and I got to tell you there's a huge there's a huge fallacy there which is time. So just like what people say like but climate change has has changed this like the climate has changed this much before. Yes, but that was thousands of years ago. It didn't happen in a matter of 100 years. Yes, wolves disappeared and we reestablished them. That happened over 100, 150, 200 years, not 10,000 years. And that's very different of 10,000 years of evolution and ecology and niche building that you're just going to destroy by bringing animals out that completely change ecosystems. So you're saying we should do this on a limited basis in a sort of research park type environment to first get an idea of what the larger impact would be positive or negative which is actually what they're doing. That's what they're doing. Read and reinvigorate species that are appropriate to this timeline. But how can you do that if those species are dying off and you say therefore by your own logic, I think maybe it's my own logic that I'm imposing upon you which would help my argument which is probably why I'm doing it. You're completely changing my argument. Yeah, I am. Fair enough, but you would also then have to say that any species that's not making it based on the modern situation should not be protected or 100 years or 10 years if it's failing now let it fail forever. I don't agree. No, that is a huge crazy exacerbation of my argument. If something has been extinct for 10,000 years, bringing it back is crazy. If something has been extinct for 50 years the climate, the environment, the other animals in that space are essentially the same. Evolutionary time is a very specific thing. And I feel like it's the difference between something having gone extinct because it could not survive because of environmental factors versus humans hunted and killed them. We know that humans hunt and kill other territory and kill them. And whales and wolves and dodos. We know humans have been involved for all of the time. Let's bring back the dodo. I would love to see a dodo. Let's bring back the passenger pigeon. Oh, but what about all the other flightless birds that have filled a niche? They haven't actually. There isn't anything in the dodo niche. Ecosystems are actually struggling because of humanity's impact on species diversity. I, okay, so dodo I'm not that excited. Elephant bird? I would definitely... Far extinct. No! Not that far. Not that far. You gotta look at time as a long... It's like one big wibbly-wobbly thing. Ten thousand years is nothing to planet Earth. All right, Mr. What. Okay. Dr. What? You got to be Mr. What instead of Dr. Who. Mr. What? Mr. What? So, I like where the George Church getting into this and the conversation about de-extincting genes and that conversation, I find interesting. And I think there's a much larger philosophical conversation about species and life on the planet and thriving life on the planet from the basis of genes versus species. And I think that is the crux of the conservation question. What are you conserving? And we've talked about Blair, we've talked about through the years, going from conserving species to conserving ecosystems. And, you know, what is it in the ecosystem that you're conserving? And why are you conserving it? And are you just conserving all these genes that work together in this way? Or are you conserving this particular selection of species? You know, it's really fascinating. I think, you know, from a systems perspective, it's just the philosophical questions here are deep and we could dig into them for a long time. And I think that's the more worthy conversation. I just feel like I said disingenuous and I believe it, it's the media circus and everything surrounding the choice of the woolly mammoth. Oh, it's like, you know, far enough back that the DNA is still viable. You know, we can potentially hybridize it with a living species and the buffalo we have now, most of them are hybrids with cattle, big cows, it's their hybrids. They're not like the true buffalo. That's how we conserve them. So we conserved some amount of the genetic aspect, but I don't know I, if if the media circus and the Pleistocene park and all of it can really stimulate some interesting conservations, you know, within society, within humanity about what we want to conserve and how to conserve it and really the best steps to take, I think that is valuable. But otherwise, I think it's a circus. Sure, sure, sure. But that's, you know, like this is also how you get scientific general public interest in science. If the earth did not have a moon, we would have had a Mars shot. The first go round and it would have been called miserably. And nobody would have gone to space again. Like, you know, what did we do when we went to the moon? Did we send a geologist? No. We send a couple of hotshot test pilots and they got there and they played golf and they put a flag and they did collect a couple of rocks for somebody to look at later maybe, but, you know, it wasn't really all for the science at that point. It was it was very much theater. It was very much cold war pressure stuff. But we got there and we've stayed in space to an extent since then and have had a program that maybe the woolly mammoth in our collaboration with Russia and Siberia. Maybe that will be our next look, look, hang on though. If people are willing, you're like, no, no, people are willing to fund because if people are willing to fund all of the technology that goes into being able to bring back the woolly mammoth, that technology can be used to save a white rhino, a black footed ferret, a, you know, we're already using that technology for those things. No, not the lamb womb actually. They did it. They did a rhino fetus in a lamb bag. We talked about it on the show and they're using the same gene techniques to try to splice in. I think it's the western white rhinos in with the eastern it's yeah they're doing all of it. Right. So so here's here's probably the best funded version of that technology going forward is I bet you more people just in the same way that the world wildlife conservation environmental conservation, whatever people have used pandas for forever to raise funds. They spent money other than other places other than on pandas. For sure. A lot of it is spent on pandas. A lot. Okay. A lot. They spent a lot on things not pandas of that money, of that panda money. That panda money spends good Blair show it with the pandemonium is the problem because right like if didn't talk about the pandas and you found a different cute species I can tell I'm winning this argument right now Blair because you're very blurry I can tell I'm still like crystal clear you're you look very blurry. I think your autofocus is off. That is not how that's not how it works. That's how it works. It's who stays in focus best wins. We don't know. We don't know what would have happened to the world wildlife foundation and what would have happened to fundraising in conservation efforts if they hadn't talked about pandas and they had found a different cute it like what if it was elephants what if they just talked about elephants from day one people love elephants. They think they're adorable and 96 of them a day were killed. Whales are dying too. We still hunt whales. Yeah that's my point. The babies are dying. You can say like okay but because of this this happened but you don't know if they had focused better on animals that deserve the focus that that wouldn't have been successful you don't know that. I feel like they just didn't pick pandas out of a hat though. I feel like pandas caught on and so they kept running with it. No they 100% picked them. This is so and this is the other problem right is that they we talked on the show about giraffes and how giraffes are talked about so much and they appear so often in children's books and there's so many stuffed animals and shirts and all these things that have giraffes on them that there's a perception that giraffes are not endangered but they are extremely endangered but it's because the western world sees giraffes everywhere and they're like oh yeah giraffes a dime a dozen. I don't think giraffes are a dime a dozen. I feel like if baboons had been made the poster child and people got to see what baboons were like people would be like I don't need a wildlife. They would be better without it. Big fangs. Monkey what is that thing that awful toothy macaques. They're the ones that will give you hep C I think. Yeah yeah yeah nobody would be like you know what maybe we don't need nature after all. The mammoth so for the lamb bags and the rhinos and the species that are here or have very recently gone extinct within the last 50 years or so this sounds very interesting and I hope the money gets does turn over into these the conservation or reintroduction of these species. But it does bring up a question as 0000 Oh at what point is somebody going to go I got Neanderthal genes let's just splice some more of those into the human genome. Actually we have yeah we have a tremendous amount broken up amongst all the humans. We already have right but they might have there might be issues with mental health there are it what is it allergies and there they're also there's there are negative effects of having Neanderthal genes but there are good effects as well. So you're saying you would not allow humans to be born who had allergies if it was up to you. I mean like come on like I have allergies. I mean that would be great. You want to be here. Yeah I mean I'm not opposed to that either. I don't think a lot of the ethical issues that people put on human initiated diversity of life when compared when put on the balance scale of all of the species that are being decimated on a daily basis and are disappearing from this earth I don't think that the little pittance of adding to the diversity that we could possibly do even if it is hype commercial and you know whatever the reason that it gets funded I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing I don't I don't really see the downside of it. When we're losing species on a daily basis at the rate that we are Yeah That's exactly the problem What can we do to not lose species at the rate Stop being humans globally tomorrow yesterday That's not going to be the thing that happens Because humans are jerks No Just 32% of Americans think more Americans should have died to keep businesses open That's not what they said That's not the question they answered You are twisting the results of the survey Justin I'm interpreting them You are, yes, you're interpreting them See you didn't like me twisting your words in your thoughts That was fine You were also like Hey, let me pair a fry I didn't disagree with you Paraphrase That's two fries Not a small or a large, but a pair Oh, yeah Maybe we can use genetic de-extinction to bring back Toys R Us I missed that story Sorry It was a place where a kid You could always be a kid but now it's extinct Children have to grow up What was their mascot? A giraffe Which, hey Jeffery's gone, people You need to start supporting giraffe wildlife conservation because he's not the last one but we don't want the rest of the drafts to go over the way to Toys R Us It's toy that Aaron Loris says Toys R Us has been necromancered already Is that like five nights at Freddy's? I mean, I'm confused Anyway Very interesting The Toys R Us had bought B&B toy store It's like this bear with a British hat like the big furry one like a British guard hat And somebody bought it back as Toys R Us was going down somebody else bought that brand At least in Denmark there's still toy stores There's no toy stores in America Under the brand Now there really are, are there Is there a toy store in America left or is there a toy aisle? There are toy stores Where, what's the toy store in America? The day America lost its last toy store Stop playing You need to work for what you get Ambassador toys still exist in Westportal There's a store There's a toy store There's a toy store in America that you're talking about not a chain stores within the amount of steps that you would need to go to before you had to be There's not chain stores anymore It's all local So the brand got bought back as Toys R Us went down They were absorbed by the big mega company Toys R Us This toy store bought itself back and is still a chain of toy stores now I don't understand this Toys R Us is opening 400 plus stores within Macy's But Macy's is also closing Macy's is going to be completely bankrupt by 2023 So yeah, it's fine That makes perfect sense Maybe it's KB Maybe KB is what I'm thinking This is long dead No, no, no, that's I think the one It's the one with the bear with the little furry like British Royal guard hat I thought KB Toys is a tin soldier Padding tin And I think that's the one that bought itself back and is a brand and has got a chain of Toys R Us I've been to a couple of them At least in Denmark, I don't know Yeah, KB Toys is a tin soldier That's what I was right What's the one with the Game stop, not dame stop Karachi Gaper Dame stop is a business That's all we're helping in the state of Nevada A KB Toys also has been closed since 2009 It looks fun Oh my goodness Toys R Us Toys R Us Ooh, that's not how you spell any of those words How did I spell these words Ooh Chimini Man That's a good suggestion for a movie I haven't seen that I don't know Justin Do kids even play with Toys anymore? Yeah They certainly do It's different though It's BR It's BR Toy Store BR It's not Bill the Bear It's a toy store not a bear store Online stores are huge For sure Toys are different now You don't have the same action figures related to cartoons as much But I guess you still kind of do Now you just have What are the The big headed ones It's not a bear It's not a bear at all It's just a guy with that fuzzy weird hat That's what I said I said that's a twin soldier God Okay, well it's anyway The point is They were like This is still a viable business But they also don't have The big box store things there They didn't let that happen No, yeah You're not going to have the same Popular kids toys That everybody wants Because even when I was a kid I didn't have cables There were only four channels That showed cartoons So obviously There were only going to be a few things That kind of was in the public Yeah Yeah Toys I like toy stores Hey gosh, I just noticed The time It's way past my bedtime Yeah Everybody's way past Our bedtime Now that I have to get up in the morning And take my child to school Grrr Grrr I actually wrote I wrote a note to my child Not to my child but to my child's music teacher Because They have music once a week And they go into a classroom For music So his little class of 20 odd Kids goes to this other classroom To do music And he said that Even though they're wearing masks They're singing In music class Oh gosh And I said Indoors inside In a classroom And he said not outside On the playground And I wrote him a note And I said you tell your music teacher The next time that you start singing In music class That you have my permission to leave the room I'm like I will not have my child In a room where there is singing That's like what the study said from day one You can do little drums You can use little keyboards Do a xylophone I don't care, no wind instruments And no singing Go outside and sing One of my favorite things that I saw was Like covers for the bell For saxophones and trumpets and stuff Like there isn't All sorts of spit and aerosols Coming out of every single valve On that instrument It's You can stuff an entire shirt In the bell of my saxophone And you can still hear it Because the majority of sound Comes out of all of the 50 valves On the saxophone Never mind that you're You know You are huffing and puffing Without a mask on There's no mask For the wind instruments Yeah, that is not happening I don't know what I'm going to do When it rains on Friday And they make the children Eat inside I think I'm keeping my son Home on rainy days I have decisions to make Because I don't trust The school to keep My child safe Yeah, that sucks They don't have the right protocols In place and they rushed back And I'm very angry And that's what I'm upset about this week Yeah, that's a very good reason to be angry I'm going to breathe Just, you know, have faith That it's all going to be okay Uh-uh I just hope that Blair recovers from this blurriness I'm not blur, to me You're so blurry You're very blurry Am I blurry, do you, too, Kee? You are blurry, yes, you are I love how you don't take my word for it No, I'm blurry You are pixelated I look crystal clear No, no, no Then it's your internet, not your camera I'm sorry, you're pixelated It says on full bars Yeah Are you on wi-fi? Yeah That's why she has bars I've been on wi-fi for almost a year now Hey Yeah, the last few, the last month or so Maybe a little longer It's been in and out You've had drops And blurrbles and connection issues I'll start hardwiring, then Hardwire and Check your connection speed Before you start Because sometimes what happens I mean, I about once a year I know this is Once a year with Comcast I've had to call them up And get them to fix the connection Because they just kind of let it go And so I have to call them and go It's not working It's not giving me what I'm supposed to have And then they go, oh, did you do this I'm like, yeah, I did all the things And they're like, oh, well, not me And then they fix it We've actually been strangling your line But since you noticed We'll open it up again So you have to kind of poke them A little bit every once in a while That's a good note Usually for me, once a year There's a little I have to tell them I noticed But anyway, yes, thank you Attack rate, exposure Choir practice And yes Paul Disney Computer music That'd be good, they can make music on computers Synthesized voices Let's go to bed, yeah Wrap it up Good night, Justin Good night, Justin Say good night, Blair Good night, Blair Good night, Kiki Good night, tired friends Good night, science friends It's been a wonderful time I Hope that you all stay healthy And well and get lots of sleep Over the next week We'll be back in a week With more This Week in Science Find us on the socials In the meantime Take care Should I just keep it running right now? No, I know you'll turn it off I'm ending the vlog