 This is TWIS, this week in science episode number 598 recorded on Wednesday, December 21, 2016. It's TWISMUS, let's science. Hey everyone, I am Dr. Kiki and tonight on This Week in Science we are going to fill your heads with a moldy memory, savage chimps, and citizen science. But first. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. Twas ye old winter solstice, and all through the lab, were bits of odd science, stem cells, horseshoe crabs. Kiki the doctor was in her white coat, just in drink beer, while Blair studied stoats. When out from the galaxy rose such a sound, it was physics and skeptics, there was research all around. The discourse was merry, the guests were all there, the chat room was chatting, it was science with Blair. It was bosons and dark matter, a chicken or T-rex. All on This Week in Science, coming up next. Good to you Kiki, and good science to you Blair and everyone out there. Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. We are back yet again for some sciency fun. The old sciency fun. Old, ye old solstice. Oh, on the shortest day of the year, we get to celebrate with science. What a wonderful, wonderful way to bring the solstice into perspective for everyone. Right, a little science. It's so great. And on tonight's show, Justin may be joining us a little bit later. He's playing Nurse Papa to some sick kiddos, so he can do that as long as he wants. Make those kiddos all better. Justin, wherever you are. But in the meantime, we will discuss science. And on this week's show, of course, we have a great show ahead. We have an interview. We're going to be speaking with Karen Cooper, author of a new book called Citizen Science. How ordinary people are changing the face of discovery. And we've got lots of science news. So I've got stories about slimy memories because what men, I mean, some of them are. But anyway, also Santa woes and a Christmas star ish ish. It's more like a Christmas star. Oh, good. I think that's more accurate. All right, Blair, what's in the animal corner? Oh, I have very indifferent chimpanzees. I have Rudolph's antlers and I have vaccinations. You have vaccinations or passing them out? Oh, yes. They're in all the stockings this year. That's right. Vaccines for everyone. Yes. Vaccines. Vaccines. This is the best Christmas ever. It is. You know what? This is the best. Twistmas. Yeah. Always good. It's always a good one. But the best Christmas you are able to have is the best. Fantastic. Let's get on with the show, shall we? We shall. Ready? All right. Let's start off the hour with our interview. I'd like to introduce Karen Cooper. Karen, thank you so much for joining the show tonight. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, we're excited to have you. So Dr. Cooper is a research associate professor. She's a professor of science at the University of North Carolina. She's a professor of history and environmental resources at North Carolina State University. Also jointly appointed as assistant head of the biodiversity research lab at the North Carolina Museum of natural sciences. She's an advocate for the practices of citizen science, open science and science communication. Nothing we like around here. Also pursuing scholarly inquiry into these areas and bringing you into the field. Dr. Cooper, thank you once again for joining us. And your book, you've written this book, which I haven't neatly placed over my shoulder. You can be citizen science. Can you explain what is citizen science exactly? We've talked about it on the show before and talked about various projects, but let's define it for the listeners. Well, citizen science is a, I mean, really it's like this is a term to describe a whole bunch of different ways that people who aren't scientists help in scientific discoveries. And so it can take many forms. It can be people like bird watchers sharing their bird observations. It can be people online even playing games, figuring out puzzles. It can be communities gathering information, you know, when they're concerned about pollution and things like that. So it can take a lot of different forms. But basically the bottom line is it's people really being engaged in genuine scientific research, discovering things that would otherwise be impossible to discover. And would you say otherwise impossible? Like, what do you mean? How come regular scientists in the ivory tower can't figure out these things all by themselves? Right. Right. There's a lot of things. I mean, first of all, if you think about it, there's a lot of things that we know from science and from citizen science. But there's more things that we don't know. And a lot of those things we'll only discover with citizen science because there's just certain types of questions that scientists working alone or even in groups are never going to be able to answer. Like things that really large scales that just require a lot of observations from people all over the world. Things over really long time scales, like time scales that span a longer duration than anyone scientist's career. Things that are really rare that just require a lot of eyes looking for it, invasive species or rare species. And actually people often think of the most difficult science as being like in inaccessible places, like in the pristine wilderness. But really the place is hardest to reach are on private land and people's backyards. And so the way to understand our urban ecology is often through citizen science also. So yeah, there's a lot of types of discoveries. Well actually I didn't even mention the things like that are computationally intensive sort of puzzles that just require a lot of minds thinking about. More minds, you know, better than one. So yeah, there's a lot of different things that are only going to be found out through citizen science. Now you yourself, you engage citizen science in your own research. How did you first come to come to citizen science as a process and then come to it as an author and almost even evangelist? I first, well ever since I was very young I wanted to be a scientist and especially a field biologist. And so really after my first semester in college I got a job doing field work. And that field work turned out to be with studying bears in the mountains in North Carolina. And we had crews of Earthwatch volunteers who would come and help. And Earthwatch is an organization where people really go on vacation but to do work as a, like as a field biologist for example in this case. Anyway so that was the first time I'd actually encountered citizen science but it didn't have that name at the time. And then I kind of didn't think about it again until many years later after I'd been working in the field for a long time and was actually just finished up graduate school and got a job at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology which is one of my favorite labs in the entire world. I mean it's an amazing place especially for birds and for bird research and for citizen science. And so that's when I really really got into it from there. Yeah. Very cool. So what kind of, what kind of, so ornithological research. We've got bird counts, bird surveys, what bird, what bird I saw in my backyard. How do you employ citizen science for your own research? I mostly work with a subset of birders who are, who really love bluebirds and they put up nest boxes basically because bluebirds and a lot of other species will take readily to nesting in these. They're secondary cavity nesters. They can't make their own cavity like a woodpecker can. And so they like when someone puts those out. Anyway, and so they really, they put up these nest boxes and they monitor them and they record what they see. And so a lot of my early research in citizen science involved looking at really large scale patterns in clutch sizes like the number of eggs birds would lay, how frequently they would lay them, how long they would incubate, all kinds of questions like that comparing across scales and across season. Then more recently I worked with those sort of that same bluebird community to help them address problems that they face in managing for bluebirds. The bluebirds are native, but they often battle with house sparrows, which are an invasive species. And, um, they are everywhere. And I mean they're really, really cool birds, but they, uh, but bluebirders really like to minimize the damage from house sparrows. And so I have projects helping to figure out the best ways to do that. That's really neat. So, uh, we have a chemist in the chat room who says he'd love to see a citizen science effort to collect information about unregulated water pollutants nationwide. That would be really cool. So say a scientist has an idea for a project. How do, how does one go about starting a citizen science effort from the scientist side of things? How do you reach an audience? How do you do it? It's a good question. I mean, and, uh, yeah, it's, we're still learning from mistakes. There's, there's a lot that we've learned. And, and in some ways it's easier to set up a project to collect data because people, people are really civically engaged and they do want to help, especially when it's issues of concern like water quality. Um, what's actually super challenging is managing big data which we're getting better at all the time, but it can be overwhelming and the amount of infrastructure that's needed. Often scientists who are used to just working at one study site or with one particular project are just often not prepared for what it takes to manage these really, really large data sets. It is beyond the abilities of the Excel spreadsheet. It does go beyond that. Yes. And, um, you know, and, you know, there's an obligation to, to, to really communicate with participants, you know, with people who are participating in projects. And it's not just like science communication, like, oh, I wrote a blog post or oh, I gave a talk. It's an ongoing dialogue and, you know, it's an ongoing relationship between scientists and a whole team really of people and, you know, and everybody who's involved. And so, so there's, you know, obligation really just to make it successful too to report back that information in ways that's, that's accessible to everyone and useful for everyone. Right. So basically we're seeing you need a, you need a large grant to be able to hire a team to manage the efforts. Well, I emphasize it just because a lot of times people think, oh, it's free. Um, but it's not as a colleague of mine says it's free like puppies because it's like you could be given data and given all these things that it present. They still have to be maintained and curated and taken care of. And so it is a big effort. It's well worth it. Take your data to the vet. Right. Um, but yeah, but it's well worth it because of the things that are possible. Yeah, Blair, did you have any questions as we're going through? I know you do a lot of work engaging the public at the San Francisco Zoo. So yeah, absolutely. I would ask that. Um, I think that potentially technology has this great opportunity because I think a big part of citizen science is training the average Joe how to collect the data properly. Right. Because at the end of the day, you still need data that's worth something. You can't have, for example, in a bird count, people identifying robins as blue birds that's going to mess up your data sets. Right. So in what ways have you seen changes in your ability to train citizen scientists and collect data with the advent of new technologies? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, technology's definitely helped in that way. Like you said, both with the training and with the data setting, because, you know, submitting photo documentation to verify your observation or even just to help get something identified. You know, it's becoming pretty common in citizen science. I mean, I'm lucky working with bird watchers because there's so many local groups. You know, blue bird societies, Audubon groups, but actually they all teach each other. Right. And people always often think scientists have all the expertise, but actually when it comes to things like natural history, I mean, most of that expertise is with amateurs. something, you know, so-called amateurs with people who aren't necessarily professional scientists. And so anyway, in some cases, SQL with certain hobbies are just a really good fit for citizen science because they know how to do things, they know about stuff. Other times, you know, it just really varies as to, it's all about matching the right people to the task. So yeah, technologies, they've definitely helped, especially I would say with the photo documentation, it's a big one. And just the speed of which people can submit data, share data, you know, even work, I mean some projects are entirely online, just because there are, some projects just have sort of too much data that computer algorithms can't process and they need people to help. So kind of along those lines, I've always been very interested to know how you sift through if you even can identify good data and bad data because that is, that has always kind of, that's been my question about citizen science is, can you identify a data set that might not be the most trustworthy, or is it just a law of averages sort of thing? Right. So it really varies with the type of project, but data quality issues is probably the most frequent question that we encounter, you know, I mean everybody is always wondering about that. How could it possibly be that people without scientific training can actually, you know, make contributions that are valuable, but there's, I mean there's a couple of dozen like ways that data quality are handled, you know, anywhere from like ensuring training and testing people before they submit data to redundancy and having so many people submit data that you can sort of read out the outliers and see sort of a signal through all that noise to, you know, just different ways in handling bias, like I have to deal with weekend bias because bird watchers like to go out on the weekend. All right. So there's ways that I can deal statistically with, with that. Yeah, birds are around all of the time. Right. Absolutely. There's consensus tools, you know, on, on things, anyway, so there's a lot of different ways to deal with data quality and, and usually I don't even think of it as quality per se, as much as fitness for use, which means you can't really judge how good data are except in the context of how you're using them. So like your birds, like if people are just submitting presence data, like I saw this bird, I saw that bird, it's not as useful. I can't use it for as many purposes as if they're submitting information about what was there and what wasn't there, presence and absence. I saw these birds. I didn't see these birds as much. I've went many more uses for that. So anyway, so there's a lot of different dimensions to data quality that, yeah, and it's a it's just a huge area of research, actually, in citizen science, all the different ways to deal with it. Yeah, I'm sure they're the same way that science communication itself has become an area of study. Citizen science is probably now becoming an area of study, to figure out methods and ways to engage the public more readily, to be able to train individuals, how to design projects that are easily accessible by the citizenry. There are probably all sorts of just... But then there's this entire, yeah, there's this entire other half to citizen science, you know, there's getting the data and doing the science. The entire other half of it is teaching people how science works, right? And so I think all the time about when you're a kid and you do this experiment in your class for science class, and it's it's a very, you know, dumbed down example version of a science experiment. And it's so removed from what science actually is. And I think about something like a bioblitz, which we had in the in San Francisco a couple of years ago, and that's really bringing kids to actual science, to an actual field site to do actual data collection in a real piece of science. So that's that's I think it's something that that people often don't even think about when we report on citizen science projects on the show, too, is that it's it's serving two purposes. It's the it's the actual data collection, and then it's the describing how science works and engaging people in science. Right, it is it is. And there have been studies, people have been evaluating projects and looking at how people are transformed by it. What did they learn, you know, in terms of science literacy, in terms of environmental concerns, like a whole host of things, even in terms of social capital and what they feel they have the efficacy to really accomplish in their communities. And I mean, what people have seen so far is really encouraging about about the benefits from citizen science that people derive from it. And actually, what goes on in schools is really exciting, too, because, yeah, it is an opportunity for kids to do real, you know, genuine contribute genuinely to discoveries, which will probably turn out to be way more powerful of a learning experience of an experiential learning experience than just repeating something where you already know the answer, but to be part of something where you don't know the answer yet and to be part of finding that out, you know, that's that's huge. And actually, there's a program here at my institution at MCC State called Students Discover and where they bring teachers in, actually, to learn about citizen science and make lesson plans so that more and more teachers can bring those projects into the classroom. That's fantastic. Yeah, I think about even myself, I feel like somewhat more in touch with the wildlife that's in my city than maybe the average person, but I participated in Frog Watch, which is a citizen science program. And I heard all these frog calls. There are all these species of frogs in my city in San Francisco. I had no idea I would hear a frog. I'd go, oh, that's a frog, hear a frog go, oh, that's another frog. But now you know that there's all these different frog species in your city. And, you know, bioblitzes in downtown San Francisco, kids find garter snakes and they never expect to find that stuff in their urban environment. And it's so it's so powerful to them to know that they do actually have this connection that they didn't really see before. Right. Yeah, really raises awareness about all of that. So what do you think started this explosion of citizen science popularity? I mean, it's a growing movement. But this idea of engaging people, bringing in people to do your data collection and also as an educational purpose, it's been around for a while. But what happened? Yeah, it's a really good question. And I can speculate, but because it has been around a long time. I mean, even this large scale crowdsourcing, I mean, there's examples back in the early 1800s, you know, well before the internet, you know, well before, even before, I think the telegraph machine, just, you know, people making these really large scale, coordinated efforts. And I think I know in ornithology, a lot of projects really started to boom. There was a big growth in projects really with the environmental movement sparked by publication of Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring. And then there was another big jump sort of after the internet or after the World Wide Web and we could have the 2.0 sort of technologies. But I think I mean, I think there's really two sides to the equation. There's a public that is becoming that is civically engaged in a lot of ways. Even in science, like that are seeking out ways to build social capital, right? It used to always be really tight knit communities. And now communities look really different, right? They're geographically dispersed, communication is mediated by the web and people find ways to connect. And a lot of those connections are happening through this common interests, right, in the citizen science. So that so people are willing to do it and interested in it. And then I think on the other side, in a lot of fields of science, there's just there's they've reached a point where some of the best discoveries to be made really are just going to be accomplished through citizen science. And so they need we need it. We need people to be helping. Yes, I think both of those have really come together to make it a movement. I think it's I think it's a fantastic movement. Now, do you have any specific stories from your book related to wonder just wonderful experiences that that you that you'd like to talk about? Out giving away. Yeah, I mean, I have so many favorites in there, both from sort of the large scale sort of crowd sourcing of observations, which can just be remarkably beautiful. Like, I mean, with birds or with whatever. But some of my favorite stories are probably more of the community driven ones where communities really needed access to scientific processes, you know, to, you know, because of some threats to their community, like pollution threats. And so I think those are some of my favorite stories of communities that really had a challenge to their health and where they really, you know, came together and partnered with scientists and sort of got the evidence that they needed to demonstrate what was happening and really helped fix the situation. Because I mean, kind of like it's chapter ten. I think we'll have to read the book for. Yeah. But it was great to meet a lot of citizen scientists and scientists who are involved in this. Yeah. It's a lot of different disciplines and big discoveries in a lot of different disciplines and and people, you know, from all walks of life. I mean, they all they all I found them all like amazing, you know, there was gamers, there is corporate executives, prisoners, you know, indigenous people without written language, gamers, overclockers, you know, all kinds of people, all walks of life. I think that's one of my favorite aspects to citizen science, is that there are such a large number of projects that anybody with any kind of interest or background will probably be able to find something that they can be a part of. Yeah. Yeah, if you if you want to sift through data, we need that. If you want to go point out birds, we need that. Yeah. So like on the show, we oh, I was going to say on the show, we've talked about fold it, which is a game. It's one of the gamification. Yeah. And then there's Galaxy Zoo and several others. But, you know, for people who are on their computer and their gamers. Yep. That's a great way. Or if you've just got a computer sitting there, you can have, you know, a little app running in the background that just does crunching for scientists or just computing. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, a lot of a lot of those examples are I do talk about it in my book and it is it's exciting. And while putting a little plug for size starter, but size starter dot com. Can you see it? You can see it. But but anyway, it's just a really great resource because like you were saying, there are literally now thousands of citizen science projects and it really is just a challenge. It can be a challenge just to navigate that landscape and find like the project that really is would work best for you. Yeah, thanks. And anyway, and that's the point of size starter is really to help people find the projects that work best for them and and and to keep track of their contributions and to share them, you know, to display them. Sort of it's just to build a community of citizen scientists. Yeah. So we're people who are bird watchers and are submitting, you know, information and are participating in citizen science can actually realize that, oh, they have something in common with people who are monitoring water quality and with people who are tagging galaxies and galaxy zoo. You know, it seems like they're doing really different things, but actually, you know, it's all just different forms of this of this amazing process of citizen science. Do you have any ideas about where citizen science seems to be going after talking with the scientists, talking with the people involved in these projects? Are there any trends that are pushing it in a particular direction? Oh, that's a good question. There's what kind of was mentioned before, there's there's a lot of sort of crowd based citizen science that is often led by scientists and it involves thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people. And then there's these community based projects, community based citizen science and the sort of the best practices around those two areas of citizen science have emphasized different things. And I think now they're starting to be sort of more crossover between people who do citizen science in these different contexts to really benefit from them. Like, for example, in community based citizen science, it's really the question, the research question is sort of posed and driven by the community concerns. And and people have really, really become interested in that and how to and are questioning like how to scale that up to sort of crowd based citizen science instead of having it necessarily be top down. And then, you know, our data management capacity with with sort of the big crowd based projects, how could that be useful or leverage more by a lot of these smaller community based projects? So I think there's more crossover. Yeah, I also think that there has been this big explosion of projects and and they'll probably be a little bit of weeding, whittling down to get rid of some of the redundancy and they'll be more synergies and sort of sort of maybe maybe a little bit of of a synthesis of projects together after that, after this big explosion. Yeah, I mean, I I hope that projects like SciStarter are able to bring researchers together, communicating, seeing what other researchers are already doing and saying, oh, hey, I'd like to get involved in that or maybe we can collaborate a little bit more and basically start that communication between the researchers to develop the projects at large scales. Well, that has happened, too. Like we were saying, this really has become a profession. And I mean, it sounds a little bit like an oxymoron, but there's a professional society for citizen science. So the Citizen Science Association and there's also a European Citizen Science Association and an Australian Citizen Science Association. Anyway, but it really is a place for for practitioners of citizen science, whether they're scientists or science communicators or data managers, information scientists to really come together to to, you know, exactly what you were saying, to really exchange information and learn from each other and the research that we're carrying out. Fantastic. I don't want to keep you too much longer. I know it's a late night on your side of the country. Your book, Citizen Science, How Ordinary People Are Changing the Face of Discovery. Great. Thank you. It's full of wonderful stories and very personal insights about research that's ongoing. I have scanned through it a bit and quite enjoying it so far. And where can people find you online and more information about your book? Should they be interested? Well, my website is KarenCooper.com and that's Karen with the C. And then on Twitter, on KoopSciScoop. Great. I love that. KoopSciScoop. And yeah, so I would say yeah, everything's everything you ever want to know about Citizen Science that's other than what's in the book. I'll be tweeting about it. So yeah, you can find me there. And do you have any any other now that you've got this book out? Do you have any other big projects on the horizon? Any Citizen Science that people should be excited about getting involved in? Well, I have a project in collaboration with the National Park Service that we're starting this spring called Sound Around Town and which will be studying soundscapes in urban and residential areas. And because right now the Park Service, they really just have soundscapes really well sort of quantified, I guess, in natural, in parks. Anyway, and so to do that, we'll be loaning out sound recording equipment for people to use and deploy in their backyards. So we'll be partnering with local libraries as the points where people can borrow the equipment and which will be calibrated and whatnot. And there's a anyway, so people will be doing that. And there's a little bit of information too with it through an app that we'll learn about sort of how people feel about the different sounds. And we expect actually people will become much more aware about the sounds in their urban environment and how it those influence them. And maybe even inequities in noise pollution among different communities. So anyway, you can look for Sound Around Town launching this spring. Fascinating. Fantastic. I can't wait to hear more. I want to volunteer for that one. Yeah, absolutely. I can't even hold to do it. Yeah, I'm like, I've got a microphone. I can go do this myself. Right, you're saying. I have a backyard. I have a recorder. I'll just go outside and record. Tell me what to do. Oh, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for all of your ideas and your thoughts. And if anyone is interested, remember again, Citizen Science, how ordinary people are changing the face of discovery. SciStarter.com is also a website where you can find more resources for projects if you want to get interested. I mean, come on, this is twist-ness. We're putting a positive spin on the darkest day of the year today with Citizen Science. Reach out and be a light in the world for science. Excellent. Karen, I'm so sorry I missed this. I'm going to have to come back and rewatch this. But here's on the bright side of what you just said, Citizen, this being the darkest day of the year, all the days of winter will become that much lighter as we go. That is true. More time for doing science. That's right. You're the great outdoors. All right, Karen, thank you so much for joining us tonight. We hope you have a wonderful evening. And I hope that lots of people take a look at your book. I hope so. Bye. Bye, thank you. All right, everybody. This is This Week in Science. We just heard a wonderful interview from Dr. Karen Cooper. She's fantastic. She's just great. Do you know what we're going to do right now? What? Now that Justin's here? Now that Justin's here, we're going to take a quick break. Oh, good. I was thinking. I was about time I needed a break. I was about to blink. So I'm like, all right, let's take a quick break and continue with the show. Yes, we are going to take a very quick break to tell you all sorts of wonderful things really back in just a moment with more This Week in Science. Hey there, everybody. I do hope that you're having a wonderful twist-ness holiday season so far. I invite everyone. You know, it's not too late. It is not too late yet. To get your twist calendar. You knew that's where I was going, didn't you? Come on, you can still. It's not pre-ordering anymore. It's just ordering. You can still order your 2017 calendar for a twist that was created by Blair and wonderful Minion Patrick Harnett, who helped with a lot of the artwork. But Blair handed the art for the entire 2017 calendar. And you can get it now. Go to twist.org to be able to do that, right? Don't you want to go to twist.org and get yourself one of these pretty bright, red, not really a hip-no-toad, kind of a hip-no-toad 2017 calendars with all of the wonderful holidays that you need to know about to be a proper twist-minion, right? That's what it's all about. It's what it's all about. And what else am I going to tell you about? You know, we are going to be in San Francisco in January. I've been talking about it for a while. I'm going to keep talking about it. We are on January 19th going to be in San Francisco for the twist, not the twist. We're going to be performing live at the Cal Academy of Sciences for the SF SketchFest 2017 SF SketchFest. And you can find information at our Facebook page, details, timing, ticket information. You can find all of that information out. Better get your tickets now, because there are a lot of other performers for that January 19th event. And it might sell out. You don't want to miss it if you're in the Bay Area. I'm serious. Get your tickets now so that you can come be a part of our fun. Come on. We don't want you to miss it. I don't want you to miss it. I want to see you there. I do. I really, really do. You know what else? It is the holiday season. And twists would appreciate it if you would help us out in the holiday season, be a producer, an executive producer of twists. There are many ways that you can assist us to keep the show going, to keep us in microphones and bandwidth and little bits and bobbles that we need to make things happen, to get the show out in a timely manner. We have little goodies. So if you go to twist.org, you will be able to find our Zazzle Store, our Zazzle Store, where we keep all of the fun t-shirts and hats and other things, some of them, with the twist logo emblazoned on them, others with Blair's Animal Corner artwork. So there are hats and mugs and other wonderful items that you can get if you want a Christmas ornament. They have Christmas ornaments. There are even stamps. You can get twist logo stamps. Isn't that cool? Sounds pretty cool to me. Also, if you like just donating to Twist, you can go to twist.org, click on the Donate button, and just donate directly to us. We appreciate any amount that you're able to give. 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We're even bothering to stop and fish. For that I do believe is the dollars and cents all these authors receive. If miracle wonders were held in their looks, why waste precious time and try selling them? And we're back with more This Week in Science. Yay, I always need more This Week in Science. Don't you? Never enough. Never enough. Never enough until your heart stops beating. We got science. So much science. Should I start it out, you guys? Yeah. Science stories for the win. All right, you guys. This is the story that I thought was honestly the most awesome story of the week. In the December 21st issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Audrey Dussetour and David Vogel who are studying a particular type of creature called a fissurum polycephalum, found that it could transfer memories between different individuals. What? So Vulcans, no. What are these organisms, fissurum polycephalum? Tell us, Kiki. You're going to love it. Slime mold. I love slime molds. We love slime molds. Slime molds are my jam. And I think it was you, Blair, who brought the story earlier this year, like in April, where they did find that there was learning taking place. This same lab found that there was learning taking place in slime molds. And so the original experiment is that they have these slime molds and a little dish. And then they give them a bridge to cross. And then the slime molds are like, hey, I'm going to cross the bridge. And they extend a little amoeba-like arm. And it helps. They slowly move across the bridge into another Petri dish, right? Well, they also train them to move past. This is the other part of the story. These bridges contained repellent, yet harmless, substances, so coffee, quinine, salt, things that aren't great, but are not nice. And that this organism was like, oh, what is that? Icky. It's kind of icky. And so the slime molds would go, eh, I don't like that. And then they'd draw back their amoeba-like appendage. And then they'd do some processing and realize there really wasn't that bad. And they'd try it again, they'd go across the bridge and they'd be like, oh, OK, I can do that. And so basically they would learn that they could go across the bridge. And on the next attempt, if they encountered this non-toxic, yet repellent substance, they'd say, dude, I can do it. And they'd ignore it. And they'd cross the bridge much more quickly. And then, so this is learning. And there was a memory produced, however. And then when they were taken away from it for a while, basically given a break, time to forget, they would have to be resensitized to the situation and kind of have to learn it over again. But they'd learn it quickly. Long-term memory, not an attribute, the slime molds. Right, not a huge attribute. But they could become resensitized more quickly. So it was a memory that was in there. It wasn't like they had to learn it all over again, brand new. It was like faster. Like a slime memory reflex. Slime memory reflex. OK, so this time around, they have gone one further. And in slime molds, when you put one slime mold next to another slime mold, they will become one slime mold. They just touch each other and they go, oh, I like you. And they melt. Yes, they slime mold into one. Slime mold into one slime mold. They found that if they took a habituated one, a slime mold that had learned about the salts on the bridges and attached it, let it connect to a naive slime mold, that the naive slime mold gained the information that the habituated one had. Get out of town. I will not get out of town. I mean, I already moved out of San Francisco. I'm not moving out of another town. Get out of here with your touching, transferring of memories of slime molds. Yeah, that's really cool. And I mean, get this one further. They could add two naive individuals. They could add three naive individuals. Yeah, I think they did up to three naive individuals connected to one habituated. No matter how many of them fused together, only one habituated slime mold was needed to transfer the information and they all learned it. Oh, my gosh, the dick tail in the chat was saying, you will be assimilated. It's like the Borg. That's exactly what this is. It's a hive mind. It's also like I'm considering what this would look like in a slime mold university setting. But the important question is, can you schleff off of that conjoined grouping and retain the memory? Yes. Yes. And so they could be removed from the conjoining after they had been joined. They could be removed and then take the information to other individuals. This just keeps getting better. Yeah. And what is also a couple of things, but evolutionarily, at the core of even a slime mold, knowledge is that thing that you wish to preserve beyond everything else. One could say knowledge is power. Right. You could say knowledge is power. And knowledge is safety. Knowledge means food. Knowledge means knowing about danger. Knowledge or safety. Do you move towards something? Do you move away from something? How do you use your energy to what purposes? And so I've put up a picture. And for those of you who are listening right now, this is a lovely kind of lemony yellow lime greenie. Is this chartreuse? Is this color chartreuse? I don't know. For the love of Pete, don't ask me. They're like round banana slugs. I don't know how to describe these things that are connected. They look like tennis balls. They look like little tennis balls, but they're slime molds. And they put out little amoeba feet to cross over to areas they have not been. Check it out. But the interesting thing about this is there is the magnification at a conjoining juncture between a naive and a habituated slime mold. And what is magnified is some kind of a vein that moves from the habituated to the naive. And the researchers are pretty sure that this vein, that whatever this fiber, this tendril within the slime mold, that whatever it is is part of the information transfer process. But they don't know that for sure yet. And so now the research question is, is it the vein? Is this the vein? What is that? What is the vein? Is it really important to the information transfer? Is that what it's transferring? What is the chemical basis for the information transfer? At some point in the learning process, these slime molds have a chemical change somewhere within their cellular structure that equals memory. How do slime molds even work? We need to know more. They don't have blood. To our knowledge, they don't have nerves. They don't have any of the cellular structures we're used to seeing. How do they do any of this, let alone this intense stuff that we can't do? Right. What? Right. There are all sorts of things. I don't know the answer to these questions. Without a brain, they are able to do very complex things. So this also calls into question a lot of our, we've talked about this before on the show, but our human understanding of what memory is, what learning actually is, and our own abilities with our own slimy brains. My brain just exploded. I don't have a brain anymore. Yeah. Well, my brain is very comfortable with the fact that it is an organic chemical reaction taking place. But yeah. I'm still fascinated by the preface, or the importance that this organism puts on this information exchange. I don't know, fiber optic line, that it's running from one slime mold to another is sort of reminiscent of the internet when there's a question that you have that you can't answer. I should just say it's a DSL line. Google it, right? And you go to the hive of mind, and now you have that information at your fingertips. So even if something is technologically advanced that we think we have acquired, mankind has invented the internet. Yeah, slime mold already bit it. Probably several millions of years after the slime mold already had it, right? Perhaps Al Gore is part slime mold, and that's how he got the idea. Oh, good gracious. Al Gore, algae slime mold. It's probably not fiber. Other future research that they want to do with this to figure out, so far, they've only habituated slime molds on one compound. So what they wanna know is, can they get these molds to remember behaviors related to multiple compounds at the same time? So if they get slime mold A to learn about quinine, and that it's okay, you can ignore the quinine and still cross the bridge, slime mold B can ignore salt and cross the bridge, and then you connect A and B. Do they now ignore both? Do both of them now ignore both substances? Or does the system get broken? So now they're gonna start playing with the complexity of the information, but. See, I think about this kind of like the idea of having an organ donor, right? Like I got someone else's kidney, and then I suddenly had all of their memories. That's right, I have all your memories. I have, no, it's like, no, it would be like you get on a phone call with somebody. Yeah, or like hold hands. We hold hands, and then I suddenly know everything you know. Or maybe if I stick my finger in your ear. Ah! Okay, okay. Or we could, again, just Google it. And like, it doesn't have to be. I know, maybe we just use the internet. Maybe the slime mold is more dial up. Yeah, I guess. You know, dial up actually, by the way, was just fine before people wanted to share movies of cats. Right, it's the cats. As the internet is made of cats, the internet is made of cats and slime mold, obviously. Maybe the internet is slime mold. But I do love how mankind is recreating basic evolution at every step of our technology. It is just fascinating. That's it, yeah. Our technology is mimicking the slime molds right now. And then, you know, so I thought, and it's also interesting because it's kind of like the slime molds are kind of crowdsourcing information. Which is cool. And then, there was another article in The Atlantic by Ed Yong on this same topic, which at the end, one of the researchers brought up something that is fascinating. This is just a very simple system to apply to get a slime mold, put it in a Petri dish and build these bridges and use these compounds. Very simple laboratory setup. This could be the kind of experiment that becomes an in-class citizen science experiment collecting data on slime mold. Oh my gosh, what would I name my slime mold? Right. Spot. Spot, and then I feel like another one would be named Jerry. Susan? Cool. Oh my God. Okay, and then moving on. If I had three slime molds, I would name them Blair, Kiki, and Justin. The three slime molds. If I ask for a slime mold for Christmas, do you think Santa will bring me slime mold? Yeah, why do you get one these days? I mean, I remember back in the old days, like you could go anywhere and people would be like, hey, you can buy slime molds. But now it's like really, yeah. I'm gonna go, I'm going shopping. Oh, look at this. First result, here we go. Here, I have to share, of course, this is so tangential, but it's Twistmas. So we all need our presents. Slime mold growing kit. Slime mold growing kit. Why didn't I know this was possible? It's $42. Oh my gosh. And yeah. Is it too late to edit my list to Santa? You too. Gonna have a slime mold growing kit. Oh, the slime mold internet just brought a slime mold. Do you see how this works? The recursiveness of this? Right, this is what we're doing. The story we're reporting is the story that we're performing at the same time. Oh. So it may be too late for Santa, but the New Year's Discount Fairy is always, always comes through for me. That's right. Fantastic. Oh my goodness. Okay, moving on to other science. This one is related to Santa, or at least where Santa lives. Where does Santa live, you guys? The North Pole. Not anymore, because it's gonna melt. Technically green light, but okay. It's gonna melt. Melting, well, maybe not. So it'll just see that pole sticking out of the water. This is the making for a fantastic Christmas special. Right? The North Pole is melting Santa's home. Jack, feedback episode, perhaps, Justin. Anyway, this is not the first year. This is the second year in a row that the North is gonna have a heat wave right around this time. Temperatures, for this particular week, our forecast to be about 50 degrees above normal, which is in the North Pole is around freezing. So 30 degrees, fair night. Yes, and so we have Arctic Sea ice hitting its lowest peak in March, and second lowest extent recorded in September. It started shrinking again in November, and it's December. This is supposed to be winter, the coldest time of the year, when you have a massing of sea ice, and yeah, we have a heat wave. And so this could be problematic for the Arctic ice. Yeah, so scientists with the World Weather Attribution team have been looking to see if climate change has played a role in the warming, this persistent warmth, and climate change may increase the likelihood of this current heat wave. So it's statistics, they're looking at data and statistics to be able to, using statistics to figure out what's actually going on. So you don't ever get the absolute answer of yes, climate change did this, but the influences of climate change increased the likelihood of a heat wave this time of year. And so as we've talked about before, this is not great news for Santa. No, it's not, or his reindeer, the actual animals that live there, like caribou, problem, polar bears. Yeah, so maybe for TWISMIS we can all ask for a little less carbon dioxide emissions, and a few fewer methane emissions. Let's just think on that for a bit. Yeah, that's what I got for the start of the show. Justin, what you got? Oh, what have I got? Ho, ho, ho, marijuana. Graphic accident data reports reporting it from states that propositioned themselves into medical gonjoseph zones. The association between medical marijuana laws and traffic fatalities for drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians was examined for each state in acting the laws. They also evaluated the link between marijuana dispensaries and traffic fatalities. Overall, a total of 1.22 million deaths were attributed to traffic crashes occurring in the 50 states during the study period, which was over a decade, it was a long, long time. On average, these states experienced reductions in traffic fatalities according to researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Overall, states that passed medical marijuana laws saw an 11% reduction in traffic fatalities. They had 26% lower rates of traffic fatalities compared to states without the laws. Reductions in traffic fatalities greatly impacted those between the ages of 15 and 44, especially striking amongst those aged 25 to 44. You're representing a high percentage of those registered patients for medical marijuana use. Specifically, they looked at 11% reduction for those 15 to 24, 12% reduction, 25 to 44, and 9% reduction for those 45 and older. When they compared it to those who had local dispensaries that were operational, it was about 5% across the range, although they were lacking strong evidence for a reduction amongst those aged 45 years and older. Which is interesting, because this is the group that is the most overrepresented in the population of patients in state medical marijuana programs, but they're also the smallest segment of traffic fatalities, so their needle didn't really move a whole lot. Hmm, why is that? So potentially the reason for this is the marijuana laws reduce traffic fatalities mostly in younger adults. This is also the group that is most frequently involved with alcohol related traffic fatalities. So they say, this is a crazy statistic here. 2004 to 2013, 47% of fatality injured drivers with the blood alcohol content to 0.08 or greater were 25 to 44. So a large segment of this group who's normally drinking and driving apparently is smoking weed and not leaving the house. This is, you know, inference speculation. Not all states of medical marijuana's laws experience reductions in traffic fatality rates. Few states actually experience increases. Although there's sort of interesting increases. So California and New Mexico are two states that show an increase in driver fatalities. Although initially the immediate, there was a reduction once these laws passed and were enacted and you had medical marijuana taking place, California had a 16% reduction in traffic fatalities. New Mexico had a 17.5% reduction when these laws were initially passed, but they've since ticked up. So maybe it's because they tick so far down that they're ticking up again and that's just sort of normalizing. Take home message being take it home but do not attempt to drive on California chronic. It is stronger than the stuff you'll find in other states. Findings are published online in the American Journal of Public Health. I mean, it's just like anything else you're not supposed to drive when you're hopped up on cold medicine either. So it's, I can't say it's that surprising. Well, I mean, I guess the sort of, the real takeaway though is if people are self-medicating with alcohol versus marijuana, the traffic incidences are higher in the alcohol fuel driving than they are in the marijuana fuel driving. I also suspect people become lazier on the marijuana. Just don't leave the house or just, but it's reading into the statistics a bit too much or maybe it's the impacts that take place are happening at a much slower speed because people think they're driving faster. So, okay, so that's, that's interesting. So both of these substances are depressants, right? Both of them reduce reaction time. But I wonder if there's a difference between someone who's drunk and goes, I'm not that drunk. Is that more common than somebody who's high saying, I'm not that high? I wonder if it's a different sensation. If it's something where that I think would be a very interesting study would be, would be to study how accurate people can say how drunk they are versus how accurate people can report their highness. Right, and I also suspect, I also suspect part of this, what they would find if they did that study would be that a psychoactive like marijuana is going to affect different people very differently. Whereas alcohol seems to have a pretty decent cause and effect to reaction times and the rest of it. That's a fair point, yeah. Yeah, so there may be that is involved too. There may be- And there are different types of marijuana too, right? So some people are taking it to increase appetite. Some people are taking it to reduce pain. So there's all these different strains that have different sleep, right? Or to sleep. So there's all these different strains that have different goals and are supposed to have different effects. Booze to a certain extent is booze. And people can say that it's a different drunk on tequila than whiskey, but it's still drunk. Drunk is drunk. It's blood and alcohol level. Which there isn't a THC alcohol level, or THC blood level thing that they can really test for direct. And that's what I wanted to say is that here, what they're looking at is just general reductions or increases, what's happening to traffic fatalities since these laws went into place. This is totally correlation. This is not anything like a causal linkage. It's not them taking- Which is exactly why we're being so speckled to be about it. Yeah. There isn't a better drill done. At accident sites and took their blood THC levels and were able to actually causally link it. That did not happen. No. They're actually not directly linking the marijuana instances versus alcohol instances. It's just sort of interesting that- It is interesting. The group that is normally fueling alcohol fatalities- It's down. Is the group that's so reduced in states. Yeah. Yeah, but then again, like there are increases in other states in fatalities. And so maybe the way the laws are enacted needs to be looked at because maybe that is influencing how things are turning out. Yeah. Yeah. It's all fascinating. What's up next? So we've been talking about this information transfer in the slime molds. Slime molds. The transfer of genes between different organisms though takes place on the occasion. And that's, that's, you know, we get, we kind of understand how bacteria are at such a level where they can just give a gene to another bacteria and not bacteria can incorporate it. It's, they're similar structures. They're sort of gene driven and they're similar enough genetically that this transfer back and forth takes place. But sometimes these transfers take place between different species of entities. So how does this horizontal gene transfer work beyond this bacterial realm? New discovery is increasing our understanding of this between symbiotic species. So even when you have two organisms in question, they're symbiotic, they're in very close proximity to each other, they live together throughout their lifespan. Transferring a gene, even if the genetics get into the symbiotic host, it also has to be beneficial enough to be expressed generation to generation. Right? It can be in there, maybe it's junk DNA, but how does this transfer take place? Research team at University of Tsukuba, Japan studied a gene in marine invertebrates called the Citians. They found it originally came from a common bacterium. The team has revealed the likely mechanism by which this gene ended up being expressed in a very functionally important way, something that's vital to the invertebrate. Citians are marine filter feeders and their cellulose synthase gene was found to have an origin somewhat different than the rest of the organism. The gene encodes a protein that helps form an external protective coating, the loss of which they tested leads to cellulose. Well, it's designed to create cellulose production and if you remove it, it has this adverse effect because this sort of protective layer in the epidermis, the outer layer of cells of this thing are no longer protective. We showed that a region of the adjacent, region adjacent to the cellulose synthase gene is responsible for its specific epidermal expression. Sequence analysis revealed that this region contains a binding site of a transcription factor called AP2, they induced mutation in the binding site and the cellulose synthase in the acidian epidermis, disappeared. So this is the thing that's doing this external coating. That's what it does, the organism relies on it. All DNA sequences are pretty basic. We got four notes, A, C, G and T. But they're proportion. How many As you got, how many Cs you're working with? Are you all GT'd up? They differ between species. One example is actinobacteria, over 70% of the DNA consists of Gs and Cs. The acidian, this filter feeder, is almost completely A's and T's, right? Couldn't be more different. When they looked at this AP2 binding site in the acidian, they found it to be GC. It's all GC rich, almost entirely Gs and Cs, completely different from the rest of the organism. So they can conclude that this little bit of DNA originated somewhere else, probably different species even, and very likely a bacteria, which also has a symbiotic relationship with the host. Okay, and now they know that this GC bias is key to this specific function of protecting its outer layer. AP2 inherently binds to GC rich regions. So it was already primed to start interacting with bacterial GC rich DNA once it integrated into the acidian genome. This is first author of the study, Yesenore Cessucura. The GC specificity in epidermal expression of AP2 meant that the induced cellulose synthase gene could immediately be expressed in its new surroundings in a beneficial way. So the genetic transfer, they sort of seen how this link can work, how you can get some sort of a gene from a bacteria to translate an activity in a larger organism that isn't even based on it. If at some point in its history, it collected a little bit of that gene, a little gene from a bacteria that it integrated, and it's now sort of the porthole, sort of this communication point with which it can communicate with that genetic horizontal gene transfer. So it sort of is talking about, this is when we talk about horizontal gene transfer, it could be really terrible, sort of like when you're talking about putting your finger in the ear of somebody and having all of their memories, if you accidentally bumped into a, if you petted a goat and suddenly grew hair and horns, like this sort of horizontal gene transfer would be kind of awful if it was just able to take place constantly throughout, you know. Awful since you. Okay, so somebody who apparently wants to be covered in fur and have horns, but, but uh. And smell funny. Yeah, but finding, but this finding is interesting because it does, it does illustrate that it's, it's not going to really, a horizontal gene transfer isn't something that's randomly going to or able to take place across species, but is something that if you, if an organism has a really long enough history and has had a little bit of gene transfer early on, that that point of gene transfer can then be the launching point for some sort of adaptation through that gene, through horizontal gene transfer with other organisms later down the road. Pretty fascinating stuff, right? Yeah. And it makes me, the first question I have, which I don't have the answer to, of course, is, is how many of, how many of the, this sort of bacterial gene do we have in different aspects of the human body and the human biome? Many. Or the gut, right? So many. So many. And, and how, how long ago were those connections or where those, did we receive how much of our other, how much of our genome is informed by horizontal gene transfer that took place a really long time ago? And is this, is this a portal? Is this an opportunity to get in to the human genome through this sort of archaic gene junk DNA or absorption or transfer from early on? Is that a, is that then a place where we could start to, to utilize to create a gene transfer? If there's something really interesting or amazing in it. Yeah. So the thing here about the horizontal gene transfers, so you've got maybe genes that are trying, that are transferring back and forth between organisms all the time, say, right? But the majority of the time they land someplace where they're not beneficial and they just get weeded out. They, they themselves don't add anything adaptive and so that they either get weeded out or they're not there. So the majority of the time, not helping anything, not getting passed on down generations. It's not a portal most of the time at all. And then you have the every so often when a gene transfers from a bacterium into a cell somehow in another organism that then it has, it doesn't necessarily do what it did when it was in the bacterium. Maybe it has to do something new, but that and something new is not up to the gene. It's up to the organism. And basically it's the placement. Where did it land and how is it then transcribed? And so there's this amazing puzzle that's going on. Yeah, and maybe just inferring this from the study, but it sort of sounds like it incorporated this bit of DNA from a bacteria at some point in its evolution. And it may not have had a function. It may have just happened to stick around for a really long time. But then pulled from eventually, maybe it was pulling horizontal gene transfers or taking place every third generation or something through this one gene. But again, not beneficial, didn't do anything, but still this gene is there with the Cs and the Gs. And then something that the organism goes, aha, this is useful. I can use this now. This is gonna be now part of an easier efficient way to protect myself. And then it gets passed down generation to generation and is doing an absolutely distinct and important function. So that's why I was thinking like, is this a hack within maybe the human body or other organisms where you have maybe the ability to do a gene transfer from a bacteria to one of these points where you couldn't, that transfer doesn't take place if you're all A's and T's. But if you got a GC spot, you know, you could put something in the GC spot that would activate a change that could actually introduce something new to it and new function. Well, let me introduce something right now. I'm gonna introduce Blair's Animal Corner. I feel a pet, don't pet at all. Wanna hear about animals, she's your girl. Except for giant pandas and squirrels that don't grow. But you got Blair. Oh, I have some really great stuff this week. I'm super excited. So first, I have chimps. Cold. Well, I do have a cold. That's true. In case you couldn't tell. I have chimpses, chimpses, chimpanzees, although that do not give a hoot. So altruism, we talk about it all the time on the show. Yeah. A lot of primates and a lot of apes in particular have been tested for altruism. And we have, as far as we can tell, found evidence for altruism throughout the primate group and also in a lot of other species we've talked about in the past. But a team from universities of Birmingham, Manchester and St. Andrews and the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, they argue that previous experiments that imply pro-social or helpful behavior in non-human primates were likely a byproduct of test design that nudged chimpanzees into participation. So they designed an experiment that they thought could more accurately test for true altruism. The way they did that is they had two experiments. Chimpanzees could decide whether or not another chimp received access to food. So the way they did that was they had 13 chimps, they split them into two groups, tested them with three recipient chimpanzees. So they could see and hear one another and they could see chimps in this other area that had a food box. The food box contained shelled peanuts. The peanuts could only be reached from the recipient's room. The recipient had to shake the food boxes. Shaking the box either had no effect because it was locked in position by a peg or shaking the box had peanuts fall out. The test subjects had no access to food at any point but they could watch the recipients in the other room. In one group, the go group, releasing the peg would unlock the food box so that the recipients could get their peanuts. The second group, the no-go group, wow, I'm having a rough time, saw the recipients who could get the food but releasing the peg locked the box. So they were looking at helping and basically spiked. And in previous studies, the chimps released the peg at high rates but if you continue the study, the peg release quickly declined when they found that they were getting no reward. And this is where it gets really interesting. There was absolutely no difference in peg release between the go group and the no-go group. So they were equally spiteful and helpful. And then they did a second experiment. This is where it gets particularly interesting where 11 of the exact same chimps were given a training session where they got to learn what it was like to not be able to shake the box and to be able to shake the box and get peanuts. So they were able to kind of put themselves in the position of the recipient to see how it would feel to be able to get peanuts or not be able to get peanuts. So they learned how that all felt. And it did not increase or decrease peg releases in either group. So even though they felt what it was like to not be able to get their peanuts, they still didn't help or decide to prevent the recipients from getting peanuts. So this study pretty clearly shows no indication to help or hurt this other chimpanzee's chances. Now these chimps were not related, which is the true meaning of altruism, right? So altruism is this idea of helping because you can kind of picture yourself in their position and that maybe someday you will also need help, which is why the second part of this study is so important. If you're helping a family member, that's not true altruism because you're actually helping your own genes. So you're helping yourself by helping your family members. So it's not quite the same. So once they took the family element out of this and they felt like they properly controlled for the ability of novel experiments being interesting, which is what they think now the crux of a lot of these previous studies were is that the experiments in themselves were fun or interesting or engaging to a certain extent, whether or not there was other stuff going on in the other room. So chimps just liked pulling the peg in and out and watching things change and they weren't actually doing it to help the other chimps at all. So this study now claims that this means, and this is where I really take issue actually with the interpretation of this experiment, which is what we talk about on the show, right? So they now claim that this indicates that the roots of human altruism do not extend down into a common ancestor with chimpanzees and do not extend past kind of this human wall. I would say it is more likely that either altruism keeps popping up because it is beneficial in the end in a colony-based system or in a group-living situation or that actually chimps evolved out of altruism. That's also possible. I would like to ask if we actually have evidence of human altruism. Oh, okay, so, yeah. Can we be true, clear, evident? So without getting altruism too high up on my soapbox here, I would argue, this is probably Justin and I are gonna say the exact same thing, that religion is human altruism. No, it's social status. I was gonna say something completely different. Well, no, because I think about morals, right? When people talk to me all the time about the basis of morals. No, but it gives you, within organizational settings, it gives you social status to act a particular way and to do things a particular way. And so it is social in nature, but not altruistic in nature. Because you get a benefit in return for having people know that you don't know, or that you don't know. Right, so random acts of kindness when you don't get a benefit from it, there is a reason that humans do that. No, you do it once or twice because like chimpanzees, it's interesting. There's novelty to it. I argue that there is no evidence of true human altruism, that humans are inherently selfish. Wow, that is an interesting idea. Here's what, okay. In this season of giving. No. We're gonna get into this too far. In the after show, we will talk about it all. Yes, give us a tidbit. I would suggest that an altruism is always, as illustrated in the study with chimps, I agree with you, family-based. It is still a certain about of selfishness, right? What's good for my family is good for my genes. What happens in humans, I think, that differentiates us a bit from the chimps, is that we can see familial groups within a religious organization, within a political organization. However, I tend to think on the political side, I tend to think on the political level, there is an altruistic and a non-altruistic view of whether you are with all of Americans or with a segment of Americans. It's dependent on who you define as your family. And so, very social, very socialist politics, I think is based on social altruism, but you would define that not as altruism because even the socialists are saying this is my extended family and that's why I'm taking care of them. Me, as a country, needs to look out for the least amongst us who needs to provide education and benefits for the impoverished because we're all the same family where others will think, no, those are those people over there and therefore I don't want my family's wealth being shared with them because, so perhaps you're both right, Kirsten, there is no such thing as altruism outside of, or maybe we're all agreeing, outside of family, but in humans, we define family radically differently. Our tribe, our group, our who we're looking out for can be broadened beyond a specific genetic connection. It doesn't have to be a genetic connection. What I'm arguing is that it's a social connection that has to do with either helping your social group. It's going to benefit you either internally, making you feel good, that one-off dopamine burst from helping somebody, or it's going to be beneficial, generally, to the community, your family, give you some kind of organizational status, which I've said, but this is far from the results of this actual paper and we'll talk about it later. Because it's late, but what I'm saying here, what Blair is saying is that the implication from this is very questionable. Yeah, absolutely. So it's very interesting. chimps from this study, we can now call into question previous studies that have proven altruism in chimps, which is now, I think more than anything, what I find interesting here is they found a really great test model for altruism. So now you can take this back, you can take this to rats, you can take this to, hey, toddlers, human toddlers, you can take this to different test subjects now, and this is a great methodology for it. I think they really designed an excellent experiment, which is why I brought this study to the show today. It's the first experiment I've seen that has really well tried to isolate the variables involved when testing for altruism. It's pretty interesting. Because I think it is very interesting. On a lighter note, in the season of giving, yes, yes, yes, yes, in the season of giving, you all know the song, root off the red-nosed reindeer, had fibrils that made up antlers that were staggered rather than in line with each other. Say it again. Which allowed them to absorb the energy from impact of clashering a fight. No, okay, so. Wait, you lasted. Yeah. So reindeer and deer in general, right? The males, the bucks, they will fight when they collide with their racks, with their antlers, right? And so for what it's made out of, the antlers should not be able to withstand this intense collision over and over and over. And so scientists from Queen Mary University of London looked at the secret behind this toughness of the deer antlers. They took the antler structure down to the nano level. And the article says, which is incredibly small. Whoa. A thousandth. That's the case, it was unclear. Yes. So that's really tiny. And what we mean by incredibly small is one thousandth of the thickness of a hair strand. I didn't say what kind of hair, but still that would be literally splitting hairs. But they were able to look at what made those antlers so strong. They used x-ray techniques and computer modeling and they found that the fibrils in the antlers were staggered instead of in line. So instead of them being like this, straight up against each other, the end of the fibers were next to each other. No, they were staggered. So it was kind of like a staircase for those of you listening who can't see my amazing gestures. So by being staggered rather than in line, that allowed them to absorb more impact and absorb the energy during a fight. And this actually provides new insights and fills in gaps and knowledge of structural modeling of bone also. So this could have a lot of implications when looking at structures in, particularly in mammals, but potentially their animals as well in the future. And even more exciting is that they want to start 3D printing models with these fibers arranged in a staggered configuration and that could actually create prototypes that are damage resistant, made out of some sort of composite material. So Rudolph's helping our 3D printing capabilities. We could come up with some really cool fibers and materials out of this. And he'll go down in history. Yay. With a 3D printer. With a 3D printer. That's perfect. I love that. Yeah, find out things in nature. How are things that don't seem strong? How are they strong? Let's figure that out and then steal it. Also, I know it's a little early to do Santa sightings, but there are reports of a man in a big red suit. He's in North Pole. Destroying 3D printers all across the country. I don't know if this is some sort of Luddite revolution that he's trying to start or he's like trying to get automation out of the way to keep his gig alive, but interesting. But it's like everybody can have a magic Santa sack. Oh, boy. Kiki, what else do you got? I have a Twismis star. Ooh. A Twismis star. Well, it's not. It's Tabby's star, actually. We've talked about Tabby's star. Oh, Tabby. Oh, Tabby. Tabitha. Tabby's star kept there. Tabby's a weird one, is it? That is the weird star. OK, I see 846852. This is a star people thought maybe was a Dyson sphere. Giant alien construction. Alien. Maybe it's a bunch of comets orbiting a solar system. Aliens. I think it's aliens. Is it aliens? It's not aliens, but it has unusual dimming, right? So it has these kind of long dims by like 20%, but it's kind of sporadic in nature. You can't really predict when it's going to happen. And so a team of physicists. It has been somewhat of a mystery. It's been a mystery. It's the Twistmas mystery. Team of university scientists, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign physics graduate student, Mohamed Shik, working with Karen Dahman and Richard Weaver, have put forward the model of a really interesting solution to what's going on with Tabby's star. They don't completely answer the question. But based on their statistical analysis of the light curve and its smaller irregular variations. So there are like some small irregular variations. And then there's like the big dimming that we've been hearing about. And so they were like, what is going on here? And looking at it, what they found is that it's a mathematical pattern that's consistent with what's called the avalanche model. So the smaller dimming events are the little small avalanches that are in between the times of the big, large avalanches. And it also takes place across multiple sizes of scale. And so the results suggest that this dimming is probably very intrinsic to the star itself. And what they think is going on based on this data that they're looking at, they think that the star is undergoing continuous phase transition. What? Yeah. They don't know exactly what this phase transition is, like what phase is it's transitioning. Solid to a gas? Gas to a factor of liquid? Solid? What is the? Where is the? Yeah. So they don't necessarily know what exactly is happening. But the math works for it to be very similar to many other kinds of avalanche-type events. And so the statistics of this are very similar to intermittent deformation dynamics of nanocrystals, event statistics of metallic glasses, rocks, and granular materials, and in earthquakes on large time scales over 12 decades in length. Also in neuronal firing in the brain, magnetic systems, condensed matter systems, all sorts of systems go through these kinds of scaling patterns, small event scaling patterns punctuated by larger events. And this is typical of a phase transition in a system. But the fact that it keeps happening over and over and over again means that it's building up and having a transition and then kind of breaking down again. Or there's a lot of material that keeps bubbling up to the surface or something. There's something happening to make this an ongoing continuous process. So they're going to analyze more data. They're going to hope to try and figure out if this is a phase transition. And if so, what kind of phase transition it might be, because this is not something that's been seen really before. So new idea on Tabby's Star. And then looking at the world again, why are we full of matter, Justin? Why are we us? OK. Yeah, this is a big piece. What happened? Can you answer this question? What happened that we are? OK. To answer this, I have to go way, way, way. Back, like to the very beginning. No, I'm not talking about your parents in the key party because you don't know who your parents are. In the 80s, if you're born in the 80s, even the 70s, have a certain economic status. You don't know who your true parents are. There were key parties. There was all sorts of things. I'm going back further than that. I'm going to go way back to there was this big bang. And there was matter. There was this anti-matter. And they had a key party. And nobody's really sure whose parents are whose. But we know we went home with somebody and we were raised in one household. Right. So normally, matter and anti-matter annihilate each other, right? And there's this question of charge, polarity, time, symmetry. It's all part of the symmetry of the universe. And if our standard model is correct and everything is calculated correctly, then anti-matter basically should be the exact opposite of matter. All the properties of anti-matter should match up with that of matter, but just be opposite charges. And to be fair, to be fair, because we decided after the fact, which was matter and anti-matter, if somebody had chosen, flip the coin and said, OK, you're matter, you're anti-matter. We could just as well be an anti-matter universe that defeated matter. This is just. We could be calling ourselves that, yes. But as anti-matter universe. Hey, let's be matter because we matter. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So we're a matter. It just as easily be that. Flip the flop. We could be either. Doesn't matter. To the victor goes the definition of history. So physicists are understandably interested in really quantifying anti-matter and making sure that everything does match up in the way that the models suggest they do. Because big question. OK, how come we ended up with more matter than anti-matter in the universe? Why? If there was the same amount in the very beginning, didn't all of it annihilate itself and leave us with nothing, right? So something went and flipped the ship off axis. And we got a lack of symmetry that left us with more matter than anti-matter. But so now we're like, all right. Well, is it anti-matter's fault? Is it anti-matter's fault that or is it matter's fault? Whatever. Are they the same or is there some slight difference? And so now they're doing all the measurements that they can at CERN, the Large Hadron Collider, the Atlas experiment. They're really working. They have to contain anti-matter and magnets and use lasers to try and measure stuff. Because remember, if anti-matter touches matter, annihilation, right? So it's the hardest stuff on the planet to look at. Because if you touch it, it goes away. And so they have shined lasers on it and basically determined that the transition that took place releases the same kind of light. There's a similar spectrum that occurs. There's similar transition effects taking place in the anti-matter as what happens when you do the same thing to matter. Hold on, hold on. So far, it's not anti-matter's fault. So far, the standard model is right. Anti-matter matches matter. But there's still more precise experiments that need to occur. So then Kiki, what the heck did it? OK, I'm going to mansplain this a little bit. But I'm going to mansplain it a little bit. But I'm going to mansplain it in a way that's not as band-lead as you might expect. It's like the opening. The difference between matter and anti-matter is like the opening move in a backgammon game. It is who rolls that first four, six and can solidify the defensive side a little bit. There's a bit of the random. There's a bit of the roll of the dice. Yes, there is a roll of the dice. There's a bit of the roll of the dice. And that's what. I'm going to mansplain because nobody knows. No, were you there? Nope. Yes, I was. Actually, I was. Then in the electrons that make up my spinning atoms, I was present because they've been spinning since before the day began. They're the same stuff, right? Like any slight advantage that happens through the random and the outset is everything else annihilated. The universe was much bigger than the one we see today. Matter and anti-matter combined. We'd have everything would be stars. Everywhere. And we've got these big open spaces and the reasons was all this annihilation stuff. However, however, the principles of physics were maintained. And I think what this story is illustrating, and maybe I'm completely off base and don't know what I'm talking about, was that the light that was created from this annihilation is the same light that we see and recognize today. So the energy of the matter and the anti-matter collisions wasn't just annihilated. It created light, which is still the light, which is the same light. Like the light isn't matter or anti-matter. And that is the light of the universe. Maybe I've totally misread the story, but this is what I thought it was saying. Yeah, so anyway, hydrogen goes through energy transitions and so when you shine a laser on it, you excite it, and it emits light at different transition levels. This is what we know. And they basically were able to do that with anti-matter particles and see that the same light comes off of anti-matter particles. That's the light that we know and enjoy today. No, it's not like the light from the sun that we're knowing. No, we're not talking about that. No. Oh. No. I mean, there is light emitted from the sun as a result of hydrogen energy. So I guess part of it, yes, part of it. But it's a, OK, why is there so much to talk about in the after show tonight? I feel like we could talk about that for days. I feel like I'm going to be editing a lot of this podcast. No, I feel like we just need somebody to come and explain this further to us. And I said the Atlas experiment, and I meant the Alpha experiment, the Alpha experiment. And part of why I need further explanations is that there's two elements to this that I'm clear of and completely confident in, which is that. Which is heavy. That's a mansplain for you. That's a mansplain map. Yeah. Which is at the outset, all of this annihilation of matter and anti-matter would indicate that there was a lot more types, there was a lot more economy of matter out there. And that what we're left with is just that slight imbalance of the advantage of the early outset of matter. And so we live in a fractional portion of what was actually there at the outset. The other explanation is that matter and anti-matter, those things that were first there, all destroyed each other. However, turned into light, which then is the electrons, which then combines and to create energy. It's photons, and then it goes up this chain, and then you have suns. And so all that energy from the outset of the Big Bangs still active and present in the universe. And those are two very disparate potential views of the outcome of the Big Bang by not just magnitudes, but by big bangy magnitudes of equivalent. So I'm really curious to know which one of these concepts is actually the thing that we live in. That would be really handy to know. I mean, I'm not handy in a day to day. Can I put this on my credit card way to know? But more on the which universe am I actually living in? The one that I think, or the other one that I might think. Which one is it? You're living in your own universe. Yeah, I'm very confused. Hey, can we real quick talk about vaccinations? Please. Before we finish up the show. Can we have to? Yeah. It turns out vaccinations, they're a good thing. We knew that. But it can actually improve the likelihood of young girls going to school. How does that work? Oh, a Washington State University-led research team looking at households in rural East Africa looked at vaccination rates in cattle. How does vaccinating cattle relate to children, particularly younger women attending secondary school? Well, vaccinating cattle increased a household's income because fewer cattle died. Disease-free cattle produced more milk, which created more income. And the family was fed. The household had more money. More things got sold in the marketplace. Girls, young women were able to go to school. This is a very interesting study because of that. And then secondarily, vaccinated cattle, those households saved money because those cattle did not need antibiotic treatments or to be sprayed as often for ticks, which also then reduced the bacteria's evolution in order to there was less bacteria becoming resistant to the antibiotics because they were giving the antibiotics less because they were just vaccinating the cattle. So vaccination works even for cattle. And when a family doesn't have to struggle to keep their livestock alive, it creates the ability for social growth as well. And even their young daughters can go to secondary school. Pretty cool. Huge impact. So it's not just about cattle health. It's not just about getting more food to the people. There's all sorts of domino effects, socioeconomic effects when we know how to prevent disease in livestock. It keeps on giving. Absolutely. Vaccinate. Don't hate. Vaccinate. Your cows. Yes. And what's happening right now, all you citizen scientists, do you know what's going on? This twissmas right now, right now. What's happening? It started on December 14th and is going to be continuing until like January 2nd. What is it? The Christmas bird count. Oh, the Christmas bird count. That's great. The Christmas bird count. Yes, it is going on right now. And so if you're into birds or would like to get into birding, just have some interest in what's going on in your local area, you can head over to the Audubon, audubon.org, slash conservation, slash science, slash Christmas bird count. It's kind of hard to find it. But if you look for the Christmas bird count online, you should probably be able to eventually get to this website. And in the process, something that you're able to do is join the Christmas bird count. And if you join the Christmas bird count, what it does, it takes you to a big map where you can find the people who are in charge of the counting circles in your local area and find out what day within the next week or so to week and a half, there is counting going on. And currently in the Portland area, a person who is in charge has set the count day as December 31st. So there's still time to get involved in the Portland, Oregon area. I don't know about other areas, but this is a great opportunity to get outside with a bunch of other birders or people who are interested in birds and take a census. What do you see and where and how many of them? And then you send all your information to the Audubon and it helps them understand what's going on with birds across the country. And this is separate. On President's Day end, there will be the backyard bird count. Oh, yes, the backyard bird count, of course. So the Christmas bird count is different because it is a group-organized system where you have to get together with an organizer, basically a group of you. You go out on bird walks and all the data is compiled by one organizer and sent to the Audubon database. The backyard bird count is different in that it can be you individually in your backyard just counting how many birds show up to your bird feeder all day long. And so you don't have to organize with other people. But right now, Christmas bird count, ongoing, citizen science happening now. That's fantastic. Have we reached the end of another show? I think we may have, Jessica. And it's our very last normal show of 2016, isn't it? It is because what show do we have? This show's normal. No shows are normal. Good point. What show do we have next week? We have the top 11 of 2016. That's right. It's our countdown show next week. So if anybody has input on what stories you think were the most exciting, influential, the top stories for science of 2016, send us an email. You can tweet us. Use the hashtag of top 11 psi SCI. And so we'll take that into account as we are compiling our stories over the next week. And then the following week, the 4th of January, is our prediction show, which is going to be extra special because we will be joined by a prediction specialist. Oh, that's right. Professional predictor. Look at that. I don't even remember what I predicted last year. Oh, you'll be reminded painfully. Yeah. Yeah, so that's going to be a fun show as well. But in the meantime, also, you can still get your hands on the Twist 2017 calendar if you are so inclined. Head over to twist.org for more information. Additionally, our Facebook page has information about our SF SketchFest show if you would like to join us in San Francisco. Time for some shouting patrons. 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Also many thanks at this twismis to Fada, who helps us with our social media, to Identity Four, who helps out with recording the show, and to Brandon Bradley, who helps out with our Facebook live feed. And to everyone else, a merry twismis. Thank you so much for all of your help and your support throughout the year. Thanks for all your support on Patreon. If you're interested in supporting us, you can find information at patreon.com slash this week in science. Remember, you can also help us out simply by telling your friends about twist, do it, to people this week, to people, I would help. On next week's show, we'll be back again. And like we said, it's the top 11 of 2016 countdown. We'll be broadcasting live online at 8 p.m. Pacific Time on twist.org slash live. And you can watch and join our chat room, but don't worry if you can't make it, it's okay. It's very, it's really okay. You can find our past episodes at twist.org slash YouTube or just twist.org. Thank you for enjoying the show. Twist is also available as a podcast. Google this week in science in your iTunes directory. Or if you have one of those mobile type devices, you can click for twist number four, droid app in the Android Marketplace or simply this week in science and anything Apple Marketplace-y. For more information on anything you may have heard here today, should notes will be available on our website. That's at www.twist.org. Where you can also make comments and start conversations with the hosts and other listeners. Or you can contact us directly. Hey, why not email kirsten at kirsten at thisweekin-science.com Justin at twistmini.gmail.com or Blair at BlairBazz at twist.org. Just be sure to put twist, which is T-W-I-S somewhere in the subject line. Otherwise, your email may be spam filtered into oblivion. You can also hit us up on the Twitter where we are at twistscience, at Dr. Kiki, at Jacksonfly, and at Blair's Menagerie. We love your feedback. 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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 your way. You better just listen to what we say. And if you learn anything from the words that we've said, then please just remember it's all in your head. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. Science. Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. Science. Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. This Week in Science. Like the sands through the African savannah, Sahara, over the Atlantic Ocean. So is the trail of our microbes. I like your bubbles, Blair. It's a bubbly. Blah, the bubbles. Ooh, the gem doctor is sharing a picture of his bird theater. Oh yeah, squirrel theater. That's usually the way they turn out. That's what happened to ours. Hope you all enjoyed the show tonight. Was I going to say earlier to say something to me? And then I was like, what? All sorts of things that I don't see during the show. Blah, blah, blah. I have to sneeze. Uh-oh. I didn't sneeze. It's going to come and get me. I know it's going to come and get me still. Don't let that sneeze own you. No. Uh-oh. Now I have bubble juice all over my floor. This happened last time, too. Yeah, Fada. Of course there are more scientific explanations. We just had to wait for people to get the data, right? It's one of the downsides of bubbles. I wish that we could have bubbles without the stuff getting all over the floors. I had an entire part of my garden die because of bubble mixture. Really? Yeah, I just died. How do you say that? We were really bubbling. Well, I wonder if we did very large bubbles with the strings and stuff like that. I wonder how they have edible bubbles. I wonder if edible bubbles would also kill it, or that wouldn't if it would be organic enough. Yeah. You know how we can tell that? An experiment. An experiment. Exactly. Oh, iNaturalist. OK, Ed from Connecticut is sharing a great community of innocent scientists here. iNaturalist.org. Yeah, so that's an app that's pretty widely used. But that's kind of what I was hinting at with our guest earlier when I was talking about technology is I was curious to see whether she'd bring up iNaturalist or not. I know that again, that's also related to the thing I was asking her about, because anybody can download the iNaturalist app and start uploading information. So there's not a lot of control over some of the data that gets dumped in there, especially since a lot of it is based on pictures and people identifying species from pictures that they took, which is unfortunately something that I think has a high opportunity for misinterpretation, is that you might see a blue butterfly and say, oh, I found an endangered mission blue butterfly. Because then people who are the scientists go on and say, oh, did they really see that there? And if you take a picture of it, they can go look at it for sure, and they can be like, oh, or they can go on and say, that's really impossible. They don't exist there. Yeah. But I think that's kind of the hurdle that definitely at the very beginning that I think iNaturalist had to deal with was a vetting process. So it's definitely been, gosh, you can tell I'm sick. I'm winded from blowing bubbles with a gun. So I can't even, oh my god, my lung capacity is like zero. My audio was really quiet. I'm a little louder now. You are. I think part of the problem was that our guest had some white noise. Yeah. But then I had something earlier this week where I had to turn down. I had to turn down my mic for some reason. It's off my usual setting. So I didn't realize I was quiet. That's why I asked. I'm like, how do I sound? Is it OK? Yeah. Everybody said just fine. Nope. Yeah. Yeah. You sounded fine at first. Yeah. And then our guest had some white noise and I felt like that made you quieter. Weird. Weird. Yes, Ed. I'm old now. That's why I'm winded. You got it. That's a sound processing. Well, audio processing. Oh my gosh. I'll make myself louder because you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to boost a limiter on there. I'm just going to be like, bam, everyone's louder. And then can't be more than minus 6 decibels. Boom. There's your audio processing. OK. I don't know what to do with any of that. I'm here. I'm not going to do that. I don't even know what any of that meant. So you just carry on. Do over. Let's redo the show. Yeah. Yes, the two hour show that we did. Let's redo that. Speaking of carrying. I think I'm done. I think I might. I was I said I said that just for you, I did it before. I knew it would hurt. Just it would just hurt just a little inside. Yeah. I'm done. I think I've got. So I've been like nursing a sick child all day. Who's got like some sort of flu thing. Yeah, I've been nursing a sick me all day. Yeah, I think now I'm getting it. Yeah, I've got a glass of wine. Oh, God, I was I was I was also like I was a human tissue. Right. Sure. So this is the youngest. This is the youngest. And we were we had to go to the store to do some supply run stuff. And, you know, I didn't have the forethought of bringing tissue. Oh, that is. So she was using my my shirt as a tissue. Just fine. And then we have back home where we have plenty of tissues to choose from. He's used to daddy's shirt. As tissue. And so at some point I realized I am now a crustacean. Oh, gross. Of of kidbook, which is gross. If it's some kid that's not your kid who's sick, who's putting boogers on you, then it's really gross. When it's your kid, it's like, oh, yeah, this is my job to be a human tissue. And from Connecticut says just burn that shirt. Send it to a lab. Are you kidding? My goodness. But but anyway, I'm going to take an early exit from the after show. That's fair to go because I think a little rest and recovery. And I think I can beat this thing. OK, so Justin, good night, Justin. All right, good night, everybody. Good night. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. I'll see you in the pre-end of the year show. OK, over the next week, we got to start. I don't know, should I put up a document or something? Yeah, let's text it out. Oh, my God. What? Texting? No, no, no, no. Never done that. The document from last year was great. I liked the document you used last year. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll put a document together and we'll put our stories in the document. All right. And if we can. What is the next show? It's the is that the prediction show? No, no. Top 11. Top 11. Top 11 of the year. Oh, yeah, there's going to be more than 11. She's going to be hard. I think this might be one of the most difficult years. CRISPR, CRISPR, that wasn't that important this year. It's going to say CRISPR, CRISPR, CRISPR. Number two, CRISPR, number one. And then we've got slime mold, Tabby Star. Yeah, but this is the problem with the top 11. And we have to go back to those that came out. Yeah, we have to go to the way back machine to really figure out what works. Luckily, we have show notes for that. We have show notes now. Yeah, yeah. All right, I'm going to have to get access to. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. All right, good night, everybody. Good night, Justin. This is awkward. Bye. This is going to be this awkward moment where I'm like looking for the button to end. You can just close the window. I know you could just. Oh, there it is. Good night, everyone. I'm going to go pretty soon, too. But I wanted to. I don't know. I just want to say. I honestly would love evidence of real altruism in humans. Yeah. OK, I will. I will partner on it. I think it's a good question to pose because we've all just kind of taken it. Yeah, I mean, even like the prime example of altruism in the vampire bat who vomits up a blood meal for other bats. It's not altruistic because if the if that bat finds the same individual doing the same thing again and not being reciprocating at some point when they need a meal, then they don't give it up anymore. They're like, OK, you. And then they stop giving that bat that's like a hangar on of bat society. They stop helping them. OK, so I think that is a larger conversation because. I don't know, yeah. There's a lot of altruism that we talk about that is that is benefiting another individual with no benefit to yourself. But more often than not, it is with the assumption that then someone else will help you in return. So that still that is usually what we talk about is altruism, which is kind of like the idea of what goes around comes around, right? So now we have to look at what is our definite definition of altruism? Because when we talk about it in an ants, we talk about it in vampire bots, when we talk about it in all of these cases, it's based on this system of trust. Yes, system of trust and reciprocation and reciprocation. The actual definition of altruism, that's not that shouldn't be part of it. It should be with absolutely no need for something to come back around. Yeah, so that actually I might argue that that actually doesn't exist at all, ever. I would say then we need to alter the definition. Is that every time we've seen altruism, there is always an eventual benefit, right? So larger question, do we alter the definition? I think we have to because otherwise altruism is like unicorns. It's not real, right? I mean, I have to look at some of the philosophy because I know there are philosophical discussions on altruism and other aspects of interactions between organisms. But I honestly think that we made up this word. The Latin roots or whatever, they all work together to make a word that we can say yes. And then we can feel good about ourselves as humans for doing good deeds and not needing anything in return when in fact, that's all a lie. Right, so that's OK. And that's kind of what I was getting at earlier is that people that I've gotten in very intense debates with about things like religion, they always point to morals. They point to what are morals? Where do morals come from, right? And that's what I always do what they're supposed to be. Sure, but then I always bring up, I bring up altruism. I bring up this idea that it exists elsewhere in animals, a desire to help others without a direct benefit to yourself, at least immediately, right? An immediate benefit. So that's, I mean, it's something that I talk about a lot when people like that. That's something that people don't that want to discount science in the face of religion very often point straight to morals and these commandments and that the religion is the basis for moral action and that without religion, there is lawlessness, right? And that's when I bring up this idea of altruism. But every time I've brought it up, it still is based on this, every time we see it, it's based on this kind of pact, the social understanding. Like every example of altruism that I'm now pulling up on the internet is like that, warning cries as a warning to the colony. That's under the assumption that then when they are foraging, someone else will give the warning call. So it's still as part of this social pact, this understanding amongst individuals that they will care for one another even though there is not directly a benefit to themselves. It's kind of like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, right? Yeah. So I think you're really onto something. It's time to re-examine the definition of what altruism is. I'm there, I'm with you. Let's, who can we talk to? Who can we get this going? I mean, it's the whole idea of selflessness. And if there really is selflessness, I mean, it's hard to, I mean, maybe, I mean, maybe there are, you do things, I don't know, we do, we have this dopamine system in our brain that makes you feel good about yourself for good. Oh, absolutely. And that's a benefit to yourself when you do stuff. Yeah. So who do I need to talk to? Do I need to? Your mood is benefited. Richard Dawkins, who do I need to talk to? I will admit it. Bill Nye, who do I need to talk to about this? Right. Miriam and Webster, what are we going to do about this? Yeah, so Andy Oak in the chat room is saying prairie dogs show altruism with protecting sibling mating, but that's not altruism because if their siblings are mating, there's a genetic benefit to them. And so they're protecting their family. Yes. And they're protecting their genes. Absolute, they benefit. 50% of their genes are the same in their siblings. Yeah. Vova says, I think people can be insane and that can lead to any non-beneficial. All right. OK. All right. OK. Yeah, it's definitely, it's kind of like a. Yeah, what Andy Oak says, if you suggest gene support doesn't count as altruism. No, I think gene support does count. If you're supporting the genes, I mean, it doesn't count as altruism. Yes. Gene support does not. Right, is not altruism. Is not altruism because it is a benefit generationally down the line. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it's a tough one. I would say that you'd have to find somebody or find an animal or whatever. No dopamine release as a result, right? No genetic benefits. No fitness benefits to them throughout their lifetime. How do you, that's not possible. Like you wouldn't do that. That just wouldn't exist. That would not exist. I don't think altruism exists. We need to adjust the definition. But especially in humans, you're right, because we have this dopamine system. We do things that feel good. We do things that benefit us. People that take care of old people. They say, I do it because I love it. That's a benefit. It's not bad. No, absolutely not. Definitely not bad. It's great. We need people who enjoy the jobs that not everyone enjoys. So that. Yeah, like something that a story came out this week about how pregnancy changes a mother's brain for up to two years, if not longer. I mean, that's just how far they followed individuals in the study. But part of it is their brain changes that make the mother happy to do the things that she does for her offspring. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. So Ed says, what about animals caught in a flood? People will jump in to save them. So good question. Right. So is there is there something in? Is there a dopamine release? Or yeah, is that part of that? That's a good example, OK? I'm open to examples. I'm open to things that we can discuss and argue. Is there a dopamine release? Is there something I would say it's more of a subconscious expectation of yourself? Right. This is the kind of person I am. This is a flight or flight situation. Yeah. I see something and I have to act on it. Is it something that is acted on because of? Right. Good question. That's a great question, Ed. Good. Good one. Good one. Twitter karma. Yep. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Very interesting. Yeah, robots can be altruistic. They do what they're programmed to do. A cage match between Bill Nye and Merriam Webster. I don't know. That's falling. DEM doctors put in an Archie Bunker quote. It's easy to be generous when it doesn't cost you anything. Archie Bunker, oh my goodness. That was an angry old man. All right. And Whiskey Renegade asks, if I give my organs after I'm dead, does that count as long as doing something with nothing in particular? Only if it doesn't make you feel better about yourself when you're alive. Right. This is a tough one. Yeah, I agree. It's a good question. Or like, you know, I think about it and I want to donate my body to science. But it won't happen because I'm never going to die. But if it were to happen. That's right. You're in the generation that's going to live forever. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, I want to donate my body to science because I care so much about science. Also because the funeral industry is kind of, how do I say this without being inflammatory? Well, it's a giant crock and it drains people in mourning of a lot of money unnecessarily. So that's another part of it. But that's definitely that's supposed to benefit. That would benefit my family, right? So that would be. But then, yeah, you wonder like, OK, if I'm contributing to science and then the ability for science to progress and then that helping my progeny. Is that a benefit? Right. Yeah, you've destroyed me. You've destroyed my brain. Thank you. Slime molds and the definition of altruism. I'm dead now. My brain is now a slime mold. Go to the internet, get some information. Hold hands with a friend. That's right. Hold hands with a friend. Gain their thoughts and memories. All right, shall we to bed? Yeah, that's a really good idea. Mawn, her kerchief, and I and my cap. We were settled down for a long winter's nap. Let's go. We are going to settle down for at least a little winter's nap for a little bit of time. Guys, thanks so much for joining us for another show. For everyone, we're not going to make it to the New York area, unfortunately. Justin can't make it. We're not going to make it. But the STEM Festival in New York City is going on in early January. So I will share links when links are available of things that are going on there for those of you in the New York area because there's some cool stuff happening. STEM Theatre Festival next year. Not next year, next year, next year. We'll go back. Yeah. Let's go back. Yes. But SF, SF, Sketch Fest. Sketch Fest, yes. Yeah. Do I have anybody from Philadelphia in the house? Is there anyone from Philadelphia in the chat room? Why? Maybe we've been invited to an event in Philadelphia in June. For real? Oh, real. My mom was born in Philadelphia. Really? Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, we have been invited too. But I'm going to be speaking with the people behind that next week and finding out information. Let's go. Let's go. All right, let's go to Philly. Let's go to Philly. Woo. That's right, Philadelphia. Let's do it. Yes. We're going to check out different cities around the country. I know people from Philadelphia. Bring twists to the people. No, I know people from Philadelphia, if not in Philadelphia, heard so much about Philly. I wish I could eat cheese. I wish I could eat steak. No, I don't. Yeah, no. Philly, the cheese and the steak. I'll eat the cheese, you eat the steak. I don't eat steak either. Then we'll just hold hands. I'll just hold hands. As I eat the cheese and you eat the steak. And then we'll know what it's like. It's not going to happen at all. Oh, OK. You eat the bread, I'll eat the cheese, Justin can eat the steak, and we'll all hold hands. That's perfect. This sounds perfect. I like the carbs. Great. That's good. Must remember that. OK, everybody, we will see you next week. We hope you have a wonderful science-filled week. In the meantime, we'll be back with Top Eleven. Yes, send us your suggestions, please. Send us your suggestions. And we will see you soon. Thank you so much for watching. Good night.