 Don't you have to wait for someone to get back from the porch or wherever? No, okay? Do we have to reboot the computer again? Is there something that we need to do again? Is there something happening? I don't um, whatever. No, okay Do we have to reboot the computer again? Is there something that we need to do again? Is there something happening? I don't um, whatever. No Hello, I got a computer plugged into a computer. Did you like that? I hate it. It's getting me twice That's my audio computer. It just happened to be Uh, yeah happened to be plugged in there. I was looking at the youtube page. Hey youtube chat room. How are you doing? Hello chat room out there? We're here to start a show. We have no drosten. We are going to start the show now Are you ready for this? Are you ready for the show? We're ready for the show ready in three two one This is twist this week in science episode number 677 recorded on wednesday june 27th 2018 Oh say Can you see the science? Hey everyone i am dr kiki and tonight on this week in science We are going to fill your heads with a stellar rater rat tickler and polio but first disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer As we approach the anniversary of independence in what some call the greatest country It is important to remember to look back And forward it is also important to address what's going on in the present, of course But let's keep it in perspective the united states is a nation of immigrants A nation of freedom a nation of mutual respect and of newfound friends This nation helped humankind explore the deepest reaches of the oceans as well as the outer limits of our solar system But none of that would be possible without the inclusion of all people Whoever wondered whether they were newcomers to our land those that were here before us Or even people who were once not considered people themselves Whether they were men women black brown familiar unfamiliar or something we had never seen before Progress depended and will continue to depend on everyone near far similar different human mouse or even extraterrestrial science technology and the continuation of life on this planet is for and by Every one of us So let's hear what newfound knowledge we all now share on this week in science Coming up next Good science to you kiki And the good science to you too blare And uh, no no justin no just in disclaiming today That was a wonderful disclaimer blare. Thank you for bringing us into the show As we head toward the american day of independence next week. We're heading in that direction. We're just You know Getting a little getting a little americanny here Just for a moment just for a moment. It's over. We're done. It's over. But we're here for the science. We are here Justin's probably sleeping. I don't know what he's doing, but he's not here this evening unfortunately So he will not hear his dulcet vocal tones this evening My cats are going insane right now, and I don't know what is going on They're doing acrobatics around me. So I'm sorry if I seem a little bit distracted. They are distracting cats They have got parasites Oh, no, no, they don't know they don't Okay, time for the science. We are here to talk all about lovely scientific things. I brought polio I also brought news about a stellar rater and some other fantastic news about Life or parasites before life Fun things blare. What did you bring? Oh? I brought a story about why it's very important in a business partnership to speak the same language I also brought the before mentioned rat tickling. I brought this week in world robot domination and some wolf dna Ooh Vulfi vulfi Like your dna. Let's talk about it And as we jump into the show, I would like to remind everyone that If you have not yet subscribed to our program, you can do so on itunes in the google podcast portal All the great places stitch your speaker tune in you can also subscribe to us on youtube and facebook all these wonderful places Where videos and podcasts are found and you can find us by searching for this week in science Or you can just visit twist twi us org for information All right into the science. Let's dive right in everyone polio virus Right i'm not going to tell you a story about it making a comeback. I've got some good news related to polio Polio virus is one of the viruses that is being investigated by scientists as a way to infect cells with a Either genetic target or to use the aspects of the virus To to stimulate the immune system to have some kind of response polio virus especially Gets into the nervous system, which is very hard to get past Especially if you want to get into the brain and pass the blood brain barrier polio virus is really good at doing this And so researchers in north carolina at duke university have published their study in science translational medicine They are publishing the inner workings of a therapy Oh, how did this happen? Oh, no Yeah, they have published the inner workings of a therapy that um uses polio virus to treat gliomas and gliomas are Our brain cancers that are incurable senator john mccain has uh has a glioblastoma And the life expected expectancy once you have a diagnosis is fairly limited So anything that can extend your life expectancy Is uh is good news. And so now public publishing I I that's what I got confused about was the different articles back in 2000 Uh 2017 the duke researchers published in science translational medicine The early ideas of this therapy to be able to treat it Uh to be able to treat glioblastoma Using polio virus and now the researchers are publishing in the new england journal of medicine on their results human trials using A recombinant polio virus and what that means is that they they manipulated it They engineered the virus to not be infectious and to still have results they wanted and to treat patients with glioblastoma and extend their life spans So what they have done is they've created a polio rhino virus rhino virus That's that gives you the common cold right infects you in your nose. They've have uh combined the the genomes of these viruses together making a chimera and they call it pvs ripo pvs ripo and It recognizes The polio virus receptor within the immune system cd 155. This is widely expressed in cells of solid tumors and in major components of the tumor microenvironment according to their paper The study evaluated seven different doses of this treatment And also in a dose x escalation phase and dose expansion phase and they looked at these patients from may 2012 through may 2017 61 patients enrolled in this study and They have moved forward from from a phase one trial to this Which is just safety to this phase two dose expansion to be able to figure out exactly What the really safe doses and how far they can push this treatment and What they found is overall survival among the patients Reached a plateau of 21 percent at 24 months that was sustained at 36 months. And this is actually Good news. So patients who received the immunotherapy their survival was higher at 24 and 36 months than historical controls people who had had polio virus and and Not gotten the immunotherapy So to go the usual Life expectancy with the malignant glioma is usually less than 20 months And patients that have it come back again. So say they use chemotherapy and other drugs and And surgical removal of the tumor tumor and get rid of it for a while If they have recurrence they of the tumor they usually survive then less than 12 months And so there have been advances in surgery and radiation therapies chemotherapy other targeted agents, but there's never been consistent improvement in survival rates or in the time of survival and so this This study expands that extends lifespan for many individuals and it the the For people it really where it really works it it seems to work incredibly well And seems and seems to work for recurrent tumors as well. So one particular patient they were able to Give this treatment and After they had had a tumor and it It it caused the tumor the immune system gets into it and it caused the tumor to shrink and basically go away and When it came back again, they just gave the patient another dose and it worked again So life life expectancy was much improved So this is This is thinking hey, so what made polio so terrible? Well It's pervasive. It can cross the blood brain barrier, right? It can go everywhere really fast really thoroughly How can we use that to our advantage? Yeah, exactly. How can we and we are so it is uh that the wonderful thing is that it it Overcomes the blood brain barrier which other therapies are unable to do it also by uh by By targeting the polio virus receptor It actually triggers the body's natural immune response and like I said for people when it where it works really well It's because it actually creates an antigen that the body remembers So that the body the body's immune system attacks the tumor To reduce the tumor where normally it ignores it That's really insult to injury for polio. It's like hey, we completely eradicated you and we're going to use The husk of your existence to help keep us alive longer. I love it Yeah, I don't care about insulting polio. Let's do that. It's good work. It's good important work That's right. So um, I mean the the strategy here I find Wonderful and so this use of what are normally infectious mechanisms that cause disease To use the mechanism to our advantage to fight disease I think is such a brilliant methodology And it has so much promise and this is very a very exciting result for people Yeah, you don't always have to kind of reinvent the wheel here You can say just like when we were talking about sperm delivering drugs like what is a really good swimmer? Oh, I know So look at what already exists in nature because nature did a pretty good job of r&d with a lot of things So if you can key into that that's there's stuff already there Yeah, pretty cool. It's very cool. So yeah, let's use that polio to our advantage and let's hopefully extend the life expectancy and quality of life For people with glioblastomas. Let's let's kick Click kick the gliomas butts. Let's do it. Please Yeah, um in other news last week I reported on the national ignition facility And it's advances in laser Laser ignited fusion. They're not there yet basically, but they're they're step by step iterating as we talked about last week well, another Another type of fusion Effort is underway using tokamax and tokamax Are normally very regularly shaped like kind of doughnut shaped Uh devices that use magnetic fields to contain a hot plasma And within that hot plasma the hope is that eventually the temperature will get hot enough for long enough to create fusion So far we still haven't really created a fusion within a tokamak design that Can create more power than we put in it takes a lot of power to to Run these electromagnets that are containing the plasma and to heat the plasma itself But there's a design which has uh, which has come to the forefront in the last few years Still not necessarily Uh, it's it's it's not winning the fusion race yet, but in germany The stellar rater it is otherwise known as the wendelstein 7x stellar rater and it's a It also uses magnets to confine plasma and to heat the plasma up and to get it to get it to sustain potential Hydrogen atom fusion into helium and what's interesting about the stellar rater I find is the shape the stellar rater is like you took a doughnut and twisted it around on itself it's kind of like a mix between a pretzel and a doughnut all in one and the design is actually Supposed to create a much more stable fusion Environment and it's supposed to be potentially much more efficient than the regularly shaped tokamak tokamak designs, so in 2015 this Matt this stellar rater the max plank plonk institute for plasma physics They uh for about a tenth of a second could keep Plasma a plasma of helium helium items ions I cannot speak today a plasma of helium ions heated to a million degrees well couple years back They they upped it a bit more. They were able to get that helium up to 40 million degrees in the most recent tests And so they're feeding in more energy also, but they've also made some shifts to make it a little bit more uh efficient and The cool thing is that In addition to the 40 million degrees They're also maintaining this for a much longer period of time. So this writhing mass of plasma is actually sitting around long enough to potentially do some interesting stuff So there's a number of things happening on the fusion front right now that is that are very exciting but yet again this is But an iteration it is not the giant step forward to power producing fusion that we're hoping for But the wendelstein 7x is promising and the results Are suggesting we may get there one day and maybe it won't be laser fusion Maybe it'll be stellar rater and I just love the name stellar rater. I can't help it Yeah, you should change your cat's name to stellar rater. I should right? I named her stella after you know the word for star, but yeah stellar just stellar rater. That's right You're like with laser beams That's right. She's not just a star. She's also a fusion producing twisty doughnut Yeah Yeah, um, so the the containment time a couple years back they had gotten it up to about six seconds of plasma generation Now it's at 25 seconds. Oh heavens. Oh my gosh. It's almost half a minute. Like that is something tangible Right, this is a tangible period of time. We're not talking split seconds. We're talking Almost half a minute of plasma Maintenance, I mean this is getting there, but someday hopefully it'll be long-term generation for hours and hours and hours That will produce all sorts of wonderful power for us in the meantime. They need to keep doing some You know efficiency tweaks And I I love I'm gonna share the picture of the inside of this stellar rater with you because it's just such an amazing such an amazing design the The design itself has all these little plates like they look like a little bit like wall plates for lights or for a plug and they've they're Irregularly shaped with lots of faces on them and then they're all seated in a discontinuous fashion that's twisting and turning and so you don't have a Sphere or a circular tube on the inside for containing the plasma. It's almost teardrop shaped and this allows the the ions to bounce off the surfaces in In a in a way that is more conducive to the plasma Yeah manages the flow of this twisty Plasma donut Bizarre It's quite bizarre actually and it I know I'm doing the I'm not doing the description as much justice as I could so the link will be at our website twist.org and so you can peruse this article and The images of the interior and exterior of the stellar rater if you have not yet looked at them before just The the engineering that has gone into making it and then also You know, this is definitely math driven, you know, they want to create a plasma How are they going to get the ions to flow in the most efficient way and Where you would think just put it in a tube Tubes are just part of a tube That's not the way it works. And so the this is just the the design of it is fascinating Maybe we should get somebody from the stellar rater To come talk with us about why it's shaped that way. Where is it? Can we go visit? Germany, let's go That sounds like a twist short Absolutely long trip short video. Yeah Yeah, well, this is this weekend science and Blair, are we gonna go right now into yeah, I mean we might as well Might as well because it's we don't have a Justin for this interval. It's time for Blair's animal corner Except for giant What you got Blair, I was waiting for it. I was like, oh wait a second. That's not coming. Um, not gonna be there. I have Perhaps one of my favorite stories of 2018 thus far And it is about a case of good communication So this is coming out of duke university and it's about Some animals on coral reefs now coral reefs for those of you that have been to an aquarium and seen them One of my favorite animals to visit are the cleaner shrimp Cleaner shrimp are amazing for many reasons But they're called cleaner shrimp because they set up three to five of them set up a particular area Shop, if you will in the coral reef as a cleaning station And fish come by Blue tangs parrotfish and snappers and then the shrimp will pick parasites and dead skin off of their mouth gills and scales So they're cleaning off these fish Why this is so intriguing Is that blue tangs parrotfish and snapper eat shrimp So as a cleaner shrimp getting in the mouth danger Of a natural predator seems like an odd choice similarly Seems odd for the blue tangs parrotfish and snappers not to eat the shrimp So what is happening here duke university says it is all about truth in advertising These dental hygienists of the reef as the first author elinor caves calls them Says uh that they actually have a particular Signal that lets fish know they are willing and ready to clean So the shrimp instead of being poisonous or distasteful they they actually Say hey, I'm gonna clean you so please don't eat me They know for a fact that there's nothing distasteful about these shrimp because in the lab They chopped up cleaner shrimp And fed them to the reef fish Who ate it all happily So The first step of this research was to put a gopro In 10 different cleaning stations on coral reefs off of the Caribbean And they left them there for many hours. They recorded and analyzed almost 200 encounters with 18 shrimp and 10 fish species What they saw was that when a fish approached the cleaning station They pulled up to the drive-through car wash if you will The shrimp waved their long antenna Kind of back and forth like if you're waving your hands in the air like you just don't care perhaps Um these convey a willingness to clean 80 of the time when they waved they they cleaned so this was a truthful Um Signal this was a real signal they were giving to the fish when the shrimp did not wave their eight their antenna They would not clean Where this gets interesting is so that explains why the fish know, okay, you're gonna come clean me now But why do the shrimp trust the fish? Why do the shrimp say, okay? I'll jump in this guy's mouth. He knows what's going on. Well, it looks like these fish turn dark Before the shrimp even touched them. There is a meaningful color change in the fish's skin That is a physiological response Um that is a signal That they're ready to be cleaned and they're ready to not eat the shrimp Whoa So this is what they observed in the wild Then in the you know the lab they wanted to take this a step further as researchers always do They found that they could show cleaner shrimp images of fake fish Which were just kind of circles and shapes on an iPad screen propped up against the tank The shrimp acted like it was a real thing they went up and tried to clean But they were more likely to try to clean dark colored shapes than light ones So The dark coloration Was meaningful to them there So the shrimp advertised their services by waving their arms back and forth And then the the fish swims up and turns dark and goes, okay, come on in water's fine. I'm not gonna eat you So that's fascinating. I mean this is honest signaling between disparate species. Yes, absolutely communication. Yeah So then the last step of this that kiki's been showing is actually a side-by-side of the visual Approximation of how things look to first was the fish and then the shrimp So they were able to figure out based on the physiology of the eyeballs of these animals That the fish can definitely see the waving back and forth. That's totally visible The other thing is the shrimp's vision is Terrible and their color vision is pretty much non-existent But they can still tell through these tests that shrimp can see a difference in light and dark on these fish scales So hence the dark color changing of the fish So the question is I mean we can come up with all sorts of evolutionary Explanations for why this evolved, but what an interesting Communication system that the fish become darker. They don't change their color. They become darker And that corresponds to the Gray scale of the shrimp vision. So the shrimp respond to that The fish can definitely see the shrimp when the shrimp are waving So it's like if a shrimp's waving a fish is going to be like, hey, I see you I'm going to come over and eat you or you clean me Yeah So yeah, that's I think the the the tandem responses is the thing that really caught my eye And and made me really excited for the story is that it's not good enough For the shrimp to say hey, I want to clean you. They have to know they're not going to get eaten Yeah So the fish had to side by side say I want the shrimp to pick by parasites I have to give them a good reason to come over here and not Think that they're going to get eaten. Of course, it's not all it's not all that kind of stepwise decision But that is kind of how evolution works right is maybe less shrimp came over because they were wary of predators And then there were certain fish that had this physiological response that then gave a cue and then more shrimp and more fish Um were able to do this fish The shrimp were better fed the fish were better cleaned and those animals survived and propagated right so You can see how this would be mutually beneficial and would work once it happened But how did it happen the first time? Yeah, and the question is, you know, this is honest signaling So or you think you think it is so how often are their cheaters? Right how often are their fish who darken their spots so that the shrimp doesn't run away And then eat the shrimp how often are their Shrimp who wave their wave their little antennae and then scuttle off and go hide Yeah, yeah, and then both of them The the thing that really cooks my noodles is uh that Is this a conscious decision? Right because they know that The the changing of color at least for the fish is not in response to physical stimuli because it happens before anything touches them They see the the waving from the shrimp and then they change color. So How is that process? I want to know what that process is if Seeing a waving sparks a hormone that changes their color or If there's something going on deeper than that The fish is like man My my my gums hurt. I got a toothache. I have tooth sweaters. I I need that guy to come over here My so full of tartar. Yeah, there's feeling my teeth. They feel really weird I I feel like I need to get a teeth cleaning. Uh-huh. So Yeah, I don't know. I perhaps that's we'll find out later exactly what is queuing this response, but Yeah fish and shrimp they have a lot going on people think animals like these noodles. They cook my noodles. They they can't People think they can't think people think that there's no decision-making processes going on people think that you know, they can't fish don't have as complex um feeling or Kind of strategies going on but things like this this really complex communication system across species boundaries So cool So cool. Yeah Um, and then from that, let's please move to rat tickling Because who doesn't want to tickle a rat? I'm gonna make a little rat giggle I'm pretty sure we've talked about this on the show a couple of times this is a study out of Purdue University looking at The benefits of rat tickling so to the rat or to the person doing the tickling Uh, great cue. I think it's the rats, but that includes that then A benefit to all of science, which is why I brought this this week So this is the Department of Animal Sciences from Purdue University This is also from the Purdue Center for Animal Welfare Science Rat tickling could be a way to improve quality of life for laboratory rats and improve scientific research so this Project was looking at kind of longitudinal studies of rat behavior and rat welfare mostly in labs, but also with pet rats and looking at the benefit If there were benefits and what the benefits were of rat tickling. So rat tickling is not That's what they call it because that's what it looks like to the untrained eye But actually what they're doing is they make brisk dorsal contact around the animal's shoulder blades so you can kind of think about that as Um, like if you see two dogs fighting they might scruff each other It's almost like a scruffing motion You're pinching them between the shoulder blades with their with your fingertips and then you flip them over and pin them down so that is like It's akin to social play for rats So what you're doing is you're rolling them over and and pinning them quickly So it looks like you're tickling their tummies, but you're not quite you're actually just playing with them So the brisk dorsal contact Um is not technically tickling, but it looks very similar So There's a bunch of reasons why certain labs have started doing this One is to Get the lab personnel more comfortable handling rats another is to get the rats more comfortable being handled But most of all they're trying to create a lower stress environment for the rats And they want them to express positive emotions So if you think about it, we've talked before on the show for example about how mice lab mice Have been stored at the wrong temperature all this time, right? Yeah, and so they're actually in stress while they're being experimented on Same thing goes for rats if rats are unhappy and unhealthy and emotionally stressed Then that means That that could have some weirdo Cascade effect on almost any experiment going on with these animals if they have stress hormones coursing through their body They're not going to respond to things the same way so That also means that when they receive inoculations or they receive treatment That could create stress that then confounds results of an experiment So they want to make human contact in general Treatment options and then also just the existence in a lab All more pleasant for rats for the rats well-being for the the kind of ethical reasons But also to help with scientific findings So these researchers measured The pleasure they call it from this quote unquote tickling through monitored behavior And also through ultrasonic vocalizations So through sensitive audio equipment. They could find rat vocalizations from anywhere from 22 kilohertz to 50 kilohertz 22 are stressed or feel fearful they make sounds This is the sound they make when exposed to predators when they're in pain when they're fighting Improper handling techniques can also lead to vocalizations at 22 kilohertz But rats at 50 kilohertz those vocalizations are happy These are the sounds that they emit when they play with each other when they're given treats and when they're engaging in tickling Yes, so they They found that through these proper techniques On one side you want to make sure they have a proper home or cage appropriate bedding. There's no obstacles um to what they call safe play And then also this tickling bouts of 15 seconds at a time um, so This could help this the the research showed it does in fact make handling of rats easier It improves how quickly rats rats approach a human and increases positive vocalizations When they were given injections as part of a treatment group there were less Negative audible noises and more positive Vocalizations before and after injections They also tested this with pet store rats and they found that um pet rats that were tickled Were easier to pick up to hold to restrain. They spent more time outside their huts and they made more positive vocalizations so They're happier. I mean rats are social animals. They're not the you know, and if they're being kept in a lab situation potentially in You know in in cages by themselves isolated That's going to that's going to affect their stress levels substantially And so even if you have to have the rats isolated the human can go in and play with them and increase their And and and so then the rats become They're playing they're happy. Yeah And and this Hopefully will also help people figure out how to be responsible pet owners of rats rats are really popular pets They can often be really great pets, but just like a dog needs a walk every day Maybe rats need some tickling All right, all right rat owners or potential rat owners out there Tickle your rats tickle your rats. Um, and it'll make you happy too Yeah, and additionally now I'm I'm guessing more and more laboratories will start posting positions forehead rat tickler, which I can't wait to see Oh, yeah, I pipette I clean out cages. I I make rat food. Oh, oh and I tickle the rat I know I I can do that job dog walker or rat tickler. I'll be a rat tickler. Thank you very much Yeah, so good. So oh my goodness. I love it All right, everybody We have come to the end of the animal corner and it is time for us to take a Short break. We will be back with more this week in science. I've got parasites Parasites what? That's right. I've got parasites in the second half of the show We do hope that you will join us for more this week in science in just a few moments Can't explain things you've heard from all that intuition The libraries that shows the way to go New conclusion the methods of hypothesis in patience are the And we're off to the races everyone. Thank you for joining us for this episode of this week in science So wonderful to have you here with us right now in this very moment This week in science is a listener supported program. So How can you help support the ongoing production of this week in science? 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Thank you for your support And We're back You're listening to this week in science. Yeah, we're back. We're back. We're back We have all sorts of this week in science goodness still to come So many more amazing stories, but first it is time for one of our favorite segments of the show This week in what has science done for me? Something suddenly got very loud in my house. I think my husband must be watching a movie upstairs Either that or it was a car going by and if it was a car, that's some speakers I could hear it all the way down here in my bunker basement Okay, but what has science done lately? Well this week our letter comes from Minion Steve Coleman who has quite a story It's a saga in his words of how the collective publication of scientific and medical open access research has literally Rescued me medically physically and psychologically But this evolving story isn't over just yet now. I've taken Taken bits from From an involved article that he wrote for me That I will share with you now More than 20 years ago. I started having medical issues where when I ate certain foods I would begin to have severe cramping and an obvious Immunological response. I sought the help from my medical plan practitioners But they could offer no advice as to what this food intolerance was or even What could be causing it? I had been tested for food allergies and all antigen samples tested negative for any food allergy And the immunologists were done with me Over time this immune response both worsened in intensity duration and the number of foods I was able to eat without problems slowly dwindled over time. He's has a very limited diet today He was then diagnosed as having sarcoidosis and this condition is usually the immune system's last ditch effort to combat some Hard to kill invading organism like tuberculosis He says I was serologically tested cat scan pet scanned and finally biopsied on the operating table the result Yes, they confirmed I had sarcoidosis, but without attribution to any causative agent They had no clue as to why? But the condition eventually passed on its own the doctors never gave the cause any thought but the food intolerance not only persisted But continued to get worse All was not lost because I could still think clearly and I had science Not just science but a really deep passion for understanding everything around me And I had the open access research available on the internet I began by searching the internet for the same unique patterns of a seeming like Diverse set of unrelated symptoms matching them to the set of all-known human diseases. That's a big set And keeping notes polling research papers from across fields of Of the sciences using google google scholar google alerts wikipedia Mendeley desktop and listening to podcasts like twiv twip twim and Twists which we're glad you listen to and then addition in addition the immune podcast. I haven't heard that one, but that sounds good um Through doing the comparatives for each disease and through the long process of elimination The list of possible causes kept growing smaller over time the trail of evidence eventually led me systematically toward a certain set of helmet parasites As it's well established that all most all successfully Stealthy parasites will directly retune their hosts immune defenses in order to remain unseen for years And my immune system was absolutely going crazy This mystery disease is a subcutaneous parasitic disease called dero fallaria And despite it being called a pulmonary disease in the united states There are 27 known species worldwide one of them you might know commonly termed the dog heartworm And it's spread by arthropod vectors like mosquitoes or black flies and horseflies I had personally been bitten by a horse fly this summer before all my troubles started The cdc says this disease is not a problem yet There is no viable clinical test to tell you if you even have it To make things worse the disease is said to be asymptomatic in humans absent any medical medically available test I could purchase I instead purchased my own lab equipment As I assessed it from descriptions in the very various clinical case study publications. I got a 1600 times magnification microscope overkill for this with a ccd camera blank slides materials reagents chemicals and h and e Stain the suggested stain for visual Micro fallaria diagnostics and micro fallaria are the larval stage of these These parasites that and they they can they inhabit the blood I set up shop in my home office drew my own blood prepared the slides applied the stains Bingo, there it is and another and another and another now I have many photographs of the micro micro fallaria from a disease that I cannot possibly have This story is not over yet and I'm not out of the woods I have now seen the mugshot of my nemesis and I have read up on what needs to be done My goal is not just to survive this ordeal But then also to do everything I can to correct the official protocol And push for a more compassionate approach to the diagnosis and treatment of potential victims of this disease Wow He just really science the heck out of that didn't he right? I'm going to just take uh take control of my my own Uh my own medical diagnosis and yes Where where research where medical science has been failing him. He has gone ahead And made some discoveries and he actually shared images of of his from his own blood of these Parasites and I'm sitting here looking at them going Those those are little worms those are little worms. Oh my gosh. He's and he said that those that's from his blood so His next step is to reach out to his doctors again and show them the slides and his evidence and see Where it may take him in terms of treatment and steve We hope that you are able to get the treatment that you so deserve and after many years of suffering um be able To once again, enjoy a varied diet and not be limited by your disease Yeah, keep us posted. I want to hear what happens I'd I'd love to know what happens in this ordeal this saga as you put it and It is something that I I what I appreciate about this entire story is That yes now we do have open access research papers More and more research is becoming available for the public to peruse and understand on their own And you can buy your own lab equipment and create a laboratory in your garage in your kitchen You can become a biologist studying your own physiology studying your own Studying a disease that you may or may not have, you know, there are so many applications to The open access of science around the world that are going to have so many positive effects for so many people And this is just a wonderful example of that Yeah Wow Good work and good luck in the future Yeah, uh, so Noodles is asking what his background is. It's physics. He is a he is a physicist. He works in a physics lab But speaking of parasites Beyond that. Yes. I'm going to jump into some other stuff Thank you, Steve for writing in I would love to hear stories from other people Help us keep this going. What has science done for you lately? Send me your story It doesn't have to be longer and involved. It can be brief. It can be a poem. It can be as it can be a song I don't know if i'll sing it. I might sing it if you send me a song But send it to kirsten at thisweekinscience.com or leave me a message on our facebook page the this week in science facebook page And I will read your story to the rest of our audience and share it widely We all need we can all grow and learn from what's out there our experiences And now parasites i'm going to talk about parasitic molecules That doesn't even make sense does it? we've seen uh evidence in In chemistry previously that there are molecules that can self assemble where when they are Certain compounds are put into particular solutions. They create regular structures that can be used For various reasons carbon nanotubes or an example of this self assembly of these these Little tiny tubes made of carbon rings, right? But beyond just self assembly within molecular structure researchers Dutch researchers have been Studying a system of non biological self replicating molecules So what does that mean? We think of life as self replicating right? Replication it's one of the features of life passing on your genes to the next generation creating more copies of yourself and moving along well And one of the reasons you know viruses have been considered on the very edge of this Is that they don't actually replicate themselves? They take advantage of biological mechanisms for replication to do their replicating, right? So a lot many viruses are these Uh these cellular parasites taking advantage of what's what lot what things that are living have figured out So these researchers publishing in uh in a in a paper this last week They have made a discovery they have studied a system that involves One kind of self replicating molecule that helps assists the formation of another type of replicator but then It becomes like a parasite The second one is like a parasite and consumes The first replicator So that it can survive And do better The researchers say it is very exciting to discover parallels between completely synthetic chemical replicators and rather advanced dynamics seen in current life Our work shows that a phenomenon such as parasitism that is well established in current life Can already occur Even before the emergence of life This also means that strategies to deal with parasitism had to be developed early on Yeah, just right out the gate right out of the gate, right? So this was parasitism was something that this is a chemical thing This is this is using resources from another to enhance your own Ability to survive or replicate. That's something that's been going on from since the beginning, right? Um, so these researchers were working on synthetic replicators But just basically the idea that these chemicals could replicate themselves make perfect copies of themselves And uh, they were based on these di thiol building blocks that form rings Which then stack on top of each other to create so these rings stack on top of each other to create fibers And then these break in two click Then you have two halves. This is an exponentially replicating system, right? You start with one it breaks in half then you have two then that then that uh, then that initial fiber can continue to grow and break in half and grow and so from the two from one to two to four to eight 16 you grow you grow you grow Previous experiments revealed that pre existing replicators could assist the formation of new replicators in the same flask Which then coexisted and cooperated in each other's formation And the team set out to see if replicators could evolve if they were given building blocks that were um Increasingly different in their structure. And so uh, this is when the researchers observed this Parasitic behavior that they saw Replicators comprising eight membered rings made from a di thiol building block were used to cross catalyze and assist the formation of new Replicators from a second and slightly different di thiol building block in this same flask And then they saw new six ring replicators emerge and these molecules all by themselves Didn't replicate very quickly or very well, but by consuming the eight ring replicators They took over the system Which is just fascinating and um, I have personally Interviewed another researcher named lee cronin who has commented on this study He says i'm not surprised by this result because computer simulations have predicted such parasitic behavior But having experimental verification is brilliant because it sets a foundation For an even more exciting set of experiments the next step would be how the system Could self generate cell walls to confine the replicators as in biology This just sounds like we're we're slowly Degenerating and regenerating the origin of life Yes, and this is you know, we've talked, you know A couple of weeks ago when I wasn't here justin brought the story about the memey virus or these giant the giant viruses that are almost like cells um, and you know the question and that and that question about the That boundary between Viruses and life and where do what is life and where does life begin? um, and we've talked previously on the show about the rna hypothesis of you know that the world was initially life potentially initially started by sequences of rna Combining and creating these replicating self replicating systems And this is not even as complicated as rna. These are fairly simple chemical complexes that um Have created that easily produce self replication and this parasitic behavior just Based on chemical interactions I would be willing to wager that it's all of these things and more And it all happened. Yeah, honestly it probably you know It was probably all this stuff happening in the soup right working in tandem Coming together and pulling apart and coming together and pulling apart that made Made it all happen. It made it all work. You know, it's We're seeing bits and pieces, but but what we see on its own It makes more sense if you put them all together kind of yep It's beginning to make more sense and I know there are biophysicists out there who are also working on the you know, the physics of Of life, you know, what we're what are the thermodynamics if based on the the principles of thermodynamics What led to the complexity of life, you know What what do you need and so this is getting at the very basic Most basic aspects of the chemical interactions and so I think there's a lot to explore here and Can't wait to hear more from these researchers and others on this subject I I remember being a kid in high school and reading in my biology book about the origin of life And them talking about kind of what was in the soup and Some hypotheses as to how that happened and some some lab experiments that kind of sort of worked and gave you an idea of of how Things could come together potentially and I remember sitting in class thinking someday This page will have a real concrete answer On something that has worked and could work and probably did work And we have these bits and pieces now But I can't wait until in our biology books. There is just this this is how it happened Yep This is how it happened. It's so exciting. That's my favorite thing about science is that you can have unknowns And you can have faith that at some point probably we'll figure it out It's so neat We will figure it out eventually and um, yeah, this is it's fascinating life from once came it Over there and over there and over there and over there Yeah, and following up on this I have another story kind of related To you know chemistry and the potential for life this week Report reports from the casini mission people Still pouring over the data from the casini mission, which is now over There's still lots of data to be looked at the casini space probe At saturn it uh, it hung out by Enceladus and we've had news from some of its ventures around Enceladus previously It flew through some vapor spouts that uh were this I see I see watery vapor gaseous vapor is shot out like a geyser through cracks in the icy surface of Enceladus a moon of saturn and previous research using this data Of just looking at the gases and the the small components they've they they were able to show that oh In the stuff coming from inside a cell Enceladus was simple organic molecules They were minerals molecular hydrogen and so that there's chemical energy that's in there somewhere and so This could potentially be like what we see in the hydrothermal vents here on earth That maybe the oceans of Enceladus are a life sustaining broth or soup But we really still don't have that evidence But now there's some more evidence publishing in nature this week researchers Have now done further analyses and they've gotten Instead of just looking at the gases and the the water vapor the vapor coming out of these geysers They've actually been able to analyze some of the data from Ice crystals like actual little tiny chunks of ice that have come out and that are able to contain larger amounts of molecules and things and so What they report today is that not just simple organic molecules But Enceladus is ocean and it's definitely from the ocean contains complex organic molecules Not just simple, but complex organic molecules and because of the the the type of molecules that they're seeing they're They're guessing that these are coming from some kind of churning at the at the at the bottom of the ocean that there's some kind of geophysical pressures with the crust Enceladus is crust That are producing these things. So there's probably substantial heat involved and that these compounds are then Moving through the ocean and up to the surface and another aspect to some of these is that they are Probably floating on the surface of the ocean even though they come from the bottom of Enceladus's ocean Floating on the surface and they're hydrophobic Which to me, I mean that's like we're starting hydrophobic. That's you oh cell walls That's kind of important for that kind of thing It's been bilayer. Yeah, it's bilayer. Exactly. Maybe there's a membrane in action kind of there Um The researchers say this is the this is a no zaire Kawaja who's a researcher at the university of heidelberg's institute of geosciences. He told gizmodo This is the first ever detection of such a large and complex organic molecules of such a large and complex organic molecules on an extra terrestrial water world And so these molecules have molecular masses above 200 atomic units Which is 10 times heavier than methane which is substantial In order of magnitude. They have uh aromatic structures. So they're ring shaped Flat molecules. They have potential cross chains of hydrocarbons And but they don't know whether they are biological or non biological in origin and it's yeah Slight it's it's hydrophobic floating on top of the oceans and it comes from within them and what are they? What are they doing? This is exciting news. Let's see hydrophobic complex chains of hydrocarbons Don't tell the oil companies Yeah, at least that yeah, they're like move all the derex to enceladus. Go That's right. Yeah So the potential for life On another planet. I mean we already are planning missions back to enceladus So this gives us even more impetus to do that To get there and to do some measuring and to find out what's going on in the oceans of enceladus. So Some some some decade from now We may have some more results But uh, yeah for now. Oh my goodness. I don't know if it's alive, but maybe maybe Well, wouldn't it be great if we just arrived at the exact moment that life began Then we can watch it happen Yeah, there it is Oh my gosh, you know and just you know coming off of the the the the last story about these just molecular aspects, you know kind of capitulating the process Of life, you know, it's like oh well if they've got these complex organic molecules What are they doing and how are they interacting and Are are they showing even if maybe they're not alive yet? Is it maybe that? that uh That premature stage of life developing out of a chemical world Hmm We need to go there. We need to go there Get us to enceladus Do you have any more stories? I do. Um, I have a great story about a robot bloodhound um not a trusty furry friend for you, but one that could Change the way we do tracking and or search and rescue and or how we are conquered by robots This is from the american chemical society And researchers have developed a modern-day bloodhound that is a robot that can rapidly detect odors from sources on the ground such as footprints Most robots can only detect airborne odors as of yet Or they are pain stakingly slow at performing analyses of things found on the ground But this research was based on odor Sensor techniques called localized surface plasmon resonance lspr That measures changes in light absorption by gold nanoparticles upon exposure to gas So the robot could travel across the surface. There was a tube placed on the ground That suctioned in ogre odors ogres suction odors And the researchers showed that the sensors could accurately detect the location of in this case ethanol odor sources at placed different positions along the robot's path at 10 centimeters a second That's about four inches a second. So that's very quick. So it is kind of like a modern day blood robot bloodhound So this has potential in multi robot communication systems It has potential in security research and rescue lots of other things But this is a robot that could potentially You could you could give it the the sniff of the The shoe that was left behind and they could they could chase after Someone you're looking for That's so cool. The chemical signals. Yeah Sniffing them up Speaking of bloodhounds and dogs The last story I brought to now tonight is about the mexican gray wolf, which We were joking about shorts earlier We did do a short at the sarasco zoo about the mexican gray wolf exhibit that Anyone can go to twist that organ watch that has a lot of the long history of the mexican gray wolf conservation In it, so I won't bore you with all of it right now But suffice it to say it is the most endangered canine species in all of the americas and It at one point had only seven individuals So They have been trying to do a captive breeding program since the 1970s. This is the mexican gray wolf canis lupus bailey eye And from that they have grown the population to close to 300. I think at this point There's about 200 captivity in about 100 in the wild if memory serves But the question in this story from Duke university is Are we breeding an actual species? because Since they went down to only about seven individuals and they were found in Mexico Arizona And new mexico and not a huge area but an area where actually there's quite a few stray dogs Do we have a hybrid species on our hand in which case is it going to continually be protected by the endangered species act? Will we be able to do a proper genetic variation of? Breeding in order to keep this population alive There's lots of questions from that initial question. Is this a distinct species or has it been contaminated with? Canis familiaris dna, right? And did they test it? They sure did they genotyped 87 mexican gray wolves Previously they had done it on 10 wolves Many years ago when the population was much smaller, but now they have a large enough size that they can really do a proper genetic test so 87 wolves They found them from a broad spectrum of pedigrees So they feel like it was a good representation from all three original captive lineages And they also mixed with lineages of wolves born in the wild since release They use genome edit enabling which allows researchers to use genomic data from one species like dogs to study similar species So they were looking at domestic dog data And they looked at average ancestry across the genome They found that mexican wolves share an average of 0.06 percent ancestry with domestic dogs, which And first glance indicates a lack of biologically significant Antrusty ancestry from donas domestic dogs. So it looks good so far So it sounds like they became isolated a long time ago and they've stayed isolated because 98.9 percent of mexican wolf dna is specific to just mexican wolves But they took it a step further, which is why I found this story so interesting um, they said That they wanted to see if some of the dog's stuff in there They wanted to see if it was artifacts or if it was directly from some recent inbreeding Even if it wasn't only one or two cases. So they did simulations They did computer simulations of what the mexican wolf genome would look like if no hybridization took place If hybridization with domestic dogs occurred two generations ago 20 generations ago or 200 generations ago And when they matched that against what they found in the 87 samples that they collected They found that the mexican gray wolf data matched the predictive model for No hybridization So they now know With pretty good certainty that the mexican gray wolf is a distinct subspecies And the good thing is there's actual implications from that guaranteed funding and protection Continued success in their breeding programs. There's all sorts of things that come from just being sure that you're not dealing with dog contaminated lineage So The biological stuff so it's really cool We we now know for sure that this species that we brought back from the bring of extinction Never mind that we put it there But we brought it back from the bring of extinction only seven individuals at one point And we are continuing to see a pretty healthy genetic population We know not to mix in dog DNA because we haven't done it before And we're going to continue on with the with the processes we've had and hopefully we'll see this species make a full recovery Who knows? Which would be fantastic. But again, this gets at that question of you know, okay What is a species because this is a this is a subspecies subspecies. Yes, right? So it's you know, it's got its own quirks genetically But it is related to that to the general gray work gray wolf, right? Yes genome And then we know dogs come from wolves. So, you know, it It's all blended at some point and the and we've talked you've talked specifically before about I mean, it's great to save species But what about Ecosystems what about, you know, not just one species What about all what about the habitat? Right? Absolutely. So unfortunately the way This land of ours government works Species become protected more often than spaces but if you can Currently in the framework we have if you can protect Enough species native to an area They that area will find protection and other species in that area will benefit from it Which we've reported on the show as well But in the case of the mexican gray wolf It's kind of worked the other way, which is why the mexican gray wolf's story has been so successful Is they have they started when they first pulled the seven individuals They started establishing wild lands for rehearing introduction later Which is why this has had such success to this point Is that they have been releasing these animals into spaces that have already been established as wild spaces and protected spaces so In this case because it's also in an area where there are wild spaces for them to go That that's actually been really successful But um, it's it's a really good question to ask if we're going to save a species Is it truly a species is it savable and is there space for it to go? Right, so Food for thought This food for thought, but can't we all just get along can't we just protect everything can't we sustain our environment and this planet that we live on and the wonderful abundance of all the different varieties of life that are extent upon it Yes, but you have to give up So I know Compromises compromises like in canada some Canadian festival goers are not able to go to a blues fest music festival because of one little kill deer That's right in canada, uh, the kill deer is on the list of protected species and there is one mother and she has four eggs that were Uh discovered on one of the festivals That was that were discovered while they were setting up one of the festivals main stages So no festival because of one bird Oh Blues fest lovers. I feel like that gives environmentalism a bad name sometimes stuff like that Yeah You know you gotta the law is the law people Um, I had another uh another robot related story you had your robot bloodhound. Well, I've got a beaver bot It's not really a beaver. It's not really a beaver bot, but this, uh robot is an autonomous robot it's been Developed by an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the university of buffalo school of engineering and applied sciences nils nap He says when a beaver builds a dam, it's not following a blueprint instead. It's reacting to moving water That's trying to stop the water from flowing We're developing a system for autonomous robots to behave similarly the robot continuously monitors and modifies its terrain To make it more mobile and what they are presenting is this robot who can kind of hang out in You know any Any terrain and use aspects of the terrain to be able to navigate that terrain more efficiently and the the robot in in question here is Is capable of picking up in their test situation picking up bean bags and moving them around its environment to create uh create a A platform or a ramp that allows the robot to move around and so Uh, whereas it might be difficult in say a disaster situation where there where there's a landslide or whether there's been an earthquake or Something where uh, there's rubble strewn around this robot could then take Objects in the environment to create something more suitable for it to navigate to be able to Drive around on all by itself Uh, wow Yeah Doesn't look like a beaver. It looks like a little you know a little remote control car, but it's not remote control It does this by itself I feel like they need to put a flat tail on the back of it yeah They could they could put a little flat tail like a little beaver tail on the back of it. Yeah, and then it would really be a beaver bot Yes Which uh, yeah, I love it robots. They're gonna be helping us out taking over our environment building dams. No not build Maybe building dams. I don't know We'll see. Um, and then another uh, I'm getting into my last minute kind of quick stories here researchers at mit Have been working with um a company in a group in india to create a new prosthetic Foot and so uh this in 2012 there's a a researcher named What is his the amos winter? He is an associate associate professor of mechanical engineering at mit He was approached by a group called jiper foot and they are a manufacturer of artificial limbs in india they have a passive prosthetic foot that is Aimed toward amputees in developing countries Um, and so it had this is something they're trying to make low cost and turn out lots and lots and lots of them However, they are right now. These prostheses are not low cost and these individuals so far Winter says of the design they had previously says they've been making this foot for over 40 years It's rugged. So farmers can use it barefoot outdoors. It's relatively lifelike So if people go in a mosque and want to pray barefoot They're likely not to be stigmatized, but it's quite heavy and the internal structure is made all by hand Which creates a big variation in product quality And so the researchers Trying to figure out if they could make a better lighter easier to produce Foot that would allow natural movement. And so they started looking at how they could design this thing and design it What they need to do is not necessarily design the foot movement itself, but how the lower They wanted to Create the most effective lower leg swing because it's really that swing of the lower leg If you've got a prosthetic device that's from the knee down It's the swing of the leg that really affects the gait and the the walking ability And so they've come up with what is now a very A very Low-cost easy to produce device that allows a fairly A fairly regular walking gait and People are able to walk Very easily wearing it and the kicker to this is that it can you know, this can be mass produced and Where the prosthetics from at one point were you know, a thousand to ten thousand dollars to produce The ones that they are going to be mass producing would be You know under a hundred dollars. These would be minimal minimal cost That's great. I mean, they're not even really limping in the video No, yeah, there's a video of a gentleman walking with the wearing this prosthesis and He's got a very natural gait and he seems to be very happy with the flow of of his movement Yeah, wow, what a relief Yeah, and and this is you know, extremely exciting because of The potential effect for you know developing countries You know, not just here in the first world in the united states in europe, whatever But in developing countries to enable people to continue their livelihoods Um with more ease. It's a you know, so this is a this is a pretty cool development They could have a very huge impact and they used some They used some very uh Okay, so I said it under a hundred dollars, but it would be just a few hundred dollars So instead of a thousand to ten thousand dollars, it would be a few hundred dollars I just want to make sure I'm accurate on what I'm reporting there Well in the more made if there's mass production involved that would drive down cost also Yep Very nice, right very exciting Yeah, um, I had a story for uh, justin, but he's not here He used to get very excited about Hayabusa the japanese spacecraft that was going to go on a return mission to an asteroid Well, japan has sent out Hayabusa two Hayabusa two and Hayabusa two is in orbit. It has inserted into orbit Around another asteroid. This is a second craft around a different asteroid and this asteroid looks kind of like a cube or a dice and There is going to be I'm sure a lot of information coming from this asteroid after Hayabusa lands on it and Sticks it and gets a sample and then flies back home to return a sample from an asteroid to our planet Learning more about the asteroids in our solar system. Japanese the japanese are on the forefront of this very cool Very neat. It is oddly Cube shaped Yeah It looks a little dusty and it's got you know kind of rocky Rocky service, but yeah, it is quite cube shaped. Yeah, what forces would lead to a cubist? Cubist asteroid I have no idea we'll have to find out. Yeah, maybe it'll tell us Maybe we will find out something soon. Yes Oh and also big news of today or this week the james webspace telescope has been delayed again So now it's not going to be launching until march of 2021 It was looking at a 2020 launch Originally, it was this year and then 2019 and 2020 and 2021 We're okay and because the james web space telescope isn't going to be launched and it isn't ready to go There's considering cutting back on the successor The program for the successor to the james webspace telescope the w first Uh space telescope, which they're already starting planning on They're talking about cutting funding to that one and I mean it's like if you don't have the web out Why are we talking about it successor? Yeah, that's a good point But also for the amount of money these things cost billions do it right the first time Billions. Yeah, no, I mean wait and do it right Yeah, and part of the problem with the james web is it's going, you know, you're going to launch it out to the space There's space in space a dwell point where it's going very far from the earth It has to be in a very cold location For its infrared viewing of the universe and it's going to go out there and it's going to deploy and if anything goes wrong There's no international space station to go and fix it. There's you know the mission to go and fix it is going Going it's not going to happen So you don't want to send something out there after spending years and years and billions of dollars to just be space junk And so they have to get it right They got it just at this point. We've gone so far. We need to just do it. Just just Can I have my james web space telescope already? Please come on? I want some pretty pictures from outer space Oh, you'll get your pretty pictures You'll get your pretty pictures my pretty. Yeah Is that it? I think we did it Do it? Yay We have done it. Thank you everyone For joining us once again for this episode of this week in science Wonderful to have you here with us. Thanks to everyone in our chat room who are watching live on twist.org slash live Everyone watching live over on youtube And and other places. Thank you for joining us this evening and for those of you who are out there listening wherever you are Watching wherever you are. Thank you for sharing Us with your life bringing us into your life. I'd like to thank fada for helping out with show notes and also with Social media posts. 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It says the scientist is in i'm gonna sell my advice Show them how to stop the robots with a simple device I'll reverse global warming with a wave of my hand And all it'll cost you is a couple of grand Science is coming your way So everybody listen to what I say I use the scientific method for all that it's worth and i'll broadcast my opinion all over the earth Because it's this week in science This week in science science science this week in science This week in science science science i've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news That's what I say may not represent your views, but i've done the calculations and i've got a plan If you listen to the science, you may just get understand But we're not trying to threaten your philosophy. We're just trying to save the world from And this week in science is coming away So everybody listen to everything we say and if you use our methods better I we may rid the world of toxic plasma got the eye Because it's this week in science This week in science science science this week in science This week in science science science I've got a laundry list of items I want to address From stopping global hunger to dredging Loch Ness I'm trying to promote more rational thought and i'll try to answer any question you've got The help can I ever see the changes I seek when I can only set up shop one hour a week This week in science is coming away You better just listen to what we say and if you learn anything from the words that we said Then please just remember it's all in your head Because it's this week in science This week in science science science this week in science This week in science science science This week in science This week in science This week in science this week in science this week in science As a dr. Kiki sing along video It's the end of the show It's time for us to go Hot rod wants to know if we're having an after show this is the after show For all I know Yeah Interest here funny hot rod Funny hot rod. Yeah twist of july we got to have a twist of july I was trying to talk blare and others into maybe recording an episode earlier in the day But blare has to work. I have to work. He has to work each teenagers It's less than my usual 12, but eight of them are still coming because Because animals still live at the zoo even though it's a national holiday Yeah, and people come to the zoo even more on national holidays You see but also I think a lot of teenagers parents want them to go to the zoo So that their parents can have an adult barbecue without them That's my guess They're like, oh, sweetie. You have to work. Oh You just go to work. I'm just gonna have to have aunt margaret over without you know You won't be able to to hang out with us. What a shame Bye gerald sorrells. Who else was there stars nova science and astronomy? We've got Blue streak science we've got Carrie rootens wants us to have different A different term instead of talking about the primordial soup or broth. He says That that implies somebody's eating it. So can we have a not food related term? Yes, the primordial cesspool. Is that better? There we go. The primordial is The primordial U-bend Yeah I'm tired of my head hurts. Why does my head hurt? I just started everything like halfway through the show Sometimes I think that these earbud headphones that they exert a pressure on my ear canals or my On the yeah, and just push it and I don't think they fit my ears very well And then maybe that makes me have a headache. Yeah, that could be it I don't know my headache today. I'm sure is from the change in barometric pressure That's very possible because it was like it's I don't know if you can tell I'm in a sweater today It sounds like summer in san francisco. Yep Indeed and I was in 97 degree weather all weekend. So There you go. Yeah, it's quite the Drastic change. We had a storm come in here today and there was a quite a temperature drop this evening as well Yep Yeah, Ed from Connecticut is going to be ready to take a long nap after the 4th of july feast People have plans for 4th of july. Yeah, noodles says grill and drink Hmm, I'll be chilling with some guinea pigs. You're gonna be you're gonna have the guinea pigs um Yeah, we were invited to somebody's 4th of july party I'm gonna go do fireworks in a parking lot Yeah Barbecue and set off fireworks in a parking lot. That sounds like the essential quintessential Mm-hmm 4th of july experience Um, I'll I think I'll have front row seats to all of the fireworks in the city because of that. That's cool. You know, that's right. Yeah That's right the tree house That's Yeah, they're in barcelona right now um but Here in portland and this is something for an identity for you're in seattle, which is like another Three hours north of three four hours north of us here I am amazed at how late fireworks have to start, you know, you can't really have the fireworks until it gets dark 4th of july is very shortly Past the summer solstice. So we're still dealing with nights in which it doesn't get dark until 9 30 10 o'clock at night So you can't start the fireworks until like 9 30 10 o'clock at night It's so late And I want to go see the fireworks, but then I've got my seven-year-old Who's supposed to go to camp the next day That going and he wouldn't won't be in bed until like 11 o'clock. Maybe I mean that's Living in a northern place. Yes going to work the next day exactly like I don't I think we should have the fourth and fifth of july Or just the fifth because people do stuff at night, right? Right or yeah exactly just the fifth so you could get off work go to fireworks and a barbecue And then take the next day off because it's All right, it's like, yeah, I got a holiday, but it made me stay up late and then I'm tired the next day Then what? Yeah, it should be like new year's day, right? Like everyone goes out on new year's eve And then you have new year's day off right Exactly like I don't get new year's eve, but I do get new year's day off new year's day Because I don't care about new year's eve until the nighttime. Yeah And then the day the next day. Yeah, I was up until one in the morning. It's time to go to bed. I'm tired what Yeah, I'm I'm you know, I'm making myself sound a little bit Yeah, I was up till 12 o' eight last night. I'm tired So tired. Oh my goodness. Yes Yeah, yeah identity four says it's gonna be rough for people who have to go to work the next day It will be well everyone out there Oh, and you think identity four has to work On 4th of July. Yeah Hmm We could work we could work we could do a show I could send my family off to Launch fireworks things in a parking lot No Enjoy your independence while you have it Independent day we're gonna do it. Yeah, July 1st is Canada Day. That's right. Our northern neighbors are gonna have a A good day July 1st Yeah fun stuff Um But we haven't I have to talk just Justin hasn't responded to the question. So he's probably asleep He's probably asleep So this is something I was going to talk with you both about on the show tonight, but he's not here So I don't know maybe I'll just because Justin's not here this week Maybe I will let him do the show by himself next week. Yeah, just him Just him by himself There will be no music and there will be a very long dialogue about What do you think he'll what do you think he'll rant about? Oh politics probably Politics yes, not science, but politics Politics yes Talk about that woman and the kid Suzako 23. I don't know what you're talking about I don't have a story about any women and children I don't there's Suzako 23 is referring to something of which I do not No Uh identity four you're on a hill so you can watch all the fireworks between home. Oh awesome From your from your window. That's perfect. Yeah, absolutely perfect That sounds lovely That sounds optimal. Yeah, I live in a flat area You need to go somewhere and go up on top of the hill to see the fireworks Yes, and so everyone another reminder dog owners pet owners Keep your animals indoors on the 4th of july and all the days surrounding it because People get fireworks and decide that they're gonna set them off it Do practice for all hours. Yeah, so yeah And uh people with ptsd. Please keep your Therapists phone numbers handy and your anti anxiety medications handy and maybe also stay indoors and uh with Your head under a pillow. You know what they they invented that I kind of want is a weighted blanket It's like a thunder vest for dogs, but for humans And I just love the weight of blankets on me So I'll I'll have a million blankets on my bed just because I really like I really like the feeling And so I saw that I was like, oh That might be perfect for me, but and but really it's for it's for that It's for people who need the extra comfort So Hmm pretty cool You can spend a lot of money on a weighted blanket or you can just put a lot of blankets on top of you. Yeah I guess the benefit of the weighted blanket is that if it's not not as hot, maybe yeah It's not as heavy. It's not as hot exactly. Yeah Yeah, gravity blanket. That's right noodles the gravity blanket. They're expensive There I'm waiting for them to be cheaper. Yeah, my husband wanted to get one and I just looked at him like What yeah, I was like no buy some chain mail. Why don't you? Yeah, we can we can go to the uh hardware store and get or we can go to the garden store get some rocks Yeah, sew them into a blanket for you Yeah, there you go Yeah, yeah How about here's here's a new thing while you're sleeping I will come because I come in from doing this week in science on Wednesday evenings And he's usually already asleep because he's put Kai to bed I'll just come in when I get off the show and just put rocks on him. Yeah, there you go I'll just keep rocks handy and just put rocks on top of him in the middle of the night bags of rocks That's good. Thank you gravity blanket and raise you a bag of rocks or just like sleep directly on top of him Like here's here's my entire body weight. How's that? That's right. I'm comforting aren't I? Yeah You're like you're lovey What's this bony elbow doing here? But you know, you know, if I did that I'd be like Kiki You know and I'd go all hulk on him, you know, oh you'd have to do a running jump to do it Gentle If you're gonna do it, you gotta do it, right? He was like what I was sleeping. Why are you doing this? Oh, it's gonna be awesome little does he know what's in store for him tonight Oh my god, you have to tweet out the results so we know what happened Oh my god, uh, I win yeah hulk kiki always wins You don't need a blanket. I need a blanket. I like blankets. They're fantastic. Um, Is there anything let's see we're getting into july Uh Yeah, so fourth of july was the thing that we that I wanted to talk about I can't Yeah, a twist fireworks. Those would be awesome. I like that idea Twist fireworks, that's right this week in science Fireworks use them safely safety third safety third What's one and two Fun And And then safety Danger excitement adventure. Yeah, I mean now that's how you learn now. We're getting into safety like seven. Oh, no Coming up with too many things. Um, yeah Yeah, I made fireworks once I made um sparklers They worked okay, they weren't great But they worked okay, but I'm probably on a list from the government somewhere because I ordered fireworks making chemicals right Luckily you have many uh many items of proof showing you are a science person I do science That's like What does this person need with five pounds of fertilizer? Oh, they have a gardening block Okay, it's fine Oh, there was something recently Uh, you see davis nitrogen in rocks. There was something recently some big discovery about nitrogen I forget what it is, but anyway speaking of fertilizer It's important. Um Yeah, no, um I'm tired and I have a headache and I don't know why I do and I think I should probably go to bed Even though I had a cup of black tea before the show because I was tired It's a never-ending cycle. Well, I bid you adieu to lay Uh Back in bed with your eyes wide open staring at the ceiling for the next several hours. Do enjoy it I like it. I'd be proven or something Um, you need to all be better when I take these headphones out of my ears. I'd be proven p.m would recommend For headaches because headaches keep me awake sometimes So if I have a really bad headache and all I need to sleep, I will occasionally pop the I've proven p.m. Yep Mama said knock you out Use as directed Everyone I'm gonna knock me out Yes, what did what did identity for post a picture? Oh, that's beautiful mount rainier That's gorgeous But pretty mountain you have a great view identity for No way That's gorgeous. Yeah, probably been in that apartment forever, which means it's normally priced Thanks for sharing that. That's pretty chat room. Yeah, um, yeah Okay, you're welcome for the show tonight everyone out there. Hi chat room. Yeah. Thank you for being here with us and Yeah, time for bed Good night kiki Oh, yeah, say good night kiki Good night kiki say good night Blair. Good night Blair And good night minions minions. Yeah Everyone out there. Good night. Nobody Thanks for watching and uh, enjoy the fourth of july if we do not have a show next week And I hope everyone is well and Good science to you all See you soon