 I forgot to turn my lights on That's what's going on. It's gonna get dark here pretty soon. Oh You've got that's the sun after a light. I always close my blackout curtains before the show because I want to get the lighting right Oh, the lighting is still like next layer of thing I have to do I have to do two things I have to get better lighting and I have to get glasses That I don't have glare So that I want to do the show from a laying down position. What do we think about that? I like a laying down position What if I'm just sideways during this? I think that's just I don't see how that will improve your level of awakening Yeah, Justin tried it once and he ended up sleeping. Yeah Yeah, guys, we're gonna start a show. Yeah, let's start a show. You guys ready to actually start the show We're gonna start the show now in three two This is Twists this week in science episode number 629 recorded on Wednesday, July 26 2017 vaccinate against ignorance I'm dr. Kiki and today on this week in science. We are going to fill your heads with dead brains Neanderthals and Snail smear but first Disclamer disclaimer disclaimer if you lose your keys your phone and your wallet It's probably not your best of days, but you are still you I've wrecked your car your dog might run away and you will still be you You can lose a toe a foot a leg or even legs and still get around without them Missing both of your arms might rank you low on the friends. I will call to help me move list But you are still you Having a spine is simply divine, but it's oak if yours is broke. You are still going to be you your brain. However is different Your brain is where you keep yourself. It's where you live is you and you are it So take good care of yourself by taking good care of your brain There's nothing you can do without your brain and without your brain Without you your brain would have nothing to do unless of course you were to hook it up directly to This week in science coming up next In science Science to Kiki and Blair and a good science to you too Justin Blair and everyone out there Welcome to another episode of this week in science We are back yet again to talk about the last week of it of science all the things that happened in the world And there sure are a lot of them very Sciencey did you guys have a good science week? I did there was lots of good science this week So much always so much to read. I got to I got to drive a Soon-to-be-released full electric car Very blast of a test drive that thing and say what car it was fast Oh, yeah, it's the new Honda Clarity new Honda Clarity Has a lot of get up and go It's a fun car to drive fun Like electric we like electric here. Then it you know, there's a big thing on MPR today OPB here up in Portland talking about is it boy is the combustion engine on its way out and Indeed it may be Just about 30 years later than it should have been Yeah, but you know at least that's where we've gotten. Yeah, absolutely progress is progress It's progress and I'm not going to shoot us in the foot as we keep making that progress I want to just keep us going so that we don't go limp. No limping. It's just in March straight ahead All right, everyone. This is this week in science and on this week's episode Lots of science like I said, we have stories about football and brains aging and brains and alcohol and memory What do you have Justin I Brought the Neanderthals and brains How to talk to yourself We're there your brain how your brain should talk to its self and What is it called that thing that we're all gonna have to do Geo engineering Oh, I hope we don't have to do a lot of that. But yeah, okay All right, and doing it. We're just kind of do it You know, we're like, you know, we're just the the upright version of beavers building our dams Blair what's in the animal corner? Oh Let's see. I brought ants DJ whales Giant invasive snails and Gaping sharks Gaping Gaping, yeah, you know, just picture just picture shark mouth a gape coming toward you Talk about that later Hey, it is shark Yes, good timing. I should talk about cows then Or if you wanted to talk They're not as scary though when I when a cow comes with you with its ma More people die by cow than by shark every year by about tenfold, right? Come you know that if you don't want to celebrate our week, you can always celebrate snark week How do you have that ready to go Blair let's just stick on cow versus shark death Hi, my name is Blair. I work with animals reporting this forever. Come on you guys. I like Villainized animal species and groups in particular sharks are one of them more people die every year by being crushed by vending machines Okay sharks we got lots of things that kill people That aren't sharks. Yeah, but it's time for us to get moving on Let's do What has science done for me lately This week We have a letter from Minion Tracy. Whom may Adams What has science done for me lately science gives me hope for foster children of the future I am a foster parent and I'm constantly looking for ways to help my kids Behavioral science helps but the changes in the brain due to trauma coupled with genetic predisposition for psychological illness and addiction Give some of these kids a tough road, especially without stability I look forward to a future where crisper and individualized medicine can help with the battle And hopefully reduce the kids that end up in the foster system I'm also happy that our understanding of PTSD has increased and hopefully the kids Are less likely to just be labeled as bad kids That's great Thank you, Tracy. That is that's something that I would not have thought of. So this is why I love Getting letters from everybody who listens to this show. It's just wonderful to get new perspectives on the ways that science influences the world and this is one that's uh Very it's going to be influential in Kids lives how they grow up how they're able to survive in our society So tracy, thank you for that and everyone remember that we do need you to write in to let us know what science has done for you lately What does it do for you every day? What does it do leave us a message on our facebook page facebook.com slash this weekend science It's the easiest place to reach me But if you like the emails just email me at kiki finch at gmail.com because my email's still not fixed because I don't know what to do Anyway, we're going to fill this segment of the show with something from our minion community every single week of the year And you are helping us do that. So thank you so much for writing in. Please keep writing Tell us your stories. I love reading them every week. Thank you so much And with that We'll dive into the science for the week. Yeah, it's time for some science news y'all So the big story this week that I that I happened upon There's basically a story of headlines A bunch of headlines saying Football causes brain damage Oh god for brains. Yeah, that checks out Well So I just want to just clarify just a quick clarification there, which is just a the football itself is not response Okay, maybe not the football but the smacking of the head into other people into the ground um impact sports like boxing and football have been known to cause behavioral changes Degeneration into dementia over the lifetime of individuals, but there have been very few studies to date of the brain and late and the most recent study was a wonderful Study of 202 brains from football players who donated their brains to science and so these were individuals who Had pretty much been diagnosed with behavioral issues Tremors dementia Aggression many different kinds of behavioral issues over the course of their careers and the individuals who donated their brains Were from high school level football all the way through professional level football players Um and for international listeners, we're talking about American United States football not soccer Because we had football here and we just of course couldn't adopt the name of this soccer. Anyway The brains that they looked at Everybody wants to say that the behavioral Issues that we're seeing are caused by trauma to the brain And that you can actually see the damage to the brain. Well, they went in these researchers went in and yes indeed They looked at these they looked at the brains of in postmortem. So these donated brains And they found that uh a particular They could diagnose Neuropathologically by looking at the extent of damage to the tissue of the brain That individuals had chronic traumatic encephalopathy Cte and this is this chronic traumatic encephalopathy is thought to Underlie a lot of the behavioral issues and so they found Cte in 177 players out of the 202 donated brains so 87 percent Of the brains they came across Had cte had damage that could be identified in that way 99 percent of the brains from the national football league Were diagnosed with the cte A very low percentage In the younger level of players, but they still did find They still did find symptoms in the In the lower levels of play so in Former college players. They found 56 percent of the tissue of the brain tissue had this diagnosis semi professional and Smaller number of brains again 56 percent of those individuals And then they also looked at they wanted to compare across this They did surveys with the family members of and the medical history of the brain the people's Families and the brains that they that they looked at and they found that That there was a high correlation of dementia of Mood and behavioral symptoms of these cognitive symptoms across the board so Basically, there's no smoking gun. We don't have A cause we can't say yes, if you play football, you're going to have brain damage And it's going to affect your brain's ability to function. We can't say that causally, but the correlative evidence is very strong That cte may be reliant related to prior participation in impact sports like football It just seems like Yeah, but that's not science. I know that's not it just it just seems like is where those headlines are coming from Absolutely, and and we want to have a reason we want to say okay They hit their heads a bunch of times that caused damage to the neurons and then it led to this deterioration Yes, and that's what they're looking for often causes problems So so now we have to get real scientific with it and not just to prove that it's an issue But to figure out how to fix it So we have to figure out what exactly the mechanism is where the problem is stemming from and what We can do to prevent it And if there's nothing that we can do to prevent it Maybe there's a larger conversation that will come from this Exactly For science before we can have that conversation I mean, there's a lot that is coming from this already We're doing this stuff before. I mean the helmets are getting better. The the there are Impact meters That are being worked on to be to try and create Meters to let individuals know how hard they hit their head against something like you should be worried Kind of concussion level stuff Well, especially since you don't always know if you're the one who got the concussion How bad it is until several hours to days later Not to mention if your livelihood is based on going back in the game You might just say i'm fine and go back in the game And when it's a professional sport as opposed to high school There's a higher likelihood That professionals when money is on the line that uh, they are going to go back in the game They're going to get a cortisone shot or something and they're going to just get right back out there But directly related to that too. I do want to mention also There There are hold on I'm I'm just going to say there are High school teams out there There are developing brains College, we know that that in college still your brain is developing high school college People under 28 years old their brain is still developing So if we can learn some of the science behind what happens with repeated concussions in a developing brain That is also really important to know Yeah, what were you trying to say? Justin So well for those They have been changing the rules of football football is completely aware of this. Um, they've been They've been changing when it's when you can come into contact with somebody they've been getting they got rid of helmet to helmet It's a penalty. You're not allowed to do it. They've had to retrain how they play defense and if you are Hot having a concussion Um, you're going to be under evaluation. You're not returning to the game. You're not returning next week's game Out for a while whether those measures are enough to save the sport of football or the players Uh, the future will tell but but they are conscientious of it. And you know when we when we say something that like We have the these these correlative statistics, um that and that that's not yet Well the mechanism hasn't been scientifically derived perhaps, but I think a good correlative We're not saying like wow gosh Football players who are happen to be geminized also tend to have concussions. That would be a correlative Because that this is this is more like evidence. This is this is a fact and this is evidence towards what we can Pretty clearly assume is taking place here. Yeah And I think that I think we we we can't drop too thick of a red line between Uh, something that's a strong correlation and evidence of the you know, science being scientific evidence of something I I I think there's there's points at which we can See that we have yes a reason for a greater study, but an immediate reason to Perhaps perhaps, uh, you know make a decision about whether or not Is in full contact football. I I don't think you need to wait for more scientific evidence Right and so far so far and it's because it's not just football It's other impact sports as well that are working on this kind of study, you know The the question still at large are is it symptomatic impacts where you have a definite concussion or asymptomatic impacts over time where there you have impacts, but Not enough to keep you out of the game Are these asymptomatic impacts over time actually are they more cumulative in the damage that they cause over time? this study does very well Provide evidence that cte this chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that involves aggregation of beta amyloid Which are the the proteins that are involved in Alzheimer's development and in And and there and so there's a there's a bunch of stuff here that could lead to Early diagnoses or a particular progression of symptoms that are seen in people over time in addition to helping Give a little bit more a stronger direction to what studies are needed yet because right now what they have Their their sample set was a very selected set these were football players who donated their brains because they thought they had issues and so So it was a very motivated group to that. There's not a very broad general selection of brains that these researchers are are selecting from they're not just Getting brains from people who randomly had you know, maybe they played a little pickup football Or they played a little high school football, but they didn't decide, you know, they have no problems. So they never donated their brain so they're There there's a bunch of stuff in terms of The sample and then for the science of it But then also the direction of things that we can figure out for protecting people that are well and kudos to those people for donating their brains I I'm so happy that they were able to try to make a contribution Yes, such an important thing to do and this is a definite This this is this study is definitely a step in that right direction to making a contribution to helping People play football and have a good time playing it and not just be worried that they're going to be You know have dementia later as a result of playing a game that they love But moving on up To other stories Hey, good job America United States. We're gonna be great again at getting the measles Yeah, make America great at getting the measles people Go on Keep not vaccinating. Just do that. You know why? Because people are gonna get the measles again We eliminated the measles from the united states in 2000 There have been the only measles outbreaks that have shown up in the united states since then have been from travelers coming from other countries And leading to an outbreak. Otherwise measles has been gone in the us but you know, we've got a few people who've been out in public saying vaccines are bad and being Being concerned about the effects of vaccines like the mmr vaccine specifically which for a while was maligned by By people who thought that it caused autism, which there's absolutely no evidence of the mmr vaccine Leads to autism in children. There's no evidence of that whatsoever So there's a new study in jamma the journal Of Jamma I just have called it jamma for so long american medical journal of the american medical association. There we go Jamma pediatrics that suggests that a mere five percent slip in vaccination rates for the mmr vaccine In kids aged two to eleven would triple measles cases in that age group And that would lead to public health care costs Of at least 2.1 million dollars most most measles cases can cost about 20 000 dollars and with uh more Serious cases the based on how long they stay people stay in the hospital ever It can be more expensive than that but they have Used population modeling techniques these researchers out of stanford and the baler college of medicine Kind of look at what's happening because they're in pop in the united states population as a whole and also in pockets Around the united states because what we're seeing Are small pockets of the population in general So small communities of people who are deciding to not vaccinate at higher rates that are becoming more It's it's it's more and more possible that they will succumb to a measles outbreak The authors conclude the results of our study find substantial Public health and economic consequences with even minor reductions in mmr coverage due to vaccine hesitancy And directly confront the notion that measles is no longer a threat in the united states they use a term called vaccine hesitancy which is that the the hesitancy of Individuals to either vaccinate themselves or their children as the result of lies and misinformation that have been spread about the safety of vaccines And also a misunderstanding about the threat of diseases like measles and how that threat can change as the percentage of the population who are unvaccinated increases Even now we have people in our government who are Really there's there's the personal Exemption based on personal belief People can say I don't I don't believe in this. I don't think so And those are on the the personal exemptions around the country are on the rise. There are government officials who 18 states Allow personal belief exemptions um And there are individuals who are currently working to see about getting rid of requirements across across the country for vaccinations So there's Yeah And and they say every one of the researchers says every year an increasing number of states are debating non-medical Exemptions which are a critical driver of vaccination coverage This study quantifies the consequences of a rise in measles cases and state dollars that will be spent if personal belief exemptions That can reduce vaccine coverage coverage are in place Oh Even though people want to have their personal belief exemption. There are some very valid personal health exemptions very valid reasons why some individuals should not get vaccines But there are some things Some things that we should all work together on as a community Yes, so anyway Hey y'all Let's get great at getting the needle measles again or everybody can just start vaccinating Yeah, how about we we recognize that Living in a society there are certain rules And one of them is that we don't try to give deadly diseases to a bunch of other people when there's another option Yep Yep Anyway I'm sure I'm gonna get a lot of emails or comments about this story I'd love to hear them. I'd love to hear your views on this everyone. So Anyway, this is this week in science. It's time for more brain stuff. Justin, what you got? All right, I've got a prop here. You have a prop? You brought props What's up with that? I brought a prop This is a neanderthal skull Whoa It looks it looks just like you So, uh we all know by now that past modern man Mated with neanderthal Uh an indie reproductive rat race that ensued. We modern humans are here Are not at least not entirely here as traces of neanderthal genome are still echoing about in many of us And just what are these echoes up to? The neanderthals were shorter stock here. They had wider noses at least in adaptations to living in older climates They likely had lighter hair colors fair skin than our original ancestors and even freckles They grew to adulthood faster reproduced less lived in smaller groups perfect for nomadic hunters And they had bigger skulls But what of these features are present today? What do some owe to neander ancestry? Researchers at the national institute of mental health have drilled down on one possibility has to do with the parts of our brain That enable us to use tools visualize and locate objects because of all the structural differences between humans and neanderthals None more impactful than that of The brain not so much the size modern humans have human sized brains to fit in human sized skulls But what about the structure of the brain? How might that have differed and how might that be? Influenced so they did some analyses to kind of get at where The differences might be with neanderthals. They had to use morphology Of neanderthal skulls to try to elicit what might be going on on the other side the inside of that skull What what what's going on with the structure of the brains and what they found was cranial vault analysis fossil skulls suggested bridal lobes of neanderthals And in the intrapridal circle region Circle what's a circle region? It's in the sulcus. It's on the side. It's kind of An area that it's like a canyon that goes in. Yeah, it's an infolding sulcus These indicate the neanderthals had perhaps more prominent visual systems than modern humans And said has been proposed that neanderthals depended on visual spatial abilities and toolmaking for survival More so than the social affiliation and group activities that typify the success of modern humans And that neanderthal brains evolved To preferentially support these visu spatial functions says Karen Berman at the national student mental health Now we have direct neuro imaging evidence that such trade-offs may still be operative According to the study The more a person's genome carries genetic vestiges of neanderthal the more certain parts of their brain and skull resemble those of our evolutionary cousins in particular The parts of our brains enable us to use tools visualize locate objects owe some of their lineage To neanderthal derived gene variants that affect Shape of those structures and to the extent that individual harbors the ancient variants Saying that this may include some trade-offs with our social brain Also may hold clues to understand deficits seeing things like schizophrenia and autism related disorders according to researchers Might some of us more than others harbor Neanderthal derived gene variants that may bias our brains toward trading sociability to visual spatial prowess or vice versa they ask Test the possibility Gregory and Berman Measure the impact of neanderthal variants and MRI measures of brain structure and a sample of 221 participants of your John drawn from a genetic study of schizophrenia They created a neander score based on the man of neanderthal derived genes a person had His score measured up well with elements of known neanderthal morphology. So level of gene neander gene The higher likelihood that these people had Little bits of morphology elements of the skull that were in line with neanderthals and Therefore structure I guess underneath they found significant associations with higher neander score and primary visual cortex This MRI evidence points to gene variants shared by modern-day humans and neanderthals that is likely involved in the development of the brain's visual system similarly neanderthal variants impacting development of a particular suspect brain area may help to inform cognitive disability Seem in certain brain disorders say the research so Here they uh, berman and colleagues reported back in 2012 On how genetic variation shapes destruction function of a brain area called the insula in the autism related disorder williams syndrome people with this rare genetic disorder or are overly sociable and yet visually spatially Impaired conspicuously opposite to the hypothesized neanderthal propensities And the more typical and more typical uh cases on autism spectrum mice with such a gene affected by william syndrome is experimentally where that that uh, the gene is Leaded show increased separation anxiety And I guess they say also here last week researchers showed that the same genetic variant Uh, also appeared to explain why dogs are friendlier than wolves So it kind of kind of makes sense that uh, you know, this is a We we know that they had small much smaller social groups, uh, the neanderthals So they probably didn't need as That much brain function for the social But it's interesting that the trade-off could be right there with that increase in their visual ability Now I love the idea of a trade-off. I mean there's always In physiology in biology there is always a trade-off somewhere and that's an interesting It's an interesting correlate that they traded their social ability for greater visual acuity And that may you know and now that's potentially the genetic remnants of that are possibly Uh causing Some of the disorders that we the psychological disorders that we see today Or if you if you know somebody who's uh, really good with tools likes working with their hands, but uh, doesn't like people Maybe I maybe got a lot of neanderthal in them Maybe don't call them a neanderthal though. They might not take that super well, especially if they're already not super social Yeah That person is you Own it what haven't worked on your mechanical apparatus Just enjoy the best neanderthal you can be today I Like that I'd like I'd like a picture of a neanderthal skull on a t-shirt that says be the best neanderthal you can be today That would be nice I like that t-shirt. I'd buy that t-shirt for 20 dollars All right, if you just tuned in this is this week in science I justin and blare are here to tell you that it's time for blare's animal corner Hmm I want to tell you about ants and the harsh world they live in uh, recent study from Arizona State University looked at about 300,000 individual ants in a 18 month study And they wanted to figure out how colonies perform in terms of worker loss production and how that affects colony reproduction and they liken an ant colony To the harshest corporation in the world The ant colony maximizes production and growth by investing in lots of low wage employees rather than a few well-paid workers When production needs to be ramped up more workers are brought on like holiday employees at a warehouse And when they're a certain age they are sent out to die working with no further help from corporate This makes a large thriving company. So what did they find in their 18 month study at about 300,000 ants? They were looking at a few different colonies looking at the dynamic of the animals in that colony They found that the proportions of colonies of ants who do certain jobs change throughout the year That's the seasonality they referred to in a way that facilitates the production of new queens and winged males And workers at different times. So they maximize production by changing labor ratios at different times of year And there's no retirement for ants. They don't live very long if they're a forager It's like building a bridge for the japanese army in thailand forager ant turnover is around 1.7 times per month When yeah, that is that's a lot of turnover And when the ants they're when they're sent to the surface to collect food at the very end of their life They're sent up about 18 days before death they The investment that they are then given corresponds to the life they'll have on the surface And the colony doesn't keep investing in them once they start doing their job because they know that they're dying soon So the colony just they go, okay, they're gonna work for them until For us until they die and don't don't look don't look them in the face. It'll only humanize it, right? So they don't waste the young fat ones on this job They stay deep in the nest So more seeds equal more larvae more workers A bigger healthier colony the goal of every colony as we know the same goal of the meaning of life to reproduce so They found that the colonies had a single queen But what differed from each colony dependent on size was the number of fathers Colonies with fewer fathers actually did better than colonies with multiple fathers Why? Because then there was less fighting between males. That's wasted energy You don't want to spend time feeding an animal that's just going to fight with another member of your colony and die Without doing his job. So having less fathers actually means they are well nourished and all of them contribute to the colony so This is interesting. It tells us a lot about ants Also as the ants age and then as they die if they die within the colony They we've talked about this before the show. They'll actually bring the dead out because they don't want it in the colony Two and a half acres of colonies produced in the study enough dead ants To weigh as much as a house cat Or a or a newborn baby Oh joy. Well, I mean, is that like a six pound new mord baby or one of the questions 10 or 11 I would guess eight to 10 because that's most house cats. Yeah eight to 10. Yeah So the we learned a lot about colony Dynamics and we learned that it's it's definitely it's a well oiled machine. They don't want to waste energy on any any individual that is not Maximizing positive impact for the colony. It's kind of like They liken it to a corporation. I liken it more to an organism You're you're putting out Especially if you're think about your body if you are low on resources if you are low on food Your body stops powering things that are non essential so Just like that this colony is only going to put in energy to the areas that are beneficial to the colony It sounds like fascism to me Perhaps It's everybody's it's everybody's analogy, you know, which which one Speaks to you more. I mean coming from physiology. I'm obviously going to relate a colony more to an organism myself as well, but Yeah, but I I can definitely see harsh corporate world of ants I'm sort of seeing it more like Hitler like what I need is more workers All the artists were to leave the colony at once. I wouldn't notice Well, but here's the here's the thing it There they didn't There was no animosity between work between Antimosity Good one, but it's all The the ants just went off and did their job so We know also that ants have an intense chemical signaling system We don't know if the older ants are being bullied to the surface We don't know if they just were sunsetting and so they said, okay, it's my time to go up into the field that really That's the question. I think is what causes them to switch I don't want to get to the point where we're ant thermo performance. Oh boy Ant thermo I can't sit But um, you're pre-morphizing Answering from we're ficing. There we go. Yes, we're more for our sizing. So But uh, yeah, it does sound like a pretty harsh life Well, I mean, I don't know that most insects have anything but a harsh life in comparison to what we Human mammals would call something we'd want to engage in maybe to an insect. It's actually a very pleasurable existence Perhaps well, I'm gonna move from from this invertebrate to another one one That's villainized quite a bit the giant african land snail. Have you ever seen one of these? No, and why is it vilified? Well, so they're enormous. I actually worked with them when I was at the Jerusalem zoo. They're you mean a bunny rabbit The giant Jerusalem snail bunny rabbit I'm talking about a snail the size of the palm of my hand These things are native to east africa coastal east africa But they are invasive they're found across asia The pacific and the americas almost all tropical malans and islands except for australia for once australia does not have this invasive species Also france, but that's not tropical so The the giant african land snail is villainized because It's an invasive and any listener to the show is used to me Rambling on about how invasive species are usually bad news take an animal not from a place stick it there Shocking it doesn't go like you'd expect well These I believe are especially thought to be a nuisance because they're not cute They're out in the open. They're enormous And some people don't like them they're they're slimy and snails in general Are considered to be past because they eat crops But and I'm just need to oh my gosh as I brought up the images available for this But Wow, I told you this side of my palm There we go just some of them are bigger So some of them look like bunny rabbits sometimes Yes, absolutely. Oh my goodness these snails Can eat hundreds of plant species including vegetable crops And including plaster and stucco And have been described as a major threat to agriculture So this recent study published in australicology Tested these assumptions that they would be pests that they would be problem some that they would be a huge negative impact on agriculture And they watched african land snails in native rainforests on christmas island They watched them and saw what they like to eat So first of all, uh They don't eat as much as we expected They eat leaf litter And they don't eat very much of it They saw almost no impact on seedling survival The snails were almost never seen eating live foliage And in a lab trial they attempted to feed the snails an exclusive diet of fresh leaves But the snails died en masse Yes Oh no So this is a uh, this is a recycler They almost couldn't distinguish between leaf litter removal by the snails Compared to natural decomposition They eat leaf litter but not a lot of it It is possible that there are other problems For example in florida, they're known to carry parasites that could be a risk to human health But for what they investigated they did not see Any sort of disturbance from these giant snails As they expected on plants So what I'll say is Yeah, I will still stand up and say Intentionally releasing exotic species is never a good idea However, it is nice to see researchers doing actual Real observation and research to see exactly what invasive species are likely to do in a new space And we found out it's not a threat to agriculture. It's not a threat to to To foliage so now we can focus on this parasite issue We can focus on if it has an impact on other parts of the habitat Yeah, and a big question that we've come up against Previously when talking about invasive species is the question of if there's no other animal in the niche that the Invasive species is coming species is coming to fill Is it really a problem or is it actually filling an empty hole in the ecosystem and and thereby Supporting the ecosystem the eco web Yeah Sometimes and sometimes it happens it occasionally has so it's just it's nice to check it out So we now know it's not the foliage the foliage is not the issue with these guys So let's move on. Let's see If their slime trails are causing problems if they are being eaten by animals that are then getting sick If they have parasites, these are the questions now to ask. I think they become a great food source These that allows another species to flourish Right, especially if it's species in trouble because their food source has disappeared to this point This could be helpful. So that's a good thing to know But we don't know that right I want to I want to end the corner on a really fun story Really quick story about humpback whales. They are it turns out the dj's of the deep ocean Whales they have their lovely songs that we talk about all the time A recent study from University of st. Andrews, scotland focused on whale songs in the process of changing from one type to another So they actually learned their songs through Social learning So this isn't a genetically derived trait that a whale sings a particular song they learn it from each other Which also means their song repertoire Grows and changes as they grow and meet new whales and they found that when They were changing from one song to another Those songs in this intermediate stage had some of the old song and some of the new song When they were looking at these Or I like to think of it as a mash-up We when they looked at the hybrid songs They the way it works the themes of the songs older new were intact And the whales learn songs theme by theme Like we learn verses of human song. What's more They switched from one song to another When the themes were most similar. So it's like when a dj Changes one song into the next song at a point where the beats are most similar Wow Yes That's wild That's cool. They're beat matching. Yes humpback whales are the dj's of honey humpback whales beat matching Beat matching indeed oceanic dj's I love it I wish I had some examples to show or to tell But we'll have to take your word on it. Yes about the magic of their songs Yes, or you know, one of our listeners could just become a whale biologist and go find out more and then you know just appear on our show That's right nudge nudge Nudge nudge or yeah, maybe we can get uh one of the researchers of these humpback whales to Come on our show. Uh-huh can bring some whale song for us and spin some mad humpback whale beats That's right dj humpback in the house with All right And on that musical note We are going to take a quick break and we'll be back in just a few moments with more this weekend science stay tuned We have more brains. I got some liquor and some memories for you There's a lot more coming Hey everyone, thanks so much for listening to us again Love having your ear balls Back, I don't know what that sounded like but anyway your eyeballs and your ears back here With us week after week after week and we do appreciate your listening You're watching being a part of the twist community and coming back for more science We like the conversation in our chat room. We like the conversation on the facebook page the conversation on youtube all over the place Conversation, that's what we live for more talking about science We like doing this a lot and we hope that you would like to maybe Put twist in your life even more help us produce the show Maybe that's right. 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Let's grow our community Let's grow the number of people who are talking about science together I think that would be a really wonderful thing and it would help out twist We could not do this without you. We thank you for your support That means you stopped eating all of that sinister food your dinner tastes awful. So it's gotta be good And we're back with more this weekend science We are back just in what you got for us. Oh, what do I have? Okay, uh, let's see. What do I have here? When we talk to ourselves We tend to do so in first person self talk Like why am I so tired or that was Zanya smells yummy. I'm gonna have that Or look at that good-looking person in the mirror. Oh, wait, it's me And while the first person train of thought is a fine way to get through a typical day It may not be the best mode for all situations according to recent research Simple act of silently talking to yourself in the third person During stressful times may help to control emotions better Study led by psychology researchers at michigan state university in the university of michigan indicate That such third person self talk may constitute an effortless form Of self control findings are published online in scientific reports nature journal A nature journal uh say so say a guy named Justin Tree fell in his car and he is not happy about it. His first train of thought might be. Oh, no My car is toast. How will I get through this day? By simply reflecting on his feelings in the third person Justin's car is toast. How will he get through the day? Justin is less emotionally reactive than he would me addresses himself in the first person. My car is toast essentially Quoty voice. So essentially we think referring to yourself in the third person leads people to think about themselves More similar to how they think about others and you can see evidence for this in the brain says jason mozer msu associate professor of psychology That helps people gain a tiny bit of psychological distance from their experiences Which can often be useful for regulating emotions that would normally go with them The study involved two experiments that both significantly reinforced the conclusion One experiment participants viewed neutral and disturbing images and reacted to the images in both the first and third person While their brain activity was monitored by electro encephalograph When reacting to the disturbing photos example given here is a man holding a gun to their head participants emotional brain activity decreased very quickly Within one second when they referred to themselves in the third person Uh researchers also measured participants effort related brain activity and found that using the third person self thinking was no more effortful than using first person self-talk thinking This uh bodes well for using third person self-talk As an on-the-spot strategy for regulating ones emotions as many other forms of emotion regulation require considerable Thought and effort according to the researchers in the other experiment participants reflected on painful experiences from their past Using first and third person language while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging fmri similar to the first study participants displayed Less activity in the brain region that is commonly Implicated and reflecting on painful emotional experiences when using that third person self-talk Suggesting better emotional regulation and again third person self-talk Required no more effort related brain activity Than using first person self-talk to studies point to the simple task as potentially useful as an emotion regulation strategy and they have more study planned in the future No, you have a nice day No, you have a nice day, right? So having a conversation with yourself probably not great But third person speech to help analyze your processes. Maybe not so bad yeah, uh, I can't help but notice though and reflect in reading this that The current president of the united states seems to use that third person self-talk quite a bit And I also think it would be really annoying if people around you were doing it And that would also be make annoying, but I could see but you don't necessarily hear the person doing This self-talk Doing it, but if we start doing this out loud in their head, right think out loud all the time So it could be I am the crazy person in the grocery store muttering to herself as she walks down the aisles pushing the grocery cart Oh, what do you want to eat? I don't know. I put it on my list. Do you put it on the list? I'm gonna get this. Oh my gosh, really? It's like I don't think that's right. I do walk around the office very often going I walked over here for he said what it wasn't to get the stapler Instead what you need to do is Blair walked into this part of the room What could find none Oh my god, I think my co-workers would kill me Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. That would be annoying. However, I What I think we're talking about where it could be useful, of course is if somebody who is prone to having emotional Uh difficulties If they would employ this as a tool, uh, when when facing a crisis or anxiety or a fear or something of that nature Uh, then then that might be something very useful to employ as as a needed strategy Yeah, and and easy to employ you just have to learn to do it to instead of talk to yourself as yourself Talk to yourself from another person's perspective. And I think that's probably it's the that outward It's your brain hearing this outward influence as opposed to just It's own in inward influence possibly having a little bit more influence So Kiki Justin's car. How is Justin gonna get through his day? How is Justin gonna remove this tree from his car? Oh, I know Justin's not going to do that Justin's going to call somebody to remove the tree from his car and hope that it still runs Yeah, Blair's going to wake up with the intention of exercising, but we'll hit snooze several times Ah And we all do this what if you could hit snooze on aging Yes, please, you know, I want to live to be 200 right, well, there's a new study out on the On aging and the brain and a region of the brain That might actually be involved in accelerating aging There are many factors related to aging as as they occur that Eventually, we don't regulate our bodies don't regulate as well anymore Like just over time things don't work as well. There's not as much cellular repair You're maybe not noticing when you're thirsty and so you're not drinking enough water Maybe they're just you're not sleeping right, which then leads to even more Cellular degradation and lack of repair So what could be at the root of all this researchers think the hypothalamus Might be and this is a region of the brain that helps us regulate body temperature bunch of internal conditions like hunger and satiation and And a lot of a lot of things really hypothalamus. It's very very important central region of the brain but there's a new study in Looking at mice And how the hypothalamus may potentially someday If all this works in humans as well as it does in mice This could lead to maybe an easy treatment for aging that could let us live longer and healthier lives so this paper researchers looked at the hypothalamic stem cells and there are not very many regions in the brain that grow birth new stem cells the hippocampus is one and And the hypothalamus is another just it not at a very high rate, but as you as The the adult brain will grow new stem cells But it gets to be less and less as you age And so they looked at the mice and they said has mice get older The number of stem cells in the hypothalamus Plunges goes way way down. And so when they're really old There's no more stem cells. And so they're like, okay stem cells I like these young cell cells. And so maybe they are doing something that keeps the hypothalamus Healthy and young and active. So they started looking into this and they took a it took a drug that would It's an antiviral drug that basically would Kill the stem cells in the hypothalamus. And so when they killed about 70 percent of these stem cells It decreased how long the mice the mice lived by about eight percent And they also and they also had all sorts of kind of behavioral brain problems memory Coordination they didn't have a lot of endurance. They lost their their muscle tone that also started going back going bad And then They wanted to see if they could reverse the deterioration that occurred. And so they injected stem cells into the hypothalamus of these middle-aged animals And so mice that received special stem cells to live in the hypothalamus of this kind of destroyed hip hypothalamus They outlived Other mice that had been injected with a different kind of brain cell They outlived them by like 10 percent. So the stem cells getting put back into the hip hypothalamus affected the mouse lifespan So then they're like, all right The timing of this is all kind of weird You'd think this the stem cells are going to take a period of time To grow into the hypothalamus and really have an effect and this this aging effect They started seeing behavioral improvements pretty quickly. And so they they're like, okay What could be happening with these stem cells? What could the stem cells be doing? or releasing Into the environment of the hypothalamus that could have an effect and they hit on these little molecules called micro RNAs And lots of cells manufacture them They just they they're they're actually inside of lots of cells these little tiny segments of RNA We think they have regulatory purposes, but we're still trying to figure out exactly what they do There's there's so many of them And so they they when the stem cells release them They can be like messages that are being sent from the stem cells to the other cells around them and changing how proteins are released These stem cells from a hypothalamus release lots and lots of micro RNAs So they took stem cells from a hypothalamus isolated the micro RNAs And only injected the micro RNAs into the hypothalamus of the mice And it completely reversed the degradation it extended life or it reduced the rate of aging for these mice so Mice once again, we've cured aging and mice So I need to inject stem cells into my brain. No no no micro RNAs. Oh It's not stem cells. It's micro RNAs, which is a little bit, you know stem cells They can go rogue and there's you know, sometimes like, okay, what are the stem cells going to do once they get in there? So how do I get the micro RNAs? Right? That's what we need. That's what we need to work By simply sending away 20 dollars for dr. Justin's not a real doctor micro RNA pills right micro RNA in every pill But my stomach acid will break it up Justin Yeah, so but then there's another question of you know, what in the first place Causes the the die-off of the stem cells. Why does that even happen in the first place? and so Excuse me. There's a thought that there might be inflammation at play that increase inflammation leads to the reduced birth of the stem cells and the division of the stem cells And activation of the hypothalamus and so one of the researchers involved says That maybe drugs that are focused on on stopping inflammation could maintain the hypothalamus At in a younger state for longer It's a lot. There's a lot in health and inflammation that we've been learning about in the last few years. So It's an interesting little connection Got anything else Justin Oh, is it that time of the show again where I say some words here? We go greenhouse gases are going up not down Oceans are warming and rising ice caps are melting when We done caught a planetary case of climate. Yeah efforts of prevention are far outpaced Uh by efforts to promulgate the problem So what might be needed in turn is a cure But how are we going to cure it is the question Maybe the solution is to do just what got us into this mess in the first place Geo engineering a k a climate engineering and well, this is a controversial issue keep in mind Geo engineering a k a climate engineering is exactly what we have been doing For a hundred years now By pouring greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. We've already engaged in geo engineering Yeah That's whether we intended it or not is completely beside the point. That's What we've been doing a new university washing study looks at the idea of marine cloud brightening is a way to offset some global warming the strategy Would spray salt water into the air to make marine clouds more reflective more incoming Uh to make them reflect more of the incoming solar rays Small-scale tests of marine cloud brightening would also help answer scientific questions about clouds and aerosols according to Atmospheric scientists and a paper published in the journal earth's future The dual goal for the early stage geo engineering tests Would follow the u.s. National Academy of Sciences 2015 recommendation that any test of geo engineering Also yield a scientific benefit so Quoting voice a major unresolved question on climate science is Uh, how much do aerosol particles cool the planet said lead author Rob what university washing professor of atmospheric sciences a controlled test would measure the extent at which we are able able to alter clouds and test an important component of climate models Uh other co-authors are thomas ackerman professor of atmospheric sciences philip rush at the department of energy specific northwest national laboratory and kelly wanzer who was not described In terms of their occupation and the document in front of me the authors are part of a group that is proposing Uh to spray salt water over oceans to cause a small increase in the brightness of marine clouds and boost their capacity to reflect sunlight doing so could be A short-term measure to offset global warming In a possible future emergency situation in the meantime Could also further understanding of our climate system One of the biggest uncertainties Uh in climate models is the clouds which reflect sunlight in unpredictable ways Water droplets can only condense on airborne particles such as smoke salt or human pollution When air contains more particles the same amount of moisture Can form smaller droplets which creates wider brighter more reflective clouds climate scientists believe pollution since the industrial evolution has created brighter clouds that reflect more sunlight That have already been offsetting the warming from greenhouse gases which trap Long wave radiation, but they can't pin down the size of the effect or predict how much It might change in the future. So Testing out marine cloud brightening would actually have some major benefits for addressing both questions wood says We can perturb the clouds in this way and Are the climate models correctly representing the relationship between clouds and aerosols? Well, that's what their test would Yeah, I think uh, you know, it's this in terms of as far as tests go I mean, this is not the same as putting Iron particles or silver particles into this guy at salt water And there's a lot salt water evaporates and there's lots of Vapor and stuff over the oceans already. This would not be a damaging addition to the clouds and then you could experimentally aerosolize the water at particular Try and get particular sizes of particles and try and really experimentally test How the clouds brighten and see if it matches the models And it would just also be really cool Proposal is now waiting on funding several years Researchers have been working with a group of engineers in california's bay area To develop a nozzle that turns salt water into tiny particles that could be sprayed high into the marine cloud layer It's a first in a series of steps needed to implement the roughly three-year plan The researchers proposed to produce a sprayer that's able to eject trillions of aerosol particles per second Uh conduct initial lab tests of that sprayer Do preliminary outdoor tests in coastal air that is fairly flat relatively free of air pollution and prone to marine clouds The proposed site is uh somewhere near monorail bay Are you saying they're trying to make the bay area more foggy? Move to small scale offshore tests if tests are successful People might someday decide whether to use a scaled-up version to create a small increase in the reflection of sunlight over large swaths of the world's oceans Cody voice we're talking about some kind of new world in terms of the ethical issues ackerman said But for climate we're no longer in an era of do no harm We are altering the climate already. It's now a case of the lesser of two evils Ackerman is going to be doing some more talking and researching on this Uh, he's going to be at uh, actually when is that tomorrow? He's going to be in New remain at the first gordon research conference on climate engineering about the proposed uh proposed test Another speaker is the leader of harvard university test of an alternate proposal to spray reflective particles High into the atmosphere. I think that might be the uh the one you were referring to that kiki Yeah, in addition to the paper on the scientific benefits of testing marine cloud brightening Uh group of graduate students and professors published a revision paper on what specific measures might be feasible ethical and scientifically useful for evaluating a cloud brightening test The authors include graduate students and faculty in philosophy atmospheric science and civil engineering who are part of an Interdisciplinary graduate course on geo engineering At the university of Washington. It's apparently I'm going to be first of its kind. So geo engineering That's now a thing you can study. It's becoming a thing. Yeah Also, uh, but the question is you know at the same time that we're talking about this that science fiction is turning into reality This is you know, we need to be always asking our ourselves. Is this something that we should be doing? Is this something that is Appropriate is it going to cause more harm than we currently are causing by the actions that we're already Engaged in and this isn't a blank check to Stop the fight to reduce fossil fuels Right. We still need to cut that out Yeah, we need to cut that out. We also need to do the geo engineering to try and First some of the problems that are because of all the heating and everything that's going to be happening Yes, we need both we need both we have Decades to centuries of heating that are just stored. They're in storage right now. Yeah Yeah So we need to keep adding we need to keep from adding on top of those and kind of Exacerbating it and then we need to figure out how to reverse what we've done Yeah, but I think you know, this uh, this geo engineering has a parallel with biological controls in the biological world Where you know, we talk about introducing species to control Other species in an environment sometimes it works very very well The majority of the time that we implement it. It does not work very well at all and there are unintended consequences That's because we don't entirely understand the systems Right And how all the fact we don't necessarily even know all the factors involved Bring it back around to the giant snail I'm bringing it back around to the giant snail here because this is this is a parallel thing There are systems at play in the planet and if we think there's uncertainty in our climate model Like this is what they're testing for, you know to actually go about Large-scale geo engineering stuff without understanding all the details. I'm like, yeah There's a whole planet here people. So I hopefully are taking ethics classes in their geo engineering course work And there is there This is uh, interesting. You should say so that is a a thing that they're also Discussing is of course, that's why I mentioned there was a philosophy major in there. That's sort of uh Uh, sort of their ass. I think take on it is is what are the ethics involved? Um, This is uh, let's see. There's a Uh, uh, Steffen garden gardener Who's a uw professor? philosophy Wrote a book on ethics of the on the ethics of deliberately tinkering with the planet's atmosphere He believes in interdisciplinary approaches the white way to proceed with geo engineering his quote here There's a science question About can we do it? But there's also an ethical question about should we do it and a policy a policy question about How we would do it actually said I'm an agnostic on this We want to test geo engineering and see if it works, but the whole time we're working on this I think we still need to be asking ourselves Should we do it? And of course again, I'd refer to the beginning of this when I said we're already doing it We've been doing it for a long time um Yeah, we are already doing it. You're sort of like saying You know, I mean at this point when they're talking about something like this so like Do you think do you think we should even look into uh adding? Uh, you know sort of an organic measure To the to this little acre of of the farm, you know, maybe maybe some species Maybe we can build the thing that'll attract bees when the other 3000 acres are being covered in ddt. It's like, yeah, like I'm not really too worried Uh that the geo engineering that's within our grasp right now Is going to have an effect so great that It dwarfs the geo engineering we're already doing Hopefully we can reduce one Perhaps rely on an understanding of and increase the other to just to keep things Nice for humans How yeah, let's keep it nice for humans. How about that? And you know after you've learned this information I mean, maybe you should I mean you can also think about getting a drink Yeah Yeah, oh and then, you know, you might be worried about forgetting some of the things that you've learned You're like, oh, but I learned something new. Maybe I shouldn't have that drink Maybe it'll make me forget because you know alcohol can make you forget things Well In a study out of the University of Exeter 88 social drinkers were giving a word learning task They had to learn a whole bunch of words Then they were split into two groups randomly And one group was told go home Drink as much as you like And the other group was said was told to not drink anything And then they were told all right And then come back tomorrow Okay, I'm sorry. I apologize. I heard that the instructions for the first group. I think you've put me in the wrong group No, no, no, I think I can I'll be really I can do a much better job in the other group I think then then this one Is there a way is there a switch? Can we Yeah So the next day they came back to the lab and they had to do the same word learning task that they had done previously And who do you think remembered more? Well, you said they were given a word the words to remember while they were drinking No, no, no, everyone was Everyone's sober everyone was sober sober. Okay, learn everyone was sober Half of them went home and drank as much as they wanted Half of them didn't get to drink anything. They came back to the lab the next day Took the test again. Who do you think did butter? The folks that got to relax at the end of the day And I hope by relaxing you mean drinking alcohol. No, yes, that's the one that's and that's the results in fact First kids Did they know they were going to get tested the next day? Yes, everyone knew they were going to get tested. So I think Justin's right. They were chilled out. They were like They didn't have interrupted sleep worrying about it. Yeah, nobody had interrupted sleep Being worried about the test the next day for sure Uh, but the interesting result of this is the people who drank the most Did the best Whoo, what the talk about correlation This does so this doesn't have anything to do with drinking Learning this is nothing. This doesn't have anything to do with drinking while learning But Having a drink after learning something It can actually help your retention of the information That you learned so after cramming for midterms if you want a glass of wine before bed Maybe that's not terrible. Maybe it's not a terrible thing if you're over 21 in the united states, right? So since this is So here's the here's the idea since this is pure correlation though It's since this is pure correlation. I should be free to speculate a little maybe maybe part of the reason the folks that were drinking Uh, did better on the test is because they weren't they weren't recreating New memories like pretty time I think it might be that they're being preoccupied with the alcohol the brain was like not absorbing information as well Exactly. Is that really right? That's the idea. Oh my gosh. I mean they don't they don't know this for sure But this is the idea. It's the hippocampus the area of the brain that is involved in Consolidation of memory it takes stuff that's in short-term memory and transfers it into long-term memory that the hippocampus when alcohol is involved It's it's shutting it's kind of shutting off and so the things that you're learning or doing while drinking Are not there it's not it's not interfering because it's just not getting through the hippocampus So all the long-term memory um processes that are in place kind of in the after hippocampal stage That because you already learned the information that's already gotten through the barrier But anything new is just getting shut down by the alcohol So it's like the alcohol is allowing your brain to kind of just focus on what it learned earlier Because there's nothing else to talk about there's nothing else nothing else happened. What a short day it was It's like your brain's in a sensory deprivation chamber Yeah, it's yeah, so the researchers say professor Celia Morgan from the university of Exeter says our research not only showed that those who drank alcohol did better that when repeating the word learning task But that this effect was stronger among those who drank more the causes of this effect are not fully understood But the leading explanation is that alcohol blocks the learning of new information And therefore the brain has more resources available to lay down other recently learned information to long-term memory So so no longer is drinking during this show Uh to be encouraged not that it ever was Maybe after But after yeah save the drinks till uh the after show Well, I do remember all the hard content was studies where replicating the The the atmosphere where you learned the information when you're trying to recall it is also helpful Which is why I'd kind of initially asked right what the what habitat they were in was yeah Learning it, but this is a whole nother side of things. It's very interesting. Yeah, right Some fascinating stuff And then moving into the short stories for the end of the hour Do you think you could recognize if um a panda was in distress? Yes Justin No, even when they're playing they're making like weird screechy sounds if they make any noise If they're just sitting there like a lump, I would have no idea right plus. I'm I'm kind of a ringer I've studied pain scales in animals for many years So there yeah, so you're not the person I want to talk to right What about the sound of a pig do you think you could differentiate a happy pig sound or from a bad pig sound? Yeah, I think I I think I've heard enough pig squawks Squawking talking uh to be able to they're called oinking oinking versus Anyway, I think I think a pig range I could pick up Anyway, vocalization there. So maybe some but maybe not others but anyway in the proceedings of the royal society be researchers have embarked on the study of human recognition of vocal expression of emotion in other animals and In their abstract they say writing over a century ago Darwin hypothesized that vocal expression of emotion Dates back to our earliest terrestrial ancestors if this hypothesis is true We should find cross species acoustic universals in emotional vocalizations. And so basically they played a bunch of non, uh, they they played a bunch of vocalizations from amphibians reptilias, which is birds and reptiles and mammalia. So all vertebrates To people they basically were like here put on these headphones listen to animal sounds And then they had the animal's rate what whether or not the animal What kind of a sound it was if they were in distress or or not? And they found that people are able to identify higher levels of arousal in vocalizations across all species You're saying including amphibians Amphibia amphibia is included fascinating. I would not expect Wow Yes That is a bit strange. They had uh, they had excited giant panda They had uh, let's say humans performed better than expected by chance of the researcher They accurately selected humans acting out emotional distress at 95 percent correct as over humans talking regularly, which you would expect Excited giant panda was at 94 percent, correct The aroused hourglass tree frog was at 90 percent African bush elephant 88 percent american alligator 87 percent black cap chickadee 85 percent the pig 68 percent Which I was surprised at I think I would think people would notice arousal in pigs more commonly The common raven 62 percent and a monkey called the barberry macaque at 60 percent So pigs are interesting because I feel like most of their sounds they sound like they're in pain That's it I it's also because it sounds like that the the worst people did I would would be the ones I would expect them to do better at Yeah, but the main the main result though suggests that humans use multiple acoustic parameters to to sense arousal in vocalizations But that there are fundamental mechanisms in vocal emotional expression That are shared Among vertebrates and so could indicate Commonary early. Yeah common is biologically rooted. Yeah fascinating Isn't that cool? Just because we can tell when other animals are screaming for help This means a big thing for evolutionary understanding of vocalization There we go. There we go Blair tell me about those sharks. It is oh shark snark week. Yes. Um, do you think you'd be able to tell when a shark was about to swallow? I would hope it would just I think I I don't know there there's lots of teeth I would just always assume that they were ready, right bamboo sharks Uh, they were studied to look at how they swallow because They create kind of suction in their mouth to pull food in But sharks are known to not have very complicated chewing or swallowing structures in their mouth For example, you see great white sharks on shark week and things like this Grabbing onto their prey and shaking their head back and forth They're not doing that because they're savage and they're trying to tear apart their food because they're they're so mean They're doing it because they can't chew so that's their way of shaking apart Pieces so that they can then swallow them. Well, so there's a lot that we haven't learned yet about the mechanisms of how They're feeding muscles work and these bamboo sharks studied, uh at brown universe From sorry University of Alaska at Anchorage and University of Illinois They looked at x-ray reconstruction of moving morphology x-rom Looking at CT scans of the skeleton which high speed higher resolution x-ray movies aided by tiny implanted metal markers To look at precise visualizations of how bones and muscles move within animals and people So basically this is a very fancy way of figuring out how the sharks are swallowing what they found was their shoulder girdle Played no role in shark suction feeding or no, they played a big role That's what they expected was that it would play no role But instead what they found was that the they they shrug their shoulders And this creates a suction that pulls the food into their stomach So they pull the shuttle shoulder girdle forward Just a fraction of a second after the mouth close the cartilage Rotated backwards from the head to the tail by about 11 degrees created suction pulled the food in So these researchers never would have expected the shoulders had anything to do with swallowing But it does and the the further hypothesis is that Um the shoulder girdle evolved in sharks and other fish specifically for swallowing We don't yet know because the shoulder girdle appeared Right around the same time as jaws That's fascinating. So potentially the shoulder girdle Which ended up becoming four legs Later wasn't meant for that. It wasn't meant for supporting weight. It was meant for capturing prey. That's why Hold on. Sorry. I did that wrong That's an interesting idea I don't even think I can I can't even copy that Uh, let's see. We'll go we'll go into a little bit of bad news little australia bashing here We have an australia bashed in a long time, but this this one. This is some deserved bashing that's going to happen here the australian government in the name of balancing economic activities with con with conservation Is rolling back marine protected areas that were established five years ago in 2012 We'll be opening more coastal areas to fishing And one area that is going to particularly be impacted is the great barrier reef Oh, come on with the I know right I mean we've talked so much about how the coral and the great barrier reef is being affected by ocean acidification And now they're saying uh, they're changing it so that 76 percent of its area Will become permissive to fishing Which is compared to 46 percent, which is currently allowing fishing Um, although Overall in the great barrier reef commercial activities are going to be reduced and so They're not going to be doing trawling It's not going to be activities that are dragging anything along the bottom of the ocean But there will it will be maybe commercial line fishing fishing commercial line fishing or even tourist Based fishing activities. So if commercial activities are being Uh cut back Yes, slightly not a lot slightly slightly Yeah, it might be it might level out. It might not be worse. It might be thinking. Hey, you keep hearing about the coral reef disappearing Uh, maybe we should just get out there and use them while we've got them Right. That's a that's a great way to live. Um, so with the great barrier reef, there's a couple of things So the first is that we keep saying it's dead, but it's not it's just stressed When a coral bleaches it's because it's stressed out and a lot of the times the coral can come back but it needs to be given the time and the The safe space the safe haven to come back And and if you're just fishing all the fish if you're getting rid of all the fish Then that's not going to help the ecosystem at all the other really big problem with opening Coral areas up to tourism or fishing or anybody going anywhere near them Is that one of the biggest impacts to coral actually believe it or not is Uh sunscreen so yes, uh ocean acidification is a big problem, but another big problem is that Uh, the sunscreen gets into the water Coats the coral and then the photosynthetic algae Doesn't get the UV light that it needs So by using you have to use eco friendly sunscreen. Did you even know that was a thing? I didn't even know that was a thing eco friendly sunscreen when you go visit coral reefs Well, that's good. I just heard about uh, some new I don't know if they're trying to develop it for sunscreen but people were just studying, um DNA films where you could just rub DNA on skin and it blocked uva and uvb and also, uh Increased hydration of the skin because it reduced evaporation of water. This wasn't a dish Wow, but I can only imagine they in the paper they they said oh for wound healing you could put it on wounds and immediately I was like sunscreen I'm just gonna get some DNA sunscreen. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to the beach. Hey, will you throw me that bottle of DNA? Oh Oh my gosh Wow And then uh one one story that wasn't on the rundown, but that I think is going to hold a response from Justin for sure Hey, did you hear this sperm counselor dropping? Uh, that's because of all the all the need for sunscreen Possibly in men from america europe australia and new zealand according to a meta review of many different studies researchers said this week that The sperm count and quality are decreasing in western men And it's decreased from something like uh, it's it's decreased like 50 percent. So it's between 1973 to 2011 But that doesn't mean it's necessarily bad because this is like sperm count going from 99 Million sperm to 43 million sperm Around there and the or 41 million sperm and the the number it it's at now is still within normal the normal range Normal fertility levels the north. Yeah, so the range that it's they're finding the counts at now Still within the normal range. It's still okay, but If rates if the the production rate continues to drop Um, we could we could see some trouble in reproduction Kiki has it finally happened? Have we reached our carrying capacity? It's either carrying capacity or environmental estrogens Or I mean we've been watching reproductive problems occur in frogs We've been watching reproductive problems occur in fish in otters We've been seeing animals around the world They're reproduction affected and we we just sit here and go why we didn't affect us Absolutely Yeah, so, um, maybe I mean, but there's no there's no smoking gun here. So we have no idea why Right sperm count is on the decline It could be diet also. I just want to say if it's Yeah, uh, we don't we don't as a culture eat a whole lot of vegetables I personally the first thing the professor and I uh, is is is it Horrible is that comparing to other societies? Is somebody else's sperm count going up or some other region of the planet or is it just I mean Do they only look at western society because it's Kind of a strange no, they also so they also looked uh, I mean they didn't they didn't look at it specifically They looked at studies that had done research on this between 1973 to 2011 There were many studies that they looked at that. So the the the effect was seen in north american european australian A new new zealanders new zealand males no decline seen in south america asia or africa in the studies But it's very possible that just fewer studies have been done in those regions Yeah, my my own personal my personal sperm count has only increased since 1973 Oh and one thing they did see in uh, in the results were that with um, there was a difference in sperm count With it being higher for men who had who were um, who were reproducers So men who had already been proven breeders when being involved in a study Usually had a higher sperm count than males of unknown status Oh, yeah use it or lose it people come on Yeah, so anyway guys, you're not going to lose your y chromosome, but Maybe we got to figure out what's going on with sperm counts Counts and quality very important Yeah, and I hope everyone out there counts on the quality of this show week after week Because we have come to the end of another show, we're gonna 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To the show with your Mantis Shrimp. Mantis Shrimp. Mantis Shrimp art. Yes. Remember when we talked to the Mantis Shrimp researchers in Baltimore? That was so awesome. It was. I nerded out so hard. And then we have Flamby. We have a Flamby. Flamboy and Cuttlefish. That's right. Good art. Leopard shark. Speaking of shark weight. Licking kid. And we have our pangolin. Love pangolins. And then we have the newest edition, Squirrel. Oh, the Squirrel story that people have been sending around. Geez, is it a rabid squirrel attacking people in a park? Brooklyn. Yeah. And Great Hornbill. Oh, that's cute. Look at that hornbill. That's a great hornbill, Blair. He is a great hornbill. He's mobbled after the great hornbill at the zoo. His name is Hercules. I'm just imagining you with a little art easel sitting outside the animal enclosures. Not quite. Making your art. No, Laura likes sitting at my desk at home at about 10.30 on a Saturday night with a glass of water. Oh, that sounds nice. Yeah. Listening to some music. Nice. I was listening to Tom Waits while I did those. Oh, I like Tom Waits. Good choice. He's my favorite. Good choice. Yeah. So that's calendar art. We're going to be taking pre-orders for our calendar pretty soon. In August, probably, that'll be fun. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. What else is going on? I've organized a bunch of interviews coming up in the next few weeks. I'm going to Oregon for the first time in my life. You'll be coming to Oregon? That's right for the eclipse on the 21st. What are you doing about eyewear? Probably going to get some paper eclipsed glasses for $2. I have some of those on their way. I was trying to decide if I wanted anything more expensive than that. Can I give you a? No, we also have a welding helmet. So we'll have a welding helmet. And we've also got, we'll get the little paper ones. They're fine. Can I give you a free, absolutely free, no-cost thing to look for? A cereal box. What are they? Even better. A tree with a lot of leaves. Yes, that works for partial eclipses. But I want to see the ring. You look up, right. You look up afterwards. That's when you want the direct look. You can, when it's a total, when it's totality, we can take off the glasses and we can look up. And it be inspired by the halo. The darkness and also the halo around. I can't wait for it to get pitch dark in the middle of the day. If you have a tree, if you have a tree though, that's casting a nice shadow and there's light kind of filtering through the leaves. Yeah, you look at that shadow on the ground. And you'll see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of the eclipses coming out. I made a cereal box eclipse viewer last time when it was a partial eclipse in Northern California. That's when I discovered the tree thing. I had all this apparatus stuff and I was like, oh, this is on the ground and it's way cooler. The other thing someone did that was really cool is they used binoculars and they pointed them at the eclipse and then had a piece of paper underneath. I have to look it up. But there was something. You can make a pinhole camera. Yeah, that's what I did. But someone else was using binoculars and a piece of paper. Yes, you can do that because it's like a projector almost. Yeah, it reverses the image. But yeah, yeah, yeah, you can do that. Oh, neat. Have you guys seen the expanse? No. All right, you have homework. What is that? Before August 23rd. OK, what is it? The expanse is only the best sci-fi program on television. Oh no, how many seasons is it? Two, two seasons. OK, I could do that. What's it on? You'll binge watch it. You can get it on Amazon. Great, done. You can get it on Amazon. It's amazing. Is it scary? But if you would rather, no, it's fine. But if you would rather read a book, you can also read some books. I don't have time for books. So it depends on what you have the time for. I figured that you'd have more time to watch the TV show than to read the books. Multitask, do some calendar drawings. Yes. But we are going to be interviewing the authors of the expanse in August, unless something goes awry. That's really exciting. Yes, very excited. I had a moment on Twitter, and I tweeted at one of the writers. And I think it was Ben Rothig, actually. Is he in the chat room right now? No, Ben's not in the room right now. Yeah, he must have left. But I think it was Ben on Twitter who said something like, oh, yeah, you should talk. I was going on about the expanse. And he said, you should talk to the science advisor for the expanse. And then one of the writers piped in and was like, well, that's all me, too. And I was like, oh, OK. And so then I wrote in. Would you like to talk about it? And he said, do you want to come talk about the science? Do you want to come talk with me? That's really exciting. That's awesome. Yeah, so there's this guy, Ty Frank, and Daniel Abraham. Ty Frank and Daniel Abraham. And they both write under the pseudonym James S.A. Corey. And Ty Frank actually started the expanse as the idea for a game. Like, he basically created this universe for a card game. And then they started talking about it and then books. And then now they're doing the best sci-fi television ever. Fascinating. I mean, it's good. And yes, Ed from Connecticut, the reason that we're talking with them is because the science in the expanse is often cited as the most scientifically accurate space show. So hi, Ben, you are here. Oh, there you are. Yeah, I think it was you who said I should talk to the science advisor for the expanse. You started it, Ben. You started it. And now we're going to interview the writers. That's great. Yes, look at us. Yes, look at us. Yeah. Let us go. Yeah, that'll be it. I think it'll be a fun show. It'll be awesome. So now you need to watch television. OK. You have homework. And you have a month to watch television. Great. Yeah, not too much of a push. I would like I would like my co-hosts to be slightly informed. Yes, please. As we come into the interview. Aren't we always? It depends on what you're informed about. Yes, it also depends on if we had noticed there would be an interview or not. And there's other things. So now we have plenty of notice. This is great. Plenty of notice. I did too much working out today. I heard I did a beach cleanup. I didn't do that. I did like 100 push ups. I am I forced all of my team volunteers that we're in today to come help me do the beach cleanup. Hmm. And Ben, you're right. Naren is the show runner, not the science advisor. Thank you for clarifying. Yes, beach cleanup. Did you clean up gross things? Yes, I picked up many diapers. Couple bags of dog poop. Yeah, that's that seems about right. A pair of pants. Did you do you use tongs? Yes, we had grabbers. And wondering where the the robot was to help you with the beach cleanup. Yes. And amongst me and my volunteers, we found seven single shoes. Interesting. My theory is that somebody left their their shoes out and one of the shoes got swept away in the in the in the tide. And then either they just left their other shoe behind because they were like, well, I what's the point of having one shoe? Or it got pulled away into the tide and then washed back up later. I think that could happen. Maybe or they just lost. Yeah, or or they were shoes of drowning victims because. Oh, stop that. Well, that's that's how they although a lot of the times they find those with the foot still in the shoe. Right. As they float because the sneakers float, that's all you'll find is these. They were all like, no, they were all like flip flops and stuff like that. There's just people at the beach who are being complacent, I'm sure. But found a lot of cigarette butts did find one shotgun shell. We got we found half a bully. Apparently. In the second section of kids, not the kids I was out there with. They were out there with the intern. They found a pipe. A particular type of pipe. Oh, yeah. Yeah, some people are just really bad at hanging on to their shoes. Yeah. But then also just a whole lot of just plastic wrappers. Yeah. Some of its people just not throwing away their stuff when they're at the beach. But some of it is just that's where trash goes on the street. Whiskey renegades, making me think it was with a candlestick on the beach with Mr. Shulis. We did we did find a rope that was knotted, that was connected to something under the sand and the kids dug away at it for a while and we couldn't find where it was leading to. And they started talking about it being a hatch. They're like, we're lost right now. Is this going to be a hatch? Are you guys too young to know about lost? Oh, my gosh. So so next time now I have to do this next time I go to the beach to the pole and anchor a rope down there and then fill it in again. Yeah, leave the end of the ropes. That's littering. Don't do that. We're going to be inspiring. No, littering. Don't litter. This room, I get it. That means they were good ideas, but. Just do it in the middle of the street. Like next time somebody's paving something, just. Just like draw a hatch and put a big metal hoop, like a handle onto it. No, guys, no, better yet, better yet, like right after, right if they as like somebody sets concrete. Yeah, take a dog collar and put one end. That's so sad. I don't like that at all. What made me sad? I want to go. I want to go to the doctor. That's a joke. It's just the leash is all it's funny at all concrete. At least you didn't find any potato chip cans. Why is that bad? You're the story. No, my goodness. So there were potato chip cans from Hong Kong. That were not containing potato chips. And they were sent in packages, shipped in packages. You know what they were containing? Some sort of animal, probably. King cobra snakes. Great. Oh, my gosh. No, it's like it's like the can. Yeah, it's like the the can of nuts, like the gag can of nuts and the snake comes out, but it's real. Yes, but it's real. It feels like it was a little hysterical. Oh, really? Really? Hey, why? Why? Yeah, I'm glad nobody got bitten. It would have been a problem because we don't really have King Cobra anti-venom, like waiting around here. Yeah, so this guy, Rodrigo Franco, 34, was smuggling animals into the Los Angeles area. He also had these were two foot long King Cobras. Three albino Chinese soft-shelled turtles. Oh, that's mean. I know they sometimes put parrots in water bottles. Just water bottles. And sometimes they tape animals to people's legs and stuff. And then they get on the airplane. Yeah, this guy had done this before. When you're buying exotic pets, everyone. First of all, you shouldn't do that. First of all, you shouldn't do that. Yeah, first of all, don't. Definitely not. It's a bad idea, Blair. But second of all, if you really want like a chameleon or some sort of non-traditional pet, figure out where it came from and ask for paperwork and like make sure that this animal was born in captivity. It was not smuggled out of the wild from another country. So we don't want to support that. No. Ask yourself, where did the animal come from? How long does it live? What does it eat? How big does it get? These are things to ask. Yes. If you crossed a snake with a robin, what kind of bird would you get? Oh. A swallow. What? Why couldn't the female snake have any babies? Why? Because she'd had a hysterectomy. Oh, boy. Oh, gosh. What does an exhibitionist snake wear to the beach? A python. Where would the song even go? Everything you wear. Yeah. What do you call a snake who works for the government? A civil serpent. Oh, my gosh. I thought you were gonna think you were a Kushner or something. Shhh. Sorry. Oh, my goodness. I thought these jokes are terrible. What do you get when you cross a snake and a pie? A spy. A python. A python. A python. Why don't snakes need to weigh themselves because they have their own scales. What do snakes do after they fight? What? Kiss and make up. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Yikes. Oh, these are funny. I'm not gonna. The Ed in the chat room is. So that's funny. A reptile. Why did the snake's wife file for divorce? A reptile dysfunction. Good one, Ed. That was good. Wow. That was good. Wow. A sheep, a drum, and a snake fall off a cliff. What sound do they make? But I'm, shh. You got it. Oh. But I'm. But I'm, shh. And that's the end of my list of terrible jokes. There are many more. Can we do a quick tech check on that thing we were talking about before the show? Okay. I didn't check with everybody. Okay, so I'm going to show one of our lovely hosts. I'd like to ask everyone in the chat room, who do you see on the screen right now? Who is on the screen for you right now? La, la, la, la. Who is on the screen for you? Right, right to the name of the person. The chat room's not paying attention anymore. Aha, it's me. Okay, it's good. Thank you, Rob, the Invisible. All right, now, who is on the screen for you now? You have a little delay, don't we? Who's picture do you see now? Ah, we got a Justin. There we go. Okay, that worked. Awesome. And who do you see now? Stop talking, Blair. Who's picture do you see now? Shouty. Actually, even with me talking, if you've got it locked on, it should still be her. That's right, yeah. Yeah. Karen. Karen! Karen! Yeah, it works. It works, we don't see it. I see it. You guys don't see it, but the audience sees it. I told you. Ed, get out of here. Yeah, no, Brandon, BR, I know it does. We had a debate about it, though, because I see the change, and I was pretty sure you all saw the change, but then Justin and Blair don't see the change. So the guests in the hangout, the person who runs the hangout sees it, people in the guest do not. Yeah, we just see whoever's talking shows up there. Except for ourselves. I was just reminded, speaking of Karen, has anyone seen Spider-Man Homecoming? I wanna see that. There's definitely a Karen shout out in there. That's awesome. Karen! And it was freaking me out a little bit in the theater. You think somebody watches twists? No. Oh, yeah. I think they're in there for you. Of course they do. Of course they do, why wouldn't they? I had a great... Everyone watches it. I had a great moment. I was interviewing somebody for the Stem Cell podcast, a stem cell scientist, and when we started the interview, he says, before we get started, I just have to let you know, I've been watching your stuff since like 2006. He's like, I've been listening to your stuff. I was with you guys when you were on Twitter. I've been, I've seen twists. I love twists. And I was like, oh, yay! That was awesome. That was pretty cool, like to have a different kind of interaction there. Yeah, well, I was just, I was messaging with someone, an old co-worker right before the show. And she told me that one of her carpool mate loves our show. That's awesome. Yeah. You carpool mate. Yeah. Carpool mate. Yeah, Karen, get out of Spider-Man, Karen. Nobody wants you there. I like finding people in the world who listen to twists or watch us on the intertubes. Very exciting. Very exciting. I know you guys are there in the chat room. I know you are there, and I've met some of you. I know you are there in the YouTubes. Oh, hey, somebody needs to be shut down there. Oh, somebody is being rude. Oh, in YouTube? Yeah. Yeah, somebody just started. I think Fada left the and stopped moderating. Stopped moderating, and so now there's just a bunch of rude comments. Back to the nice side of things. I really like what has science done for you lately because it's, we're already getting a lot of names I haven't seen before. And that's really cool because it definitely shows how much wider our reach is, because a number is one thing, but then to hear from these people, a new person every single week is really cool. It is. I love hearing, and we've started getting more. I'm now scheduled out for until the end of August, until the middle of September with responses from people, which I'm really excited about. And they're all different and they're all individual stories and they're just wonderful. That's great. Very cool. Yeah. It's a good stick. It's a good new, what you call it, part of the show there. Yeah, I like it. Second. Second, that's what I like. Yeah, hey everyone on YouTube, I really like it when you're nice and don't, that's not a place for rudeness in our chat room. Not a place for rudeness. Sorry. Very nice to each other people. Yeah, I like having you all here to join us to talk about science, but I don't appreciate the rubetalk. Sorry, Ethan Murphy, if you do have a real question, you could answer, you could ask your question, but you haven't asked the question. You just keep wanting me to notice you. I did, hello. And no, SEO Chameleon, if a twin has sexual intercourse with a twin, they will not necessarily make a twin. Oh, is that possible? Can they make another version of themself? No, I mean, genetically they're predisposed to having twins, but they won't necessarily have twins. Yeah, and it's not, yeah, it's not. But would the twin look like the parents? Oh my God, would they clone themselves? No, I don't know. Let's put them back together. I'm pretty sure now that's how that works. There are reasons why we don't, we don't suggest first relatives breeding with each other, direct relatives, yeah. Yeah, I know, identity force, not good to notice the rudeness, but yeah, they get rude. They get rude. I don't know why they wanna spend so much time being rude. All right, I am going to, I'm going to leave the YouTube chat because there's just rudeness over there and I have a much nicer chat room over here. Sorry, I didn't like it over here. A live stream on Twitter, yeah, it could be even worse. I've had some pretty crazy moments on Periscope in the past. Yeah, yeah, I've had some interesting comments from people on Periscope. I try to ignore them. I just let them pass. It's like flowing water. That's so interesting. The commentary. But it's not, those people, it's not visible later? I think it might be, yeah. I think the comments are visible when people, but the Periscopes are only available for 24 hours. So I don't know how many people actually go back and watch them. I mean, you can download them and then upload them other places for posterity, but yeah. Mm-hmm. Hot rod, you're like, no, don't do it. Yeah. All right, is it time for Karen to go to bed? Yeah, yes. Is it time for us to go to bed and not? I'm ready for bed. It's, I mean, yeah. When you start looking at the negative comments, it's time to go to bed. I haven't seen them and I just, I don't get it. Yeah, I mean, it would be nice if they weren't, if they weren't there, of course, or it could be shit down there, but whatever, I kind of care also. Like, I don't expect, I don't go into any comments to anything anymore and go, my gosh, this people are not honoring the story that this is under or the, like it's, this is troll chat room America now, or world. This is, trolls all have home on the internet as well as all good things. Just the way it is people, just the way it is. Yeah, word. Yeah, we have a question from the YouTube that is a fair question, but I can't answer it because it's not something that I necessarily know. What's the question? I'll answer it even if I don't know the answer. Yeah, maybe you can. Ethan Murphy, 8272 is saying, I got my girlfriend pregnant and she took a plan B pill and she's still showing positive on the pregnancy test. Why is it doing that? Well, it depends on how long it's been too. Yeah, I don't know how long ago you took the plan B. I would recommend if it's been a while, go back and get a doctor's pregnancy test just to be sure some of these, like, play with me. I don't know, it might be a hormone from the plan B, like progesterone that might still be lingering at high levels, but yeah, I don't know exactly how it works. So I can't specifically answer the question. What? Yeah, okay, third try. Yeah, okay, now you're trolling me. No, plan B doesn't work as a third trimester. So, plan C. Plan C, which is go get the book. It's written by Dr. Spock. This is not the Star Trek character. It's about parenting and how to be a better parent, how to prepare yourself for the trials and tribulations of the rest of your life of being a parent. Good luck! Yeah. Third trimester, oh boy, okay. Good luck, yeah. Planting, you're supposed to take very, very soon. Right away. It doesn't work in the third trimester too late. Anyhow, yeah, I recommend talking to a professional about your concerns. On that note, oh yeah, this is why I love auto-moderating. It's wonderful. Say goodnight, Blair. Goodnight, Blair. Say goodnight, Justin. Goodnight, Justin. Say goodnight, Kiki. Goodnight, Kiki. Thanks everyone for watching. We'll be back again next week. We really appreciate you being here and hope that you'll join us again for the science.