 Do you have a title yeah, I don't see it It's in there, okay, it's in there. Oh, yeah, I see it there I haven't maybe I didn't put it in the right spot that time, but it's in there all the things We're doing it. Oh, we live flying out says we are live. We are here We're here to talk about science Starting in three two This is Twist this week in science episode number 756 recorded on Thursday, January 29th, 2020 What's up with N. Co V? Hey everyone, I'm dr. Kiki and it is time for twist tonight We will fill your head with butterfly wings fly brains and a virus, but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer at the time of this disclaimer The world is reeling from the threat of a glowering Pandemic a new virus the likes of which we've seen before is spreading across the planet like the common cold Scientists are watching closely looking for the source. Is it bats snakes something else? Nations are taking drastic eight actions out of an abundance of precaution recalling citizens from hot spots Airlines are canceling flights Passengers that do fly are being quarantined hand sanitizer sales often go hand-in-hand with such news And this is a great time to be in the face mask business And while the world braces for the worst it is important to note that this is nothing new Mankind has been facing novel threats from our environment since the birth of agriculture and animal domestication Since the beginning of civilization when we first began to live together in large groups We exposed ourselves to an environment our evolutionary biology had not prepared us for ever more so in this age of technology and globalization So while lacking a current specific entry on the subject the words of the standard guide to all knowledge and wisdom do come to mind Don't panic But maybe keep your towel of your mouth for the duration of this week in science coming up next And a good science to you too Justin Blair and everyone out there welcome to another episode of this week in science And yes, I may have said it's Thursday, but it's Wednesday, and it's Thursday somewhere in the world We do know that's true. Oh animals oh Viruses oh people the humanity of it all We're gonna be talking about all that science today I have stories for us to keep us busy about pride prejudice and pheromones The big three I suppose a little Jane Austen for you this evening on twist snakes I did bring snakes this week and flies Because why not What do you have Justin I Have got Corona virus update I've got the honey badger bacteria and Oh, no, we're melting as well as a fun fact about what the most complicated or complex Composer might have been My all right Blair. What is in the animal corner this evening? I have some Fashion forward lizards. I have butterfly wings, and I have very smart wasps Oh Says Yes, it's a very breathy wasp there. I'm feeling very Breathy today. Oh my well. Let's keep breathing because it means you're alive and Let's get into the show But let me take a couple of breaths and tell you that if you are not yet subscribed to this week in science You can be that's right You can go to twist org find links for subscribing on our website Or you can look for this week in science in all the major podcast directories You can also find this week in science on Facebook and YouTube Very easy to look for us. Please subscribe and tell a friend Okay, let's jump in and I think we're gonna start the show with a bit of an update We got some comments on our on our social media this week because of the snake virus story that was discussed last week Oh, but in the beginnings of a viral outbreak things move quickly new data is being assimilated 24 hours a day around the globe by scientists by countries and Things get changed and added up and Justin, what happened to that snake story? It's still live It's still out there. It has What what's basically come about is there have been other other scientists have weighed in who who are doubting the efficacy of the study the reason being just because the the they have found similarities to what they think would have come from a Regionally a bat the original story it says it comes from a bat combines with something else and is likely then in snakes before They're being transmitted to humans. There's other people who are doubting that seeing is how most This virus is really comes from bats the SARS was from bats Even the the MERS that's transmitted by camels started in bats So they're they're saying it's more likely that there's a mammal if it's not directly from bats What they're suggesting to is the way that we could actually determine if it was from snakes would be to see if snakes could Be infected by this virus something that wasn't done At the time of the release last week and for my knowledge still has not been done right the only then what they've what they did is they looked at the genetics of of the virus and that's There were some similarities and some Some markers that suggested snakes and they still like you said they haven't 100% Pinned it on bats yet. There's like a 98% Probability, which is pretty close that it is from bats, but but it's not 100% I mean Yeah, well part and part of it is because it is essentially a novel virus. We haven't seen it before We've come they've been comparing it to what they have seen elsewhere in nature and Locations where this virus has been by similar viruses have been found and yeah heavy hit for bats As well as some unknown Yeah, until they actually find it directly from a source animal It is still To be to be updated Right so source yet to be determined, but we do know that it is Spreading around the globe. So it is something that is like you said novel this 2019 and covee is a coronavirus Coronavirus our viruses are actually very common and in fact people regularly the bad ones like SARS and MERS You know, we don't have the the issue comes that we don't have any Any ability to fight it off. We haven't haven't seen them before so like this new one and covee Our bodies have never seen it. We don't they don't recognize it. And so the immune system is not ready to Fight against it But but it's but it's spreading around the globe and doesn't it with the number of cases are up around 6,000 at this point that have been reported. There are 9,000 respected further cases in China we have Still in the in the tens of cases like up in the 60 70 cases globally But we're seeing human to human trans transmission, which is an issue We still don't know how long the incubation period is. So we do have some estimates So I have some I have some fun numbers here Okay, so at the time of the broadcast there are These are numbers. These are these are fresh off the press. There are 7,783 confirmed cases of infection with 170 deaths now, that's 10 times the number we were talking about a week ago for for both We also know that the awareness and the investigation had just begun at that time So the additional cases these thousands more cases are not necessarily new cases in terms of having Yeah, they're identified. So the incubation time By the CDC is estimating it's a broad range still so it's not totally nailed down But they've got it between two to 14 days So even the reaction now highly successful quarantining getting precautions in place We may still have more many more cases incubating that we haven't caught yet in terms of mortality It's still consistent with what we reported last week about 2% The official estimates are between two and four percent. There is the rate is subject somewhat to Where you happen to be? Yeah, and it which might be health care availability might be a big factor here or being aware that it's that you've got this Okay, so if you look at the those those cases that are outside of China The right is point three percent the fatality rate so point three percent It's kind of in there with a regular flu Yep, so regular flu is considered point one percent in the United States, which has really good health care However, if you're over 65 if you're vulnerable immune system, it goes up to one percent So it can actually be even higher depending on which group you're talking about so individuals diagnosed in in outside of China Point three percent in China, but not in the hot spot. It's one percent still pretty consistent with a regular flu If you take into other factors, it's as high as five point five percent in the city of Wuhan Now this is also where the epicenter the outbreak was The awareness wasn't maybe there at first and you have to wonder is this health care issue Who's getting infected? Is it is it workers at these markets? these are Animal food markets, they're probably not covered by a traditional HMO or Just guessing yeah, so in contrast the last SARS virus had a mortality rate of nine point six percent That's that's pretty decent. All right, that's that's up there According to this is also CDC Oh I know the five cases that are outside the that are in the United States currently there's zero fatalities I want to back up and get that real quick. So last SARS virus mortality rate of nine point six percent to add some more comparables the The Middle East respiratory syndrome That's the MERS that was from bats then went into camels and then went into people who were very close with camels that had a fatality rate of over 34 percent and In H5N1 the bird flu avian flu it was 60 percent Something interesting to keep in mind there in the in the last SARS outbreak There were at nine point six percent mortality rate There were a little over eight thousand people Who were infected by the end of the outbreak by the time we got contained? we're already much higher than this and and Or we're almost going to hit that number. I'm sorry. We're below it. Yeah 7,800 something We're still below it. However There's if you track it it also kind of goes with fatality In the in the MERS it was 2,400 cases at 34 percent fatality rate 60 percent fatality rate and the H5N1 there was only 700 cases of people dying from this disease So so when you look at Why this ticks took off it's because it's probably indistinguishable from the regular flu Absolutely, and that's something That has the same symptoms and that's something that the CDC and the World Health Organization Are recommending is that if you have not yet been vaccinated for the flu It is still flu season if you were to become to get yourself vaccinated It would help to reduce the load on the health care system in terms of recognizing What they're what they're dealing with it just limits the number of questions that have to be asked Yeah, I also heard they're trying to build in a new hospital in Wuhan in 10 days. They are yes You probably don't anything in 10 days How well is it going to? Exactly. Yeah, but it's it's pretty amazing the the response I'm pretty impressed by it the fact that they're they're taught that they are sharing very well They're good responses, but they are hiding some of the political the political aspects that have Caused problems in their sharing of information at the early stages of this outbreak, so That was part of the stars, right? Yeah, like they didn't fully report right away And so it's spread way faster than it should have so they're trying to Cover themselves here. Yeah, and I sure yeah, I think what happened is it it they potentially had a similar start but then then other people stepped in and were able to get the word out so that The international community could actually get a handle on this I mean, I think with all these numbers and the comparisons it is incredibly important to remember to just remember that we're at the very early stages of whatever this is and It could end up being something that is Similar to the flu in terms of severity the flu we had we don't think about it that much You know people who get the flu, you know, you get maybe get vaccinated We have a vaccine for the flu. We don't have a vaccine for this coronavirus yet Although they're working out the genetics and they're gonna try and figure it out It does appear to cause pneumonia and and lead to issues in older people So this is something that whereas other like SARS was hitting young people so people in the in the middle of their life more than older people and Merz with Merz gets anybody and Merz gets anybody. Yeah But the thing is it's we are still collecting data all we this is brand new we know what Coronaviruses are we know what they we know what they look like we know how they're made up There are these things called spike proteins that are on the outside of the capsid of The virus and these spike proteins once you know them and they have the genetic sequence and they've already started They've started Culturing this virus in the lab They're going to be able to determine How to target it which and it's probably gonna happen very quickly This is already a much faster response and they're collecting data and the Epidemiologists are already working on this So much faster than we did for SARS So 20 years ago is a completely different story from today And I think it's very exciting in terms of our ability to catch it and to move quickly I think we are we we are benefiting from that. However, it's still scary and Just know that Don't panic. It's not that Panic I meant to say is that it's scary the the the headlines can be scary Yeah, that's the social media can be scary There are groups online who are telling people to drink bleach if you think that you have Coronavirus do not do that Right. There is a lot of misinformation being handed out as as a part of this and so Really be on the lookout, you know, this is the situation where you have trusted sources that you go to To be able to get this information. I've been going to Johns Hopkins University. It's one of the On the screen right now is a map of the outbreak. This has is data that's being Visualized by a team at John Johns Hopkins University. They also have a daily Email newsletter that's going out updating about various aspects of what's happening. The CDC is also Working on this and then there are several several really good sources online, but they have they have Viral epidemiologists somewhere in their title They've worked on they work with viruses They understand viruses and those are the people that you want to be trusting and talking to yeah So so here's and then I have I have a quick take a take on so we've got the map up there There's gonna be a link to our website on our website with that Maps so so even though you're not panicking but you want to panic a little bit and watch The numbers and the places where it's popping up as this thing continues to grow You can you can go click on that and watch this if you had seen this map though of a regular Virus if I don't know if you can move it over to the United States This is just a couple of little dots there, but if you moved it over to the United States and you were looking at the seasonal flu The entire United States would be dark red With a little bit of pink in Hawaii, but it would be dark red The death count it would be about 35,500 and the total confirmed would be In the tens of millions So so and the and the death rate, so it's This there is I think an overreaction based on how fatal this thing is however this is a fantastic exercise and Containment and analysis and reaction and I'm all for shutting down airports shutting down businesses Everything that they need to do because while this one does not appear to be Extremely lethal. This is the one you want to learn from this is this is the one you want to practice Practice around We can learn from this and get this right this is this greatly reduces What could happen next time which we already kind of ran into with the with the avian flu and the original SARS We've had a couple of really nasty test runs and merges as well but this one is is is the is the best better case scenario for Attempting this on a global scale to attack a virus and look at this too. This is a virus that has circumvented You know smaller viruses this circumvented the globe Yeah, scariest thing on this map though the scary thing isn't the total confirmed It's not the death count if you go up to China you go back to China And on this map and you can see there's China. There's Japan. There's there's even there's South Korea One place that doesn't have any reported cases is Russia Which is a big trading partner which does have lots of interactions Reported is the key word exactly so There one of the the things that I'm seeing from this map is in the quiet areas that you know Have interplay and interconnection with China that are this silent means that Not that they haven't reacted not that they haven't identified or confirmed or aren't having a response But they're not reporting the data So it's these are blind spots that if this wasn't the test run as I'm calling it For for there are really bad pandemic These are blind spots that we need to collect I mean the fact that there's nothing really going on in all of India nothing going on in China These are red flags Yeah, absolutely red flags. I mean we really are only as good as the data that we have Transparency means everything in a situation like this Yeah, but as we have said at this point in time The best thing you can do is whatever is The thing that you normally do to try not to catch a cold to try not to catch a flu Wash your hands, you know avoid touching lots of things when you're in public And if and also avoid touching your face keep your hands away from your face if you can I know this and if you're in an airport children your Purell Bring your yes bring Purell, you know wash your hands use the hand sanitizer. These are tried-and-true Tactics and you know if you are in public and you're going on an airplane and you don't feel comfortable Get a surgical mask and wear a surgical mask. It you know, it might help to stop from the inhaling of any any airborne airborne Viruses or or bacteria for that in short for the most part for the most part my understanding is the the mask Mostly limits your ability to transmit to somebody else mostly but it's your touch It's your it might be airborne, but it's gonna be it's gonna be your fingers mostly that are gonna get you sick Covering your breath might prevent other people when you sneeze if you've got it. Yeah, what is it called the vampire sneeze or call? Oh, yes Put your coffin to your elbow familiar. Yes. Make yourself look like a vampire like Dracula Yeah, these are these are the common things and that's what you can do and you know if you are sick Stay home. Mm-hmm. Don't go on that trip. Yeah, no Maybe don't maybe don't be a part of spreading diseases. Let's yeah, it's hard to do I know That's the thing because if it's a two-week incubation They want you want everybody wearing a mask so they're not transmitting because they don't even know they've got it They're not feeling symptoms. They're feeling sick for weeks Maybe yeah, this is something we still don't know either the The incubation period is it two weeks? Is it five days and two to fourteen is Two days for the two days to fourteen days. Yeah, I'm sure they're not just picking numbers out of a hack I'm sure this is based on you know when somebody was in the area of the epicenter and then when they would got sick and have these Yes, more data. It'll get more accurate seven or something like that. So I feel like yeah, it's not that far off Yep. Yep. Okay. Well, it it's a new thing. It's kind of you know, it's it's interesting to watch You know and see what's happening and the response don't freak out protect yourself and Let's move on to some other stories. There's some real cool science out there. Yeah. Yeah, what do you got Kiki? What do I have I have a story about? Snakes Yes, well, we've talked on the show a lot about I Brought this show this story to the show tonight because of the snake connection to the bats and all that kind of stuff But it has absolutely nothing to do with Coronavirus or anything of the sort we have talked on the show previously about snake venom and how Difficult it is to create anti-venom For snake bites, right? We don't actually have a lot of snake venom with which to Figure out what the anti-venom should be to be able to produce an anti-venom. There are people who's Their job milking snakes. Yep snake venom milkers. That's right Which is exactly what it sounds like you grab a venomous snake and you Make it angry to the point where it it lunges and you have a nice vial with a Kind of like a rubber or latex lid on the top So then they puncture that as if it was skin on an animal and the venom flows through the fangs into the vial So that's somebody's job and then they put the snake back Well, maybe some graduate students have Reduced the need for people to have jobs as snake milkers Possibly we'll see but some researchers from Huberect Institute for Developmental Biology and stem cell research published a paper in cell this this last week about Organoids that they made for snake venom glands They got this idea in their head These graduate students they wondered if they could grow Organoids from other species They had protocols in place to grow organoids brain organoids Other things from human and mice cells, but they hadn't really looked at anything else And so they decided they they got an egg from excuse me Leftovers for my winter cold. Hello. Oh, did we all do I just sneeze too. Do we all have her? We all have it Anyway serious things Kate back to the story The eggs the grad students received the egg of a cape coral cobra And they use the protocols for the mammalian cells to create mini venom glands Mini venom glands. I apologize. Hello Yes, and these mini venom glands produce the same toxins as real snake venom glands And so they got eggs from other species and they grew all sorts of venom glands from other venomous snake species Of course, they had to keep the cell culture a Little bit cooler than mice and human cells because why Blair? Because reptiles are Ectothermic, yes, that's exactly right. They're cold blooded. I did it except their blood's not actually cold It's just the same temperatures it is outside Well, they don't need to be as warm their body temperatures generally Or a little cooler than the more fluid they have a larger range of acceptable temperatures Yes, and so they have created these organoids for snake venom glands and what this Potentially does is not only opens up their ability to be able to study Snake venom, but it the cell biology of the gland itself is going to be easier to understand and if you can create a whole bunch of Snake venom glands in the laboratory. It's gonna make it a lot easier to mass-produce anti-venom So the the really interesting thing about anti-venom too is that there's you can make one and it'll work Okay for several species or subspecies But if you can if you can specialize the anti-venom to the species or more specifically to the subspecies of snake It can act faster and more effectively. You can lose less tissue There's all sorts of things that are better off about it So when I was working at the Jerusalem Zoo, for example, and they had a bunch of venomous snakes there They had a bunch of different subspecies of Palestine vipers and they are some of the most venomous snakes on the planet and They were able to identify these subspecies and have region specific anti-venoms So depending on where specifically you were bit was it in this valley or that Valley? Well, I would receive a different anti-venom because it is so Specific interesting. So This is a situation where if you could without having to milk Every subspecies or geographical variation snake without having to do that by just using the genetics of that animal and being able to make a Species-specific and region-specific anti-venom you could save lives and you could way reduce the The cost and the the effort it takes to do this not to mention The people milking snakes and the snakes being milked probably would be a lot Let's work would be less stressed out in general. It would be good. I think those people wouldn't mind Yeah, they may enjoy doing something else Yeah, I mean I would say a lot of those people have at least had close calls if not ended up in the hospital So it doesn't make the snakes happy either. No, it's not and it's it's important like I'm not I don't I don't want to open up A whole conversation about oh those poor snakes. Yes those poor snakes But just like those poor mice that have helped develop potential cancer cures that we're there's a trade-off here and a little bit of discomfort from these snakes if It can save a bunch of human lives by developing anti-venoms I'm not gonna get your ear. I'm into it I'm into it. You're in because also there's this whole issue with like people hating snakes and snakes having really important ecological roles and Maybe the the hatred and fear will be a little bit less if there's less imminent danger Which you know modern medicine and anti-venoms help with that as well Yeah It's a whole thing. Exactly make them. Yeah, it could be all better So moving on from snakes and venom Venom not poison. Remember venom is injected Poison you drink ingested ingested. Yes Flies their brains they're tiny true and so researchers This is true. Yes, that's the truth. Nobody's gonna argue with you. Yeah, so researchers had at a and at a Research institution called Janelia. This is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia research campus Have published in bio archive their first ever flybrain connectome map now This is a big deal because the last connectome and this what this is is The neurons in the brain and how they connect to each other It's basically a neural network, but it's so small and it's just a little ball of things that it's it's it's not right, so if you were thinking about the human brain, it's like, oh, it's not that ball of Pink Jell-O It's the neurons within it and so fine Scaled and high resolution that you know how all the neurons in it are connecting to each other as well Anyway, we haven't done that with the human brain. We are very very far away from doing that from that with the human brain the last organism that had a connectome map made for it was about 1989 and it was the sea slug very small brain something like seven neurons and Maybe a thousand or so connections Very small map very very small now this Janelia Brain is a hemi brain. It's about one third of the actual size of the The fruit flies brain the Drosophila melanogaster and In it they have mapped 25,000 neurons and About two million connections and They have been able to identify over 4,000 distinct kinds of neurons among those 25,000 now this I think is one of the big Indicators of progress in terms of understanding the brain is this ability to be able to Identify not just oh, there's a bunch of neurons connecting to each other in the brain but What they are what they do what kind of groups of of these He's powerful cells Work together to give us the structures in the brain and allow us to do the behaviors that we do this Hemibrain connectome took 12 years and 40 million dollars to complete And a lot of technology that didn't exist 20 30 years ago. I mean just it wasn't that long maybe 15 years ago my invertebrate biology college professor told me Insect brains, they're pretty simple. They're basically just a ball of nerves It's like a wad like it's very it's simple There's not a whole lot going on in there. It's just a wad of nerves with a very little order and What do you think now Blair? Shock and awe that animal smarter than we thought Like the the the moral of most animal intelligent stories on this show. Oh, they're smarter than we thought Yeah, so it's one of those interesting things like I wonder how much Like that's a pretty amazing map of connectivity there Just takes a lot just to be a fly don't underestimate it But I wonder I wonder how I want now I want to see the comparative like human versus chimp or something along the lines of where Is what is the difference of connectivity in this sentient? hairless ape brain with with with the rest of the brains out there Right. So what kinds of neurons are there? So, you know those four thousand distinct types Out of the twenty five thousand in the fly brain. How many kinds do we have in our brain versus? The primate brain, right? And how do they how do they stack up against each other in different parts of the brain? You know, do you have a higher proportion of one kind of neuron than another in in the human brain versus the primate brain? That is something absolutely we need to know that would tell us a lot about our evolution You know, even starting with the fly brain and this small portion of it This is going to tell a lot about Just the structure that leads to the function of the brain of behavior of the animal and the way that they did it is actually really, you know, it's the The technology is fascinating because okay, it's brain. It's fly brain. It's tiny. They sliced it up into little tiny slices You know, they imagine Right. They did their tissue preparation to get it ready for slicing and staining They stained it so they could see the neurons and then they took pictures of it. Those slices got imaged. Those scans were put in a computer and then this is where the fun part happens. This is where they start adding in Algorithms to Put the puzzle back together because you have the slices through space of the brain and a neuron you can have a dendrite Tip in one part of the brain that leads back to a cell body All the way back in the other end of the brain, right? Through that one neuron that you can follow through several consecutive segments of the brain and To do that, there's actually, you know, you can hand draw it and try and figure out how it all links together, but they have developed Imaging techniques and algorithms that go pixel by pixel to paint it to paint in the neurons and to Determine their three-dimensional structure And so that in itself is really exciting and now that we have these new technologies Perhaps they will help things speed up. And so I couldn't help but think at this 12 year number I was like, oh, that's like how long it took to get the first genetic sequence Right, it was like 12 or 13 years for us to go from the beginning of the human genome Project to the to we have a full complete human genome and then over the the following decade more and more genomes and Sequencing got faster and faster and it's gotten cheaper and cheaper and yeah, we might still try to be trying to figure out what to do with all of that That data and information and what does it mean? But we've gotten faster and better at compiling it And so I can only imagine that this step is going to help other efforts that are taking place Yeah, human human genome project was like 10 years billion dollars It on a nanopore sequencer. I think you can get a human genome and basically Over over 24 hours and few hundred dollars. Yeah Yeah, pretty exciting stuff. So anyway fly brains. They excite me. Whoo. Who knew I Didn't know I would be so excited by a fly brain. I Didn't but anyway there we will put the links to all of this It's bio archive which means it hasn't been peer-reviewed yet, but it is Publicly available. So there's access to all of these things and we will have links on our website twist.org Oh Is it getting to that that time in the show? Blair to the corner time to send Blair to the corner By What you got Blair Well, he was just talking about fly brains. I want to talk about butterfly wings Butterfly wings, what are butterfly wings for? What do you think? Yeah, take a look Butterfly wings they're flying this is a study from Columbia Engineering and Harvard and The Understanding until this new study is that butterfly wings are pretty lifeless membranes They're just appendages that they use to fly But this new study shows that butterfly wings actually have a network of living cells whose function requires a constrained range of temperatures for optimal performance so First of all that it's kind of like a living and moving and breathing in its own way But also that it has very specific these wings have very specific temperature Ranges that they need to be able to make butterflies fly So By carefully removing wings scales They were able to peer into the interior of wings They stained the neurons within the wings and found that butterfly wings are loaded with mechanical and temperature sensors So there is a lot going on through these butterfly wings. Wait, wait, wait. They've got the mechanoreceptors and temperature receptors in their wings correct Sadie's excited by that also well and what a what a wonderful idea for for you've got this You've got these giant sensors out there these panels that can be collecting data and informing the little wad of nerves Really very complex brain as it might be Yeah, absolutely. And so they're calling this the wing heart It beats a few dozen times per minute and it helps facilitate directional flow of insect blood or hemolymph Through a scent pad as they have decided to call it Which is an orgate organ on the wings of some species of butterflies they can actually Look at the butterfly wings now as dynamic living structures. They're not just an inert membrane and This is what really got me Interested is that the new hypothesis now We've only ever looked at butterfly wings as functional things that help them fly and the other thing that they do is help them display specific colors and patterns for Attracting each other or more often either camouflaging or creating scary or or misleading markings to kind of scare away predators The new theory is that patterns on their wings might also Help Them to modulate temperatures in the living parts of their wings So they might have dark or like light parts of their wings like in all of the zebra stripe stories We've talked about how that creates kind of like a convection current or helps heat up or cool down different areas This could actually help with that as well. Oh So this yeah as a whole new thing So you could if you could buy a reverse engineer like where the nerve networks are and what their functions are and see some sort of pattern To the Yeah The answer steady so excited about it, so Bargain over there. So They also the next step they did is they they did infrared hype hyper spectral imaging So that they could look at the temperature Distributions over the butterfly wings which helped them kind of see how these different patterns could relate to that But also see that there is actual flow of temperature across the wings That is not just environmental that it is facilitating this in some way and so They Then took experimental conditions to mimic butterflies natural environments and they looked at Relative contributions of environmental factors to wing temperature Including intensity of sunlight Temperature of their terrestrial environment where the the butterflies are standing or flying over and the coldness of the sky So apparently when they're remaining Dormant just kind of sitting they have the potential for their wings to overheat when they're flying They have the potential for their wings to get too cold and kind of freeze which yeah was kind of the opposite of what I expected If you know be just because the way our muscles work when we're moving around we heat up But that's again because we're more blooded So there's a whole nother thing going on but with these guys because they're flapping through the quote-unquote coldness of the air it it's it way dips there the temperature of the wings so There there's all these different factors going into the temperature of their wings and So the team found that in stimulated and or in the simulated environmental conditions Despite diverse colors and patterns The areas of butterfly wings that have live cells So they have wing veins and scent pads are always cooler than the lifeless regions of the wings So they have radiative cooling So these nanostructures in the wing scales could inspire Radiative cooling materials to help with excessive heat conditions and other things that we do like for example In flying robots, that would be it always comes back It always comes back to flying robots, of course So they found each wing of a butterfly has about a few dozen Mechanical sensors that give real-time feedback to enable complex flying patterns And that also to could help be inspiration for flying robot So basically all of this comes down to how could we make a better flying robot? But also Here's another It's kind of simple invertebrate that we kind of thought we understood they just had this they just had wings They were just like Karatness membranes that they use to to fly but there's so much more going on there, which also by the way I cannot bring up Butterflies and the complexity of their wings Without mentioning the fact that when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly It's basically muck in the chrysalis. It is not very organized I mean more more science that we're getting on this shows that there might be some sort of body Organizations still going on in there, but for the most part this caterpillar liquefies in there There's a very little order and so it The fact that that caterpillar muck Can turn into this It's just so cool. Wait a sec. So do they do not do they not know? How the muck turns into a butterfly not completely no Yeah, it's like a fun thing to investigate because yeah Research going on with it. Yeah, there's gotta be a starting point to get together Get something disorganized. Yeah, I mean there's a starting point to getting it so disorganized And then there's a starting point in getting it reorganized, which is all I think Fascinating yeah, it really is and that's such you know such beauty comes out of it and not only that but Really these functional wings This is their own heartbeat. They do I am I am even more impressed With butterflies and I will I from now on do an even better job of keeping children away from butterfly wings So next I have to tell you I know it's early in 2020 but I'm gonna go ahead and tell you This is my favorite story of 2020 so far. Oh, okay. All right bring it The color of your clothing can impact the behavior of wildlife This is a study from Binghamton University in New York So they were looking at Water annals annulus aquaticus, which is a lizard in Costa Rica they were chosen as a study subject because they have a small range they don't move very far outside of their home range and They are very remote so they haven't seen many if any humans in their lifetimes if you go to Costa Rica and look for water annals So that means that before you go in there if you're doing any experimentation in relation to humans There's you you can have good confidence that these populations were not biased by previous human interaction That's important because the study wanted to see how human clothing could impact wildlife They visited three different river locations wearing one of three different colored shirts orange green or blue The idea was to see how the color that you are wearing could impact how many annals you see and their behavior orange was chosen because The water annul has orange sexual signals. That's their their kind of attention getting color blue was a contrast to orange for those of us with complete color vision, we know that orange and blue are very different and Green Was chosen because the tropical forest is green. So they thought it would be a good camouflage color for the humans. So The idea is do they want to see orange humans wearing orange? Does that make them more comfortable because they're used to that that signal? Do they want to see blue because it's it's unlike an annul and so they're It's very clearly Labeling a human as other or are they more comfortable when they can't see the humans at all perhaps because they're blending in with the environment well So the hypothesis was that colors worn by annuls the orange would be less frightening because it's a familiar cue That was the expectation and in fact that hypothesis proved true researchers with orange shirts reported seeing more annuls per hour and Had a higher annul capture percentage for when they were doing surveys and And despite predicting that the lead researcher was still surprised by the findings she said quote It was still very surprising to see that the color green which camouflaged us while in the forest was less effective than wearing bright orange So this is a good reminder that Animals perceive the world differently than we do or perhaps the same but that ultimately our behavior in animals space Has an impact even if it's Deciding what shirt you're gonna wear that day that could be an impact so this you know not not to have another story that's like throw out all the data, but if you're doing wildlife surveying and you think you have specific ideas of Seasonal habits or anything like that based on your surveys if humans weren't round Maybe your winter coat was distracting and that's why you saw more animals then you know There could be all sorts of stuff related to how we present ourselves in their space that could be a confounding variable. Oh My goodness, this is just human Human-centric, you know, it's I've you have given you've brought me a new perspective that I hadn't considered but it is so true it is Their space, I mean nature is our space too But more often than not if we're just going there to observe to do studies or go hiking, you don't Yeah, animals can see you too And they are going to respond to that in in different ways. Yeah, this is a very interesting Interesting idea that needs a little bit more A little bit more. I'm dubious count me super dubious I mean, I definitely know for example There are animals I have worked with domestic and wild that have responded to me differently when I'm wearing a hat We know this we know that there are visual cues that we you know My dog is is scared of children when but only when they're wearing hoods Which I think is so funny Like it's there's just There's all sorts of weird cues that we give animals that we don't real. I mean this makes nothing but sense to me Animals are not people. They do not see the world the way we do just they're not just like, oh, that's a cool shirt No, it's like. Oh, what is that color? Is that a warning signal? What's happening? So that that I think is really one of the points. Is it a warning signal? Is it something I need to be? Concerned about is it is there danger? So so but this isn't I don't know I'm still gonna remain dubious on this for a bit, but sure, but but it's like for the longest time Bulls and the color red. Oh the color red would get the bull going and then it turned out you could actually flap any type of Around a bull and they'd be like upset by it But that is more for the audience at that point when it when it comes to a full fight or something Yes, when it comes to animal color vision There's still a lot of question marks. Yeah, so this also makes a lot of presumptions about the The vision capabilities or how they're not I know I mean if anything if I were to guess the story of being more I'd make it even more human centric and say at the people the humans who are wearing orange were more tuned to seeing orange in their environment Go the other way I I have a hard time feeling thank you Knowles really cared that much Well, the thing you should do in this case is have the camera trap be different colors Yes, perfect. Yeah, there you go. So take the human element out of the equation there and repeat it over a very Large set so that you didn't just go in and out Yeah, it's this is a preliminary study But it's fun. It looks like It's something that we might need to start considering which has a couple of implications implications awareness for animals Yeah, so one is when you're doing research But the other is if you're an ecotourist if you're going into wild places trying to see animals It might be time for the people in charge of that space to recognize What colors might make it easier for us to see animals, but also what colors might be stressful for the animals to see yeah So I didn't my guest if they're watching this human in an orange shirt. Oh, that's obviously human human Dressed in camouflage might look like a moving bush. That's a freaky thing. I've never seen a bush walk before I'm getting out of here. Like I mean this you have to get inside the head of the anole and try to figure out what they were thinking It's tough. It's tough Amazing amazing eye-opening story for me once again about confounding variables The things that we don't really Consider no when I if I was getting dressed to go do some research. I would not be considering what color I My shirt was in relation to the color signals that my subject species was interested in I Right, you just get dressed I do like Ed's idea though, you know, it should be you know, maybe field research needs to be like naked and afraid Yes, although bug bites. I'm just thinking Costa Rica too much. Yeah, Justin Never mind. The moment passed. I got I just Yeah All right, well, I think it's time for us to take a quick break before we head into the second half of our show We've got more science Justin's got melting things and I've got what do I have I've got oh Jane Austen it's coming up in the second half. What does that have to do with science? You'll have to wait and see this is this week in science. 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Oh, yeah more more more science For you for your ears What do we have for you now we have it this week in Hey twist, that's right. I have a letter from Burt Burt wrote a letter and he said hi dr. Kiki I was just listening to the latest podcast which was very interesting as always. I definitely enjoyed the interview I wonder if you could find an ecologist who could talk about the impact of trump's rollback Of the clean water regulations. I remember what things were like in the 1950s And my parents were involved in the movement that led to the passing of federal regulations protecting wetlands Now we seem to be going back to poisoning them I will work on that Burt. I think that sounds like a really interesting conversation to have here Thank you for that idea. I'll work on that now. I've said it out loud in front of everybody So I'm gonna have to stick to it Then he goes on to say late in the podcast you and Blair talked about whether parents go deaf as they get older I live with a male blue and gold macaw who will be 25 in may He lives in my office and can scream so loud it hurts my ears and can drive me from the room So I also wondered about this Then I learned from a scientist on naked science from the uk that parrots and possibly other birds Actually regenerate the fine hairs in their ears that get damaged by loud noises Research is going forward to determine the exact biological method For this in the hope that someday we will be able to trigger regeneration of human hearing I hope to live to regain the hearing I had when I was a boy all the best Burt Yeah, so that conversation we had Blair about the um About the parrots. It seems like there is some research in that direction. Which is really interesting to hear. Yeah And yeah, they are loud. They are loud and uh that blue and gold macaw you have probably at least another 60 years of that Yeah, yeah, oh my god, maybe 50 50 60 years of that scream. Yeah It's good to have parrot family Yeah Bert have you lined up the the person who who is next in line to receive your parrot? That's what I want to know Yeah, who will be who will be that person? Yeah, whenever you have a parrot you have to think of where that parrot will end up In the future, but I I love the idea. I think Like we talked about I think it would be so interesting to find out. I mean these animals. They're very social They are loud. They live in a loud environment. Why not? What kind of why would they have genet regeneration? I bet they would I feel like we were talking about something along this lens a little while ago about the necessity of having a pretty advanced ear And some some place as noisy as a jungle and so the brain power to pick out specific sounds So regenerative you're on top of that Makes perfect sense. Yeah I want I wait to hear more Bert. Thank you so much for writing in I do appreciate your letter It's just wonderful to hear from you. Anyone who wants to write in please send an email My email is kirsten k i r s t e n at thisweekandscience.com Tell us what you think about stories in the show if they get you thinking about your parrots or Or about any other thing, you know, let us know what you're thinking And I'll see if I can read it in the show and if you do have a what has science done for you lately I will still read that as well. You can also leave us a message on our facebook page But now let's jump back in Justin. You had more science Yeah, I do and it's loading now. So basically We've been uh, we've been talking about Uh, these viruses and how these viruses are are dominating the news with their ability to go viral in a pandemicy way Uh, this is a study out of duke university Researchers that have demonstrated that at least 25 of antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria found in clinical settings Are capable of spreading their resistance directly to other bacteria 25 that's a that's a pretty big number This is building off. Uh, they had done in a laboratory previously I'll just read the quote our previous research showed that antibiotics do not affect the rate In which bacteria spread their resistance directly to their community and laboratory strains of e coli But they went, uh, this is uh, ling chong yu professor of biomedical engineering at duke But we wanted to see if this is also true for clinical strains of pathogens that are actually out there in the world And that's what they found they found uh, this And it's then this is so it's It's not that antibiotic over use isn't a problem. It's that the antibiotics themselves didn't change the transfer rate It doesn't mean that because the antibiotics have been used that there's higher transfer rates of this resistance You get the higher resistant strains are more When you've knocked out everything that isn't resistant and then that's what you end up with Is these ones so it's it's sort of an interesting Take I think that needs to get looked at a little bit more but says as antibiotics Grow scientists are trying to find new antibiotics as well as figure out how to stop resistance from spreading Since most antibiotics are coming from natural sources There will always be a huge reservoir out there in the wild bacteria that are already resistant to whatever we're using As an antimicrobial at any given time And as those wild strains interact with the pathogens Uh, that's when we are likely to see the sharing of of resistance Uh, and and the the problems that we are running into with coming up with antibacterials But if we can learn how this resistance mechanism actually operates We may be able to engineer ways to avoid them in the future But but we do know that I mean an increase in the in the misuse of antibiotics can lead to higher Pop population percentages of Antibiotic resistance within individuals So you an individual that had bacteria in the in bad bacteria you take antibiotics Maybe don't finish taking the entire The entire prescription because I feel better. Why would I feel fine? They hurt my stomach Meanwhile, a few of those bacteria are still alive and they have potentially gained Uh, or they have a mutation or they gain a mutation for resistance Um, and and then it's those bacteria that can go on to spread. So it it's all right. I just want to Make that make it clear that even though the use of antibiotics doesn't affect the way that it's swapped the rate at which these The rate that it's swapped by bacteria It's still how you use antibiotics. That's The source of that antibiotic resistance in the first place Yeah, so it's it's not just that there's an overuse of antibiotics that by itself isn't the whole problem It's that you're correct. It's the misuse. So if you didn't knock it all out if you didn't kill everything Uh, there's there's uh, it's that you still have the rate of Of exchange going on where they can eventually become Resistant and if you didn't kill everything those ones are those pathogens are still in our environment. Yes Yeah, but so that misuse is still important So if somebody tells you to take antibiotics make sure you're taking them for a good reason They say take them for 10 days. Don't stop at nine It's doing it wrong. I don't care if you feel better. It's not how this works people if you have a flu Don't take antibiotics Flu is caused by a virus antibiotics kill bacteria Don't take antibiotics unless you prescribe them and fun fact Uh, there are some bacteria Kill viruses. It's true. Yeah So changes are our friends. Yeah, so you you might you might actually make yourself more susceptible That's possible This is interesting though. It's kind of neat to that this is This is how the bacterial populations kind of work and they're it's the The mechanics of the way they swap genetic material Yeah, and I kind of spared the I spared the analogy that was provided It had to do with baking cookies and and resistance is basically a recipe And as some bacteria share cookies, they also share the recipe without it. It was a it was a silly analogy but the the point of it is that um In understanding how those recipes are Uh are transmitted you may actually be able to create perhaps a synthetic antibiotic or just an antibiotic in a way That's that's already in existence in a way that makes it less transferable with overtime. That's the goal of the next Focus of the research Cool Um other new research, I mean we're I'm going to get away from viruses and microbes But still on the the molecular small scale of things. I'm going to turn to um our carbon emissions It would be really really great if we could reduce our carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Yes We agree. That would be pretty cool. So researchers have been trying to figure out how they can take carbon and um And make it useful somehow so that they can take kind of stuff that would turn into carbon and carbon waste And turn it into something that can be used researchers Developed a new technique called flash graphene flash Uh Anyway, they uh use the universe. That's right And in this process they In 10 milliseconds Flash heat carbon containing materials and by when I say carbon can I mean anything it could be um rubber tires that are carbon-based it could be Food waste it could be I don't know tree stumps. It could be all sorts of things anything that Contains carbon it can be flash heated up to 3,000 kelvin And this isn't about karen's friend kevin. No, this is 3,000 kelvin as in 5,000 degrees fahrenheit And in doing that it uh It breaks up the carbon so that the bonds are broken and then as it cools from that high temperature It recombines Into the form of carbon known as graphene Now making graphene is very difficult and very expensive and we use it for Lots of little tiny uses um currently, but it would be amazing if we could create it in bulk And so this uh these researchers from rice university based on this method They've actually created a company. They have started Started a company so that they can commercialize this process and they're thinking that they can take all sorts of waste materials and um Make bulk graphene. They've shown that they can take even just a very small amount of graphene add it to concrete It makes the concrete stronger And reduces the emissions from the production process significantly So um the idea they say by uh By by doing this, they're trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane that waste food would have emitted in the landfills We're converting those carbons into graphene and adding that graphene to concrete thereby lowering the amount of carbon dioxide generated in the concrete Manufacture, it's a win-win environmental scenario using graphene Nice Yeah, I think it's I think it's a fairly exciting new method. I mean Of course there is going to be I imagine there's a massive amount of energy going into the flash graphing process Yes, where's that coming from? Is that all solar powered? Yeah, so can this be sustainably, renewably uh powered? Powered, where is the energy going to come from to start the process? But if this can also there They are there are comments That this could also be used to to change Coal into graphing so that we can use waste coal Instead of it being burned that it can be turned into graphene also Waste coal? Yeah, I don't know. There's there's there's I have questions about all of the things they're going to be using this for Yeah, but it's it's an interesting idea and they hope to be able to Within a year right now they They aren't making very much of this graphene, but they're hoping to be able to produce a kilogram of graphene a day within two years They've been They've been funded by the department of energy to and here it is Convert us sourced coal into graphene They could provide an outlet for coal in large scale by converting it inexpensively into a much higher value building material Is this because there there are currently Coal mines and so this is a way To keep them functioning without Is that what this is? I don't know. I need to find out more about this part I Yeah, so I I kind of doubt it lair That that's the sole reason that the researchers involved in this project went about tackling this issue No, I'm just making the mention of coal specifically. No, there's lots of other things going on, but yeah But so this is also an interesting thing that I've I've thought of a bunch of times Carbon are there's a great building block for all sorts of things and at some point we are going to find a higher and better use for oil Okay, then plastic and just igniting it in a combustion engine someday in the future You know what we could have done with all of that oil. It's amazing All right, well I'll play one. I'll be gone but we may find a much higher better use This could be one of those things where hey, here's here's a higher better use for the coal instead of just burning it There's all of these other applications. It could be utilized for and and there are you know, I mean certainly Uh, if we were in a post oil world, uh, we wouldn't be able to have plastics Invented if they were you know, if this was years ago certain things that we hadn't discovered So there this could be but now we have silicon we can just make everything out of silicon. It's fine That's not gonna happen. No. Anyway, I am actually suddenly reminded not to go too far off on a tangent that in my childhood the big concern about Oil and gas Was that we were gonna run out Oh, yeah, there was there was not a lot of conversation about Climate change or the impact of using it, but it was this question that it's a finite resource It's not renewable So we need to come up with renewable energy plans because eventually we'll run out little did I know That there was something else that was going to show up that was going to be much more of a problem Before we ran out. Well, I think there are different forces there. Yeah, but go ahead Justin So, so no, so it's uh, yeah, it could eventually be a self-correcting problem. It's just not soon enough No, so the the stats on on on oil use is that every 10 years We use as much oil as has been used in all of the previous decades It's it's going up It's just you get the one box up top that's as big as all of the boxes below every 10 years And so there's questions about how can we possibly continue to do this forever now we've become better More efficient at using it and things like vehicles are much more efficient than they than they initially were but Population grows. There's a lot more cars nations You can't tell your continents that barely had cars now have cars So that's that's one of the things then you got to look at something like venezuela That's probably got as much oil as Saudi Arabia, but it hasn't really been gotten into that much A lot of places in the united states actually are intentionally not drilled for oil even though we know oil is there like all of a sudden, california Because it's some for a reserve if we ever needed it kind of a thing So the chances of hitting peak oil in time to to help with global warming not a really good option No, I just That it's that it's such a different it was such an It was still an angle of like this isn't sustainable We have to have an exit strategy, but we were so far from the imminent concern when we were just like Oh, but it's finite. We'll run out of it. Well, it's an the thing is it's we aren't going to necessarily run out of it It will become financially prohibitive to continue to get it out of the ground It's just going I mean we've got we're going into, you know tar sands. We are separating the oil from other substances in the earth the the procedures that are involved in A lot of the acquiring of oil become more expensive more Uh, yeah just involved and the track of going up, uh, you know a magnitude every 10 years is just Yeah, it's an insane effort and eventually and eventually you'll hit a price break where people won't be able to afford it anymore And there will still be oil left But there won't be a financial incentive So there's the market side of it and i'm kind of glad that climate change is getting in here and we're pushing more toward Yeah, like, you know the renewables a little earlier and not waiting for that peak financial tipping point to take place Yeah, that would be yeah, you're right if that would be so economically disastrous to the world to to actually hit peak oil and not have a backup plan Yeah But speaking of climate change just and didn't you have a a story about something melting? Yes, we're melting uh underwater under glaciers Much quicker than previously thought according to Rutgers co-authored university uh co-authored study findings are challenging the Again as with every one of these it's they they've looked at a new thing The framework for how they analyze the interactions of glaciers in the ocean in this case uh is implying that They're going much quicker This is published in the journal geophysical research letters. They surveyed The ocean in front of a 20 mile long Le cante glacier in alaska This this is the first time they've been able to do some of the analysis Involved in this study because this is the first time the researchers had at their disposable, right? There's a disposal robotic kayaks So they were able to put these robotic kayaks Right into the plumes of melt water that are that are coming off This is water that's released when the the ice is melting Right where it meets the ocean and it's a hard place to place a probe Uh the probe itself might be able to survive there but getting it to that location is exceedingly dangerous You have the the calving of ice that's falling into the Into the ocean you get waves from those those big chunks of ice that are coming off It's too dangerous for humans to go in there and even place floating probes. So They got these robotic kayaks They remote controlled them in there and this is quotey voice of lead author Who's a physical oceanographer and assistant professor department of marine and coastal sciences in the school of environmental biological sciences at records university bernzwick Of rebecca jackson the relationship with the kayaks We found a surprising signal of melting layers of concentrated melt water intruding into the ocean that reveal The critical importance of a process typically neglected when modeling or estimating melt rates Basically, you can summarize this as we're melting faster now. This is this is not the the first time Uh that we've come to this conclusion in studying glaciers every new look That we have made of the glaciers has given us more evidence of faster melting than the previous models Uh and the previous models as they get built with new information of quicker melting Are also then updated by the new quicker much So it's not just they're both all agreeing with each other that yes We're all that the other one's correct. We're this much more than the original model each model is finding More rapid melting than the previous model because they're looking at these glaciers from different aspects of different ways and different points of Of the melting taking place So what does this mean? Uh, there is there is one glacier that is Uh That is responsible for about four percent of sea rise That is going to be melting much quicker than predicted So all of the models then have to take these into account So even with the the direst information you've heard from your host that this week in science about sea level rise and the effects And how quickly this is coming Those were underestimations Great If we work really hard Predictions won't be as bad as we think they're they won't come true. We have to work really hard though We do We can do that. Yeah, so so one of the one of the things was um It is in this one they're finding that the underwater mix is playing a uh a crucial role Where freshwater discharges at the base of the glacier Uh from the upstream melt that was previously discovered there are This is what's sort of driving an additional melting process that's taking place along these edges And this is sort of the thing that hasn't been Calculated into some of the other models Um Because the melting point is different from fresh water and salt water, right? It's the the melting points Going to be different, but it's also the way it's interacting Uh The way it's interacting With it is more I guess more vigorous Yeah, I mean that's a fluid that's going to be a fluid dynamics a lot of fluid dynamic things. Yeah. Yeah There's also there's also these weird upwellings that take place So we're kind of now when you see like a frozen pond on top of a glacier that can then just disappear and it's disappeared because it's falling through some cracks in the ice and then it's the lake that was there on top of the glacier disappears it drains through it It can also kind of go the other way because the weight of the glacier as it's moving if there's a lot of liquidization It can also push liquid up into the glacier and then you're also creating melting every time you're moving fluid Water which is obviously the warmer temperature in and around and through so the big moving target to sort of get these estimations As it is, but the more looks that we've had at it the faster that number of melt becomes And I would like to say at this time that Even though it's like, oh, there's this new thing that needs to be added to the models and that needs to be considered in a new way All of the models since the 70s have been very accurate in their predictions We have just been fine tuning that accuracy over the years to get You know get rid of those error bars a little bit more, but the general trends that they have predicted since the 1970s have been in the majority Accurate Well, well, I would I would disagree with you a little bit. There's a paper that just came out this last week We do you remember Gavin? We interviewed him years back from one of the He's a climate researcher at Noah and I'm Gavin Schmidt I think is his name he and some other researchers published a paper this week that That looked at a bunch of at the accuracy of a bunch of models to basically Ask this, you know get at this question of this argument against Which has been used by a lot of the debunkers of Who do you try and debunk climate change that oh the models aren't accurate the models don't know but The general trends we've known for over a hundred years the models have been getting better and better since the 70s, but they have By and large been right the whole time Yes, my favorite one is we've known how carbon dioxide traps heat since the civil war Yeah, and so when I was also when I was disagreeing with the The thing that's been changing in the models Is how quickly The the prediction we're we're actually having to accelerate the timetable of the predictions a bit The predictions of like how much ice is going can melt and how much that will affect the sea level these sorts of things are are Being pretty well tuned in but the rate at which it's taking place Is the thing that keeps getting updated? It's it's not that the you know, is it melting a glacier isn't it nothing? It's definitely nothing the glacier But now we can see there's other so because the IPCC report There was not a lot of glacier dynamics involved in that Oh, most of the studies that we've talked about having to do with glacier activities Antarctica, you know up in the north pole Are are pretty recent like I feel like it's been the last four or five years even that we've really started to to Get a lot of great data out of there to figure out how As we've been getting more funding into monitoring and keeping an eye on How this is all going down But you're right blare you're right Maybe tomorrow we convince everybody else in the world You don't need to convince everyone else you need to convince a couple people and they need to convince a couple people And I need to convince a couple of people. It's not a you problem It's an us problem And that's part of the issue here is we can't be passing the buck around We all have to do our own part We all can too. Yeah, and and we have to do both. We have to look at predictions Identify future threats and work together to shield ourselves from those threats to safeguard each other from harm We also have to reduce our emissions to give us the opportunity to make sure that future is less bleak than it could be Well, you know when you are looking at a bleak bleak future sometimes it's good to dig into a a fictional novel Oh, definitely. Let's get some mind candy in here. Where do we got Mind candy. Okay. Have have either of you read any jane austin novels. Yes Not my thing What? He said not my thing And you know what justin not my thing either I tried and really was never able to get past like the first chapter in any any jane austin novel But mr. Jackson, you're not worried about the this season's yields of the summer crops Yep, nope Anyway, you know what I think I got up on the wrong stop I'm gonna get back on the library train and go to a different section I think But I like that older gentleman even though he might be my cousin Well, there are many many people who do love the jane austin novels One favorite is pride and prejudice. Oh, yes with the yes. Yes. Mr. Dossy Mr. Dossy. Yes. He's spurned me once again. I think I like him more Oh dear. Well, anyway, did you know that there is a mouse sexual pheromone named after mr. Darcy It's called tracks. It's called darsen I love it. It's called darsen. Yes and a team of research researchers at zuckerman institute at columbia university Wanted to look into What darsen was doing in the mouse brain specifically the female mouse brain what they know is that when male mice Mark they can urinate on on things leave a mark of their scent Females will go and sniff it and if it contains darsen these researchers published in nature Let this single protein This little pheromonal protein Triggers a cascade within the brain that makes a female mouse excited increase their sexual stimulated behaviors and makes them sing little ultrasonic songs But if these females happen to be lactating And or pregnant say their moms and taking care of young already it had no such effect Meanwhile they found they looked at the brain right there. Oh, what's it doing? Okay, it gets in there has this behavioral effect. What's it what's going on in there? So they looked at the brain and they found That it goes from the olfactory bulb stimulating an area of the amygdala Which seems odd because the amygdala is known to be associated with anger and fear not necessarily mating responses But they found okay these stimulated females this part of their brain is excited So let's go the other way around And they took females and stimulated that part of their brain And by artificially stimulating that part of the amygdala they triggered those mating responses By the females and when they shut off activity in that part of the brain they could block The behavioral responses that darsen would normally elicit So they found this area of the amygdala is essential for this and they think that it somehow mediates the internal state of the female Hey, am I able to breed am I pregnant? What's going on in here? And it mediates that internal mental brain state physiological state with this outside stimulus to then lead to a behavior to mate or no behavioral response But anyway, I thought it was really interesting Oh It was very interesting. It was very interesting. So it's kind of the the thing I was just thinking is how logical The brain is without us That love and hate are in the same place. Is that what you're saying? No, no, no, no, but the You know, I hear I'm not picturing the female mouse debating the fact like I know I've I've got I've already got kids at home, but I really want to go clubbing It's not yeah, that's a bad choice It's not a moral decision or a logical decision process being made the brain is making those logical decisions without You needing to contemplate and I wonder how but you know, you think so much the Humanity is having chosen at some point somebody came down from a mountain and said okay from now on They'll shout not kill. Oh Never occur to us We've been running around just killing people like whenever we were in a bad mood up until this point No, that's not how it happened the brain knew it's bad to kill all of your friends and family in your group because That's gonna make it harder to survive And it makes actually oh, I love them. I know that my My siblings really badly I don't know why I like them, but I love them even though they're awful and I probably should kill them You know what no their success is the success of my dreams It's a success of genes, but But the thing is it's the brain is taking care of so much logic That we we've written it down. We've sort of transcribed like so much of human law And human this the the trappings of human society or us just writing down what the brain has been making us do Or inferring we should do for better survival from the beginning. Anyway, you say it's the brain I say it's hormones But who's what's reading like yes, I agree. I was the whole brain hormone Yeah, no, they're definitely working in concert, but now they're not working because the brain is what's sending those hormones There's a control center in the brain. It's like that more hormone order up some more hormone. We got this going on There's a catalyst That's not went through the brain or as you think it's just I mean I think it has to run through the brain to alter behavior And and yeah, the brain is looking for that hormone signal It's it's it's it's way of looking out into the world and seeing what's going on to the body looking out into the body But in this case it was a pheromone that caused all this to happen was external It's an external source. So that's actually The brain responding to an outside stimuli, which my point is In a lot of cases the brain's responding to something It's the it's the hormones that are in charge. The brain is just responding Okay, fair enough, but then but then it's also a natural selection that comes into play, right? For over generations. There were there were mice that were like, ah pheromone. Who cares? I'm gonna go part bad outcome. Young died didn't work out well They kept trying to make or that but the ones that they did respond to it are the ones that have continued. So It's evolution. Yeah, absolutely I just I I think a lot of a lot of it is It comes down to hermos kiki are you eating cereal because you're snap crackle and popping Yeah, oh my goodness Thank you for that Oh, yeah. Yeah fixed. All right. Thank you. Okay. It's time to keep moving on this here Are we at the quick Just quick the story bus. Yeah, it's time for this bus to speed up and tell some quick stories I got the quickest one. I got the quickest one. You have the the quickest one. I got the quickest one This is uh, this is published in the open access journal e pj data science Basically, they went through and evaluated all sorts of classical romantic era classical music 1700 and 1900 And ranked them based on complexity and innovation of the composers Uh, number one first place the most complicated innovative composer the most unique It's sort of like when they take your your school paper and they run it against the the plagiarism filter So a little bit of that going on here, right? Uh, number one most unique Uh And uh and an innovative rock mononoff First place not surprised second Bach Brahms and then Mendelssohn Was in the in order of the top Top top top blare. I have a hippo story for you. Oh, give me the hippo story How did I miss it? I don't know the title too I don't know how you miss this story because it's not just hippos It is the hippos of the drug lord Pablo Escobar. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes the south american hippos south american hippos Yes What Yes Yes Let me tell you this story South american hippo That is the new species Well, otherwise known as an invasive species at this point Um, when Pablo Escobar of narcos fame and yeah, anyway, he went when he was at his height He had a lot of exotic animals in a family zoo and when they Took the empire down They housed most of those exotic animals in other zoos or private collections or other They found homes for most of them but they Didn't find homes for the hippos and the hippos ended up in the local ecosystem and so The hippos in colombia are um Invasive hippos So so what's interesting is the hippo That's uh, that's almost a megafauna It's definitely megafauna. It's definitely a megafauna. That's a megafauna. That's gonna be Changing an environment. Oh, yeah, we're keystone species in africa. Yeah discussed. So yes And that is the point of this story researchers from uc san diego Have gone to colombia to uh, take a look at these hippos and study Water quality oxygen levels isotope signatures Comparing lakes with hippos and without hippos because the population grew from something like four hippos to now over 80 hippos That's a lot of hippos. It's a lot of hippos and they expect it won't be long before there are At least a couple thousand hippos in south america and since they are keystone species They want to know what the hippos are doing to the ecosystem and it doesn't look good In fact, the hippos are changing the water quality in the area They are because they go and they eat and then they um And then they excrete those nutrients into the water Which is why they're keystone species in africa because they're bringing nutrients into the water during a drought But it is not quite so dry in colombia Yes, and so it's changing the nutrient levels In the lakes it is increasing Increasing algae production. So there's with more algae it can lead to algal blooms and This is an interesting way to look at the effect of a keystone species on an ecosystem and Researchers don't ecologists don't often have Opportunities like this. So they are taking advantage of it while they can But at the same time, um, they're hoping that they will be able to Get information that can help the colombian government Figure out what to do with the hippos. So because it's not easy to catch hippos if they don't Decide to simply eliminate them which they could they could try Yeah If they don't gonna be tough Blair, yeah, would you be in favor of introducing Some other hippos to try to diversify that gene pool If they if they decide not to kill them all if they're going to allow there to be hippos as part of the environment They're gonna be like we have colombian hippos now Would you be okay with Importing an additional couple of hippos into the mix to diversify the gene pool Of the hippos that they've decided are they're going to allow. So that's an interesting question I was about to mention that I feel like The opposite is likely to happen and that is that if you let the population go far enough of it only came from a couple Then there's a really good chance that some sort of disease or something is gonna wipe them out wipe them all out Which actually would solve the problem. But now Blair you've been hired by colombia to be The curator of their hippo population of their wild hippos. You're now in charge I appreciate what you're trying to say here and I love hippos and you know that and that's why you're you're pushing here But it's they it's a perfect job. They don't belong there And if they're decisions already been made Blair huge problems. No, if they're causing huge problems already been made Blair Letting them be could actually make their population fizzle out Okay, okay. There you go. It's absolutely possible. So this is the other problem, right? Is it's not just the poop It's not just the water hippos flatten the earth And and create these these like flattened pathways I didn't know they were that early Yeah But so even in a rainforest That is bad because you know, the understory is where there's this huge amount of life That's not good Oh my god, it's such it's such a bad space for them. It's this is very reminiscent of the fact that uh, we almost had hippos Uh intentionally released into the united states In the bayou that almost happened. So there's there's a fascinating book about it. There was a Episode of oh gosh, uh, maybe it was science friday or it was some npr show way back in the day I heard on on the radio But there was this whole thing where there was a campaign to release hippos in the united states because they thought that they would eat Uh invasive water lilies and they said that it would be cheap meat But no Bad idea. Yeah, nobody I'm trying to like actually I can actually picture it now the domesticated hippo And he's replacing replacing, uh, the cow So instead of these these big open fields of cows up on the hills and you've got these large water Features, which is hippos Crowsing around. Yeah Yes, uh, why didn't we this hippo's must not taste very good. That must be it Um, they're well, they're pretty hard to to kill They're they're very territorial. They are dangerous. You know, they don't want to be in a farm full of each other That's not what they want. The story the the book I found it is called American hippo river of teeth taste of marrow Okay, so the 2017 book it's very interesting That's right, but you know what the animal that kills more people in the united states than any other Well mosquitoes cows It's cows You haven't heard him say that before yeah, I know but but mosquitoes. I have one more story before the end of the show My goodness I'll just give you the liner notes here Wasps are pretty smart This is a study from cornell university. It appears that paper wasps can recognize Faces not human faces, but wasp faces. This is something that they have In common most likely with other social insects that have multiple queens in groups with a single queen like honeybees Roles are clear. No need to tell each other apart, but paper wasps can have five queens For example Then they need to be able to tell which queen they're looking at so they have capability for facial recognition And so this is a huge jump in cognitive evolution between kind of similar Types of animals that have totally different complex social structures, but yeah Paper wasp tells tell faces. I'm suddenly picturing a very small hive five queens One worker wasp. Yeah worker wasp like Really everybody gets to be the queen with me. That's every it's good to be the queen That's good to be the queen I guess I'm the only one that's got to go to do the work though, right? Okay. I see how this works But I know I I can tell I know which of you told me to do which job Yeah, I gotta keep track of five of you. Oh sure. Yeah, I did your laundry Judith I know no Judith is sweet Judith. This is a good one We have come to the end of our show We have run through all of our stories for the night and we hope that you have enjoyed them as much as we have Enjoyed talking about them. I would love to say thank you for Spending your time with us. Thank you to fada for helping with show notes social media And also with our youtube chat room. Thank you to gord for monitoring our twist.org slash live chat room and thank you to identity for for recording the show I also would like to thank our patreon sponsors Thank you to paul disney stu paulic ed dire andrew swanson craig landon ed philip shane ken haze charlene henry joshua furie Steve DeBell alex wilson tony steele richard porter mark mesaros bob calder jack matthew litwin jason robertsville k eric nap richard brian kondren Dave neighbor ben bignell justin taylor ps jaziah zaynor howard tan donald mondes seraphore fardan k Matt bass darwin hannon patrick beccararo gene telly a john gridley corin benton adam the joy sarah chavis rodney lewis diffney void mountain sloth sethah gradney steven alberon john ratna swami Dave friedell darryl my shack paul roenevich suit austere dave wilkins and noodles kevin reardon christof zucanirek ashish panty lissy's adkins rtm rick ramus paul john akeet jason oldt brian carrington christopher drier lisa susan zewski dream drapeau rig riley shon lamb steve lee simonin kurt larson rudy garcia marjorie gary s robert garrick greg briggs brendan minnish christopher rappin flying out erin luthan matt sutter mark hesson flow carvin parochan biren li and e oh Thank you for all of your support on patreon. I would also like to thank our sponsor The boroughs welcome fund for their generous support If you would like to support this week in science, you can find information at twist.org or you can go directly to patreon.com Slash this week in science To help us keep bringing you this valuable science Discussion on a weekly basis on next week's show. We'll be back Wednesday Not thursday wednesday at 8 p.m. Pacific time on twist dot org slash live you can watch And join our chat room But if you can't make it don't worry because it all gets saved to youtube and to facebook Yeah, thank you for enjoying the show, uh twist is also available as a podcast just google this week in science Wherever podcasts are found and if you enjoyed the show remember tell your friends about twist For more information on anything you've heard here today if you would like pictures of butterfly wings or SARS maps Show notes will be available on our website. That's at www.twist.org While you're there you can also make comments and start conversations with the hosts or other listeners Or you can contact us directly email kirsten at kirsten at thisweekinscience.com Justin at twistminion at gmail.com or blair at blairbaz at twist.org Just be sure to put twist twis twis somewhere in the subject line Otherwise your email will be spam filtered into oblivion You can also hit us up on the twitter where we are at twist science at dr Kiki at jackson flying at blairs menagerie We love your feedback if there's a topic you'd like us to cover address a suggestion for an interview A haiku that comes during the night. Please let us know We'll be back here next week and we hope you'll join us again for more great science news And if you learned anything from the show remember It's all in your head This week in science This week in science This week in science is the end of the world So i'm setting up shop got my banner unfurled. It says the scientist is in i'm gonna sell my advice Show them how to sell their robots with a simple device I'll reverse all the warming with a wave of my hand and all it'll cost you is a couple of grand This week science is coming your way So everybody listen to what I say I use the scientific method for all that it's worth and i'll broadcast my opinion all over the air Yeah Because it's this week in science This week in science This week in science science science This week in science This week in science I've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news At what I say may not represent your views But i've done the calculations and i've got a plan If you listen to the science you may just get understand That we're not trying to threaten your philosophy We're just trying to save the world from Japanese What coronavirus So everybody listen to everything we say and if you use our methods to roll and die We may rid the world of toxoplasma Because it's this week in science This week in science This week in science science This week in science science This week in science I've got a laundry list of items I want to address, from stopping global hunger to dredging Loch Ness, I'm trying to promote more rational thought and I'll try to answer any question you've got. So how can I ever see the changes I seek when I can only set up shop one hour a week? This week in science is coming in a way, you better just listen to what we say And if you learned anything from the words that we've said, then please just remember it's all in your head Cause it's this week in science, this week in science This week in science, this week in science Twist.org Go to twist.org Subscribe to our newsletter man Yeah, got a newsletter, we might make a new one someday We definitely will We're in the after show everyone, if you are watching and you are here, thank you for sticking around until the end of the show So I keep wanting to add Justin back, but he's just a nothing person, he's just a person figure Could potentially add another stream but he's not there So we have one more show next week and then we go to AAAS for Valentine's weekend That'll be fun Yeah, and although we have a show scheduled for that Wednesday, I believe that that will be a lot to ask Yeah, I don't know, that's gonna be tough cause I leave early on Thursday morning, I think you do too, right? Yeah That's gonna be a lot Michael74 is saying if Twist is 20 years old, that's older than Twist It is It isn't I was, I was Twist before Leo was Twist It's true We've been around too far The noodles, yes, the next show is in February It is, Ed wants a Mississippi Hippo on the next calendar There was a Hippo on the calendar last I know, but was it a Mississippi Hippo? Yeah, but that's just a Hippo in a slightly greener backdrop I might do a, I could do a Pygmy Hippo on the next calendar, that's a different species Oh, they're cute I prefer Nile, but I'll take a Pygmy Hippo There is a woman who brought a hedgehog to my son's karate school today That's the kind of stuff I do I know No, she was just, she's a mom and apparently she went to a snake show and came home with a hedgehog Interesting, so Oregon is not a state where hedgehogs are illegal then I guess not Where's that smile for Blair? They are an extreme threat of becoming an invasive species, so that's why they're usually illegal Because nothing in the United States knows how to eat a hedgehog is the thing Yeah, well, you have to get to it soft underbelly Yeah, which you have to sneak up on it They roll into little balls Does this look comfortable? This does not look comfortable to me Like, how can you breathe? I don't know She looks happy She looks very asleep Sleepy Sadie Yeah, sleepy Sadie, where's Justin? He's there but not there, he's not even chatting at me, did he just hang up? I don't know Michael asked me, Michael74 in the chat room asked what I did before or what I do now Since I guess I called myself a former zookeeper recently I haven't been a zookeeper in like seven years, it's been a while But I work in education now, so I run the zoo mobile, so we take animals into classrooms I run some teen volunteer programs and I do a lot of climate change communication So I still work at a zoo, I still work with animals Sometimes I put hedgehogs in carriers and take them to classrooms That's a thing that I do Take hedgehogs to classrooms I don't think Science Friday was a podcast before I feel like that actually happened kind of recently No, they apparently, I don't know, I need to go back in the Wayback machine I looked in the Wayback machine to find their podcast And their podcast on their website wasn't there on their website until after hours It was already out, which is why I say we're the oldest science podcast Science Friday was definitely a show before we were They were around for a long time, I was inspired by Science Friday And we always seem to be within an episode or two from the Skeptics Guide to the Universe They started around the same time, but then at one point I think they were doing more episodes In a week or something, or they did, I took some vacations or something I don't know I mean, the episode number, I will say This is my inside, my little inside joke on Twist History The number, there was a day when I realized Maybe I should change the format of how I title the podcast People like numbers, they like to know what number it is Because I had been only titling it by the date And not a number, because I wasn't counting what show I was on when we were just doing the radio show And so then it was just whatever day it was, this is the show from that day And so at a certain point, they went, oh, people like numbers in their podcast titles So maybe we should put a number in our podcast title And then I estimated based on how long we had been podcasting Approximately how many episodes that would be And I said, we're starting here That makes sense So the number of podcasts is not necessarily Accurate It's approximate It's approximate, but if you go back and look through the records There's a certain point at which the titling of the shows changed And we suddenly had numbers where they had been no numbers before It's magic And now you know, now you know about the secret of the Twist episode numbers But really, we have been on the air since 2000 And we've been podcasting since 2005 And then Justin came on, and then the iTunes library, and then all the things Yes And I'm one of those things I came on right before podcasting Yeah, you did, you started A year of Yeah, you were a couple of episodes a little bit before we started the podcast If you took 52, which is the number of weeks in a year Yeah And multiplied it by the number of years you've been on the air It's over a thousand For episodes Yeah For the podcast And I usually, I'm like, well, an episode here or there, we didn't do whatever So I have always rounded it to 50 Well, I still think about the times when we did two episodes a week For, it wasn't for that long, but we did it long enough, I think, to make up for a couple A year There was that, yeah We did it for, so if it was 50 What episode does it say we're on now? 756 If you just took the podcast years, it's 780 Just, okay, we're higher number now No, we're probably, we probably, I think you probably underestimated it by a little bit But, yeah, there's been more episodes than you can shake a stick at Yeah, it's true Identity four, I'm sorry, I have destroyed your whole world The world is a lie Oh, Blair, there was somewhere in the comment feeds, I don't see it now But somebody was asking why in the Blair's Animal Corner it says, except for giant pandas and squirrels Yes, I did see that, and somebody did do a quick explanation of the panda side of things That you just hate pandas No, pandas, this has all started, if I may, because Pandas are like the poster child of endangered species And so it's first of all this like, they're the scapegoat for me of cute animals This charismatic megafauna getting all of the conservation dollars And animals that are perhaps not as cute or fluffy Not getting as much financial support from the everyday person because of that So there's like, I have my own chip on my shoulder about that to begin with But then on top of that, we put a lot of effort into breeding pandas and trying to keep pandas alive And they do everything in their power to not survive And so that's very frustrating to me, is that like they're bad at being pandas And still we're just like trying to hold their hands every step of the way, trying to get them to survive It's the one species I'm convinced that would be extinct if it weren't for humans Like they seem like an evolutionary dead end, let them fizzle out Anyway, that's the whole thing, the squirrels is just, I don't trust them They're up to something And it's never good My series of squirrels, they're very easily imprinted And once they are, they're jerks They're just so bad, they're so aggressive and bold And like, so there was this, I never liked them very much But also working at a zoo, that means that there are animals that are used to picking food out of the garbage and getting fed by humans And so the squirrels at the zoo are very, very, very bold And I was an intern at one point, and there was this squirrel that saw I was wearing keeper clothes And was like getting closer and closer to me One point put its paw on my foot, and I was like, get out of here I like shook my foot, and then it ran up behind me and jumped onto my leg Jumping up and down, one-legged, with guests around, this is in public Spain I had not heard this story Trying to get this squirrel off me, meanwhile what's happening in my brain is this squirrel is too bold It's probably rabid, I'm about to get bit by a rabid squirrel When you get bit by something that's rabid, you don't want to move around, you don't want your heart to move too fast That circulates it through your blood too fast So I have to sit quietly down, call security and have them call 911 if I get bit by this squirrel and it's rabid So like, this is what's happening in my brain Then I finally get it to run away And I'm updating a board, like a public notice board with like a schedule of events, right And so I'm trying to do this thing, and the squirrel won't leave me alone And it jumps on my leg and I get rid of it and everything And then I hear this little rustling up over my head And the squirrel is coming down the pillar towards my hand And I drop everything I'm doing and I go, that's it! And I walk away Oh my goodness I don't trust them They're out to get you I don't trust them Here's my idea though So at some point we're gonna have, I mean this has, this has got, oh, if I say it, it can't be a surprise anymore But no, at some point we're gonna have to have a twist anniversary birthday gathering number of episodes party And when we do, I am gonna invite people to wear giant panda and squirrel costumes Oh no And it'll be a whole party of giant pandas and squirrels I will say I have, I received nothing but hippo items for a very long time But now I get a lot of squirrel and panda items, a lot People know At first I was frustrated by it and now I think it's pretty funny It is hilarious It's great, we're just in go I've had people say like, do you really like pandas? Are pandas your favorite animal? I just be like, no No, not my favorite Why are you so many panda things? Don't worry about it Don't worry about the pandas This dog is fully asleep in my lap, how cute In my lap, I was letting my six-year-old drive And this big empty parking lot in the back of the campus Seems safe This is a tradition I let the six-year-olds on my lap, she's doing the little shifter and she's steering the car And there's turkeys I wish I had to keep monitoring the situation otherwise I should have really grabbed the phone and filmed it But these two turkeys as we drove by came running up to the car and ran one on either side of us as we drove through And then we turned around and came back again and they did the same thing They joined in and ran alongside the car the whole time I couldn't tell if they were like You were about to die Have you heard the episode? I talk about it all the time Oh The episode of This American Life They usually play at everything's giving Oh no And it was a person who was stuck in their house and then in a car by a Tom Turkey for like three days Oh no Turkeys are no joke So there was a very aggressive Tom That got named Downtown Tom here in the city of Davis That was menacing people and of course it's Davis So there's this big controversy about whether or not we should do anything about the turkey You gotta leave the turkey alone The city of Davis finally decided we're getting rid of the turkey Good And I know the guy who had to take down Downtown Tom And he was literally afraid of repercussion Like the town was gonna turn on him because he got tasked with Did he eat him? No I don't know I don't think so Waste not Yeah you would think But there are What are they called? Packs, herds, flocks Of turkeys Daggles Murder of turkeys No no no no Let me look A mischief A mischief of turkeys What is the What is the term? I'm looking it up For a group of turkeys Internet says Oh these are fake One of them says gobble That's not right A gobble Internet you are incorrect Rafter Or flock Rafter The traditional one Rafter Different rafters of turkeys And amazingly we're talking about animal intelligence And it just could be a coincidence I met the intersection And there's a big rafter Of turkeys Hanging out At one side of the intersection And they're just all sort of Gathering there The light for them Turns green And they walk through The crosswalk During their green And made it across And I'm thinking I've seen them wandering in the middle of the street In the suburb Parts of town But this was like the busier intersection With the light and everything And they waited for the green And went across in the crosswalk Smarter than you think Maybe Maybe But they're Phenomenally ugly looking Up close Don't say that They are They've got really neat colorings of red and blue But then they've got all this Like I don't know Toad-like bumps All over And this extra Like neck feather thing Yeah, the waddle No, no, no, not just like the waddle But like a feather, like a chest feather Oh, yeah That was just sticking out For no apparent reason And they make weird sounds, the toms Make this weird Yeah, totally They're loud, they're weird Almost be a Where it was the first I think Ben Franklin wanted to make it the national bird Yeah, he did Because he didn't like how Eagles were scavengers He thought they were thieves Interesting Also Eagles don't really sound that impressive No they don't, they sound like they're dying Yeah, the sound that we Yeah The sound that we people associate With With an eagle is actually I think some kind of red-tailed hawk Or something Yeah, it's a red-tailed hawk Yeah That's the hawk sound The eagle sounds nothing like this Yeah, I think they have used eagles For various dinosaurs In the past though Because they do sound kind of dumb It was before you joined the show But I should do this again I took chickens And I slowed them down Oh yeah, that's the T-Rex And it just That's the sound It was like perfect T-Rex sound The other sound they use For Dinosaurs all the time is Elephant seals Interesting Sorry, I'm looking at Old pages Of like this week in science Links on the way back machine I don't know where I don't know where things are They're all these They're all these M3U links M3U What was I doing? What was I thinking? This dog is almost too long to fit on my lap What will I do then? I wonder how far back I do have things Interesting You're almost too long Look at how long this dog is It's a long dog Extra long dog I went to a cat show this last weekend Did? I did And we got to pet all the cats And it was wonderful I was thinking that we'd go to the cat show And everyone would be like, don't touch my cat My cat is special Don't touch my cat But it was all about touching the cats Petting the cats and we got to It was really fun We got to play with all these cats And they were all like I guess part of the The judging of cats Has to do with their personalities They must be playful They must be personable And playful That's a rare cat I had no idea, but something Especially because I was paying attention To the NCOV News all weekend I'm constantly on Twitter Trying to figure out what was going on Was there And realized that we kept having to Put hand sanitizer On our hands To be able to touch people's cats They were like having us put hand sanitizer So that we weren't spreading disease Between the cats And also from person to Cats But the idea is that Got to protect the cats And I realized it was probably one of the safest places to be For Some kind of a In the cold and flu season Everybody's cleaning their hands the whole time Everybody's going to be fine Yeah Aw that puppy Now she's like I don't know what to do I'm tired, but I have to pee What's happening I'm tired too Aw Oh Sadie Yes, I probably already have Toxo though, Ed You all know that I know and I've spent many years Picking up otter poop So I might also have Toxo No Who's to say Who knows I might have gotten Toxo from the lions And tigers too I have suggested before As a fun aside episode We could all go get tested Actually we could That would be fine I don't want to know this I don't want to know this until after I have children Doing just fine Why wouldn't you want to know Well for me I feel like if I find out I'm carrying it I probably Shouldn't have children Right No Not right then Yeah get treated That's why you want to know Exactly why you'd want to know Especially now Go get them Justin has to be in the same room with us In Seattle Thunder beaver is saying that with all the Toxo Between me and Blair You probably never want to be in the same room with us again Justin beware Yeah Seattle That's right We will be there In two weeks And identity I think you said something about wanting to know When we were going to do a meet up We do not have a specific time For a meet up At this point in time What I'm waiting to hear They're supposed to be For the podcasters They're supposed to be A get together And I was thinking it would be I don't know we could do a crossover I don't know I don't know when and where There's a lot of events Our twist shows open to the public At all No Which is really unfortunate There is a The family days on Saturday and our show is at 730 on Saturday But It's not in the The expo hall It's in the expo hall for the conference But not where the family days is going to be And I don't know if you can get into that As a family days attendee It is a bummer It is a bummer But it would be nice to Be able to connect IRL I like that We should Hang out It would be great Yeah, I'm for it also But I will I mean Friday Would probably be the best day I imagine I mean there's Other things as well but Friday might be the best day Or For me Yeah I don't know I gotta look at the schedule again There's a lot going on I think Friday might be best We're quarantined No I like being called a science wizard though Keep that up identity Yeah I am a science wizard That's great, I love that I will cast magic missile Yeah Of course Shama said She says a rafter Yep, also I am tired, you are tired I think it is time For us to go Do we have anything else that we need Want to talk about before we Yeah, before Justin says peace out Oh Anything to remember Yeah We forgot to say good night Blair Good night Blair say good night Justin Good night Justin Good night Good night everyone Thank you for Being a part of this show Once again on Wednesday not Thursday We'll be back again next week I hope you sleep well and have happy science dreams We will see you again Next week Good night